Some Interesting Things I’ve seen online lately This cartoon, by Hyperbole and Half is an amazing, brilliant, fabulous description of depression. It’s just lovely, I laughed and am doing a genuine smiley face (I think, I’m never sure i’m doing it right). It explains what I attempt to explain in my ‘what it feels...
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The life and opinions of Chloe, most definitely not a gentleman
There’s been an interesting discussion on twitter this evening about gender, the question was asked: “What does ‘being a woman’ actually *mean* to you? How would you define ‘woman’?” My thoughts on gender range from the personal the ‘how does it feel?’ to the more academic. I’m going to...
Read moreA few thoughts on the issues of body positivity and size and the godawful language used around body shape. Sizing Things Up I’m a size 12-14. The issue of ‘body positive’ seems to have got mixed up in a whole load of body shaming shit about ‘real women’ having...
Read moreTW for depression, Self Injury, Suicide, you know depressing stuff. I can feel it, that thing, the nameless mist, the stalking beast without a face, the thing thats there but never in focus, bubbling under, about to unleash. I don’t know how to control it, I’ve tried and failed...
Read moreI have always loved Lara Croft. Ever since I saw Indiana Jones I wished there was a character like him, but a woman. I have always wanted to be an archaeologist and now I sort of am, Lara helped inspire me. Yes she is just a video game character,...
Read moreJust a few days after writing my post about Language and Rape Culture another gem of rape culture crops up, deliberate mis-reporting and misrepresentation of news that false rape accusations are indeed very rare. It is particularly disturbing this occurred on Newsbeat, the Radio 1 news strand aimed at...
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LInk Round Up 9/5/13
Dull brain
One of the side effects of my medication (venlafaxine) is the dullness I get everything seems muted and I’m not quite sure I feel like myself anymore. I have no spark, my brain is so slow, everything just crawls along. People comments on how stable I am, I just feel beyond bland and useless...
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What is gender? Some thoughts involving archaeology
There’s been an interesting discussion on twitter this evening about gender, the question was asked: “What does ‘being a woman’ actually *mean* to you? How would you define ‘woman’?” My thoughts on gender range from the personal the ‘how does it feel?’ to the more academic. I’m going to focus on the more academic...
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Interesting Post Round Up of Irregular Intervals
I should probably so this regularly, once a week or so, but knowing me I won’t so I introduct a new feature ‘Interesting Post Round Up Of Irregular Intervals’ Here are some interesting posts I’ve read over the last week or so and heartily recommend! ‘On Scars’ By Pocketmouse – TW for SI ,a...
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Body Positivity , Size and Body Shape
A few thoughts on the issues of body positivity and size and the godawful language used around body shape. Sizing Things Up I’m a size 12-14. The issue of ‘body positive’ seems to have got mixed up in a whole load of body shaming shit about ‘real women’ having curves or not being skinny,...
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Bubbling Under, I Can Feel It
TW for depression, Self Injury, Suicide, you know depressing stuff. I can feel it, that thing, the nameless mist, the stalking beast without a face, the thing thats there but never in focus, bubbling under, about to unleash. I don’t know how to control it, I’ve tried and failed my entire life. Perhaps I’m...
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Lara Croft – Why I Love Her
I have always loved Lara Croft. Ever since I saw Indiana Jones I wished there was a character like him, but a woman. I have always wanted to be an archaeologist and now I sort of am, Lara helped inspire me. Yes she is just a video game character, yes the marketing has so...
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Rape Culture is Rife – A Rant
Just a few days after writing my post about Language and Rape Culture another gem of rape culture crops up, deliberate mis-reporting and misrepresentation of news that false rape accusations are indeed very rare. It is particularly disturbing this occurred on Newsbeat, the Radio 1 news strand aimed at a teen and young adult...
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‘Inappropriate Behaviour’ – Euphemistic Language Is Part of Rape Culture
With a tide of revelations revealing how just widespread sexual harassment, abuse and rape is within society and how often it has been ignored and covered up, comes a use of language that reflects just how far we have to come in taking these crimes seriously. The language we use to talk about it...
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Self Injury Awareness Day – Triggers and awareness
A little blog about Self Injury Awareness Day- which is full of triggers and discussion on SI so please be aware and look after yourselves. Raising awareness is excellent. Self Injury is very misunderstood, it’s perhaps one of the things I talk about the least. It freaks people out, even if they are understanding...
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Red Lips – Cheer Up?
I am feeling terribly depressed so I thought I’d attempt some bright make up to cheer myself up, sometimes it works! I do love bright red lips, and am getting into fuchsia pink at the moment. But red, bright red proper RED red will always be my favourite. I do love red lipstick and hoard...
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Overload, STFU world!
Somedays I am so sensitive to everything, everything is noisier, smellier, more colourful, and if it’s a bad day 100000x more annoying. I don’t know if this sensory overload or whatever it is it’s a symptom of depression or what. Today is one of those days. I am distracted to the point of snapping,...
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Sissyphus and treatment plans
It was psychiatrist time again the other day, he told me not to worry about the anti-pyschotics making me dizzy so now it’s back to the same ‘treatment plan’ or lack of one. I wonder if it does anything and if I’m ever going to get anywhere or if there’s even any point in...
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No More Page 3, Why I Do Support It
There has been a mini backlash amongst feminists and allies against the No More Page 3 Campaign, well not so much a backlash I’d call it a healthy debate raising some important issues. Stavvers has a piece outlining why she did not sign the petition, as does Squeamish Kate. Hadley Freeman states in the...
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The Ideal of Fakery – Nipple Flowers, Cameltoe Cups & Other Bizarre Fashion Problem Solvers
This is in a different vein to most ‘fakery’ and body image posts, I am not going to opine about surgery or make up or airbrushing (well maybe airburshing a bit) but comment on a new-ish trend that is dedicated to shaming people whose clothing choices give away the scandalous fact that they have...
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Medication changes without informed consent
Yesterday on twitter I got talking to people, someone mentioned their mother’s medication had been changed from a brand to generic without her consent and I got into a discussion about what happened to me, other people weighed in and said they knew many other people who it had happened too as well. Despite...
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Look: Leopard Print Blues
I always feel at home in leopard print to dance the night away in a sweaty basement dive, with good tunes and even better friends. I’m loving the shorts & tights look as a halfway house between a skirt and trousers. I was feeling a bit punk, the hair came down and the leather...
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Curly Wurly Hurly Burly
This is my not so serious guide to curly hair care and the ‘curly girl’ method (which isn’t really gender specific, men can have lustrous curly locks too). As touched upon briefly in my fashion rules post, I am the owner of some hella awkward hair, though it often feels more like my head is just...
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Stoicism, Control and Pandora’s Box
Today I had a very, very bad date. One that has swept to the top of my all time worst dates list. Basically he was an arse. But he pointed one thing out, in an arsey way mind you, he accused me of not opening up or something. I can’t remember what he said...
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Why we need Mary Seacole – the importance of inclusive, intersectional history
UPDATE: The curriculum will continue to include Mary Seacole & Oludah Equiano. Government notes state the following will be studied: Britain’s social and cultural development during the Victorian era, including: the changing role of women, including figures such as Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, George Eliot and Annie Besant The slave trade and the abolition...
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Sexualisation vs Sexuality
I have been thinking about this for a while, what with all the ‘prude’ remarks and assumptions of sex negativity that often abound if you decry the sexualisation of women in the media. The way I see it, sexualisation and sexuality (or being sexual or whatever you call it) are different. To me sexualisation...
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Fashion Rules – How to love fashion & be feminist
All these rules come with the proviso – break ‘em if you want. This my opinions and waffling. After watching Gok Wan and his odious faux empowerment (of which Pamflet have done an excellent job of dismantling) and inane ‘confidence tips’, which seem to boil down to ‘wear spanx and be boring’ I...
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Know your Place, shut up and be nice to me!
A.k.a why The ‘tone argument’ is akin to the faeces of a male bovine. That’smy one concession to politeness over with; I mean it’s bullshit. When someone says they will listen to you ‘if only you’d be nicer’ chances are – they won’t. They are derailing, using an excuse not to listen. It’s derailing,...
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How to like clothes, not hate yourself and what it all has to do with everything.
How to like clothes, not hate yourself and what it all has to do with everything. It should be simple, to like clothes and not hate yourself right? Ha fucking ha, in this world of patriarchal bullshit, it is never so simple. I try to separate the clothes and fashion as the art of...
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Accidentally Fashionable
Something odd has happened over the last year or so, I have become accidentally fashionable. My ‘look’ of big glasses (genuinely terrible eyesight, dislike wimpy little frames, glasses work wonders for under eye circles etc etc), dark, wavy hair and poutiness (I just look like that, my sister tells me I pout all the...
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Equality and Quotas
I am in the midst of a minor twitter argument which I will now attempt to not engage in further for the sake of my mental health/my followers who may not want a stream of Malcom Tucker swearing. It has made me think about the issues of quotas and equality legislation, which are problematic...
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All Our Boobs Are Not Belong To You – Sexism in Video Games
All Our Boobs Are Not Belong To You – Sexism in Video Games A.k.a I really do love video games but goddamn they ARE sexist. Having been pointed towards this video by OXM today – I am going to write about games. I have played video games for a while/aeons. I cried when Aeris died,...
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Intersectionality, the left, feminism, the whole thing
I started thinking about all this after I heard Selma James talk the other week, she was amazing and has really inspired me. Then the whole vagenda,Moran, thing about intersectionality twitter storm thing blew up. These are my possibly incoherent thoughts on the matter. My trouble is I often feel overlooked in traditional ‘lefty’ debate,...
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The Backlash begins – post paralympics
In my last post I suggested that some people were likely to use the paralympics as a political tool to demonise disability benefit claimants. Lo and behold, we have this tale of a local newspaper editor telling motability claimants to ‘hang their heads in shame’. The disability news service reports an odious arse dribble...
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Paralympics and the great able bodied love in
All the fuss around the paralympics, which I have only been half watching as I have no interest in sport of any persuasion, has made me think about he representation of invisible disability. Reading Latentexistence’s excellent post entitled ‘why the paralympics tell us nothing about most sick or disabled people’ has also spurred things...
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Strange Dreams, anti depressant side effects
I get strange dreams a lot. I think they are a side effect of anti-depressants or at least can be exacerbated by them, especially when I do the usual forgetting to renew my prescription in time and end up running out. Very odd indeed, it does make me wonder how this all affects my...
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Mansplainers and rape apologists – Photoshop fun!
I couldn’t resist messing about in Photoshop after the whole internet/parts of the real world has felt like some sort of bizarre 1950s body snatching B-movie where people’s minds are taken over by misogynist aliens from planet fuckwit . I tried to photoshop in George Galloway prancing about in a leotard but it didn’t...
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Feminism and Mental Health – Why it matters
Trigger warning for post: discussion of sexual violence, rape and hideously medieval attitudes and misogyny. These last few weeks and especially the last few days have solidified something in my mind, something that is so blindingly obvious it often gets overlooked; the patriarchy is really fucking dangerous for mental health. The festival of rape...
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The Altruist and the Needy Case – Feminism and Men on ‘the left’
Recently I have been thinking a lot about sexism on the left. How supposed allies who claim to be for equality are anything but. I have been told on twitter that sexism and equality is not as big an issue as class and so I should shut up and not complain that Liverpool had...
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Some Ancient Egyptian Wisdom
I have been reading up on Ancient Egyptian Wisdom texts and various literature and I came across the classic ‘Dialogue Between a Man and His Ba*’ which must be one of the first examples of existential angst. It has some beautiful, poignant lines musing on the futility of it all ; “My soul is...
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Fuzzy Logic – Armpits for August
I have decided to give Armpits4August a go and it has spurred me on to thinking about body hair and self image, and of course low self esteem and self hatred, all courtesy of beauty standards all of which are intertwined into a big shit sandwich. It has taken me years to not not...
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All on our shoulders – ATOS, disability and unemployment
Watching Channel 4′s ‘Britain on the Sick’ and the BBC’s Panorama investigations into ATOS,the DWP, the work capability tests and disability benefit reform made me think; why is all the onus on us, people with disabilities and long term health issues, to become employed and fit work around our needs, why is none, or...
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Creativity and Mental Illness
As I sit here with a brain full of concrete porridge I keep thinking of this quote from Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women “Forget about the scant hours in her brief life when Sylvia Plath was able to produce the works in Ariel. Forget about that tiny bit of time and...
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Anxiety? Nope avoidance
I am not belittling social anxiety issues in anyway, they are horrid. But I am a wee bit sick of people (usually the sort welded to a CBT textbook and wondering why you refuse to fit into a neat little category) assuming that when I avoid social situations it’s ‘anxiety’ or some other issue...
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Psychological Warfare – government austerity rhetoric and disability hate
The failures of the system have been far more instrumental in landing me in the unemployment/long term illness wasteland than anything I have ever done, yet this system is punishing me, and others like me, for failures and mistakes that are nothing to do with us.
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Fish Tank Friends
There is a fish tank in psychiatrist’s waiting room (on the nhs too, gosh!) and I have blogged in the past about how my favourite resident of the said tank, orange gravel moving fish, sadly passed away, or perhaps made a brave escape attempt into the water cooler. From my latest visit today it...
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Bent out of shape by society’s pliers
‘Bent out of shape by society’s pliers’ a line from “It’s Alright ma, I’m only Bleeding” by Bob Dylan, an artist who has got me through many a good and bad time since I was young. It encapsulates how I feel. I have been tweeting prolifically from my bed this morning; Chloe Miriam ...
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Self Care – The Importance of Being Nice To Yourself
One thing I have learnt over the years is the importance of ‘self care’ in mental illness. Times when you need to stop, take a break and look after yourself . You need to be selfish and put yourself first. Sometimes you need to be sensible too. It sounds simple but it can be...
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