The Moment You Turn From Child To Prey

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus according to the book by John Gray.  We may not be Martians or Venusians, but while men and women are both human beings, we are wildly different. I do not know how a man thinks. What he feels, how he feels and how he expresses those feelings.  A man cannot know that about a woman either.

Our bodies, our hormones, our way of thinking, the experiences that we have growing up; these all form what it is to be a man or woman.  Society has always had expectations and presumptions of both sexes.  But for women, it is our bodies that puts us at an lifelong disadvantage.

In a normal childhood, a girl enjoys the first years of her life being safe. You are looked at and treated as the child you are.  We are innocent and are allowed to be in that cocoon of safety.  Most of the time.  Until that one day arrives.  That day comes at different times for all of us, but we all feel the same when it arrives.  We want to go back to the cocoon where it is safe.

I was an early developer.  At the age of ten I started my periods.  My breasts started to develop.  I didn't know then that the world would change.  But it did.  It felt like overnight.  I was a child, but the way I was treated immediately became different.

The way that some adult men interacted with me changed.  The way that they spoke to me.  There was a change in their voices, an intonation that I did not understand.  A unfamilar expression on their faces.  A smile, but with a strange leer.  I did not understand back then these men were flirting with me; a ten year old girl.

What I did understand was that feeling that I got when they did it.  That uneasy "danger, danger" feeling that comes upon you.  You know that something is not right, even if you do not understand why.   Those are the first lessons a girl learns, a child learns in my case, how to extract yourself from an uncomfortable situation without letting them know that you are scared.  How to remain polite when inside, you want to run.

There used to be a playground near my old house that I sometimes used to frequent.  The street where I lived was full of old people, with no other children to play with and as a result, I often used to make my own entertainment.

I remember being around 11 when I went up to the nearby playground to read my book on the swings and have a go at the merry go round.   It was only around the corner and I felt safe there.  My mum had no qualms in letting me go.  Whilst sat on the merry go round slowly spinning around, I remember a group of boys approaching me.  14, maybe 15 years old.  They surrounded me.  Talking about how I was young to get "titties" and asking if they could touch them.  

I didn't understand.  I was a child.  But I felt the danger.  I took advantage of one of the boys saying "leave her alone she's a kid" and ran.

When I got home I told my mum what had happened.  She told me that it probably wasn't a good idea to go to that playground alone again.  That we maybe should throw away that jumper.  That was the first time I truly understood that the world I lived in had changed.  

The change in your reality that you realise that you have suddenly become prey, in a world where half the population are men and as a result, the way that you look at, not just men, but the boys around you; changes too.  It is inevitable.

You shouldn't have to feel that way at 11.  But for me, that was the day that the world changed.  My growing female body was now restricting me from going to places because of what may happen to me.  Because I was female.  Even though I was still a child, that label no longer meant that I was safe.

I learned too that it was my job to protect myself.  Don't go places on your own.  Don't wear that jumper, it will attract the wrong attention.

I remember being so excited when I was a little girl about becoming "a lady".  I remember watching my mum getting ready on a Saturday night with her pretty dresses, makeup and lovely hair.  How her womanly shape looked so amazing and how much I wanted to look like her.  How my dad admired and complimented her.  It all looked so exciting.  What could be better?  

Except now my growing body was something I no longer wanted.  I wanted to still be a child.  I didn't want boys leering at me in a playground, intimating things that I did not understand.  I didn't want grown men speaking to me in a way that I knew wasn't right, but again I didn't understand quite why.  I didn't want the breasts that attracted more and more attention.

I remember being in my first year in high school and an older boy telling me that because I already had "tits", it meant I was going to be a slag.  I didn't know what that was.  But it didn't sound good.  Also, he was leering at me the way that adult men did.

The problems, as I called my breasts at that time had started growing early and as a result, I was a C cup by the the time I was 14.  Any woman reading that will probably have the same reaction.  Closing your eyes.  Oh god.  Because every woman knows that that is not a good thing.

By 14, the rest of my body was also catching up and I no longer looked like an early developing child.  I looked like a woman.   With a pretty dress, hair done and make up applied I could have looked similar to my own mum who I used to aspire to be when I saw her getting ready on a Saturday night.  But I did not want that anymore.

But I was stuck in this body and as every girl learns, you have to just, deal with it.  You learn how to build your defences.  You learn the right responses.  How to remove yourself from situations you don't want to be in.  

As time goes on, you realise that your womanly shape, your curves, your breasts hold a power.  A power that you understand that you have and try to weld; yet you do not fully understand how dangerous that power is.   And that is isn't really power at all. 

I'm reminded of the famous line from The Breakfast Club.  If you don't, you're a prude.  If you do, you're a whore.  My growing body earned me many forms of the latter insult, despite having not even yet kissed a boy.

I raged against the injustice of it all.  I had to be careful where I went, what I said, what I wore, how I acted.  Boys were not held to the same standard.  Although they were going through their own experiences of puberty and teenage years, which as I have said, I cannot understand as a woman as it is their experience alone, they were allowed to get away with so much under the clause that infuriated me beyond all else (and still does).  Boys will be boys.

Boys will be boys I was told when I told a teacher about the name calling.  Boys will be boys I was told by another teacher when two boys frequently tried to grab at my breasts.  It's their hormones!  I was told.  Wear a larger shirt, they said.  My shirt was not tight.  But no shirt could have made my breasts disappear. 

Looking back now, my mind boggles that these excuses were used to justify and allow this kind of behaviour.  If you were to report a sexual assault to the police, I don't think a "he just couldn't help himself" would wash in a Court of law.  

But would it? Because now I recall a case in Hull where the Defendant was found guilty of raping a sleeping woman and the Judge told him "She was a pretty girl and you fancied her.  You simply could not resist".

Most women have stories similar to mine.  The truth is that from the time a girl hits puberty to the day she dies, she is prey.  The lifelong game we play is how to avoid the carnivores that would hurt us.

It is a game of life that we never signed up for.  But has also prepared us, has strengthened us and has bonded us together.  It is why we fight for our rights.  For our single sex spaces.  Why we hold on so strongly to the word woman.  Because we know what it means.  And what it takes to be one.

Why Part Of Me Will Always Be "Bridget" (And That Is Allowed)

There is a thought that has been building in my head lately.  Well, not lately, for some time now.  

Why do I feel that, at a time where arguably (in the first world) women are at our most liberated, are there more rules imposed on women than ever?

We are at a point in history where we are told that women can be all things, that nothing is impossible. We can do anything we want, be anything we want to be.  The rules and shackles imposed by society for so very long are being thrown away and we are creating and running our own lives the way we want to.  Or are we?

Somehow, despite all of this liberation; it seems that we are once again being told what to do, how to look, how to act and how to think, increasing not just from men, but from other women. 

Sometimes it feels that the only thing we are not allowed to be, is ourselves.  

I was watching Bridget Jones Diary over Christmas.  Bridget Jones Diary was written in 1996 and released as a film in 2001.  For so many of us, Bridget encapsulated so much of who we are, our characteristics and both our flaws and our strengths.

Her silliness, her hope, her need for love and looking for it in all the wrong places.  Her inability to make the right choices.  Her ability to pick herself up and dust herself off to try again, after an obligatory vat of wine and a few renditions of "All By Myself".  

I saw so much of myself in Bridget and indeed, now over twenty five years since the book came out, I still do.

The thing is, we are all multifaceted people.  Aside from my many similarities to Bridget, I am also many other things.  Many of which are contradictory to the other.  I am independent, but feel an innate need to be loved, cared for.  I am both secure, and insecure in my appearance, my character, my trajectory in life.  I may have finally reached a point where I no longer walk about swathed in black, but I still change my clothes as many times before deciding on an outfit.  Whatever the occasion. 

I have a career, but it does not drive me more than being happy in my life outside of work.  

I have both a traditional and non traditional relationship with my partner.

All of the above is the way I choose to live my life.  It is who I am.  Because I am be more than one thing.  I can, and do, have opinions about a thousand different subjects.  They don't all have to be on the same wavelength.

This, for me, is what the women before me fought for.  To be the person I am.  To think the way I want.  Act the way I want.  Do what the hell I want.

After watching the film, I later watched a documentary about the writer, Helen Fielding who spoke about her own similarities to Bridget, which inspired her to write the book.  One of the people in the documentary was Germaine Greer,  who made comment about the routine that Bridget went through in order to ready herself for her first date with Daniel.

Germaine was eyerolling at the fact that Bridget felt the need to do all of this.  Why was she thinking more about whether to wear sexy underwear or control underwear rather than, as Germaine said "Don't worry about your pants girl, just kiss him".

That is true enough.  What we know, certainly by Bridget's age, is that a man cares more about getting into your knickers rather than their style.  They don't care.  From my own experience with my partner, he tells he loves the "wrapping", but it is what inside that counts.  The body and the mind.

But should that mean that we should also not care?  Is that now not allowed? The effort that we put in is never just about them, it is part of who we are.   

But, now, in 2022, being like Bridget is discouraged.  Embarrassing even.  All of those traits that we saw in Bridget reflected in ourselves are now frowned upon.  At a time when even the word woman is being taken away from us, by men who have decided they are women; why are our feminine traits being seen as wrong and traits attributed to men, now right?

There is nothing wrong with being confident.  Forthright.  Competitive.  Single minded in our pursuits.  Assertive.  All typically "male" behaviours.  An increase of these behaviours is all good for women, but more and more I see them the things that make us women, now actively discouraged and forbidden.

There is no right way to be a man or a woman.  We can be any and all things, but by our choosing.

Even the choice to be a stay at home mum is now judged.  I overheard a conversation the other day where a young twenty something was saying to friends that what she wanted most in life was to be a mother.  At home, with her children.  She was immediately jumped on.  What about your career, your independence, your money.  You can't "just" be a mother.

Of course she can.  She can be anything she wants to be.  Can't she?  

I am not writing an anti Germaine Greer post, but I saw this quote from her relevant to this post.

If a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?

Can I not wear high heels?  Put on my makeup, take an eternity to decide on what to wear?  Why do these have to detract from the person that I am?  Does this now make me vapid and silly?  Why can't I be silly?  Doing those things are part of what makes me, me.  It does not make me less intelligent, less willing and able to be successful and walk the path that I want to.  

But I want to walk that path the way I chose.  Not chosen by others.

It feels sometimes like we have moved on from changing from we look like and how we dress for men, to now editing who we are as people and the persona we show to the world, for (some) women.

I walk to the beat of my own drum.  Not others.  I won't be told how to live my life or how to act/be.  I see how far women have come, what we have achieved, what generations before us fought for and gained for us.  I don't think they would want me to be put in another box.

We make our own rules.  What we cannot and should not do, is impose those rules on others. So yes, part of me is Bridget.  And I am not ashamed of that.  Nor should I be.

Are We Being Played By The Patriarchy?

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"

I am not one for conspiracy theories.  I laugh at the flat earthers and shake my head in disbelief at the people who don't believe that we landed on the moon.  

But something has been rolling around in my head for some time now and it has been building up momentum.  So here is what I have been thinking.

In keeping with the quote above from The Usual Suspects, I am starting to think that the greatest trick the patriarchy have or will ever pull, is convincing people that men can become women.  Because it suits their agenda perfectly. 

I believe that the patriarchy is neither left nor right wing.  It exists at a higher level than politics.  The patriarchy is ingrained in the way that people think and what they believe.  It is a state of mind and is a set of beliefs that is not easily changed.  For some, that way of living is what they are brought up with and know.  They still live in it and some women, sadly, embrace it.  For others, that way of living is something that we fight against still.

No matter where you live in the world the patriarchy is there.  Sometimes out in plain sight, sometimes lurking in the shadows.  This can be when they are most dangerous.

So what is it that they want?  Ultimately, they want control of women.  Specifically taking control back.  They cannot (yet) take the vote away from us.  They cannot (yet) take us out of the workplace.  Society cannot function without two incomes in a household and they therefore pick their battles wisely.  Mothers for example are both encouraged to work but are also derided for leaving their child.

So what battles can they win?  What control can they take away from us?  The first answer is that it has already started.  You just haven't noticed.  If you have, chances are that you are gender critical.

Transgender women are a gift, perhaps the largest gift that the patriarchal system has received in a very long time.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels

Think about it.  I cannot think of another time in history where a minority has had such a quick rise to acceptance and normality.  Not just normality, for the first time, a taking over of one group's rights and taking them as their own.



Gender dysphoria is a real thing.  There have always been transgender people.  But what is happening today is not just about transgender people and their rights.  This is also about power.  Over the past few years this has no longer just been about acceptance of transgender people in society.  It is becoming a takeover.  Supported, I believe, massively, by the patriarchy.



In 2018 the UK government estimated that trans people made up between 0.35 and 1% of the population (source).  For those who say my source is biased, here is the Government link, page 82.  Stonewall's estimate is 1%.  So let's go for ease with 1%.  Around 600,000 people.



Of those 600,000 people, according again to Stonewall figures, less than 5000 people have the Gender Recognition certificate.  Less than 1%.  Three quarters of those people are transgender women.



According to statistics, only around 11% of trans women go on to have gender reassignment surgery and 12% of trans men.



So let's use those figures and compare.  Of the 600,000 people who identify as trans, using the top end figure, less than 1% go for the certificate.  11-12% of trans people have gender reassignment surgery.  So basically around 530,000 people of the trans group who neither apply for the GRC or go for surgery.



So please can someone explain to me why the Government, all of the political parties, the NHS, the left etc etc are going with the party line that trans women are women and visa versa?  Why are we being told that someone needs to do NOTHING MORE than identify as a woman in order to be one?



How did we get to a place where a bearded man in a skirt who claims he is a lesbian and is on zero medication, can be called a real actual woman?  How did we get to a place where lesbians are being called immoral bigots for not wanting to have sex with men with penises who decide they think like a woman and therefore "are women".  How did we get to a place where (some) men are advocating for this?  Who are threatening, doxing and harassing women who disagree (I'm looking at you woke bearded bros).



One of the answers for me is the patriarchy.  Trans people are benefiting from the aims and wants of the patriarchy.  They are the perfect vehicle to deny and take away the rights of women.

Just look at what women are losing.  Our changing rooms, our bathrooms, our refuges, our hospital wards, our prisons.  We are no longer being called women.  We are "non men", chestfeeders, front holes.  The consequences, vast and far reaching.



Because it is no longer real transexual people who can access these areas and places.  It is anyone who "identifies".  Woman are becoming less safe every day.



Trans rights activists did not achieve this on their own.  They did it, I believe, with the support of the patriarchal system that wants to roll back the rights of women and put us back in the home, in the kitchen, where they think we belong.



Prove me wrong.