Brexit and Women’s Rights

I’ll be honest, before the referendum was announced the only thoughts I had on the EU was that it made going on holiday easier. I honestly didn’t know much more about it than that! But recently my circumstances have changed, what with having a child and my transition to full raging feminist status so I decided to really research what leaving the EU would mean for me, my daughter’s future and wider society. 
The thing that really shocked me the most is how many laws and acts that we take for granted are regulated by them, when I had assumed they had been brought in by our government. Although there are vast, vast amounts of these I really want to focus on the ways they could effect women, and even more specifically, mums. 

The EU have brought in regulations regarding there being equal pay for jobs of equal value. Before this the idea of equal pay in the same position in the same field existed, however as men and women were socialised into having different jobs this made no massive difference and women still went home with a significant amount less than men. Obviously, this still isn’t perfect and the wage gap still exists but it has worked towards levelling the playing field a bit with people with the same skill set being able to get equal pay, for example cleaners and refuse collectors and speech therapists and clinical psychologists.
The EU also recognises that part time workers having less rights is indirect sex discrimination. Women tend to be in PT positions more than men, often due to child care restrictions. Because of the EU 400,000 women got work place pensions and pro rata benefits for the first time.
The EU also made giant strides for pregnant women and mothers. Paid time off for antenatal appointments, a minimum pay for maternity leave and jobs having to hold positions for women on maternity leave are all because of them. As well as employers having a duty of care for pregnant or breastfeeding women, giving them the right to pump in private at work. 
I’m not saying that these rights necessarily WILL change if we leave the EU but knowing that they COULD change is scary enough. I believe that when it comes to progression against any form of discrimination that multiple heads are better than one, and without the EU we are relying on the experiences of a middle aged, middle class, predominantly white, predominantly male government to represent us and that is genuinely terrifying.

Does the Glass Ceiling Begin at Home?

I caught the tail end of a story on the news the other day that really piqued my interest. The tagline was “girls get an average of 12% less pocket money than boys.” And unfortunately that’s all I saw. This kind of blew my mind a little bit. I have always been aware of a pay gap between males and females, it’s a huge point of interest in feminism and sociology in large, but, perhaps ignorantly, I hadn’t thought about it outside of the workforce and how and why this was happening kind of baffled me. So I thought I would go through the reasons that sociologists apply to the wage gap in the work place to home and pocket money to see if they also applied here.

1) “We are socialised into believing males are worth more than females and therefore we give them more.”

I mean, this may or may not be true in the work force, I don’t know. As something I haven’t really experienced I feel like I can not really comment on that. But as a parent, I, for one, know that I think my child is worth all the money in the fucking world and the sun shines out their backside and I like to think this would be true whether they were male or female. However, how much money I give, or spend on my child is proportionate to how much I have and how much she actually needs, and although she is only young I think  and hope that that will stay that way. But maybe I’m just being naiive.

2) “Boys are socialised to be more forceful when asking for things, that being strong and confident is good, whereas girls are socialised to be meek and humble and that being “bossy” is a negative trait”

This one resonates with me somewhat more, it comes down to that gendered playing I have mentioned in previous blog posts. By role playing, toys, books and stereotypes boys and girls are taught that men are strict, business type people who take on the role of provider and have the responsibility of the families financial security on them (which is equally damaging to them as to females, but that’s another blog post for another time) whereas women take on the nurturing roles, as mothers or nurses or other such figures to whom finances and careers are secondary. Girls who try to take control in play or, when older, in conversation are labelled “bossy” or “bitches”, insults that are seldom turned towards boys who share similar traits.
So how does this equate to boys getting more pocket money? Merely because they have the confidence to ask for money more often and more forceful in how they do it. So although on the surface things may seem equal to the parents if you add up the “extras” that boys get it ends up with that gap.

3) “men are motivated by money, whereas women are motivated by goods and services”.

This one is interesting to me, when I looked at the news story in more detail I realised it only counted monetary gifts and not presents or toys that were bought for the children. This is not to say that girls necessarily get more gifts, however it could show an issue with the data provided and not give us a full picture. Especially as studies into the wage gap have shown that women take up “job perks” more often than men, for example discounts, freebies, offers provided by their work place. But, I would argue, this is due to a subconscious dissatisfaction with wages and a “I’m going to take what I can get” attitude. So do boys get more actual money and girls get more gifts? I wish that I could find some data measuring that, but unfortunately, for once, the internet hasn’t provided. But even if that is the case is this a natural phenomena or one guided by our gendered socialised behaviour?

So, is this gap caused by a historically rooted gender bias? Honestly, I don’t think this is the kind of thing that will ever have a foolproof answer, but as with most parenting conundrums I have I think the first step is to bring up children to collectively challenge the internalized gender bias around them and not to make assumptions based on gender in general, hopefully eradicating thoughts and feelings before they become actions.

Gender Neutral Parenting and Pronoun Use

Gender Neutral Parenting is something I feel incredibly passionate about, however also something I feel is very misunderstood. To understand it you must first acknowledge that there is a huge difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to biological differences, so internal and external sex organs, whereas gender describes the differences that are socially constructed as masculine or feminine.

Gender neutrality aims to break down the boundaries and eradicate the idea of a gender binary, acknowledging that gender exists on a spectrum rather than just make or female. My personal belief is that gender can be fluid throughout your life and is not necessarily something that stays the same and I would like Luna’s upbringing to reflect the same. Luna was assigned female at birth so will be referred to as she/her/daughter throughout and I will explain my thoughts on this as I go along.

Struggles we have found so far have mainly been with clothes and toys. Everything seems to be gendered, girls clothes are pink, boys blue. Girls have kitchens and boys have work benches. Greater societies belief being that these things can be gendered. Being gender neutral does not mean that I will not buy pink clothes or kitchens for her, but that there is an element of choice involved, that things are bought relevent to a child’s interests rather than their sex. But it isn’t just my choices that will effect her, but my language.

I work hard to not call her a princess, as I believe the connotations to be of a weak individual who needs to find their Prince to feel whole, try to describe her as hard-working, innovative and creative as well as beautiful, and make sure I don’t use fat negative language around her. However important as it is to empower girls it’s also equally as important to watch the language we use around boys too, phrases such as “man up” or “boys don’t cry” are toxic masculinity which is just as harmful.

I also want Luna to be aware of gender neutral pronouns, as they are an important part of acknowledging the gender spectrum. I recently read about parents who used Xe/Xim when reading books to their child, I absolutely love this idea as not only does it normalise the idea of gender neutral language from a young age, but takes away to stereotypes of females and males in children’s books as they are not aware if the hero is male or female.

I’ve been playing with the idea of referring to Luna by gender neutral pronouns too, as I want her to feel like her gender is something she is in control of. However I feel that bringing up a child outside of the male/female dichotomy is still incredibly problematic due to wider society’s somewhat archaic views, and I do not want her to be teased because of my choices. However, making sure she knows that she can change her pronouns, name and appearance to however she feels comfortable is absolutely a top priority to me. But for now I will teach her to be proud to be female, but not limited by it.

Bathtime Bonding And Normalising Nudity

When I was pregnant with Luna I was determined that we would follow attachment parenting to the letter. On paper it sounded perfect, it was all about bonding with your child, being close to them physically and mentally at all times and enjoying each other. I wanted to breastfeed, cosleep, and let Luna lead the way on every stage of her development.

Things quickly started to go wrong, midwives and health visitors shot me down every single time co-sleeping was mentioned, constantly telling me how irresponsible and dangerous it is, against my better judgement Luna ended up in a Moses basket instead. She also seemed to sleep a lot better when we weren’t near her, which absolutely broke my heart. Breastfeeding also went down the pan pretty rapidly, Luna would not latch, I found it incredibly painful and she was showing signs of dehydration. I had zero support and decided for her physical health and my mental health we would switch to bottles.

But there was one thing I was absolutely adamant about and that was the benefits of skin to skin. I was also absolutely terrified of putting her in the bath by herself so the natural step for me was jumping in the bath with her. A year on and co-bathing is still absolutely the highlight of my day. I don’t get in every bath with her anymore but when I feel a disconnect between us (easy to happen now that she is more independent and life is busy) we jump in the bath together and spend half an hour or so splashing about, cuddling and playing. There’s no distraction, no tv, no phones, just me and her. Water relaxes both of us and gives us the opportunity to focus on each other and our relationship. I truly believe that has helped us to create an incredibly close bond and has helped her to be a (generally) happy and relaxed baby.

As well as relaxing and bonding, for me it is important for Luna to see nudity as something that is natural and not taboo. Being able to separate nudity and sex is something that I think is incredibly important to teach the next generation. Stigma and curiosities not being dealt with properly is, in my opinion, the root cause of many of the issues regarding sexual assault and voyeurism as well as inequality between genders and insecurity. By allowing Luna to see naked bodies, and later answer questions fully and to the best of my ability, I feel like I am setting her up for a life of openness and honesty which is incredibly good for her development.

She sits in the bath and traces my stretch marks, grabs my love handles and plays with my tattoos, scars and freckles and by showing her that those things are ok and normal I hope that she will grow up being able to recognise that her body is a beautiful thing to be proud of too.

Reflexology For Relaxing Tiny Terrors

  

Yellow: Head

Blue: Sinuses

Orange: Solar Plexus

Pink: Upper Abdomen

Purple: Lower Abdomen

Red: Pelvis

Reflexology is a holistic therapy based on the idea that the whole body is mapped out on the feet and the different areas correspond to different body systems, by massaging the relevant areas you can relieve tension and encourage flow to the corresponding system.

For adults the reflexology charts are pretty involved but it is possible to simplify these for tiny baby feet and the usual problems and pains our little monkeys deal with.

Whether you believe in reflexology or not a good foot massage is a great way to calm cranky babies (if you can get them to sit down for long enough) so before whipping out Luna’s feet I try and relax her as much as possible, these days I try and work it in with her usual bed time routine, which generally means doing it with Iggle Piggle dancing around in the background, which isn’t ideal but the only time I can get her to stay still! I also like to dim the lights and burn essential oils such as lavender or ylang ylang. I use warm coconut oil for the massage but you could also use baby oil.

I usually use reflexology when teething bites us in the butt, teething has so many horrible side effects that any relief for our babes has to be a good thing! 

I start with a general massage, making small circling movements over the whole foot, top and sole. Next I do long strokes and a thumb walk (exactly what it sounds like) from top to bottom of the foot which stimulates blood circulation and draining of the lymphatic system, helpful for the digestive issues associated with teething. 

The area of the foot most associated with teething is the base of each toe, I take a while during each massage to apply pressure to these areas (where I’m squeezing in the photo) these are acupressure points and the idea is that when you release the hold the blood flows back into it giving it renewed energy. 

The same method can be applied to the tips of the toes for a cold and gentle massage of the arch to heel area for constipation. 

Finish off with a toe nibble (cos who can resist) and your done, just in time for the tittifers to sing their song. (Ugh).

Punk Rock Is For The Children

My experiences taking babies to shows.
  
From the second that I found out I was pregnant with Luna I knew that it would be incredibly important to me to pass on my love of music to her as early as possible. This included taking her to shows so she could experience it live, a feeling I believe to be utterly unrivalled.

 

I’ve grown up listening, mainly, to hardcore punk, my taste remaining relatively unchanged since my teens. It’s been really fun to watch some of my idols mellow in their private lives (although not on stage, never on stage) and become parents themselves. As a result of this I feel like this scene is pretty open to kids being a part of it, however I did have some concerns, namely venues having an issue with an under 18 being there, how best to look after her safety and how others would respond to us.

 

Firstly the venue, I rang around a few to start with and got a lot of knock backs with venues having 14 or 18+ rules. I began to get disheartened and almost gave up on the idea of taking her. However, i struck gold with one of my absolute favourite local venues, Sound Control, after I won tickets to see K Flay there and had no-one to babysit. I messaged a sound tech I knew who worked there who said there was no issues whatsoever with her going, as long as we took ear defenders. At this gig it was relatively quiet so we were able to stand at the back and enjoy the bands with no worries about being in a crowd, however at other shows we have learnt to station ourselves near the sound desk ( a trick I have learnt after having multiple knee injuries meaning I am firmly in mosh retirement). We have even been motioned into the barrier section and had a stool given to us when one of the techs saw that Luna had fallen asleep on me.

 

Which takes us on to what to take with you; Luna was only 5 months old when I took her the first time so i took bottles, usual nappy bag bits, and a carrier. She wasn’t in a sleep routine yet at this stage so I wasn’t really worried about her being up late, we would have been anyway! I now encourage a later nap than usual and still take the carrier in case she needs a snooze. Bottles have been replaced with snacks but everything else is still the same. Lastly, but most importantly we use ear defenders. Ear defenders are so important, not only to reduce noise-induced hearing loss but also to minimise the general sensory overload that can be the gig environment. The carrier and ear defender combo has also meant that she has been able to nap while we are at gigs, stopping her being irritable and cranky which is definitely helpful when worrying about how others would react to a baby amongst their midst.

 

I wish that I could say that I don’t care about the reactions of others or how they feel about Luna being there, but the truth is I do. However, people’s reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, from people mouthing how cute she is to us from across the room, to others telling us about their experiences of bringing their children. I recently took her to see H2O and had a guy tell us that his first gig with his son had been CroMags when his son was 6 weeks old, his, now 25 year old, son was at the gig with him and hadn’t missed an opportunity to go with his dad in all that time. Conversely, I also got chatting to a couple who were expecting their first baby who said that they were so pleased to see us and it showed them that they didn’t have to give up something they love just because they were becoming parents.

 

Honestly, when it came to taking her for the first time I was riddled with anxiety, expecting all of the worst case scenarios and to have had to come home, tails between legs, having seen no bands but it could not have gone better or been easier, due in part to a wonderfully accommodating venue, but it has also shown us that, with a bit of preparation, we can do almost everything we loved to do pre-Luna but with one extra gig buddy.