Cool, sassy, lady books for cool, sassy ladies

Surprise surprise – Dubai is not the most feminist place in the world. Who knew, hey?

One thing I’ve really missed since moving to the UAE is all the cool, sassy, independent feminist-minded people living in Britain. While living in London I felt almost part of this new wave of feminism – or at the very least near it – surrounded by events, marches, campaigns, and living in the same city as a bunch of crazy cool feminist-inclined journalists and writers. Whereas in Dubai it occasionally feels like you’re living in a 1950s detergent advert, where the word ‘feminism’ is still a dirty word and, when uttered aloud, raises many an eyebrow and, frankly, some rather unpleasant comments.

I do admit that Dubai is home to many independent, career-driven women and, as a friend pointed out, perhaps I wouldn’t long for British feminism so much if I focused my energy on what’s being done to combat sexism in the Middle East. But instead I’m going to pass over that valid and helpful point and list the five books written either by, for, or about cool, strong, intelligent lady types that I am dying to have on my book shelf.

How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran seems to pop up everywhere nowadays and usually exposure like this would annoy me, but honestly, I can’t get enough of her. She manages to put into writing what many people, (including myself), fail to express in words, and she does it in a hilarious and clever way.

It’s safe to say that I’m really flipping excited about her newest book How to Build a Girl. While the story’s fictional, it’s pretty darn obvious that it overlaps a lot with her own upbringing. It follows a teenage girl growing up in the 90s, who reinvents herself into a ‘fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer’ and it sounds smashing!

A bit of what the official description says: Imagine The Bell Jar written by Rizzo from Grease, with a soundtrack by My Bloody Valentine and Happy Mondays. As beautiful as it is funny, How To Build a Girl is a brilliant coming-of-age novel in DMs and ripped tights, that captures perfectly the terror and joy of trying to discover exactly who it is you are going to be.

Everyday Sexism, Laura Bates
The Everyday Sexism project, launched by Laura Bates in 2012, publicly reveals examples of sexist experiences that its thousands of contributors have dealt with every day. The tweets alone make for a shocking read, not just because of the horrible way some people have been treated, but often because you find yourself relating to the victim.

She’s now released a book all about the project and I can’t wait to finally read it. (She also recently wrote a great article for the Guardian about feminism and weddings, check it out.)

A bit of what the official description says: From being harassed and wolf-whistled at on the street, to discrimination in the workplace and serious sexual assault, it was clear that sexism had become normalised. Bates decided it was time for women to lead a real change. Bold, jaunty but always intelligent, everyday sexism is a protest against inequality that provides a unique window into the vibrant movement sparked by this juggernaut of stories – often shocking, sometimes amusing and always poignant.

The Vagenda: A Zero Tolerance Guide to the Media, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter

The Vagenda is a jolly fantastic website, looking at sexism and the presentation of women in the media. What I particularly like about this site is that it’s really rather funny, which makes it such a great read. Also, as it relies heavily on contributor pieces, it always posts a variety of opinions – some that you’ll agree with, some that you definitely won’t.

A bit of what the official description says: As students, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter spent a lot of time laughing at magazine pieces entitled things like ’50 Sex Tips to Please Your Man’ (particularly the ones that encouraged bringing baked goods into the bedroom). They laughed at the ridiculous ‘circles of shame’ detailing minor weight fluctuations of female celebs, or the shocking presence of armpit hair. And at the articles telling you how to remove cellulite from your arse using coffee granules.

Hard Choices, Hillary Rodham Clinton

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about American politics. I have a hard enough time keeping up with British goings-on, so I won’t start spouting nonsense about policies and the like. While Hillary Clinton isn’t exactly a feminist idol, she has had to deal with a lot of rubbish – very public rubbish – and despite this she’s managed to stay on top and stay strong, even as she serves as Secretary of State for the very chap who beat her to the post. And now rumours tell me she’s in the running to become America’s first female president. All-in-all she sounds like a cool chick.

A bit of the official description bit: “All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the centre of world events. “Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.”

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s Learned, Lena Dunham

I love Girls (the HBO serious, not just all women in general). Not only is Lena Dunham a very talented producer/ director, but she has a very strange, unique way of looking at life and all its oddities. It’s very brave how she shines a light on aspects of young people’s lives that are often rather personal and unspoken. Plus she roams around totally starkers a lot on TV so she’s definitely a confident lass.

Apparently this book is a series of essays and if her writing is anywhere near as intriguing and honest as her show, then that can only be a good thing.

A bit of what the official description says: “If I can take what I’ve learned in this life and make one treacherous relationship or degrading job easier for you, perhaps even prevent you from becoming temporarily vegan, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile.”

Now, this is just a wish list, meaning that I haven’t actually read any of these yet so, basically, don’t blame me if they’re rubbish. In fact, if you have a short review of any of these books please drop it in the comments box below, I’d love to read them! Likewise if anyone has any recommendations for books like these…or any books in general, really.

Moving to Dubai

Close to six beautiful months have passed since I packed my bags and moved to Dubai. And by ‘beautiful’ I of course mean intense, scary, lonely, fun, difficult, tasty, and exciting (to name but a few emotions). Even after all that I still can’t give a definitive answer for how I feel about the place. So instead I am going to post something I wrote in December 2013 after only being here for a few weeks. Reading back through it makes me realise just how quickly and easily you adjust to things that at first feel so bazaar. Anyway, have a gander:

A friend once told me that the life a graduate can change very quickly. Whether that’s for the better or worse I’m not sure, but it’s true that jumping between interviews, internships and vying for the best placement can mean your fate changes in an instant. It’s with this in mind that I now write this from Dubai, UAE where I recently moved for a job – yes, a proper, actual, permanent job!

One minute I was a poor graduate milling around London town and now I am a poor graduate milling around Dubai with a job. Now, I thought living it up in ‘The Big Smoke’ for the last few years would have prepared me for any metropolis the world could throw at me – I am no longer the country Dorset gal too scared to cross a city road, but am now a savvy London type!

But I was mistaken, gravely mistaken.

Having been in the UAE for about a month, I can safely assure you that Dubai is mental. In fact “Dubai is crazy” seems to have become some what of catchphrase for me since moving here and I utter it at least twice a day – well that and “why is it so flipping hot?!” and “OH! Falafel!”

So in order to distract myself from the craziness, heat, and mountain of falafel I’ve just consumed, I thought I would list the top 10 things I’ve learnt about this mystical place so far (what fun!):

1) Monster Trucks are the vehicle of choice – Plus apparently UAE motorists have no need for wing mirrors, interest in indicators, or general will to live.

2) Everything here is bigger and/ or the biggest – This includes but is not limited to the food portions, cars, buildings, shops, roads, apartments, and the people. Apparently Dubai even boasts the world’s largest flower wall…

3) Pedestrians have no rights – The lack of pavements, insanity of drivers, hundreds of cheap taxis, and boiling midday heat mean that opting to walk anywhere will cause many a raised eyebrow to be pointed your way.

4) Expats are everywhere – 70 percent of the Dubai population is made up of expats. 70 percent! This results in an interesting melting pot of nationalities, but means that everyone is super international and anyone who doesn’t speak three languages and have a family member in every continent stands out like a sore thumb – a boring, boring, sore thumb.

5) On the plus side, everyone speaks English!

6) Forget what you knew about the tube – The metro here only has two lines, is above ground, air-conditioned, and ridiculously clean and therefore completely unrecognisable as public transport to any Londoner.

7) Recycling is a big no-no – For a country built on fossil fuels you’d think, for the sake of a few karma points at least, they would want to give something back to nature, but no. If you ask your office manager where the recycling bins are while armed with a pile of paper and a hopeful smile you will be laughed at, trust me.

8) You will never feel safer – A strict, slightly fear-inducing law enforcement system does have its positives. Dubai feels incredibly safe, which is proven by the many people who happily abandon their wallets and phones on the table as they go to the bar and don’t feel the need to zip up and clutch their bags protectively when getting on the tube. All of which leaves anyone who has lived in London, or anywhere in England for that matter, disoriented and bemused.

9) It’s a city of contrasts – An Islamic state with a huge drinking culture? Feeling completely safe walking around at 3am by yourself, but then experiencing near-death experiences while driving on Sheikh Zayed Road? Women covered head to foot walking past ladies in bikinis?

10) Beware the Dubai stone (or 6.4kg for all your metric kids out there) – There are a million and one restaurants here serving massive portions, which when combined with lesson no. 3, will cause you to grow to the size of a house and have to be rolled back onto a plane to visit your loving family.

Heed my warning potential Dubai expats! #DubaiIsCrazy

Bank Holiday Ponderings

Don’t you just love a good bank holiday weekend? The kind that leaves you knackered, a bit achy, skin feeling tight from the sunshine, proudly sporting a couple of scratches and bruises, and in a ridiculously good mood! Well, I recently had one such good bank holiday weekend.

Leaving the concrete jungle behind I ventured to the Dorset coastline for some family-and-friends camping funtimes, where we enjoyed the many pastimes favoured by middle-aged, middle-classed British folk – namely walking, reading, commenting on the weather, drinking, discussing new camping utensils, drinking again and sleeping.

The main source of my aches and bruises, however, comes from the fact that (in a fit of holiday delusion) I attempted to kayak. Yes, that’s right: wet suit, kayak, the sea, some paddles  – the full, wet, salty hog!

It was an idea that when first mentioned sounded like a barrel of laughs – easy even!  I was brought up on the coast, I tell myself, the water and I have an understanding, a connection! I am a child of the sea!! My mermaid-like confidence, however, had ebbed away considerably by the time I was walking down the sand towards the water, dragging my hefty kayak reluctantly behind me. Then, looking like an unsightly leggy seal after being shoe-horned into a wet suit, I was further wedged into what suddenly felt like a tiny paper boat and pushed out to sea (aka death). How could I forget my irrational fear of deep water?!

Leading our small, slightly erratic fleet were two friends who happen to be pro kayakers (or ‘yakers as my adrenalin-fuelled, panic-stricken mind chose to call them), one of who is potentially going in for the 2016 Olympics! Yes, someone who could be competing for Britain in Rio was lucky enough to have me, hollering and flailing around on a back of a kayak, as a sea companion.

But after what I actually considered to be a relatively confident route out along the coast, I was unhappy to find that on turning around the head back my little boat was not playing ball and kept spinning uncontrollably – I think it was possessed by the ghost of a crap, or at least very mean-spirited, ‘yaker!

‘Useful’ suggestions such as “Lean into the turn…lean….LEAN INTO YOUR TURN!” were provided by my fellow water-born friends, but it was not long before I inevitably plummeted into the water where I had to quickly remind myself that sharks prefer more exotic climates and are not big fans of the Swanage coast line.

Back in the kayak (not an elegant task), I discovered it was far more convenient simply let the wind push me along the coast. Bobbing along like that gave me plenty  of time to ponder how truly, almost impressively rubbish I am at a lot of things, particularly things of a sporty nature. Never have I tried a sport and thought Oh, this is for me, this is it, this is my thing!.

Who are these people that you hear about that take so naturally to new activities? These ducks that take so fantastically to water? If I were a duck my paddling action would be, well, very similar to my kayaking: frantic, flapping and facing the wrong direction.

In fact, do these people even exist – these people that are so effortlessly brilliant at sport? And if so, then does that mean everyone has something they’re great at? Is there one activity that each person is inherently fantastic at and all we have to do is figure out what it is?

Take Helen Glover for example. She won a gold medal in the women’s pairs at London 2012 having only started rowing after being inspired by Beijing in 2008. That’s four years! To get to gold-winning standard in just four years, I think we can assume she took pretty naturally to the sport.

Then there’s little Tom Daley who before he could even legally buy alcohol was diving off the high board in his skimpies at international standard.

Yes, yes, of course, there’s a great deal of hard work and dedication that goes into all of this, but it makes you wonder: how far are Olympians, or anyone for that matter, born with a natural talent for something?

And then, what’s more important: a natural talent, or a bit of hard graft? It would be great to find out that as a child Chris Hoy relied on training wheels for years; or that The Jennis’ school PE teacher didn’t see any potential in her; or Mo Farah was forever trying to keep up with his friends.

It’s a rather romantic notion to believe that every individual has a built-in sporty prowess that they simply have to unearth. But I suppose it is rather an insult to the vast time and passion that professional sports people put into perfecting their skill. Also, if no one is born with one specific talent for something, it means that with a little effort and determination there’s hope for all of us!

One thing I do know for sure, whatever my calling, it involves my feet being firmly on the ground.

Shock as Jessica Ennis declares she doesn’t want children…yet.

This blog post may appear to be a response to something rather small and insignificant and that is because, well, it is. But when it comes to sexism, it is important every now and then to point the metaphorical finger and shout (not so metaphorically), ‘What the flipping heck is this all flipping about??’

I was perusing the Evening Standard last night while on the tube home and, turning the front page, was greeted by The Mighty Jennis grinning back at me. I thought to myself: ‘I like The Mighty Jennis. This is a story I want to read’.

Jessica, please stop all this running about and have some babies. Thanks.

How naïve I was. One sentence in and I’m fighting the urge to fling the newspaper very hard and very fast down the carriage at some poor unsuspecting passenger.

‘Jessica Ennis today revealed she will put off her dream of starting a family until she retires from sport.’

Her dream? Really? Here I was thinking winning an Olympic gold in her home country while being cheered on by hundreds of thousands of adoring fans might have been her dream. And perhaps going on to win at the World Championships in Moscow next month and pick up another gold at Rio 2016 were her dreams.

But no. According to the Evening Standard, her dream is to have babies. Don’t get me wrong, babies are great, the Mighty Jennis herself admits she wants to start a family one day. But what is so annoying, so inherently sexist and just plain unnecessary is the assumption that as a woman her main goal in life is to start a family and all this silly running and jumping about is just filling time before her real aim.

Empty-wombed Jess puts on a brave face for the crowd – Flickr/Al King

The first line might as well have read:

‘Shock as woman denies her natural purpose in life and confesses to not wanting children…yet.’

That’s another thing, (I’m on a roll now), how is this even news? If she’d come out and said, ‘I never want children, in fact I find babies and family life entirely repulsive and am considering becoming a hermit’ then I’d still be mad, (if not a little confused), but at least it’d be more print-worthy. If women deciding to put off having children until they’re ready is big news then all of my female friends, relatives and I could be on the front-page!

So yes, this may be a big rant about a small article, but for blatant sexist rubbish like this to be constantly published and accepted by readers is, to me anyway, definitely not small and insignificant.

No More Page Three.

I really think everyone should sign the petition fighting to get The Sun editor Dominic Mohan to “Take The Bare Boobs Out Of The Sun”. http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3 (@NoMorePage3)

A female pal once said to me, most likely during one of my oh-so popular feminist rants, “There’s no point in being a feminist in Britain, there’s nothing else for women to fight for.”

Looking back I wish I had a copy of The Sun to hand – and believe me, that’s the first time I’ve wished that – so I could have stood up on my chair, opened up the first page, pointed to the bare-chested girl on the third page, and emitted a loud and smug ‘HA!’ for all to hear.

Yes, I realise that there are much worse places to live as lady-folk than Britain.  In Britain we can go outside unaccompanied by men, we can drive, we can earn money, and we can eat dessert before dinner.

And this is exactly why the page three tradition is so awful.

In a country full of independent ladies, almost 100 years after the first women got the vote and half a century after the contraceptive pill was introduced in the UK, how on earth has this blatant sexist tradition survived so long.

The Sun’s page three promotes the casual sexualisation of women.  It is repressive, backward and just not journalism, really, is it?

You don’t see The Times pop a couple of images of an 18 year-old’s chest into a particularly long article to keep the attention of readers.  The BBC doesn’t feel the need to cut to soft porn footage between stories on the 10 o’clock news, (and that’s after the watershed).

This is why I believe signing this petition – which takes all of 30 seconds – is really rather flipping important.

Just because Britain has better female rights than other countries is no excuse for laziness.  If we’re going to have gender equality, let’s really have it!

Vivé le booby-covering revolution!

News – Almost 100 Nigerians die in oil tanker fire

With roads in a bad condition and devoid of developed-enough facilities to cope with the huge reserves of oil that this country contains, a tanker in Lagos, Nigeria, recently crashed and then some time after caught fire, taking with it the lives of all those locals that had rushed forward to collect to valuable oil.

I can’t claim to know a great deal about the oil industry and the situation in Nigeria (I’m learning!), but this is a horrific story and what makes it worse is how little it is being reported.

Here’s a link the BBC article.