Category: Opinion

toxic masculinity Dontchya Know That You’re Toxic
Opinion

Dontchya Know That You’re Toxic

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This article was first published in Motherdom Magazine in December 2019.

toxic masculinity

I’m currently writing my third book, and tackling the subject of toxic masculinity, in illustrated rhyme, for kids aged 3-8.  I like a challenge!

But why am I writing about such a big subject for children?

I didn’t really plan to write about toxic masculinity, though I had started to read more about it and become more aware of what an issue it is.  And then one day, my daughter and I visited a butterfly house at a local museum. It was beautiful. And hot!  Butterfly houses are always hot! But the butterflies themselves were an amazing array of colours, and my daughter loved watching them flutter about the room. Quite magical really.

And then we of course, exited through the gift shop, as one must do leaving a museum of any kind!  The shop attached to the butterfly house was, as you’d expect, filled with butterfly-themed toys, games and books. We stood and looked at the shelves of gifts, and next to us stood a small group; two children, a boy and a girl, and I think their mum. While the girl flicked through a book about flowers, the young boy, perhaps aged about 4 or 5, picked up a wand.  A beautiful, sparkling, glittering wand that had a shiny lilac butterfly where the star would normally be.  He looked up, his face filled with so much excitement that it made me smile watching him, and asked if he could have it. And the mum, snatched it from his hands and said, “What d’you want that for? That’s a bit girly!  Why d’you want a girl’s toy?” And she laughed.

This is toxic masculinity.  The assumption that boys should behave in a ‘masculine’ way.  That behaving like girls, is a bad thing; liking something traditionally thought of as ‘for girls’ is a bad thing; a thing to be mocked.

There is a very set idea, in society, of what it is to be a man: behaving in a certain way, talking in a certain way, hobbies, jobs, colour preferences, the list goes on.  Not conforming to these masculine standards can often lead to men being called ‘girly’, or worse. It can lead to bullying, in the playground or in the pub, and can mean that men suppress their true likes and dislikes, in favour of being thought of as “manly”.  And so engrained is this idea in society, that we all buy into it, and we’ve all been guilty of thinking that way.  Who hasn’t joked with a partner, brother, or friend that they squealed like a girl, ran like a girl, threw like a girl? I’ve definitely done it. 

But if we stop and think about the messages these phrases send, to both boys and girls, it does not make make for pretty reading. By the age of six, children associate intelligence with being male, and the importance of ‘niceness’ with being female. It impacts on the gender pay gap, as fewer girls seek jobs in STEM. The more we tell boys to stop behaving like girls, the more likely it is that they will view girls as beneath them, and that the girls will see being female as somehow ‘less than’. This can have implications that lead to higher self harm rates amongst young woman, or contribute to abusive behaviour within male/female relationships. 

I think about that little boy, and tell that story when I do book readings in schools.  I talk to the children about how that little boy may have felt being belittled by his mum.  How the little girl may have felt being told something she might like isn’t good enough for her younger brother.  What do children internalise when they hear these messages? Will that little boy ever share what he likes again with the adults in his life?  Will he be honest with them, with himself?  Will his embarrassment turn to anger and will he go on to mock another child’s preferences? Will that little girl think she is less than her brother? Will her self esteem drop? Will her confidence in her skills or her choices lessen?

Will they be happy?

And that’s why I’m writing my third book, tackling toxic masculinity in illustrated rhyme for kids, boys, and girls, aged 3-8.  Because every child deserves the chance to be happy in life. We all do!  Being ourselves, doing what we feel is right for us, regardless of what society thinks (about what colour we like, what job we do, whether we stay at home with our children or go back to work, bottle, breast, medical birth, or home birth…. Another list that goes on!), this is the best way to achieve balance and happiness. If doing what feels right is in part important for adult mental wellbeing, then it’s true for kids too. 

How Frank Helped Hank was published on 13th October 2020

Buy your copy here
gender equality Encouraging Gender Equality #1
Equality Issues · Opinion

Encouraging Gender Equality #1

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If you’ve reached this page I imagine you’re as keen as I am for our children to grow up in a more equal society? It can feel like turning an oil tanker around sometimes though can’t it? Promoting gender equality? Makes me think of amazing women like the suffragists and suffragettes. Of Gloria Steinham, Shirley Chisholm and Kamala Harris. If you’re anything like me at this point I start wondering, err I can’t be like them! But there are small things we can do and small changes we can make. So if you’re looking for some quick ways to promote gender equality at home, I’m going to write a series of short blog posts with some of these easy things that we can all do.

First up, don’t always say:

Give it to Daddy, Daddy will fix it

I’m so guilty of this one!! Mostly because usually in the moment I was asked, the toy in question was making too much noise; and I couldn’t be bothered to change the batteries and fix it! I realised though that I was showing Thea that only men know how to fix things! I needed to show her that women can fix things too, even if it meant that annoying plastic remote control would keep singing at me!

This desire to have a go, lead me to fix the boiler one evening when Rich was away with work. I mean true, he wasn’t actually there so what was I gonna do?! But I watched You Tube and I sorted it myself, and got the heating back on. Hurrah!

So if you’re in a male / female household, try to catch yourself from always getting daddy to fix it! #womencan

gender equality

For easy ways to show boys and girls that girls can do ‘men’s jobs’ why not read them our book, The Queen Engineer, in which a princess wants to become and engineer when she grows up, much to the horror of her father, the king!

Why Toxic Masculinity Hurts Women Too
Equality Issues · Opinion

Why Toxic Masculinity Hurts Women Too

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In a previous post, I wrote about how Toxic Masculinity is damaging to boys and men. And I mentioned that it can be equally damaging for girls and women. And here’s why:

If you tell a boy that he does something ‘like a girl’ for example cry / throw / run etc, and are using the saying to stop him from doing it that way, or to mock him, both the boy in question, and any boys or girls within earshot, internalise the idea that doing something ‘like a girl’ is bad.

To the girls internalising this message, they unconsciously take on board the idea that to be a girl is less than, that they are the other sex, second in line to boys. For the boys who hear it, they too internalise the idea that girls are less than they are. Not much room for men and women to view and treat each other as equals if they grow up with this unconscious bias.

And what if a boy enjoys doing something, like many girls are known to do? Play with dolls, wear pink, dance? Tell this boy often enough that he has to stop being like a girl, and at best, he will hide his true feelings, his likes and dislikes from you. He may deliberately act in a more ‘boyish’ way to further hide his preferences for toys or favourite colours, and internalise any shame he feels for liking something you’ve made fun of. At worst. this shame might lead him to mock other boys, or to take out his frustrations on girls, people who he sees being able to make the choices he can’t. Shame him enough and he might never show his feelings again, or choose to hide them with aggression to prove how ‘manly’ he is, which can only have a negative impact on the women in his life, be that a sister, friend or partner.

So while toxic masculinity is damaging to boys and men, it’s pretty rubbish for girls and women too. No one wins.

Not much room for men and women to view and treat each other as equals if they grow up with this unconscious bias.

Can we talk fashion and makeup?
Equality Issues · Opinion

Can we talk fashion and makeup?

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Saturday 7th November was such an historic day as for the first time in over 200 years of US politics, a woman became the Vice President-Elect. Senator Kamala Harris will become the 49th VP since the office came into existence in 1789. And this is not just historic due to her being female, but also because she is a woman of colour; her father was Jamaican and her mother Indian, and it stops a pattern in the history of VPs:

How striking is that graphic. What a moment in history. What an achievement! She was a District Attorney in San Fransisco, The Attorney General of California, elected to the US Senate in 2017 and will enter the White House in January 2020 with President-Elect Joe Biden. So I was a bit surprised this week when I was scrolling through Twitter and saw this headline from The Telegraph Newspaper:

“Why Kamala Harris is the modern beauty icon the world needs.”

This stopped me scrolling, as I sighed that her ‘war paint’ was the thing they wanted to focus on: Kamala Harris as a beauty icon. And it’s left me feeling all… bleurgh, about my feminism!

Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes. It is the belief in full social, economic, and political equality for women. And it leads me to believe that women therefore have agency over their choices. The choice to wear makeup, or not, is therefore the choice of the individual. As is the choice to read about the makeup regime of another woman, and thus the choice to write about it. But VP-Elect Harris is not a beauty expert, a makeup artist, a model; she’s a politican who’s been elected to the second highest office in the United States. So to write about her as a beauty icon, it just feels… well, bleurgh, again!

I did some googling while writing this post btw, and found another Telegraph headline: “The secret formula behind Kamala Harris’s winning politician hair.” Politician hair. Winning, politician hair…

Anyway…! So now I’m left with this feeling of conflict: I’ve since read a couple of pieces about why it’s not sexist to have written about Harris’s makeup. That the beauty and fashion industry, and the writers and journalists who write about it, are predominantly female, and that to suggest their work is misogynistic, is in itself a misogynistic act. Which, ooo, makes me start to feel all bleurgh again. I don’t want to be a misogynist!

For me, in trying to unpack these conflicted feelings, I’m leaning towards: why did they choose to focus on that, of all the things they could have talked about? It doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Now, people also talked about Kamala Harris’s choice of a white pant suit for her speech on Saturday night. And this I don’t mind so much, and here’s why: it was a nod to the white outfits worn by the women of the original suffrage movement. Paying tribute to those women who fought then, to allow this to happen now.

So talk about her outfit: good. Talk about her makeup: bad? A bit tricky eh? And one of the reasons why I think of myself as a feminist in progress, a term I first heard the wonderful human being that is Jameela Jamil use. I don’t profess to be an expert, I’m learning and self correcting all the time. I want to be able to have the confidence to say, you have a point, I’ll take that on board or, I think you’re right. But on this one, I don’t think it was a good call to lead with a headline about beauty, on the night the first ever woman was declared Vice President Elect of the United States of America. That pant suit was on point though.

So what is toxic masculinity?
Equality Issues · Opinion

So what is toxic masculinity?

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Our new book, How Frank Helped Hank, tackles the subject of toxic masculinity. But what is toxic masculinity?

It’s a term used to describe the societal expectations placed on boys and men, that can have a damaging affect on them, and as a consequence, on women. It’s the outdated idea that there are traditional male gender roles, that men, strong men, manly men, winners, must behave in a certain way. That being seen to be this strong, manly type of man, is the most desirable way to be. So from a young age we tell our boys to ‘man up’. We tell them, ‘don’t cry like a girl’. We belittle them if they ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘run like a girl’. We throw around the word ‘girl’ (or other more sweary variations of the word!) as a derogatory term, intended to make fun of the boy or man on the receiving end. But why is this damaging?

In the simplest of ways it’s just bizarre in 2020 that we expect people to behave in a certain way, and not just allow them to be themselves. But there is a more serious reason.

In the UK, one of the biggest causes of death for men under the age of 45, is suicide. On the home page of their website, CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) states that every week in the UK, 125 people take their own life, and that 75% of all UK suicides, are male. These numbers are shockingly high; I was astounded, and so saddened when I first read about them. And I wondered why it is that boys and men are more vulnerable to this.

The CALM website lists 3 societal pressures that boys and men live under, which likely contribute to this:

  • They feel a pressure to be a winner and can more easily feel like the opposite.
  • They feel a pressure to look strong and feel ashamed of showing any signs of [perceived] weakness.
  • They feel a pressure to appear in control of themselves and their lives at all times.

It’s not a massive leap to understand that a childhood of being told to man up, and not cry like a girl, negatively impacts on a man’s ability to access and express his emotions, and seek help.

Blimey Suze this is all a bit heavy for a kids’ book isn’t it? We can think that, or we can start to change the messages that boys receive so they are not embarrassed to ask for help when they need it. And also, y’know, so they don’t grow up to be macho dicks with gigantic egos and a total lack of empathy for their fellow humans!

So if toxic masculinity is damaging for our boys, why and how does it negatively impact on our girls? More on that in our next blog post: Why Toxic Masculinity Hurts Women Too.

She’s a Girl with a Fishtail​
Opinion

She’s a Girl with a Fishtail​

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Disney, as we know, are in the process of remaking some of their much loved animated classics, as live action movies. The latest film to go through the magic remake machine is The Little Mermaid, which was released in all its underwater technicolour glory back in 1989. 

The live action version is causing a bit of a stir on the old interweb / Twittersphere because, gasp, the actor cast to play Ariel is Halle Bailey, who shock horror, doesn’t have flaming red hair! Actually what they seem really cross about is that she isn’t white *inserts face palm emoji here. In fact, it didn’t take long before the hashtag #notmyariel started trending on Twitter. People were very cross about it, and we have to ask why?  We know that representation matters; you can’t be it if you can’t see it. It’s really that simple. All children need to see themselves reflected in the books they read, and the movies they watch. It shows them that they can take up space in the world; that they are part of it, that they add value to it.  All children, of all races, need to see all children, of all races, so they grow up knowing that everyone has an equal place on earth. 

So why oh why are people getting so angry about this casting? I even read that people are trying to use science to prove that mermaids can only be white. Seriously, there was a discussion about how little melanin (the pigment that determines the colour of our skin and is responsible for tanning) would be present in a mermaid’s body, given that they live so far under the water, for so much of the time. 

Let’s stop and think about that for a minute. Taking time out of a busy day, pushing matters relating to say climate change, a lack of school funding, the damaging effects of toxic masculinity on the 84 men a week who take their own lives, to ponder, mermaid science. So, shall we say it once more, for the people at the back:

mermaids aren’t real! 

They are mythical creatures. She’s a girl with a fish tail.  Who breathes both under and out of water. Whose makeup never runs and whose hair looks freakin amazing all the time… Their minds are gonna be blown when they realise the crab can sing. 

Change the message
Equality Issues · Opinion

Change the message

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In 2016 a deputy principal in a New Zealand school, called a group of 15 and 16 year old girls into a meeting, and requested that their school skirts are worn no shorter than knee level.

On the face of it, this isn’t a particularly unusual request: there are dress codes that we follow all over the world every day. You wouldn’t wear white to a wedding, or a bikini to a baptism. But it wasn’t a simple school dress code alone that prompted this request. The reason given was to

“keep our girls safe, stop boys from getting ideas and create a good work environment for male staff.”

Parents and commentators were, quite rightly, outraged by this reasoning. It clearly sends the message to young women that they and they alone are responsible for boys “getting ideas”. That their choice of clothing is what will create a good working environment for the male staff (presumably meaning they will be less distracted?). And that if they don’t wear a skirt of the appropriate length, they will not be safe. That last one is really creepy because it’s almost a threat: short skirt? Expect the worst.

None of this reasoning puts any of the responsibility at all onto the young men or the male teachers. It, in fact, teaches boys that their actions are caused by girls, thus rendering them blameless. It’s effectively allowing them off the hook and teaching them that they won’t be held accountable.

But it’s also teaching them that girls are only there to be looked at, to be a distraction. That they are an ornament, something to gaze upon and be beguiled by. It’s teaching the boys this, but it’s teaching the girls it too.

A report published last year by The Children’s Society found that almost a quarter of 14-year-old girls have self-harmed (the term “self-harming” was used to describe a wide range of behaviours, including drug and alcohol abuse, as well as physical self-harming). The Girlguiding Girls’ Attitudes survey found that 71% of 11-21 year-olds would like to lose weight, with 52% saying they have been on a diet, and 38% admitting to having sometimes skipped meals to try and drop the pounds.

Let’s change the messages that both our boys and girls receive. BOYs you are responsible for your actions: if a glimpse of leg or shoulder is distracting, look away. GIRLs you are not only alive to be attractive to men: your body is an instrument not an ornament.

We would never tell a group of schoolboys that they can’t wear shorts as it’s distracting to the female teachers. It sounds absurd just reading that, doesn’t it? So let’s change the messages. Let’s try and create a more equal society for our girls and our boys.

Have you got her back?
Opinion

Have you got her back?

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3 minute read

Did anyone see Love Island this week? Two new girls entered the villa and the existing girls started baying for blood as they watched some of the boys interact with them. It made for unpleasant viewing, watching immature eye-rolling behaviour and listening to the childish heckles of a group of young women, wracked with envy and unsure what to do with their feelings. It was directed mainly at one of the newcomers who put on a brave face and played up to it, but also admitted that it was getting to her. It was uncomfortable to watch and made me want to shout at them all to support each other on what is undoubtedly an experience that will screw with their heads.

Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State, famously said,

“there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

She was introducing Hillary Clinton who was then campaigning to become the first female Democratic nominee. It wasn’t the first time Albright had used the phrase, and after that rally, she went on to say “In a society where women often feel pressured to tear one another down, our saving grace lies in our willingness to lift one another up.”

I was reminded of Albright’s quote as I watched a group of young women act childishly, and meanly, clearly feeling threatened by the presence of another. Why would they do this?

I think it’s because, for centuries, a women’s value was based on two things: her attractiveness and thus her ability to find a husband and provide (male) heirs. Women had no other reason to exist in society, save to look pretty and keep a man happy.

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, that this emphasis on marriage and aesthetic upkeep, causes women to become cruel under their calm exteriors, as they’re placed in a perpetual state of competition with one another. At the time, once married, men and women were legally considered to be one person, a woman having no separate legal rights from her husband. With so few rights and little to no education, the chance for economic survival outside of the marriage was non-existent. Wollstonecraft argued that the fear of being replaced (by a younger, more desirable model, one considered more likely to birth sons) led women to become sneaky and deceitful towards men, in an attempt to hold onto them, and limited the possibility of forming caring bonds with other women.

So for decade after decade, young women have learned that competition in the shape of another female is bad and requires sneaky tactics to be fought against. In 2019 women may have gained equal rights in the eyes of the law, but centuries of heavily engrained beliefs mean we still place so much of a woman’s value on her physical appearance, and thus ability to snare a man.

The ladies of Love Island tapped into those heavily engrained beliefs this week as they attacked their potential replacements. If the next generation is taught more about being each other’s equals, and learn to value each other for more than just their appearance, perhaps Love Island in 2035 will be a show where you can get all the feels watching people fall in love, but less discomfort watching women tear each other down.

Opinion

Fairytales & Nursery Rhymes? Bestsellers or Balderdash?

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A few years ago, before Thea Chops Books was even a twinkle in the eye, I used to write a blog.  I published a post called “What do old fashioned stories teach our children? Answer: very little!” The idea for the post came about as I sat listening to someone singing the old nursery rhyme, Hot Cross Buns. After they finished singing I commented / joked, “What if you actually have daughters?  If you have daughters then don’t your sons get any hot cross buns? Do the sons go hungry if you have daughters?” To which the singer replied, “Oh you always read far too much into these things, it’s just a nursery rhyme.”.

And it got me thinking about whether it really was just a nursery rhyme. 

Or should we be more concerned with the messages contained within those songs that we sing to our children, from day one? 

Nursery rhymes, fairytales and children’s stories, are some of the first words heard by babies. And we sing them and read them on repeat!  “Don’t sing it again mummy, I can tell you’re tired from the broken sleep I forced you to endure last night.” said NO CHILD EVER.

But, words are powerful.

They have the power to make us laugh, cry, or fear.  Poorly chosen words at the wrong moment is like gunpowder on a naked flame.  And these words from rhymes and stories, the messages contained within, they have an impact on the young minds listening, and they help to shape a child’s view of the world, of their place in it, of their worth.

I started writing to see if I could create stories that give children more empowering messages, and teach boys and girls that they are each other’s equals.  To teach them that accepting one another just as they are, is the best way to live happily. 

So I was writing this old blog post, and I started to think about some of the old fashioned nursery rhymes that have been told to kids for centuries. Generations of children have been shaped by the tales of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and the big bad wolf.  And the messages within these tales?  They’re horrendous!!  Don’t believe me?  Let me give you my take on that much loved classic:

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

A little girl (no older than about ten) goes for a walk in the woods.  Why a young child is walking alone in a forest is anyone’s guess, and though we should encourage our children to be independent, and facilitate their sense of adventure, a stroll alone through the deep dark wood, is at best going to mean an encounter with a Gruffalo.

After stumbling upon a house, and getting no reply to a knock on the door, what does little Goldi do?  She presumes they’re not in, turns around, and heads back through the woods to find her parents, who are worried sick that she’s wandered off alone.  No. That’s not what Goldilocks does.  She wanders into someone else’s home to have a nose around.  

Not content with her amateur attempt at Through the Keyhole (who lives in a place like this? Three scary ass bears, that’s who, now run for your life), she tries three bowls of porridge, replacing the spoon back into each bowl.  And after her germs have been suitably spread, and breaking a small chair, she then decides to have a lie down in each of the three beds, before snuggling in and going to sleep.  

When Mr & Mrs Bear arrive home they find young Goldi napping away in their baby’s bed.  And what does the rumbled miss do?  She runs off never to be seen again.  No apology.  No, ‘I’m sorry I broke into your home, ate your food, smashed a chair and slept in your child’s bed.’  No consequences for someone who should at the very least be charged with unlawful intrusion.

It’s one version of the story anyway.  And all joking aside, you can see how the messages we send to  our kids might be at odds with the values we’re hoping to instil in them (at the very least, don’t eat from a stranger’s spoon).

And so Thea Chops Books was born.

And if you fancy hearing my version of Jack in the Beanstalk, tune in next week!

Nevertheless, she persisted.
Opinion

Nevertheless, she persisted.

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Recently, over on Instgaram, I wrote about the time that I had a slightly sticky conversation with someone about why I write about the things I write about. I think I do it for pretty simple reasons like wanting our children to have equal opportunities in life. The person I was talking to seemed pretty cross that ‘people like you nit pick at everything.’

Later that day I was chatting to someone else about my conversation. Their response? Why even start a conversation like that with someone who is a Septuagenarian, and who you know disagrees with your views. And for a second I wondered if maybe they were right; maybe I should just avoid these topics with some people….. The friend who revels in sharing outdated sexist views about women in the workplace, or about doing jobs around the house, because ‘it just bants, relax, I’m just winding you up’. Or the much older work colleague who claims they are never going to hold a door open again because ‘you feminists want to hold your own doors open’…. You know who I mean. (As a side note, you’ll often hear ‘bants’ used as an excuse for sexism or rudeness, and claiming ‘you feminists all do something’ is as absurd as saying ‘all British people drink at least 5 cups of tea everyday’. I know plenty of Brits who drink 6 cups). But silencing myself to keep someone else happy, that just felt wrong. Not talking about what I believe to be right, in order to not potentially have a difficult conversation. Yeh, that just doesn’t sit comfortably does it?

Because I’m not talking about hurting people. I’m not planning to cancel Christmas, or declare that parents can no longer cook fish fingers with peas at dinnertime (what would we feed the children…..?). I’m talking about basic human rights for everyone. Human rights. Not feminist rights. Human.

So I’ve decided that if I’m asked a question, I shouldn’t shy away from responding honestly. I don’t want to pick a fight with anyone (Lord knows I hate confrontation and would rather run a 10k). But I will persist with my beliefs that girls are equal to boys, and that they should both live exactly the lives they wish, without any stereotypes being forced upon them.

In early 2017 US Democrat Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the senate floor by Mitch McConnell with the words “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” McConnell’s supporters said she had broken senate rules, and was within his rights, but critics said the language that was used was all too common from those who wish to silence, marginalise or ignore people. I don’t compare myself with a US Senator taking to the house floor to debate (I’d run a 20k to avoid that!), but I do think it’s important for me to remember that it’s ok, not to avoid the tricky conversations. Or none of us will ever learn anything new. And nothing will ever change.