To Equal Marriage!

So this isn't quite timely as it happened last week, but yay! The Same Sex Couples marriage bill gained royal assent last week meaning that it is now law and will come into force some time in 2014. This was awfully timely as my Partner arrived back in the UK a little over a week ago (phew we got the visa!) and we had a belated civil partnership reception party for our friends on Friday night.

I believe equal marriage is a real turning point towards LGBT+ equality in the UK - for the first time in our history young people of any orientation can grow up thinking their sexuality and choice of partner is completely valid. It's not a second class system for same-sex couples anymore. I remember being 10 or 11 and watching newsround when they introduced the new age of consent law, making it 16 regardless of sexual orientation.

It's amazing to think how far we've come since 2000, let alone the immense cultural changes on the 20th century as a whole!

A Centenary Celebration

This blog isn't 100 years old (who would have thought it?), but this is the 100th post. To celebrate I'm going to pick out some notable and memorable posts from the depths of the archive to share with you. It'll show you a little bit of my inspiration, and also how my writing style, graphics and videos have improved along the way (I hope it has...)

My Queen's Guide Award Days

The first posts back in 2008 were for the community action part of my Queen's Guide Award - the highest award for a young member in Girlguiding. I made 4 videos of issues that young people thought important to talk about. I did one one bullying with a couple of friends, one on drinking responsibly with my Ranger unit, one on international development looking at education and fairtrade with a group from a local school, and this one with a variety of submitted images to encompass the whole theme of '4 Films, 1 Future'.

My First Commission on The Status of Women

I didn't start blogging straight away when I launched Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out in October 2010 unfortunately. The catalyst for picking up the blogging again was being selected for the WAGGGS delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in early 2011. I explored NYC for a few days beforehand as it was my first visit to the US and that prompted this post on my rules for travel.

I had a very factual take on blogging back then, almost like a diary just listing what I did each day. This day was one of the most inspiring/educational/catalytic experiences for what I've subsequently done, but you wouldn't know it from how I wrote back then...

After my return to the UK I didn't really blog for the rest of the year (even though I did some pretty big stuff like a research trip to Kenya, Young Women's World Forum 2011, finishing my Undergrad degree, Camp Out 2011, WAGGGS World Conference, starting my Master's).

My Second Commission on The Status of Women

Then I heard I'd been selected as Event Co-ordinator for the 2012 WAGGGS UN CSW delegation and I picked up the blogging again with this post. That one and the next two are when I starting thinking through the issues, doing research and giving my opinions and emotions. Blogging is about storytelling and stories without emotions are pretty dull I think.

The delegation, and the event in general, talked a lot about violence against women and girls as that was going to be the subsequent year's theme. I had to explore how this subject effected me personally in this post whilst I was there.

The Road To Rio

As I got the news I'd then be in the WAGGGS delegation to Rio+20, I managed to keep the blogging going after I got back to the UK this time. The particularly exciting realisation that not only had I spoke at the UN, but the UN had listened to me in this post was also a great encouragement.

I talked more about violence, topical events and the issues coming up at Rio. Unblogged life events include a lot of work on my master's dissertation (Museums and Gender Based Violence) and the start of my relationship with my, now, civil partner. That's perhaps why the issue of the representation of gender and sexual minorities was one of the things I particular noticed in Rio.

No Longer A Student

Then came October 2012, the second anniversary of Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out, the time when I stopped being a student and the end of one of my most lengthy Girlguiding roles - Region Youth Forum Chair for Girlguiding Anglia. At the last meeting of my role I gave an after dinner speech which I then turned into this blog post. The theme was inspiration and I hope it inspired the people who heard or read it.

I spoke to a Soroptimist International conference, attended a High Level Panel meeting, headed to the US and then went to Bali for the UNFPA Global Youth Forum to finish off the year.

Feels Like I'm An Adult Now

2012 closed with my partner and I getting engaged - that's a lovely story I'll tell in the future sometime. Then because being an binational couple there's a tonne of immigration laws to figure out, my UK based job search began well before I returned to the UK. The whole immigration story is one I'm working on a thoroughly researched blog post for, because simply our system is discriminatory in the rules it's using. We can back to the UK, I amalgamated my posts into this site and this marked a turning point in my use of images.

Highlights from my recent post is this one summarising my Master's dissertation as I rewrote it for journal submission (yet to hear if it made the cut though).  Then there's the WAGGGS Post-2015 stuff that I'm now invovled with, and facilitating a workshop in Italy. I read an article about using lists and subheadings to make blogs more readable, so then I wrote a list of the 10 things that inspire me to advocate for equal rights.

A Girlguiding Blogging Community

June saw the new Girlguiding Promise - an event that introduced me to a lot of new young women bloggers out there. My run down of other blogs was one of my most read posts, but was still topped that day by my tips for talking about the Promise with girls.

That was then topped this month with the call to vote in the Speak Out Blog Competition.

Blogging has grown as my platform for speaking out on a weekly basis, and I think I've got better as it as I've gone through those 5 years and 100 posts. But I'm not done yet - I've got plenty more to talk about and want to grow the whole project still further.

So keeping reading please. :) 

Why I Don't Like Blurred Lines

I have a big problem with the song 'Blurred Lines'. I listen to Radio 1 whilst I'm driving and whenever it comes on I'm just filled with this sense of anger and frustration at it's inherent sexism. It's usually a particularly tricky point when I can't immediately switch off the radio, but my personal annoyance isn't really the point here.

If you've looked at the lyrics or watched the accompanying videos (I have to say I haven't sat through them because the freeze frame images are enough to anger me) then the objectification of women is obvious. The messages in this video say the complete opposite to the government's This Is Abuse campaign - and guess which has a larger audience...

I fully agree with this blogger that it is essentially a pro-rape song that depicts all women as objects waiting for sexual attention from men. Lisa Huyne says "Basically, the majority of the song (creepily named "Blurred Lines") has the R&B singer murmuring "I know you want it" over and over into a girl's ear. Call me a cynic, but that phrase does not exactly encompass the notion of consent in sexual activity."

I think this author has missed the point in suggesting that Robert Thicke is just inviting the woman to to instigate the activity. Speaking as someone who has been in an abusive relationship, if someone you think you like or love tells you what you want and applies significant pressure by saying the type of person you want to be would do it, that's coercive. Psychological abuse is real and you when someone tells you what you want enough you start doubting whether you know what you want yourself. That's not an equal and respectful relationship.

I know it is not a new or even unusual phenomenon for music to be degrading to women. I'm just extremely disappointed that a mediocre song that got it's popularity entirely from misogynistic videos gets so much airtime on the BBC.

And the Winner is...

Voting closed at 10pm last night and I can now announce that the winner of the 2013 Speak Out Competition is:

Tracy - Change, Listen, Educate

If you haven't already, go and have a listen to her podcast, or she's posted the transcription up on her blog too. It's a very moving account of why we need to take action on issues of violence against women.

All of the entries in the competition were truly inspiring, and each entrant has a set of Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out badges on its way to them. There's also a fabuus trophy for our winner, Tracy, and I'll post the picture once it arrives.

I hope to update this post with the numbers of blog views we generated this week,but for now I can tell you that there were nearly 400 views of the voting post on this blog with 75 votes in total.

Thank you if you were one of those!

6 Weeks at Camp Without Even 1 Wash

I joined my new local gym today, and in pursuit of finding the right attire for such a venture I emptied out the contents of the 2 bags I'd yet to unpack from my house move onto my bedroom floor. Come this evening when it's time to try and fit them into the wardrobe and it turns out I have enough 'camp wear' acquired through Guiding and other pursuits to kit myself out for nigh on 6 weeks without a single load of laundry needed - that is discounting the fact I don't have that much underwear or bottom halfs.

I know this is way more than I could possibly ever wear - and a similar experience 6 or 7 years made me recycle that collection into a blanket for camping. I will probably ultimately do the same with these shirts as they hold a lot of meaning for me. They are momentos of some of the most transformative events of my life. So before I attack them with scissors or stuff them in the wardrobe until my next free weekend, I want to give you a run down of 6 of the most notable examples.

1. Orange. This one is the most recent and is my mud-stained staff team shirt from the Gig In A Field 2012 event where I chaired the planning team. I learnt a lot about people management, event management, and leadership through the two Gigs in Fields I worked on - skills that have helped me at uni, in my volunteering and in my paid work. The mud stains are particularly reflective - we took a running slide through a mud puddle after the closing ceremony - I believe I'm better at what I do, when I enjoy doing it and have fun along the way.

2. Red. I went to Ghana for 5 weeks in 2007 with a gap year volunteering company. I was 17, the youngest age they'd take, and didn't know anyone before I left the UK. It really opened my eyes to the realities of Africa that don't necessarily transmit when you grow up with the charity infomercials about war and famine. The people I met were happy in their lives, but aspired to be and have more. I taught english, built toilets and travelled on weekends. I was very much out of my comfort zone, and was lifechanging for better and worse...

3. Pink. Young Women's World Forum 2010. My life was pretty much a mess from when I got back from Ghana until this event. This week in October 2010 was the catalyst for everything I've done since - setting up this project, getting involved with WAGGGS work, speaking out. That week I learnt one major thing: it's no use dwelling on the bad things that have happened, each of us has the ability to learn from them, take action and change the world for the better - for ourselves and for other people.

4. Purple. National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth Summer School 2005. I spent 3 weeks at Canterbury Christ Church University taking part in a course entitled 'Global Citizenship'. This is what inspired me to go travel at the earliest opportunity (to Ghana) and to consider Geography as a subject to study at university. It really showed me that young people have a great potential that, when directed, achieves amazing things. It also showed me that using your brain isn't a bad thing - nobody was teased for being a boffin, we can learn col stuff from each other.

5. Blue. ASSK Chair. I chaired the youth forum in Girlguidng Anglia from February 2008 until September 2012. As an organisation for girls and young women, I believe we need to listen to what they want, that's just common sense. So in those 4 and a half years I ran a lot of consultations, spent a great deal of time listening, and translating those wants into reports and letters to various committees and people. I also tried to turned those wants into the events and programmes that young women had asked for. It taught me about diplomacy, how to talk to different groups of people and that if your gut tells you it's the right thing, you really ought to argue your corner. Never be afraid to speak up - there's probably hundred of people who want to say the same thing but who don't have the voice to do it.

6. Green. Wicked. I organised a theatre trip for 1200 ish members of Girlguiding to see the musical Wicked in London, and then very nearly didn't make it myself. We stayed at a hostel in Waterloo, cigarette smoke brought on an asthma attack and we walked in cold temperatures to the hospital A+E round the corner. I was there until 2am or so. With the all clear I returned to the hostel and promptly had a massive nosebleed. With next to no sleep and feeling rather worse for wear I made it to the theatre to see over a thousand excited faces queueing outside. In my seat I nearly fell asleep at several points even though I was really enjoying the show. At the end I was surprised with an award for my Youth Participation work and I really was speechless. I was honoured by the award, completely overwhelmed with emotions and exhaustion, and just felt like crying. I couldn't say it then, so I want to make sure all the people involved in nominating me for that award know that it means a lot to me.

Ever object tells a story. Now I've shared six of mine.