Stand Up and Stand Together

For the last two years I have been part of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts delegation to the United Nation Commission of the Status of Women in New York and witnessed the international women’s movement in action. Last year there was already a buzz about how big and important this year’s event is going to be, so I have no doubt that what Lynne Featherstone, UK Minister for Development, says in this article is true. 2013 can be the turning point. This year’s theme is ending violence against women and girls, and whilst I won’t be in New York this March, I will follow the event from afar and contributing what I can online – especially through social media. The draft agreed conclusions (the document that governments will be negotiating during the event) are already up on the UN Women website, and from an initial reading there is some really great stuff in there. That’s no guarantee it will still be there by the end of the two weeks, as last year’s failure to arrive at any agreement demonstrates. A lot of the language is based on previously agreed UN texts, resolutions and platforms for action – a good sign that the text should remain in this document, but also a glaring testament to the lack of progress made despite these agreements. We need action, not words, or at least words that inspire action. Yesterday I took part in the nearest gathering for the One Billion Rising campaign (http://onebillionrising.org/) – a campaign successful in achieving people to think, speak and act the world over. Check Google, your favourite news sites, or indeed probably your local paper and you’ll find reports of what Eve Ensler inspired people to do. And standing on Main Street, holding the banner between representatives from the police force and the health department, I could feel the solidarity in the air. I’ve blogged about my experiences of this topic before, and reading this article last month got me thinking again about how we tackle this pandemic of violence that infiltrates ever corner of the planet. I agree that the culture, expectations and social norms are at the root of the problem, but this is a real problem that is happening right now – we can’t divert resources away from the front line sources helping those survivors, but we need to tackle the cause. The statistics are appalling. In the UK we have a really low conviction rate, extra-long times to process the cases, extremely low rates of reporting the crime to the police, and all of this whilst 1 in 5 women will be on the receiving end of a sexual offence during their lifetime. So what would I suggest we do? Give. Funds and other resources are tight for your local services. If you want to make sure that you, your relatives, your friends or that person you passed in the street today has somewhere to go, and someone to turn to when they need it – you need to support the services right now. I don’t advocate turning up and dumping the things you don’t want any more on their doorstep – get it touch and see what you can provide that they might need. Time, money, or something else. Talk. We need to end this taboo. I’ve been affected by violence based on my gender, but I don’t need pity. Sometimes I do need the support of the people around me – the knowledge that I can talk to them and they won’t judge me. We can break the silence. Everyday Sexism is a great project doing just that. Check out their tweets showing how prolific those little instances of gender based violence are, and some women’s ways of countering it. Act. It takes more than words to see the problem, and when learn a lot more through what we do. If you work with a class, youth group, scout or guide unit or any kind of group at all (young or old) then there are lots of resources out there that can help you use activities to approach the topic and start the conversation. The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts are bringing their ‘Stop the Violence’ activity pack out soon, and Girlguiding UK in partnership with AVA have recently released a Girls in Action pack on the same topic. You can download it from here. Whatever you do – stand up, and stand together.

But Those Are Boys Pants...

I’ve come to realise that I want to dress like an 8 year old boy. It’s something that strikes me whenever we take a trip to a clothing store that caters for multiple ages and genders. And I think I’m probably achieving this look as I head out in the snow piling up from the blizzard Nemo. I know my utmost motivation is to be comfortable in what I’m wearing. But I’ve never quite figured how much this has to do with an outward expression of my gender identity, and how much it relates to one of my disabilities – dyspraxia. It often makes me feel uncomfortable in whatever I’m wearing (I have been known to get changed 4 or 5 times a day if I’m particularly anxious) and I wonder whether clothing designed for boys of that age is designed for a freedom of movement, hence its appeal. So to backtrack, my motivation from this blog post is the discovery of ‘boyfriend style’ boxer shorts as my new favourite form of underwear. I had previously been wearing men’s boxers as I find them comfortable and warm in a cold winter – though there is a need to size up to allow for female hips which leaves space elsewhere. My partner couldn’t understand my preference for this type of underwear and on a visit to Target I found women’s boxers in the US have much more generous sizing than I’ve ever found in the UK. I’m thankful of the discovery of warm, comfortable underwear that allows for hips with no extra space elsewhere. Though I don’t understand why it needs to be branded ‘boyfriend style’. Now let’s hope the realisation that there are women who aren’t stick thin who enjoy wearing this kind of underwear reaches the UK soon. I mean, even with my passion for their fashion, I am most definitely not the size of an 8 year old, regardless of gender. I wasn’t even the size of an 8 year old when I was 8 - as the giant in the midst of my rugby team photo from that season will testify. From an early age I was crossing those department boundaries, especially in search of shoes. The gendering of clothing is something that has never made sense to me. Yes, it is rather convenient to have underwear designed for the particular genitalia you have – it fits better. But every other dimension of a person varies so much that to say the type of clothing you wear is dictated by your genitalia is nonsensical. Clothing does far more than ‘fit’ though. Every garment makes a statement about your personality, your gender, your social reading of the occasion, wealth, class, taste and so much more – whether you consciously think about it or not. This is why I think uniformed youth organisations can play a huge role in challenging gender inequalities. Ever since the inception of guiding and scouting the uniform has been a tool for breaking down barriers of wealth and class. Other barriers are less successfully crossed – I always felt a little like the odd one out as I was a much larger 9 year old than the organisation clearly expected and I turned up each week in culottes that my mother had made especially for me. They were as closely matched to what the other girls wore, but still quite distinguishable. In early days, yes, the uniform was probably something of a trade-off – guides can wear something functional, but not too functional. You can hike as long as you can do it in a skirt down to your ankle. If I’d had to wear a little brown dress I probably wouldn’t have stuck with Brownies. So I should be thankful that I’m a child of the 1990’s, old enough to thank Jeff Banks for the introduction of hoodies. So my theory. When girls and young women turn up to guiding activities and don’t need to use their clothes to display their gender (and actually have that freedom to not have to behave in a way that would be deemed ‘feminine’), it gives them space to grow, to build confidence in new activities and realise their abilities. The operation of gender in a single-sex environment probably is more complex than this, but I still think it gives an important space. Being a girl guide taught me that I can achieve more if I wear sensible and appropriate clothing for the activity. If keeping myself warm in a Massachusetts winter means wearing men’s or ‘boyfriend’ underwear, then so be it.