"Biological Destiny"

This is absolutely not where I wanted to go with my second blog post but now I feel a need to go there. Let me just throw in a little FYI’s before I begin - I in no way believe that in the societal scheme of things that women have a “biological destiny” nor do women have any responsibility or duty to fulfil a “biological destiny.” I’m going to be using the word “man” and “men” a lot, now, this Is not me bashing men. I am not man bashing, the pronoun “man” is being used because for lack of a better phrase - this is a man’s world. I believe for the most part, that men can contribute and fuel issues relating to women. NOTE: I am not talking about my dad, your dad, your friend’s dad, partner, sons, uncles, nephews. I’m talking about the patriarchy as a whole. I’m sure your dad is lovely.

From an early age, little girls learn a couple of things from society - “girl” somehow means weak (you throw like a girl, you run like a girl) and being female magically excludes you from some activities. You can’t play football, you can’t play rugby, you can’t game. These are all boy activities, so don’t even go there. Blue? Boys colours, stick with pink, it makes your eyes look pretty.

When I was a little girl, I knew these were the “rules” and I actively tried to buck the trend. I’d run around the playground with the boys “shooting guns” (Although they voted me out of the game eventually) I played football. As a teenager I desperately wanted to play rugby, there were no female rugby teams in my area so I tried to start my own - the “patriarchy” was not fond of the idea so it went nowhere quick and I think eventually I just assumed the status quo was too big for me to tackle - pun intended.

As an adult, I feel enraged, genuinely enraged by the societal shackles put upon women. From women in the workplace, to women who choose to have children and be full time mothers, there’s something there that pins you down. In the workplace - God forbid you excel at your career and strive to make your way upwards. Have you ever noticed that women who are strong willed, driven and confident - making difficult decisions are naturally bitches? Want me to tell you why they are bitches? Because that’s what men who are afraid of strong, independent women call them. Bitch is a man’s word, and it’s a word aimed specifically at women, it is nothing but negative. Granted, women use “bitch” to describe themselves sometimes - but they wouldn’t if they hadn’t been conditioned to roll with the punches. Who doesn’t want to change a derogatory word by taking some of the sting out of it?

I mean, despite my words I’m not about to take my bra off and burn it. But if you were wanting cold hard facts, and not just my over inflated opinion on the matter, read on. (I did research - please feel free to ask me for the sources I used)

The Gender Pay Gap

Before I go any further, you know when you are outraged? Like so outraged reading something that it seems almost like a joke and it makes you do that nervous/outraged laugh? A lot of that happened while I researched this. Like, really? Seriously? This is what is happening? There are literally no reasons at all why things are this way. There’s not one single valid reason why men get paid more than women for the same job.

I went straight to the UK government website, just thought - hey, this is our country, let’s see what the super clever guys in the government have got to say - there has got to be a reason. I didn’t find any reasoning - I did find a super helpful page boasting all time low rates in the gender pay gap! You go, UK! Well done! Did you know the gender pay gap in the UK is at an all time low? Only 18%… Only. There is a gender pay gap of an entire 18% in the UK for literally no reason at all.

My point of view? Maybe this stems from some archaic notion that a woman is not worth that of a man. That our tiny little woman brains aren’t capable of completing the task as efficiently. It’s true, a woman’s brain is up to 8% smaller than a man’s brain, however, studies show that women use their brains more efficiently than men. So? 18% less pay? I’m terrible at maths, but that doesn’t add up.

But hey - those of you in the UK, look on the bright side, at least you’re not looking at these outrageous percentages - Estonia (26%) Korea (36%) Japan (25%). There are more with slightly larger pay gaps but let’s not dwell on that. Let’s talk about Belgium (5.9%) or Luxembourg (7%)- granted these are smaller by population than the UK and other countries with crazily high percentages. Not that population should be a bearing on a woman’s financial worth, let’s cut the crap, there actually shouldn’t be a section of my blog about a gender pay gap because it absolutely shouldn’t exist.

Periods

Everyone remembers their first period, they just do. Is it a “rite of passage”? I don’t know, it’s a milestone in life. I remember my first period, in the school toilets at 13, massively unprepared and uninformed as to what was actually happening to my body. We don’t talk about periods, it’s kind of taboo, I’m not entirely sure why. Most women go through puberty and have periods, it’s completely out of our control - So why is it seen as this dirty thing? As if it’s so unclean and strange. Even mentioning the word period in a social situation (or any paraphernalia related to the managing of periods) will make people cringe. That offends me, I probably shouldn’t let it offend me, but it does. I feel like those most offended by it are those who cannot understand or relate to it. If you don’t have a period, how could you be okay with that happening?

I can feel people eyerolling, yes! I’m playing the period card and here is why I am doing it. Remember the “luxury tax”? Pause for laughter. In a nutshell, the UK government in all of it’s glory introduced a Luxury Tax. A luxury being described as “non-essential, luxury goods” this meant that things falling into that category would have a 5% extra VAT charge added to it. Inexplicably Tampons, sanitary towels and other period related products fell into the category of “luxury goods.” There’s that outraged laughter again.

Do I really have to write about how this is certifiable insanity? Or can we all deduce that this was a massive slap in the face from the patriarchy? Well that’s what I deduce anyway. I’m so sorry, I have no words to explain what a massive crock of crap that was. Obviously the outrage happened because let’s face it - you have got to be some kind of stupid to piss off over half of the population, in December 2020, the luxury tax no longer involved menstrual products. Can everyone just get good with the fact that we menstruate, please?

Abortion

I’m lucky enough to have never been in a situation where I’ve had to personally relate to the mind set of facing an abortion. To anyone who has, I praise you for your strength. I bring this up really to see if I can highlight something for you.

I know there’s a lot of “men should have a say” when it comes to abortion. God forbid a man doesn’t have a right over something. Let me say this - A woman should have overriding, absolute and unchallenged rights, power and authority over her own body. Including, especially including, whether or not she carries a child for nine months and potentially risks her life birthing it. It’s completely black and white.

You could argue Pro-Life, let me shut that down right there. What about pro-women? Women aren’t just a vessel for carrying heirs and producing life. In fact a lot of women decide children aren’t a part of their life plans, some pregnancies are a result of rape or abuse, there is a myriad of ethical reasons a woman might not want to continue with pregnancy or they might just not want children. Surely, you cannot feel that a woman does not have the right to decide what happens inside her body? Surely that cannot be the case.

Up until 2018 - Ireland had an abortion ban, that means any woman with an unwanted pregnancy in Ireland did not have the right to say what happens to her body. There are currently 26 countries where abortion is illegal. In 2019, the governor of Alabama signed into law an “extreme” abortion ban (Yes, he was male). There are so many countries where abortion is technically legal but only if the woman is at risk of dying or other serious health problems.

Can you see the problem? Can you see that (largely men) forcing a woman to carry a child against her will is a gross disregard of women?

Menopause

I am not personally affected by menopause, but I will be one day. It’s important to know these things and actually, the more you dig, the scarier it gets. Also, same rules apply, menopause is taboo - pass it on. But why? Again? Most women experience menopause and there are some serious health implications relating to menopause.

My opinions about Menopause as purely the change women go through is this - It’s basically nature’s way of saying “you have fulfilled your biological destiny, go live your next few years in discomfort and after that you will never feel the same, but that’s okay, you fulfilled your purpose as a woman” Obviously, that’s infuriating and obviously I do not think that menopause diminishes femininity, it just feels like that’s what nature is doing.

Medically, Menopause is described as “ a change in the balance of the body’s sex hormone” or Oestrogen. These are some of the things that Oestrogen directly affects:

Brain function

Heart function

Skin composition

Sex drive

Repairing damage to bones

These are just a handful of things that Oestrogen regulates, pretty significant things. So as Oestrogen diminishes each of these things are affected. Brain function is altered, it is often referred to as “fog” and is something a woman experiencing menopause has no control over. There is very little research about Menopause, the go-to “fix” for Menopause is actually quite often Anti- Depressants to control some of the symptoms. I’m not going to pretend I’m any kind of doctor or medical professional, there’s a lot of gaps in my knowledge that I have been trying to fill.

I’ll leave this topic with this thought - There are current studies that suggest the loss of Oestrogen may be directly related to susceptibility of Dementia. 65% of people living with Dementia in the UK are women. Did you know that Dementia is the biggest killer of women in the UK? Is this Mother Nature’s final insult? Why isn’t more funding available for research of Menopause considering for most women, it’s an inevitability? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Final Thoughts

Anyway, You can do some of your own research, or you can forget about this blog post for the rest of your life. The reason I bring up these issues is because it’s easy to get used to, it’s easy to get on with it. But sometimes I remember and It makes me angry all over again. You lucky lot had the privilege of catching me on a day where I remember. There are so many more things I could say, I picked some of the ones that make the least sense to me. If we don’t talk about these things, there is no chance that it will ever change and I don’t want my sons living in a world where they think they are more than their peers because they happen to have the “right” genitalia. It shouldn’t just be down to the luck of the draw. I’m sorry it’s such a long one. But I think it deserves the air time.

This is for every woman I love.

This is me and the strongest woman I know.

Mama, out.