What you should have read this week

I'm reviving my weekly-ish round-up of things worth reading!

 

Black Women and The 41st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: Thoughts About Reproductive Justice - Gradient Lair

"While some women are fighting not to conceive children—which matters—others are fighting to able to, to not be sterilized, to not be shamed and abused during pregnancy, to not live in poverty with that child and to not worry about State interference and oppression no matter what the choice may be. Whether Black women need abortion or need support for entering motherhood, both choices are valid and both need deliverance from the impact of White supremacist capitalist patriarchy on Black womanhood and Black motherhood."

I didn't fully understand what it means to be pro-choice ... until I decided not to have an abortion - Sarah Ditum

"I thought about the decision that was mine to make. And surprisingly, solidly, I realised what I would do: I would have this baby. At the time, I didn't know that there is a critical difference between unplanned and unwanted. At the time, I would barely have described myself as “wanting” children. I had never felt that cooing hunger which teenage girls called "broodiness", the longing to put their arms around a baby – even when small, I preferred reading to playing with dolls. And I will never feel the ravenous grief that older women call broodiness, either, the anguish of love with no object. But I did want a child, and specifically I wanted a child with the man I was with. It was ten years premature, but this was that child."

Not caring isn’t caring more: Lord Rennard, Michael White and feminist priorities - Glosswatch

"In the meantime, though, we feminists are stuck with this endless list of reminders from those far cleverer than us. Just in case you’ve forgotten, you shouldn’t worry about banknotes because you should be worrying about Page Three. You shouldn’t worry about Page Three because you should be worrying about every other page of the Sun. You shouldn’t be worrying about the Sun because you should be worrying about the representation of women across the whole of the media. You shouldn’t be worrying about women in the media because you should be worrying about violence against women. You shouldn’t be worrying about violence against women because you should be worrying about FGM."

The glitter and gloss of the faith of my youth - Nish Weiseth

"After I got married and we left Boulder, a deep-seeded cynicism set in, and every little thing about that former church were all things I despised about Christianity. I mean, really, WHO NEEDS A FOG MACHINE AND LASER LIGHTS? But now, working through that cynicism and suspicion, I've come to have a tender place for churches like that. The glossy evangelical megachurch is a part of my story, just as much as the more gritty, hipster, urban church we're in now.

But, more than missing the worship service and the big-church feel, I miss having an answer for everything and having a checklist to live by. I miss the Christianity of my younger years. I miss that chapter of my story, and in some ways, I truly long for it. Being naive was so much easier."

She's All That : 15 years and 5,000 words - Bim Adewunmi

"I first watched She’s All That back in 1999, at the Stratford Picturehouse some weekend after school. I remember loving it, because it hit all the spots it was supposed to: boy and girl got to have each other at the end, and bad guy kind of got his comeuppance, which is as it should be in real life. The 90s – especially in the mid-to-late period – was a significant time for teen movies. It was a golden period, during which the industry enjoyed a purple patch starting around 1995 with Clueless, continuing into 1996 with The Craft, and exploding in a high point of acne, prom and hormone-fug in 1999, which saw the release of 10 Things I Hate About You, Cruel Intentions, Never Been Kissed, Election, American Pie and of course, She’s All That."

Inside Nigeria's ruthless human trafficking mafia - Tobore Ovuorie

"It is on the windy Sunday evening of October 6 that I make my first contact with the outer ring of this mafia. A big party with VIPs is on the cards; the kind of party an ordinary girl, or rather ‘product’, as we are called by traffickers, is not usually invited to. But I am currently on a fortune ride: Oghogho’s favourite. Additionally, I have been classified as ‘Special Forces’, or ‘Forza Speciale’ as my new contacts say, borrowing the Italian term.  It’s a rule of thumb, I understand, that a syndicate subjects girls to classification through a check on their nude bodies and I, too – in the company of some male and female judges, headed by a trafficker called Auntie Precious – had been checked. I had received the highest classification. “This means that you don’t have to walk the streets. You can be an escort for important clients,” Auntie Precious had told me in a soft, congratulatory tone. The ones of ‘lesser’ classification were referred to as Forza Strada, the Road Force."

And finally...

- This week I finished Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. Get on it, if you haven't already.

- C. Jane Kendrick is back on the blogging wagon. Hurrah!

- Sunday 26 January is World Leprosy Day (work-related plug alert). If you don't know much about leprosy now's your chance to find out how it's very much a 21st century disease. Watch the video!

- At the Christian Feminist Network we're organising a day conference that's being held on Saturday 1 March in Manchester. The conference will include presentations, workshops and discussion as well as the chance to network with other Christian feminists. Find out more and sign up.

"Put away the shopping cart and pick up a shovel" - who takes responsibility for our issues with church?

What would you say would be a really good reason for leaving a church? Pastor and blogger Aaron Loy* has five reasons he thinks are really bad, but I don't think I agree with him.

No doubt, as a pastor and church planter Aaron Loy has heard the concerns and complaints of many members of his congregation. And this post must have been borne out of a certain amount of frustration at concerns and complaints that he can't fully address or resolve, because some of that responsibility lies with someone else, even the complainant themselves. But my own concern is that just as we can be pretty one-sided in the way we look at issues in our church life, his response to this was just as one-sided and actually comes across as dismissive and patronising, hurtful to those dealing with the issues he lists, and even going as far as to remove responsibility and accountability from leaders.

Discussing the post on Twitter, someone I know commented that it read "too much like cajoling someone to stay in an abusive relationship".

As I read through Loy's five "really bad reasons", my first reaction was to become steadily more irritated. Not because I think we need to move churches at the slightest hint of conflict or dissatisfaction, but because of how I'd feel if I received these answers in response to raising a concern. Under "I'm not being fed", he writes:

"Do pastors have a responsibility to steward the scriptures and care for their church spiritually? You bet they do."

This, however, doesn't stop him believing that the access to "substance" we have through books and the internet makes it a "cop-out" to expect to get what we want or feel we need, teaching-wise, on a Sunday morning. I'd say it's just as much of a cop-out to respond to people concerned about the quality or depth of teaching by telling them to go and get it elsewhere when they might not have the first clue where to start. I believe that a church with the resources to do so has a responsibility to serve its congregation, teaching-wise, at different stages of their faith life. Not by offering these opportunities only to those who are being mentored and trained on some sort of leadership track, but with teaching days, evenings, weekends, papers. There is a difference between spoon-feeding the selfish and ignoring valid concerns about teaching.

Many people spend many years of their lives serving the church and "contributing" to their community, but I also believe there are times when this is not possible, and a bit of consumption of something, anything, is exactly what's needed. That could be down to illness, work pressures, or parenting pressures. From personal experience, I know that when you're going through a stage like that and feel that "contributing" is a struggle, and people to give you the impression that you must give more, do more, expend more of yourself, it can make you feel resentful and cynical.

Not everyone feels comfortable in the same sort of church set-up, and it's here that I worry about Loy's response to his second point - "It's getting too big".

"If you have a problem with big churches, you really wouldn’t have liked the first church and you definitely won’t like heaven. To be frank, if you have a problem with the inevitable growth that happens when lives are changed by the gospel, you have some serious repenting to do."

Feeling comfortable in a smaller group of people, in a quieter and more intimate church service or community has got nothing to do with having a problem with people's lives being changed by the gospel, and I think that's actually quite a nasty way of framing it. On one hand I can see his point about people being dissatisfied when 'things aren't how they used to be' because they are resistant to any sort of change. But small churches and the people who prefer to worship in them, are not 'wrong'. This point also seemed to highlight the oft-discussed divide between extroverted and introverted churchgoers, and the way that extrovert characteristics are often prized by Christian culture. For some people, large groups, noise and crowds are emotionally draining and a huge source of anxiety. Do they need to be ordered to 'repent' as well?

I'm not going to argue with Loy's point on "I don't agree with everything that's being preached"; that's fair enough. But his fourth "really bad reason", "My needs aren't being met", needs some looking at. Again it's important to note there are two sides to every story. No-one can totally have their needs met by a church. But when someone speaks to a church leader about a concern they have, it should not be dismissed as a question of needing to "put away the shopping cart and pick up a shovel". What is the need and why isn't it being met? Can the church help? Is it a petty request or gripe, or an issue where someone needs pastoral support? Is it an issue that has been raised numerous times by numerous different people? If so, it might be time to consider change.

I know that the issues Loy has identified must be a source of frustration for countless church leaders who are working hard and doing their best and trying to accommodate people, but it goes both ways. After reading his post, I felt his overriding message was "Don't try to implicate the church, its leaders, or the way it has dealt with issues - the problem is YOU. If you were less selfish, less needy, and more willing to suck it up and give more rather than expect something in return, you wouldn;'t be in this mess."

We all have issues with the church. Sometimes these issues can and should be addressed. Sometimes, we need to talk them through and understand that we have to take some responsibility for solving these issues (sometimes we truly are the victims of something terrible, other times, we're not and need to keep things in perspective), or that we need to look at them from a different angle and see the nuance.

Aaron Loy's "really bad reasons" might not be the greatest of reasons for leaving a church. But his responses to them are exactly the reasons I have often been fearful of raising church-related issues with people: that in doing so, I would be dismissed and given the impression that the problem lies only with me and my selfishness. People I know have experienced it too, in conversations with church leaders and even in response to blog posts. It is perhaps one of the most common sights below the line in some corners of the Christian blogosphere - someone writes about a negative experience with church; someone else rushes to tell them that they're actually the one at fault. When we address the issues that arise on our journeys of faith, the reaction of the church should not be to absolve itself of any responsibility, but to see both sides of the story and think about what could be done to help.

*who I had never come across before today - which leads me to say that I don't regularly read his blog or know about anything else he has written on this subject. I felt the post discussed here was problematic and hurtful, and felt moved to explain why.

2013: A recap and a new look

2013 was an odd year. It flew by. I was extremely busy, but in some ways I feel as if I spent a lot of time procrastinating rather than doing. Here are some highlights and thoughts:

- I returned to full time work outside the home in February. I was definitely ready for this to happen and love my job, but full time work plus parenting means I don't have as much time for a lot of other things - blogging for one, hence the tumbleweeds on here (although I did write some posts that I was really happy with). Sebastian spends his days with a great childminder and is getting on brilliantly. He's well and truly into the toddler stage (which is infinitely more fun and rewarding than the baby stage, even taking tantrums into consideration) and keeps us constantly busy. It took him 16 months, but he's also now sleeping through the night, which is amazing.

- I attended Million Women Rise with Christian Feminist Network pals in March.

- I achieved my breastfeeding goal (and then some). Go boobs! I was thankful to be able to continue feeding after my return to work and am thankful to have had such a positive experience.

- I survived my first family holiday (in France; we drove to the south-west coast with a 13-month-old Sebastian) and had a wonderful couple of weeks there.

- I had a great time speaking at Greenbelt and attending the festival for the very first time - you can now watch the video. Tasked to speak on the topic 'When I'm 40...', I realised that 40 is not as far away as I think.

- I took part in a panel discussion on blogging at the Christian New Media Conference.

- I did a lot of thinking about the Christian feminist world, and worried that all too often it ends up shutting itself off from the wider movement. This works both ways - there will always be a need to advocate for greater inclusion of women of faith in feminism - but I think we need to be careful that we don't end up going round in circles repeatedly justifying why we believe in gender equality, or why we believe other people should do the same. I've done that many a time and I fully agree with the woman I heard speak at Greenbelt that I no longer "feel the need to prove I have a right to an opinion and a voice", which includes making anything I have to say 'palatable' to appear more appealing to those who don't believe in equality. We need to move the conversation on - that's why I'm so grateful for the Gathering of Women Leaders, which does just that.

- I continued to find church, and building community within the church, an enormous struggle, although we did make some great new friends this year. There isn't really much else I want to say about this, to be honest. I did, however, read this post yesterday, and was able to relate to it in some ways. And time and again, I return to this post on '(not so) happy clappies'.

- I started the year off by writing about Evil Twitter Feminists, and continued the conversation in the summer with Evil Twitter Feminism 2.0. For the past month or so, I have barely even engaged with any discussion about feminism on Twitter. What was, at the beginning of the year, somewhat mythical, has become very real and very unpleasant, a situation where many people no longer feel able to speak about a whole variety of topics publicly. My feminist 2014 is going to be about building up, celebrating positives and victories, sitting back and listening and learning, building bridges and demonstrating a better way. If you can't get on board with these things, then I worry what you actually do stand for.

- A combination of being busy with work and parenting plus the above point on Twitter has meant I've really shut off from keeping up with blogs and even news over the past few months. This has made writing difficult and it's something I've really struggled with. I miss blogging, but I've felt completely stymied by some things that have happened in recent months. Blogging has changed. In 2014, I'm hoping things will change and that I'll be writing more again. One thing I wanted to do in 2013 but never achieved was revamping how this blog looks - so I finally got that done this past week. I'm now slowly working on getting every post formatted correctly.

- I bought these shoes and this was a really good idea. They're getting me through the winter and haven't made my feet sore once.

It's not all about choice: how I learned to stop worrying and love smashing patriarchy*

Last Saturday, many women bloggers spent the day at Mumsnet's Blogfest. I didn't attend - I was speaking at the Christian New Media Conference. It was a busy day for me and I didn't catch up with what had happened at Blogfest until Sunday morning. As it turned out, Blogfest hadn't gone so well for some people. Specifically, the panel discussion on feminism hadn't gone so well. There was shouting. There was Offence Taken. You should probably read more about it from Glosswitch and Sarah Ditum, two of the panelists, who know much more about exactly what happened than I do.

As I read tweets from Saturday afternoon and began to understand exactly why the panel discussion on feminism had upset so many people, I saw one statement repeated again and again: "Feminism is about choice." The inability to move beyond this definition, unfortunately, is exactly what makes discussions like the one at Blogfest on Saturday unproductive and frustrating. As Sarah wrote in her summing-up of the day:

"Feminism is not here to make you feel good about yourself. It does not want you to swim in a warm soup of self-regard. Feminism’s job is not to reassure you that you are a 'good woman'. Feminism is here to question what we mean by 'woman' and ask whose version of 'good' we’re adhering to. 

"The ultimate goal of feminism is not choice, however often people claim that it is: feminism shouldn’t need to laud you for making a decision while being a woman. Feminism is not your mum, here to take pride in everything you do and gently mop up your accidents."

Now this is not going to be a post about Blogfest. I wasn't there, and what I want to say goes beyond one panel at a conference, although it's from the furore around this panel that I've been compelled to write about it. It seems as though what we so often tend to get stuck on is seeing feminism as exactly these things and no more. Yet feminism is not some self-helpy concept designed to make you feel good about your life. It is supposed to challenge you. I think we need to talk about the way society and popular culture have contributed towards people requiring validation for every single choice they make. Why are many people so dependent on being praised for everything they do that they struggle to analyse issues objectively, or discuss anything without making it all about their personal experience and whether or not they feel it's being validated?

I've mentioned my frustration with this in other blog posts since becoming a parent. When you discuss parenting, or being a woman who is also a parent, people cannot help but take your explanation of the choices you've made in life as a challenge to  their own. Whether it's breastfeeding and bottlefeeding, weaning techniques, car seat manufacturers, sleep problems, returning to work, or childcare, expressing an opinion about why you chose to live the way you do will result in responses from people who feel invalidated or even attacked by the very fact that you are different to them. Instead of looking critically at things that may need addressing, we relate personal anecdotes again and again as if they are what define an issue. We take offence.

And this, I believe, is why people become defensive about their personal choices when they discuss issues related to womanhood and to motherhood. Women are so used to having their every choice analysed or criticised (in a way that men are not) that they can't help but do it at each other. We are actively encouraged to judge other women and form opposing camps. Our default mode is 'justification', even towards people who bear no ill will towards us but have simply chosen a different path in life. For so long, the decisions we make about how to live have been subject to debate about what impact they will have on society and whether or not they are the right thing for women to do. It seems as if this has contributed towards the sort of self-worth that sees a difference of lifestyle as an attack and makes every decision loaded with meaning about the state of womanhood in the 21st century.

When you discuss this with other women it becomes evident that they have all felt, at some point, felt attacked, belittled, or as if they're a bad person for making choices about how to live. It's not a 'society hates stay at home mothers' thing or a 'society hates bottlefeeding mothers' thing. It's a 'society makes women insecure about every aspect of their lives' thing and it has to stop. This rooting of our identities in 'my choice' and the 'celebration of choice', making it the be all and end all of womanhood achieves nothing, and will never contribute to a productive conversation about feminism. 'My choice' will never see the bigger picture. 'My choice' will never encompass women as a group. 'My choice' will only ever turn us inwards and then outwards again to judge one another.

It's 'my choice' that means we have campaigns purporting to reignite interest in feminism that actually constitute nothing more than vague 'be who you wanna be' statements about celebrating differences. It's 'my choice' that gives us articles and debates entitled 'Can you be a feminist and do x?' As Glosswitch wrote in her post about Blogfest, a question about whether you can be a feminist and a mummy blogger could have gone in a productive direction, but instead it prompted more defensiveness and justification of choices. Giving these 'debates' provocative titles is a tedious tactic that means women go in ready for battle, ready to be offended, ready to get annoyed at someone. When this happens, we need to shut it down before it propagates and find a better way.

To reduce gender equality to whether you like making jam, or wearing heels, or men holding open doors for you, or staying at home with your baby, or removing your body hair, or preferring skirts over trousers is missing the point. These are your choices. They are not feminist choices, just because you believe men and women are equal and that you feel you have made them of your own free will. Neither are they anti-feminist choices. They're just choices. We need to move past needing a pat on the back for every hobby we take up and decision we make, because quite frankly, they have nothing to do with achieving equality. What does have everything to do with feminism however, is acknowledging that choices do not take place in a vacuum. We are influenced by a host of factors at every turn, and denying it is to stick our heads in the sand.

If we make one choice, it must be the choice to step away from this way of doing things, this defensiveness as default. If we could talk about our lives without setting ourselves up against each other over personal preferences, what a difference that would make. My own personal journey of self-worth has led me to the point where I don't see the lifestyles of other women as an attack on my own lifestyle. I don't even see their choices as having anything to do with my own, because quite simply, they don't. It's difficult - because everything about us tells us we should have an enormous sense of insecurity about everything we do as women. I really believe that if we can reject this and refuse to be threatened by diversity of opinion, by those who question the factors that influence our choices, then things might change.

*about what other women might think of my life

#notblinkered: rebranding pro-life

The past few weeks have seen a resurgence in discussions about whether or not we need to rebrand feminism - this time, thanks to Elle magazine and some competition in the USA. No-one loves a rebranding discussion. I imagine memoirs of the feminist movement in decades to come:

It is generally accepted that the downfall of patriarchy began with one key turning point in 2013: a corporate advertising campaign. The men saw that gender equality was unthreatening and compatible with body hair removal. And so began the end of misogyny.

Feminism, however, isn't the only movement that's currently toying with a rebrand. The pro-life organisation Life has launched a social media campaign, #notblinkered.

“Do you have a stereotype of someone who's 'prolife'? White? Middle aged? Middle class? Right wing? Religious? Anti-women's rights? Blinkered?”

Life have correctly identified that this is exactly the stereotype that people have of those who are anti-abortion. It's one that isn't exactly challenged by the sort of people who picket clinics and the sort of politicians who support them. The campaign's aim is to “challenge the stereotypes associated with prolifers” and prove that they're 'not blinkered' about the issues surrounding abortion, while acknowledging “the damage abortion has done to women, children, families and society as a whole”. So far, it features interviews with a feminist, an atheist and a socialist.

Despite writing about abortion rights on numerous occasions in the past and strongly identifying as pro-choice, I've grown weary of the way the debates on the subject nearly always pan out. I believe that both 'sides' can be incredibly blinkered and that the abortion debate consistently lacks nuance and consideration of surrounding issues. I don't find it helpful that anyone claiming the label 'pro-life' is liable to be branded a 'woman hater' by pro-choice activists. I don't find it helpful that pro-life activists harass women outside clinics and feel it's acceptable to give out misleading information about pregnancy and abortion. And I feel the label 'pro-life' has ceased to be helpful at all because people use it to mean so many different things.

Very often, at the merest mention of someone being 'pro-life', people will jump to the conclusion that they believe abortion should be illegal, or at least that they believe in various pieces of restrictive legislation that will slowly make abortion illegal except in exceptional circumstances. I know this is not always the case.

What's interesting is that none of the 'stories' featured on the #notblinkered blog discuss legislation. What these pro-lifers believe about whether or not abortion should be legal, what their opinions are about an upper time limit, what they believe about medical abortions or social abortions or extreme circumstances isn't apparent. And I get that this isn't the point of the campaign. The point of the campaign is to get us to consider the whole picture, the grey areas. What of the women who feel pressured into having an abortion by their partner or family? What is 'choice' when you're so constrained by your financial situation that you can't continue with a pregnancy?

But many pro-choice advocates have been left unimpressed by #notblinkered. They see this 'challenging of stereotypes' as a gimmick to try to make us believe pro-lifers are harmless. That their beliefs don't see thousands of women die each year from unsafe abortions and endanger many lives. And this is why the pro-life movement might lead a few more people to look favourably upon them by launching #notblinkered, but why it could also do much, much more by suggesting - and becoming known for working on - ethical and effective solutions that are pro-minimisation of abortion:

1. Challenging the government on measures that have plunged more people into poverty and desperate situations – especially women.

2. Supporting comprehensive sex education that makes sure young people are well-educated about the mechanics of sex and conception but also about healthy and unhealthy relationships, and avoiding risky sexual behaviour. It's well known that the anti-abortion organisation SPUC are extremely opposed to sex education and view it as "damaging". Life doesn't hold an enormously positive view of current sex and relationships education (who does?), but I do feel there needs to be more of a consensus on what good SRE actually looks like. I'm not so sure that both camps could ever achieve this, but why not explore it?

3. Providing ethical, unbiased, and accurate counselling (we know Life have been challenged about this following a 2011 investigation – I truly hope that they have reviewed their training, materials and procedures since). There is no excuse for promoting untruths about pregnancy and abortion, whatever your stance on the issue.

4. Providing support to women in crisis situations who may need financial help or somewhere to live. I am aware that Life already does this. Pro-choice campaigners see this as being of key importance too - there is common ground. The real crisis here is the state of women's services due to cuts.

5. Challenging the negative and derogatory stereotypes that persist whenever conversations about abortion in Britain today take place - 'using abortion as contraception'; 'social abortions' (as if these are carried out for exclusively 'trivial' and 'frivolous' reasons); 'abortion as a lifestyle choice'. A common accusation thrown at the pro-life movement is that it cares more about policing women's sexual activity than it does about the lives of babies and children. It has to move away from judgemental attitudes.

6. If there is really no compulsion to 'turn back the clock' on women's rights, finding common ground with the pro-choice movement and working together on pro-minimisation initiatives rather than seeking reactionary changes in legislation without having looked into other measures first, and without considering the whole picture.

I'm not making these suggestions simply because I think the pro-life movement needs to make itself more palatable to its detractors. I'm making them because I believe that if you truly value life you must address the factors that contribute towards women having abortions, and see what can be changed. Many of these issues are important to pro-choicers too, and it is in this overlap that we should be able to understand each other a bit more and see what might emerge.

On fire, but also drowning

Part of the When We Were On Fire synchroblog hosted by Addie Zierman

2003

Summer

Final year of school. I'd completed the Alpha Course, and a follow-up course too. I'd gone along to school Christian Union and felt intrigued by the unfamiliar style of "Yeah, Lord, we just wanna" prayers and people who said "Mmmmm" in agreement as those prayers were being said.

Soul Survivor. I didn't know that thousands of other young people were Christians. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I was overjoyed when people made a decision to walk to the front at the end of meetings. My hands were perpetually raised during worship times. On the second night I prayed that I would understand God's presence and couldn't speak until I got back to my tent. Healing happened. I bought beads to string on a bracelet that spelled out S-A-V-E-D.

Autumn

Fresher's Week. F Floor. We all decided we would make posters for our bedroom doors, displaying a few facts about ourselves. The first statement on my poster, written with a glitter gel pen, was that I was a Christian. Before I departed for university, I'd brought a book about effective evangelism.

I joined the Christian Union. I didn't know that it wasn't really an ecumenical organisation; this confused me for a while. I felt it was a really important thing to be involved in. I went to Friday night meetings every week, initially, taking notes about evangelism and the importance of shining a light, being pioneers, making a difference. I got up at 6am once a week to attend a course about sex and relationships held over breakfast and absorbed everything without questioning. I attended hall cell group and felt intrigued when one friend said that at her church, women couldn't wear trousers on a Sunday, and bemused when no-one knew what my Catholic friend was talking about when he mentioned the stations of the cross, and slightly shamed when it became clear that going on nights out, drinking, was seen as "unhelpful", and condemned by the uncomfortable look I got from someone when I said that my boyfriend was coming to stay for the weekend.

I wanted to get stuck in at a local church, but I was shy. A couple of medical students who were married (married students!) and lived near campus gave me a lift sometimes. They invited me to things. I didn't go. I took notes on a Sunday and prayed that I would receive spiritual gifts.

2004

Winter

Mission Week. The week we were going to show our fellow students what we were all about and really make an impact. We had hoodies and t-shirts emblazoned with a Bible verse. We had little paperback copies of one of the gospels - I took a stack, enough for everyone on my corridor plus a few more (I found most of them in a box on top of a cupboard recently). Our Christian Union rep announced the hall's Mission Week events in the dining hall one night and I was upset by the gang of "popular" students who sniggered as he spoke, saying "Praise the Lord!" in mocking voices.

I placed a stack of gospel booklets in the kitchen at the end of the corridor, just in case anyone wanted to take one. The next day, they had disappeared, in much the same way that food from the fridge used to disappear, stolen and thrown away.

One of the Christian Union's student workers was going to come to our hall that week. I asked if she could run a little session in the kitchen on my corridor one evening. She could share her testimony and answer any questions people had; I would invite everyone along. I felt worried about it; so my best friend decided to scope out the situation and mention it to the rest of the corridor.

They weren't impressed.

"If that's what she wants to do, then she's going to be the architect of her own social death," said one of them. That's what she actually said.

The student worker came for her visit that evening - there was me, my best friend, and two more Christian friends from our hall, chatting in the kitchen and hoping someone else might wander in. They didn't.

I would desperately try to reassure myself that I was a changed person, but years of being bullied at school coupled with anxiety and depression had left me enormously contemptuous of others, when things went wrong. I really tried. I wanted to set an example. I made an effort to be friendly. But I couldn't really keep it up for very long. I was still a teenager, with the mood swings and irritations and inability to see nuance that this involves. I prayed hard and cried in my room as I listened to worship songs.

Spring

Our hall CU rep let me borrow her copy of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I thought it was over the top and silly and so American, but it made me worry that I'd done something wrong. I became more distanced from CU culture: I'd tried, but I didn't feel I fit in.

I decided I wanted to be baptised. My parents, who had me baptised as a baby, felt I was dismissing what they had done for me and the way I had been brought up. They wanted to know why I wanted to do it again. They were worried that the type of churches I was now attending were a bit strange, a bit extreme. Arguments followed. Angrily, I parroted little soundbites I'd picked up about some churches being "dead" and infant baptism being "wrong" and people just repeating liturgy week after week "without it meaning anything to them". They continued to feel unsure, but agreed to attend my baptism and support me.

There was an uncomfortable moment during the sermon on that day when our pastor explained that not all churches - and not all Christians - were doing things the "right" way, but we could be confident that we were.

I was consumed by depression and body image issues and anxiety about my relationship. I felt that being a Christian meant I shouldn't have these issues. What was I to do? I had long sobbing talks that were varying degrees of helpful with friends and women at church. There was a youth group weekend away, a night of teaching and prayer where all the girls cried and wrestled with their problems.

Summer

I took part in a week-long festival of social action and outreach. I enjoyed it, but still could't bring myself to go and talk to strangers and share my faith. I very much wanted this to be the week that I'd conquer my issues. It didn't happen.

If you just receive prayer for x, y will happen.

If you just focus more on this, that will be solved.

Almost a decade later I come across an article about this festival and see the comments below the line of several attendees who no longer attend church due to disillusion and disappointments.

2006

Momentum. Me, my fiancé, and three other couples. I could hardly bear to be around the other delegates. They all looked so happy and radiant and attractive. I wanted to hide in my tent, and I think I did on at least one occasion, beating myself up for not being more like them. I was a failure who looked disgusting and had dropped out of university and hadn't managed to hold down a job yet and wasn't like other women at church.

I had enormous anxiety about what I was supposed to do for the church. I felt that after several years, I still didn't understand what my gifts were and how I was supposed to contribute to church life. I had a sneaking feeling that I was supposed to deal with all my issues first.

I had prayer ministry, and a lot of things changed, but not all of them.

Into the present

Up and down. Enthusiasm and belonging and excitement vs looking for more and questioning and feeling alone. Biblical womanhood, or not. Disillusionment with the formulaic nights of teaching and retreats and events meant to fire young people up that talked about "pioneers" and "doing big things" and being "history makers" and that were the same time after time after time. Reassurance that other people of my generation were thinking about that too. A word for me about being a "woman of influence". A word for me and Luke about being a "pioneering couple". The disconnection from church that so often comes with motherhood. New networks of friends and encouragement and opportunities. New realisations and new frustrations.

The other posts from this sychroblog have thrown up a major theme: the impact of a certain style of teaching and Christian culture on young people, of easy how-tos and a way to belong when you feel like you don't fit in. A way you feel you can effect change at a time in your life when you're really quite powerless. A culture that sometimes focuses on hyped up experiences and instant results over slow growth and change, and can't always address big problems. The damage that can be done when young people are not mature enough nor supported well enough to deal with things. Youthful follies and empty platitudes and stock phrases.

A sense of moving on and growing up.

I particularly liked this excellent post:

"The problem with fire is that it gives the appearance of being a living thing–it breathes, it grows.  But it isn’t alive, and ultimately, it consumes everything before it burns itself out.  That’s not the kind of faith I want, and it’s not the kind of faith I want my children to have.

Better is a seed.  There’s a reason Jesus doesn’t use fire as a metaphor for faith.  He uses seeds–more than once.  Instead of a pseudo-life, a seed is the infant of a living, growing thing.  Unlike fire, which requires nothing but consumables in order to burn, a seed needs to be nurtured.  Active, not passive.  Something we must do carefully and gently over time.  Not a mad rush to throw more on the fire to keep in burning but a long, slow process of food and water.

I’m still nurturing that seed.  I’m not even sure what kind of tree it is yet.  All I know is that it isn’t burning–it’s growing."

We need to talk about Mumsnet feminists

Mumsnet has recently published the results of its Feminism Survey, conducted in July with over 2,000 participants. Unlike the universally-panned (but much hyped by the media) Netmums feminism survey of 2012 that reported the movement was off-putting to most women and instead championed "the rise of the feMEnist" (I blogged about this) - this survey is actually a little bit heartening. It found that members of Mumsnet felt that being a part of the site had made them more likely to identify with feminism, more aware of feminist perspectives on everyday issues, and and had changed their opinions on what constitutes domestic abuse, as well as enabling them to understand different perspectives and choices to their own.

Everyone has an opinion about Mumsnet, particularly people who have never actually explored the site before. I seem to remember becoming aware of this around the time of the last general election, long before I knew much about it, in fact. A lot of mockery was going on: politicians trying to appeal to "Mumsnet types", having livechats and acting all interested in their concerns. There was justified irritation that some politicians seemed to be making out that the only political issues women are interested in are those relating to motherhood and children, but also plenty of stereotyping of the sort of women who congregate on Mumsnet:

For certain (usually reasonably right-wing) commentators, and most people "below the line", the site is full of silly, smug, middle class women with "baby brain" talking about their overprivileged, indulgent lives. They have the ability to form a hysterical, bullying mob at any given moment and make the lives of anyone who disagrees with them hell.

For certain feminists, Mumsnet's frequented by silly, smug, middle class women talking about their overprivileged, indulgent lives and worrying themselves with "trivial" issues as they "moralise" about society, assuming they're better than everyone else because they have children and attacking those who make different parenting choices to theirs.

So as the Guardian's report on the survey began to attract attention this morning, it was great to see so many people talking positively about it and acknowledging the work that Mumsnet is doing - through successful campaigns, for example. Yet at the same time (because this is Twitter we're talking about here) "God help feminism if it's being represented by bloody Mumsnet," said others, no doubt envisaging the overprivileged and overindulged being hailed as the new leaders of the movement.

Notable this weekend has been backlash against the Guardian's inclusion, in the piece, of Ticky Hedley-Dent's comment (from "a Twitter debate earlier this year") that "I think Mumsnet is key to understanding feminism. Feminism hardly comes into play until you have kids. Then you get it." Why are these women insinuating that having children is what really makes you a feminist? Why are they excluding women who don't have children? This is everything that's wrong with feminism, people.

I don't think that particular quote was the best way to illustrate what some of the women interviewed by the Guardian about the survey are trying to say. Of course gender inequality impacts you before you have children or if you don't ever have children. Who's going to deny that? But pregnancy and motherhood undoubtedly highlight new issues, and bring to the fore problems that may well have not been a feature of some women's lives before. No-one's saying that women, you haven't experienced inequality until you've had children. What they mean is that motherhood makes you much more aware of particular issues and aspects of inequality. And for many women, this will undoubtedly have the effect of "galvanising" their beliefs about feminism.

I've been meaning to blog about the way that "mothers", as a group, and their concerns are often dismissed and belittled by both the left and right for being "too middle class" and "trivial" for some time now, because I can't help but notice it any time someone mentions a campaign that affects children - backlash against the ubiquitous pink/blue distinctions between toys and the types of toys that are marketed as being "for boys" and "for girls"; backlash against lads mags and Page 3 being easily seen by children in shops; backlash against anything that's seen as presenting children with harmful messages about sex.

The middle class mother is a prime target for sneering, whether she's not working outside the home and therefore, apparently, living a pampered life funded by her husband, or else harming her children in myriad ways by "leaving them" to heartlessly pursue a career. It's a different sort of sneering to that aimed at working class mothers, but the comments aimed at both groups imply stupidity and the idea that their worries and concerns aren't "real" ones. Why would a woman, in this day and age, choose to define herself at any point by the fruits of her womb? Aren't we past all that? As I think I mentioned in a post I wrote while on maternity leave, sorry that some of us want to talk about things that are an enormous part of our lives.

Some feminists assume that the voices of women who aren't white and middle class are ignored by these parent-focused campaigns and issues. This is a legitimate concern for those of us who observe the way the media has publicised activism in recent years, but to assume is dangerous and all too often inaccurate. If you don't spend time on Mumsnet and feel contemptuous about its members, how much do you know about them, really? And how much do you know about their campaigns?

This Is My Child aims to "support parents of children with additional needs, inform everyone else, and open up a conversation about how we can all act to make life easier for everyone caring for children with additional needs." The campaign has been debunking myths about disability and raising awareness of how we can challenge assumptions about the issues involved.

We Believe You, aimed at busting the victim-blaming myths about rape and sexual assault, was launched amid an overwhelming response to members being encouraged to talk about their own experiences and why they did or did not report them to police or tell friends and family.

Better Miscarriage Care put pressure on the NHS to provide more sensitive and responsive treatment to women experiencing early pregnancy loss. As someone with friends who have had distressing experiences with healthcare professionals while miscarrying, I know this is vital.

Let Girls Be Girls, a campaign that launched in 2010, was a response to growing concern about the way advertising, music, clothing, and magazines encourage a view of sex and sexuality that encourages girls to focus on appearance above all else, tells them that they exist to please boys and men, and tells them that their most important quality is how "sexy" they are.

Bounty Mutiny is asking politicians and the NHS to rethink the fact that Bounty sales reps have a presence on postnatal wards, pressurising women into giving out personal details and invading their privacy at a time that's at best a time for family, bonding with a new baby, and recovering from labour, and at worst, a time of worry, trauma, and possibly grieving.

I wouldn't describe any of these campaigns as "trivial" and "silly". Would you say the same for some of Mumsnet's forums, where you can find long-running threads on recognising the "red flags" of an abusive relationship, posts offering help and resources to women in abusive situations, and personal support to individuals as they go to the police, walk out on a violent man, or rebuild their lives? How much do you really know about the boards where women discuss their experiences of assault and rape, support members who are survivors, offer advice on workplace discrimination, and help each other thrash out some of their first, conflicted thoughts about body politics and equality in relationships? Do you really know much at all about all the consciousness-raising discussion? The "shouting back" about everyday sexism? The support for women who've gone through miscarriages and stillbirths or are coping with having a terminally ill child?

If you don't, but your first reactions to discussion of a community of (mostly) mothers online are sneers and "God help feminisms", then it's probably time, in the tradition of the internet, for me to direct you to Google, with the instruction that you're perfectly capable of educating yourself about all this stuff. Mothers are a vital part of your movement and are providing important comment on so many important issues. If you don't know this because they're "not on your radar", ask yourself why.

Further reading - Glosswatch: Why Mumsnet feminism matters

Image: full version here