Nagging little thoughts change into things you can’t turn off

 Dress: Wallis via eBay. Cardi: thrifted. Boots: Duo via eBay. Necklace: www.katcrossjewellery.co.uk

Some interesting discussions today surrounding the issues of self-identification, assumption and visibility. I never really had a big I Am Bi coming out announcement moment, or series of moments – there are probably plenty of people that still don’t know because it’s just not seemed relevant to the interaction I have with them.

But considering the question  of visibility makes me think a bit. I am living with a male partner, and have been for years, so the assumption of most people is that I’m straight.  Even if people have been told that you’re bi, the feeling is often that if you’re in a settled relationship you’ve ‘picked a side’, rather than picking a person.

But I’m not, and I haven’t. Sexuality and attraction don’t work like that – you don’t stop finding other people attractive, on whatever level, when you fall in love. You just, if you’re monogamous, stop acting on that. We know this – we know that our loved ones aren’t likely to be the only person we find attractive for the rest of our lives even if we’re monogamous – so why, on settling down with a partner of Sex A, would we suddenly and automatically stop finding everyone of Sex B attractive?

But… does it really matter if people who aren’t directly involved with my love life assume that I’m heterosexual?

In one sense, no. It doesn’t change me, it doesn’t change my relationship with Alan, and it’s just plain not the business of nearly everyone else on the planet.

But, there are still, in 2012, a bizarre and frustrating number of assumptions about bisexuality. And an increasingly large part of me is starting to feel that the more I don’t correct people when the subject comes up, the more I refrain from saying things that will instigate the ‘hang on a minute, but… you’re with a bloke!’ conversation when I lack the mental energy to deal with it, the more I am contributing to a certain invisibility of the broader spectrum of what bisexuality actually is.

Ultimately, we all have to do what we feel comfortable with – it’s just that the more comfortable I am with myself and my sexuality, the less comfortable I am with hiding it – or even, with a state of inaction that starts to feel like I’m hiding it. I’m not sure I’ll be making any big ‘Gather round, Everybody – I have An Announcement’ type speeches – but I am trying more and more to mention it when it feels natural to do so, to not keep quiet in those conversational moments where the natural comment would provoke the but-hang-on-a-minute response.

Because my sexuality is normal – but the misconceptions around bisexuality and the ‘yikes, conversational TMI!’ response several people mentioned receiving when dropping in a passing appropriate-to-the-conversation reference, indicate that the diversity of human sexuality is still something that causes more than a few people to trip up on their assumptions around a hetero- homosexual binary that doesn’t exist. And if I can help, in my tiny way, to normalise something that should already be considered normal (and thankfully, is by most people with whom I associate!), I want to do so.

You’ve made me acknowledge the devil in me. I hope to god I’m talkin’ metaphorically

Cardi: Gap. Dress: Fever via eBay. Shoes: New Look via eBay. Necklace: Kat Cross Jewellery

Making Monday time again, and I don’t really have much to show you. Not because I haven’t been making anything, but because it’s all been rather behind the scenes or in my head.

I’ve been making rather a lot of plans. Professional plans, personal plans, meet-up plans, necessary plans, fun plans. Many plans.

I’ve been making more time to read. I was a huge bookworm as a kid, with several books on the go at the same time. I used to move myself to the room which contained the book I felt like reading, half the time. I’ve retained my bookwormishness as an adult, but it’s fair to say that with numerous other hobbies, friends to see, and the need to time to wind down after work it’s not got quite the priority it had when I was a child. This weekend, though, I’ve been remembering how much I love Diana Wynne Jones by devouring two of the few of her books that are available electronically.

And, probably most importantly of all, I’ve been making the most of friends I’ve not seen in a while. (This post narrowly escaped having Calling All The Heroes lyrics by way of a title…) Much laughter and intrigue over a delicious curry. You can’t really beat that for soul food, can you?

Women, politics and the media

 Dress: no idea! Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Necklace: Kat Cross Jewellery

This month, the Feminist Fashion Bloggers are considering the role of women in the media and popular culture. When I first thought about the title, I thought ‘well, which media?’, and that’s exactly where I’ve stayed.

Via social media, I’m in touch with and exposed to a plethora of women active in the political and social spheres. We are everywhere, in every cause, lobbying, commenting, writing, representing, discussing and, well, being interested and expressing our interest.

But it’s that very exposure that drives home just how male-dominated traditional media is in this respect. Take the BBC’s wonderful flagship political chat programme, Question Time. I’ve seen it observed on Twitter that gender representation is far from even, and a little digging provided this depiction of the proportion of male and female panellists during 2010. We’re not talking even numbers here.

And the sad and frustrating thing is… I didn’t even notice until it was pointed out. I guess I’m so used to politics being represented in the media as a man’s game. To some extent, it’s a numbers thing – when only 144 of your 650 Members of Parliament are women, a depressing state of affairs that doesn’t do much to make me feel represented by my, er, elected representatives, it’s inevitable that the person yoinked in as Political Expert on Subject X or MP for Area Y on TV Programme C or Newspaper Article D is going to end up male more often than not.

But then I remember all the comments about Theresa May’s shoes, or Blair’s Babes, or Cameron’s Cuties, and I realise it’s not just a question of who’s handily available for comment.

Portraying political women, people who have presumably entered politics for all the same various reasons as their far more numerous male counterparts, in this way is vile, reductive and deliberate.

Is the most interesting and relevant thing about one of our more prominent politicians really her footwear? As for Blair’s Babes and Cameron’s Cuties – seriously? You can’t discuss women in two of our three main political parties without rounding ‘em up and grouping ‘em together, regardless of their career history or beliefs, under the sort of collective name that sounds like it should be applied to Benny Hill’s bevvy of buxom beauties?

It’s repulsive and belittling. It’s the media equivalent of a pat on the head and a ‘well done, dear’ shortly before the ‘Now what’s for dinner?’. It groups together people who could be wildly different in personality, background and approach purely because they happen to lack a Y chromosome – the media equivalent of those weird adults that think Peter and Paul will get along brilliantly because they’re both 6.

And oh my gods, it’s so depressingly usual.

It’s no wonder, really, that I consume mainstream media as little as possible, and often through the filter of social media commentary. Because not only is this trivialising of women in politics sexist, depressing and alienating, it ultimately tells me nothing.

I wish I could stand in every newspaper and TV office in the land and shout this until they understand. I want to see my voice represented by someone other than a group of men ten or twenty years older than me. I want to see a woman who makes it into politics discussed according to her, well, politics!

Tell me about her voting record, tell me about how she represents her constituents, tell me what she believes in, tell me if she’s made a crucial speech and see if you can manage to do so without commenting on her appearance because you only ever really do with the men if they look either belligerent or nervous. I don’t give a flying fuck what shoes she’s wearing any more than I give a fuck what shoes the men are wearing.

Because she is one of my lawmakers. She has power over my life, your life, and the lives of everyone else in this country. And that’s important.

Tell me now, how do I feel?

 Dress: Fever via eBay. Shoes: Faith via eBay. Belt: H&M. Necklace: Kat Cross Jewellery.

No, I don’t know what’s with the Wall Of Hair thing either – I spent half of today fiddling with it in that too-hot-to-wear-it-down, too-freshly-washed-for-it-to-stay-up-without-sliding-out sort of way that probably irritates the heck out of my colleagues, who don’t have to deal with such things, nor indeed That Slightly Achey Head Thing You Get If Your Hair’s Been Pulled Back All Day In A Claw Clip.

They did, though, have to deal with dressing smartly for once today. Normally, there’s no dress code so myself and two of the other three ladies out-smart the men in a decidedly literal sense by wandering about in dresses while they’re almost all giving good slouch in jeans. Today, though, we had Visiting Bigwigs and so everyone was requested to smarten up a little.

Irons were apparently found and shirts, trousers and Actual Shoes were dredged out of wardrobes that I would have sworn contained only slightly crumpled t-shirts, slightly battered trainers and slightly too-short jeans. I’m pretty sure I even smelt aftershave.

Frankly, I saw some of ‘em in a whole new light – but then, I’m a sucker for people in suits and spend my days wafting around in dresses so clearly I’m going to be appreciative of A General Smartening Up. Some people just seem to wear smart better than others despite basically being in the same shirt-and-trousers recipe. You can really see who is and isn’t comfortable in their smartened up selves.

It’s interesting, really. There’s not the faintest need for folk to be dressed smartly – none of us are customer-facing, we’re in an industry where a casual is expected, and I can do my job just as well in jeans and Converse as I can in bargainous Fever dresses and wedges. I know all of this. It shouldn’t matter what people wear (basic decency aside, obviously!), and it doesn’t really. But all the same there’s an ‘and yet…’ hovering at the end of that sentence in my mind.

And yet (oh, all right, it made it to the beginning of the next sentence), I rather enjoyed everyone being smart for the day. I preferred it, in fact. Perhaps it’s because I ignore the dress code and err on the side of smart anyway, because I enjoy the variety it gives me, because I like to present a polished (well, as polished as I ever get – Audrey Hepburn I ain’t!) me to the world, or because I like the separation between work and home that’s emphasised by dressing more smartly for work than I do for home. Perhaps everyone felt a little more businesslike for the day, perhaps they just looked better, or perhaps it just felt that everyone was a little more like me than it can sometimes feel they are. I can’t put my finger on it.

I know, too, that I’m being influenced by my upbringing. My parents were born during WW2 and worked their early careers during stricter sartorial times. My dad, in his 70s, has conceded that jeans and softer shoes are a useful part of a practical retired man’s around-the-house-and-garden wardrobe but he absolutely never wears a t-shirt and you’ll not see him in jeans if they go out for even a pub lunch. I’m too young to remember him in the workshop phase of his career, so I remember the pinstripe suits he used to wear later on instead. His father (From what I remember – he was the last of my grandparents to die, when I was 13 or 14. I slightly envy the people that have adult relationships with their grandparents, but that’s another post.) was always in a suit, whatever the day and long after he’d retired. My mother is a touch more casual in some respects, but she always makes an effort and especially so if she’s leaving the house. I’ve imbibed this, this idea that a sartorial effort is respectful of both yourself and those with whom you interact, without even really noticing, it seems.

Pensive

 Dress: thrifted. Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Necklace: Kat Cross Jewellery 

Long day at work, and I’m afraid I’m all thunk out for the day – odd that today’s photos all seem to reflect that despite being taken in the morning before, well, the day happened. Catch you tomorrow?

The Dairy Milk of human kindness

Dress: La Redoute via eBay. Belt: via eBay. Shoes: Accessorize via eBay. Necklace: a gift.

I’m just going to paste in a comment I made on a Facebook group today, because it’s something I think we should all be mindful of. And something which I’ve only recently learned myself:

Seriously, ladies. I know what it’s like to look at a photo of yourself and feel awful because it looks unflattering to you – I was in floods and floods of tears over some fully clothed professional photos maybe a year or so ago.

But you are so much less kind to yourselves than you are to each other. See how beautiful you think your friend is? So are you. And she is just as convinced she’s not really beautiful at all. We all need to learn to see ourselves with kindness and appreciation.

Finance, feminism and the fashion blogger

Cardi: Next. Dress: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Belt: from another dress. Shoes: Accessorize via eBay. Necklace: a gift – handmade by www.katcrossjewellery.co.uk

Yes, I felt so much like I’d dressed as a bar of Dairy Milk the last time I wore this dress I thought I may as well go the whole hog and accessorise with chocolatey brown this time around. Well, why not?

This week on the Feminist Fashion Bloggers network, we’re considering the theme of finance, feminism and fashion blogging.

It’s an interesting topic, and one that I know has done the rounds a bit with regard to those sections of the blogosphere that are perhaps more focused on the latest trends and magazine-style photoshoots than my ponderings here are every likely to be. There’s a picture-perfect, fabulous new and expensive clothes at every turn, feel to some places – and that’s totally fine for those bloggers if they’re happy and able to support the lifestyle and the blog, but it’s not for me.

Traditional women’s magazines (Of which I end up with a pile every time I visit my mother. I use the recipes and very little else.) speak the language of the snake oil merchants. They encourage consumption to keep up with trends, even when they’re acknowledging we don’t all have thousands to splurge on clothes, shoes and handbags (you too can have a slightly-less-hideously_expensive version of this designer thing you don’t need and that won’t go with the rest of your wardrobe! Look, here are three versions of it in various pricebands so it’s a bargain really!). They encourage you to love yourself in one breath while preaching diet messages and telling you how to dress to cover various bits you’re assumed to wish to cover due to their unacceptable nature in the next.

This. Is. Not. Me. It’s not feminism-friendly, it’s not supportive of my personal goals, it’s not practical or interesting or stimulating or encouraging of my emotional or intellectual wellbeing, never mind my physical or my financial wellbeing. I turned away from it all years ago, feeling unrepresented.

And I found the style blogging world.

Take a look through the blogs on my sidebar, and you’ll see that almost all of them have a tendency to embrace the delights of second hand and vintage shopping, as do I. Several of them make their own clothes and accessories a fair amount, as do I. These are women whose wardrobes and shopping styles illustrate their love for vintage styles, the thrill of bargain seeking, a need in some cases to seek a cheaper option combined with a wish to remain stylish, the skills to craft perfectly fitting items themselves, and a desire to take a more ethical and environmentally-friendly approach to fashion than is encouraged by the veneration of Primarni.

Without exception, these women are an inspiration to me in a way that is completely lacking in women’s magazines, and perhaps some of the high-fashion style blogs.

I enjoy their creativity in putting together stylish and individual looks without assembling them from a clothes store’s emailed suggestions. I love their ability to bargain hunt. I enjoy their skill in spending a little money and time on rustling up a garment more perfectly fitting than they’ll ever achieve in the high street. I love their words and their supportive-of-themselves-and-their-fellow-women philosophies as much as I love their looks. These are women whose consumption is thoughtful and constructive.

As for my own finances. Well, when it comes to clothes I rarely buy full price items these days – where you see something in my credits which doesn’t have ‘via eBay’ or ‘thrifted’ after it there’s a pretty good chance that it’s either a sale item or something that’s been in my wardrobe for years (step forward this Next cardi, which I vaguely remember buying at least two jobs ago).  I spend within my means and I spend nothing like the proportion of my income on clothes that, say, my other half spends on football-related things. And I spend wisely – I buy what pleases me and what works for my wardrobe.

The style blogging world has, then, for me at least, not derided consumption in the way that I feel the consumption of clothes and make-up can be derided as frivolous, but neither has it encouraged consumption for the sake of it. Rather, those corners of it that I inhabit see spend on clothes as akin to spend on dvds or football or any other hobby in its harmless-and-fun-as-long-as-you-can-afford-it sense. And they encourage a thoughtfulness of consumption, whether with regard to ethical clothes manufacture or with regard to buying and dressing to focus on the good rather than focusing on the ‘bad’ by swathing it in items from the Suits XBodyshape box.

Almost Monochrome

Dress: H&M via eBay. Shoes: thrifted. Necklace: Kat Cross Jewellery

New red shoes, to keep this from being an entirely blue Monday. I wonder why red shoes are so pleasing?