How Life Would Differ In Feminist Utopia

Call yourself a feminist in the UK and, unless you’re chatting to Jeremy Corbyn (moment to appreciate 72% youth voting turnout!!) and the Spice Girls, you’re going to be met with at least some hostility. The most common criticism is that there’s legally nothing a man can do that a woman can’t, proving how we have gender equality aka you can shut up now love and get back in the kitchen instead. The key word of the opposition is legally. This argument reminds me of how when the Civil Rights Act was passed in America this was a de jure change, which meant segregation was illegal; however this couldn’t cause de facto change as socially people had become so accustomed to racism that no law could translate into their realities. In the UK, feminism isn’t needed to overcome sweeping legislative inequalities (from what I’m aware, but hit me up if I’m wrong) we need to focus on All The Small Things, Blink-182 style.

Often we view social changes as insignificant. Catcalling bothers you? Stop whining. You don’t like it when guys approach you in bars? Then start dressing like a homeless barrel. Want a career? Keep your legs closed. But humans are sociable creatures and so if our everyday lives are riddled with, put bluntly, people being shits, then it’s going to have a pretty big impact. I’ve compiled a list to show some of the ways my life would be different in a de facto feminist society.

I wouldn’t dumb myself down: I don’t even know how this happens. I just finished my International Baccalaureate exams, my IQ qualified me for Mensa and I’m 50,000 words into a novel- I’m a smart cookie. Why then do I feel compelled to let men mansplain words I already know or say stuff like *sharp intake of breath* *clutches cheeks* *Disney princess voice* ‘What book was Titanic based on?’ to make them laugh? Is masculinity so fragile that I round off the corners of my brain to make sure it doesn’t damage them? In feminist utopia, I’m shamelessly smart, full stop.

Sexual Harassment at Work

I’ve just finished my final shift at my first paid job, working part time reducing out of date food for a supermarket. My general experience was faultless– I just want to establish that before I begin (so that this doesn’t affect me reapplying in the future) (and also so that, if you do know who I worked for, you don’t judge them). Blady loved my job. I quit because I had to study, not because of what I’m about to discuss.

Because I was both the youngest and fresh out the employment oven I suddenly became exposed to this world of sexual harassment. I was already familiar with catcalling (often when I was in my school uniform- not weird at all), everyday sexism and the occasional I’m-just-going-to-fall-asleep-in-your-lap-don’t-mind-me on the subway, but I had no idea what kind of timber ft Pitbull was going down in the workplace.

The company I worked for treated men and women almost perfectly equally- the ratio of female:male managers was pretty even and their wages were the same. The only difference was that the women’s shirts had waaay less buttons which left our necks more exposed and exemplified the huge colour difference between my orange foundation and chalk white neck. Oh and we didn’t get ties. As someone who blady loves a tie, this sucked. But, as much as I don’t want to justify their tailoring, these differences are so engrained in society that the company probably doesn’t even realise there’s anything wrong with them. So I’ll let that one lie. 

Should We Apologise For Blogging Breaks?

When most bloggers return after a little time out they seem to be full of sorrys *cue the best song on Lemonade (apart from All Night)* and so I want to clear up why I haven’t been like that. Ultimately, I don’t think there’s anything to apologise for and neither should you. After all, we Brits say sorry enough.

Breaks are good. Breaks are wonderful. If they weren’t then Kit Kat wouldn’t have made a whole advertising campaign out of them. So when I see someone take a break from the internet I think neither ‘how dare they stop writing!’ nor ‘they’ve missed a post and so I will never read their content ever again!’ I just presume they have a reason and so I find some new blogs to read in the meantime. Being under too much stress to blog or wanting to spend your free time with family instead or just being a bit bored of typing words onto a screen and having to take photos to match the words and find a filter to match the photo and then promote the whole thing before you miss the day that you promised to post on, are not feelings you should apologise for. It’s your hobby. If you want to give it a miss for a while then go ahead.

Especially because your readers care but like, realistically, not that much. It’s not like you’re Stevie Wonder who left it 10 years between albums. In fact you’re not even Zoella (probably. If you are Zoella then why are you reading my blog babe get back to doing something useful like filming a Primark haul) whose full time job is to make new content, so yes you’re apologising for being away from the people that have you read you from the past few months but… everyone reads multiple blogs. You don’t write the only blog in the world (although it would be great if I did because then I could monopolise the industry and make all the dollar). There’s nothing to be sorry for. 

Things I Hate That You Love

In the overly optimistic Zoella-esque blogging world, I would start this 2 post series off with the ‘Things I Love That You Hate’ list. Sadly, I’m just way too negative for that. So after witnessing what my fellow youth of today are fangirling over, and having been inspired by my new fave film (10 Things I Hate About You) I thought I’d compile my feelings towards the world’s current faves.

Autumn: For me, autumn’s that quarter on a four seasons pizza that you eat simply because you don’t want to leave any takeaway evidence in the bin. Don’t get me wrong the leaves turn a pretty colour and I’m literally counting down the degrees until I can get back into tights again, but I’d rather fast forward the super dark evenings, PSL and Halloween.

Halloween: Yep, you heard right, I really don’t like Halloween (which is weird because I find any excuse to celebrate anything). Every year I carve my pumpkin- not a euphemism- watch a load of Halloween hauls and start wearing 30% more black than normal, but none of this seems to fill the Scrooge-like hole inside of me. 

Bra Shopping Struggles

Bras are pretty weird. I don’t know who decided that women were going to add ‘sitting their chest fat in cotton breast-hammocks’ to their dressing routine but it’s now become a well-established part of our lives. However that doesn’t make transitioning into the world of bras any easier.

Nowadays I’m more of a bralette-on-a-weekday-free-the-nipple-on-a-Friday kinda gal, and perhaps this is due to the awkwardness of shopping for actual bras as a tween. Although now I’m pretty comfortable buying anything from granny pants to lingerie (however I do draw the line at those Lovehoney pants that have a hole in the bum) it hasn’t always been this way, so after the success of my A cup post, I thought I’d treat you to another highly traumatic relataboob struggle: bra shopping.

The Size System: The problem with growing boobs (not that I’d know) is that it all happens at a rate that takes you from aged 10-11 vests to the world of ‘letter and number-beginning-with-30’ combination before you’ve had time to raid Waterstones and find the Puberty for Dummy’s guide.  Is DD smaller than a D? Is 36 how old you have to be to wear the bra? Can I just hibernate in my vests a little longer until I work this completely random system out?

Back to Struggles

Happy Monday Teamales and what a wonderful start to the week as the child fares of the world go back to school- what do you mean they went back last week? Oh what a shame. I’ll just have to gloat about the fact that I don’t go back until Wednesday instead (definitely didn’t time this on purpose). I’m sure all said school goers are bored by now of the endless Back to School shop window displays, the Clarks shoes that are way too tight and the tutorials of ‘simple student makeup’ that actually involves two Naked palettes, a smoky eye and lip liner (wtf is lip liner) so I’m about to shake it up- and off- a bit. I’m here to talk about the bits that aren’t quite as glamorous as Zoella’s new pencil case: The Back to School Struggles.

When you forget to take blog pictures and have to improvise. Hashtag relatable.

The Tools: The first struggle of going back to school is how to spell ‘stationery’- I’m sorry it just looks wrong, who decided to get rid of ‘stationary’ which reminds me of a train station for missionaries and replace it with a gross ‘e’- a task that is almost as difficult as using all the stationery you buy. Because we all know that stationery is a highly important and totally useful purchase, I try to explain this to the manager of Paperchase as he issues my second restraining order, but you just won’t use half of it- I know, even the fruit scented gel pens that you impulse bought with what should’ve been your bus fare home. You’ll spend the next year borrowing a crappy biro off the girl that always has spare biros and everytime they say ‘get into pairs’ you’ll specifically only choose people that own highlighters. Simple. The remaining content of your pencil case can be reused as last minute birthday presents for the friends whose names you can’t really remember.