FemFics

FemFics is a submission based digital project that aims the explore the ever changing perception of identity and feminism in the 21st Century. We want to explore what feminism means to you and how you express that! From art, clothing, articles, short stories, flash fiction and any crafty designs you can think of that opens up discussion and illustrates you. Disclaimer: As this project is submission based, not all thoughts and opinions are shared by the moderator.

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CALLING FOR SUBMISSIONS

Hi there everyone! Want to thank you all for our support over the last 24 hours.

This digital project was created for a university module New Narratives. Yesterday it was presented and finally submitted, but that doesn't mean the end!

I would love FemFics to carry on as a submission based project and hopefully evolve and grow over time. If you would like to include any of your own work please feel free to submit and help carry on this concept! Thank you!

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a short poem

By Kit.

Things my mumma taught me:

  i.                     Weeds grow between your bones when you’re crying into your pillow. It’s up to you to grab them by the roots and make sure that they don’t grow back, trying to get someone else to do the job for you only leaves more spaces for the weeds to grow.

ii.                   Pretty is weak. Pretty doesn’t tell the world how you unstitched your brain and put it back together again. It doesn’t show the flicker behind your eyes as you ink the paper. Pretty doesn’t show the steel in your spine or the grit in your teeth.

            Pretty is weak. You are powerful.

iii.                  You will never turn to stone.  No one can make your heart hard; you were already forged in fire. Only you have medusa’s power, exact it wisely.

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Icon created at: www.strix.org.uk

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Hail heavy metal?

Ailsa Mackintosh argues that in her experience the gender line is blurred when it comes to throwing down and loving the music. Tw: Violence

Women and heavy metal

Heavy metal as much as it is a cliché to say is somewhat of a marmite genre. Well no more like a margarita genre – sometimes you’re just in the mood, but not everyone can drink it – it’s an acquired taste. For most if you had to drink it every day you would just die. But some of us are just hooked and we like it that way.

Heavy Metal also has a less than positive reputation for its portrayal of women, and the lack of female artists. Many assume that the female member of a band is just going to be the voice – and a sweet ethereal one at that. That all they provide is the sex appeal to sell the band. Or in cases where there are no female members then the cover art does the job of sexualising the female image – Whitesnake’s ‘love hunter’ being just one example:

But the scene has changed since the 80’s believe it or not, and it’s a hard push to find art that depicts women as one dimensional objects. More to the point is what I’ve found in my years of music going is a distinct lack of this attitude from fans (male and female). I’m not saying there aren’t people out there who listen to Heavy metal and are completely misguided chauvinistic idiots, but I’ve not mat any of them. Most, at least in my limited experience, treat female fans no differently than they treat male fans – something which I have seen evidence of in numerous mosh pits.

You’re a girl? That’s nice. You’ve decided to participate in this pit though – so I’m going to go ahead and shove you and everyone else until this song is over.

Personally I love this; it’s a kind of equality you don’t get in everyday encounters. I can’t express eloquently how angry it makes me when I see the clichéd Facebook posts – ‘Hitting women is just wrong!’ ‘There’s never an excuse to hit a woman’ – well yeah there is, if someone broke into my house or attacked me I’m pretty sure I would seriously consider hitting them regardless of gender (before obviously responsible calling the police or resolving the situation calmly… obviously). Many Heavy metal lyrics talk about power, they discuss things like not giving up, throwing your determination in the face of those who want to see you fail. A lot is about resisting the way society wants you to act and following what you think is right. I can’t understand why anyone who is sick of being told how to act or look would ever suggest to another that they shouldn’t act or dress a certain way – female or male.

Heavy Metal is about controlled and creative anger, it’s about taking all the things about the world that make you feel small and helpless getting angry at them and showing yourself that they can’t control you. I’m not saying Heavy Metal is secretly some kind of feminist movement in disguise, I’m saying that none of the people who listen to it seem to feel like it degrades women in any way. The people who listen to it aren’t the ones who care what configuration of reproductive organs you have, they just care what bands you like. I find it interesting that so often it is the people who would admit they don’t even like the music who accuse the entire genre, the entire scene of marginalising women. It’s not your place to decide what is acceptable for someone to wear, or to listen to. It definitely isn’t even sane to say that someone’s gender should dictate what is acceptable for them to wear or listen to.

Just to reiterate; Heavy Metal doesn’t care who you are, what you look like or what you do in your personal life – it just wants you to “fill your head with heavy metal thunder”(Saxon)

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Literary Riff: based on Genesis.

- By Kit.

‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow though shalt bring forth children’ – Genesis.

   I remember the exact moment when I realized that the differences between boys and girls were so extreme that my friendships would never be the same again. There had been rumours all the way throughout primary seven of, ‘The Talk’ the one where they tell us what periods were all about and how not to have a baby. We sectioned off away from the boys, who teased us enormously, sneering over each and every one of our inevitably bloody futures. I had knots in my stomach as Mrs Deek rolled out T.V. and popped a video in the player.

‘WHAT IS A PERIOD? ‘, It bellowed.

 I felt more solidarity to my female classmates after that. That for better or worse,  today, tomorrow or in a few years, we were all (more or less) going to bleed. We knew it was going to happen.

  Some girls didn’t feel the same way. Although we didn’t really understand it, a period meant sexuality, and sexuality was bad. One girl tried on a pad when she didn’t need one yet at our youth club to see what it was like. Another girl in our class caught her buying it, and spread the rumour that she was a, ‘dirty slut’ because she’d started her period. After that, we whispered the word ‘period,’ and took pinkie swears not to tell anyone if we were discussing anything vaguely in the realm of gender anatomy.

 The boys that I was friends with told me they liked me better before I realized I was girl and slowly stopped inviting me to play video games and eat pizza with them after school.

In high school we learned all about how not to get pregnant, why condoms were important and how our lives would be over regardless if we had an abortion or kept these hypothetical children they were warning us about, until pregnancy became a fear.

   I remember the first time that I ever let a boy touch me. It was warm outside and my arms were freckling. I was wearing ripped up, baggy, denim trousers that I’d had since I was 13, slung low so the waist band of my girl boxers were showing. It read, ‘I love boys pants’ and had apples and cherries printed on it.

   I skipped school to sneak around the town with him, stealing kisses in corners of car parks, reading comics in the library, clicking together in the shadows.

  We were lying on the grass together in front of a petrified tree.  His hand walked across my stomach, and carefully disappeared beneath the fabric. We hadn’t been kissing, or talking and although I knew I should have felt some stirring in my bones or hear blood rushing to my head, I didn’t. I kept still and silent.

 He put my trembling palm on top of a hard lump under his trousers, I felt it swell and quiver like a snake. My eyes grew to the size of the moon and sweat immediately pooled below my nose. I shrugged away, saying that it all hurt too much. He smiled and hugged me tightly. We lay on our backs under the shade of the tree for a little while longer, and we didn’t talk about the incident again.

  When you’re a teenager, friends become your family. Parents never had much of an idea about anything, but your friends always know whether you’d want them to or not. That was the way it was. Sometimes my mum would comment if a name sprang up more than once,

‘What’s so and so like?’ and it would always be met with a quiet hum of consideration or a poorly executed lie.

    If I had lived with dad, he would have made me switch my phone off at night and ask meet anyone who sounded slightly masculine, but he moved out before Hurricane Hormone arrived. It was your friends you spoke you to, that was always the way it was.

    My best friend was first on the pill. Kate started menstruating two years before I met her, way before my body had even considered growing hair. She wore low cut shirts to school, and sometimes she rested her breasts on the table while she was talking. Her boyfriend had his hair cut in such a way that it looked like a mushroom was sprouting from his head.  I knew him from primary school; he’d pushed me off my roller blades when I was six.

   I had been kissing a beautiful boy on Friday nights in the underpass near my house. He was 16, with dark eyes and skin like rice paper.  When he kissed me he always put his hands in the indents of my hips and slowly fluttered his fingers like moth wings. The first time I ever saw him I flipped and never quite got back on my feet.

  One day before school Kate and I met at the tunnel where all the smoker kids hung out. The younger ones stood in little clouds together, hawking and spitting next to our shoes, while the older ones tried to sell off their half smoked ‘snout’.  We went to the other side of the tunnel and hid ourselves behind a shallow wall.  Under her rain coat she pulled out a white paper bag,

‘I got loads when I went to get the pill’ and she thrust it into my hand.

I opened it up to see a rainbow of condoms, different sizes, thickness, flavours, wrappers.

‘Do they come in different colours?’ I asked

‘What…’

‘Colours? They’re all in different wrappers, so do they come in different colours’

She looked at me with her mouth half open and her eyebrow cocked, ‘Jesus. Just put them in your bag, hurry up!’

 She lost her virginity that weekend. I quietly held on to mine for another month.

  She didn’t really talk about it much and said when I lost mine I’d understand why. It was just something that people did; like eating dinner, and now it was done she could get on with other things like apply for uni.

When I finally lost mine to the boy with dark eyes, nothing really happened. I hadn’t really known what to do. After being turned around, moved about, stood up and sat down to find a position that was good enough for him, I only felt aware how naked I was in front of another person.  Afterwards I curled up like a shrimp; feeling like a petal had been plucked from me. I lay, staring at the back of someone who felt like a complete stranger.

I met Kate the next day and told her I knew what she meant.

 I went on the pill a year later. It was the week before Christmas and we were both afraid we might be pregnant.  I asked Kate to come in the room with me; she held my hand and I rolled my thumb along the ridge of her finger.  Our faces burned red asking questions like,

‘Can you really get pregnant if they don’t do it in you’ and my big question mark:

 ‘Can you get pregnant if you start period the next day?’ – We weren’t pregnant, just terribly misinformed. The nurse was a stout woman, whose cheeks wobbled a little when irritated, which in this instance happened a lot. She answered our questions with a tone of disbelief and eventually asked where we’d gotten our sex education from.

                                                       *

 Geary happened because the boy with dark eyes broke my heart. Geary liked to tell girls they were beautiful, I know this because he had been whispering it in my friends’ ear all night before she eventually got fed up with him. She burst in on us and flew into a frenzy because she claimed him first. Her breath smelled of vodka and cigarettes.  He didn’t say anything at the time, but brought up when I’d bumped into him at a night club a few years later. He said he wondered how my body had changed since then. He never got to find out.

  James with the first person I’d known with a kid. He became a dad at 23 and watched his then girlfriend birth a little human that he helped create. He told me she was so badly torn that she had to stay in the hospital for a week. She didn’t like me much, but I thought she was a super hero. 

 He would hold me like he would his daughter, tucked into his arms with my legs dangling like a rag doll. Whenever I tried to say something about it he would run a finger lightly across my eyelids and whisper, ‘shh’ until he thought I was subdued enough.

 We were walking together after having a fight. It was the first time I had ever tried to blunt my sharp tongue, to be a little quieter, to take up less space in the hope of being desired just that little bit more. He took my hand and said, with a detectable hint of surprise in his voice,

 ‘I actually had a really nice day.’ I carefully stretched my lips at him into an ersatz smile. He patted me on the head and said, ‘Good girl,’

I looked at him incredulously and replied, ‘Aye, alright dad’

He made an arch of disgust with his mouth and his eyebrows flew up almost into his hairline. He said I had issues.

   Dave was all long hair and rock and roll. He would appear every now and then in my twenties, always in the cross road at the end of a relationship where, completely depleted of energy and any stitch of my own identity, he would find me inevitably wailing into my pillow, ‘who am I?’

 He was always on something. Life plus, I would call it. Life plus drugs. Life plus alcohol. Life plus obsession with new records/clothes/women. He took that one foot I’d have left on the ground and swept it away from me in haze of his vices, which I’d willingly adopt for a night.  He was fast. I’d already have tasted his tongue in the first minute of the record playing. He held a little paper bomb in front of me and asked, ‘wanna go on a trip?’ I was never that into drugs when I was teenager, but his eyes were like honey and his lips were peach pink.

  When I was 25 I was mad about Tate. I loved his body. You’re never really sure what to expect. It’s a game of chance when the lights go off. I trickled my fingers across his stomach and came across a familiar, softness indented on his right hand side, a small scar. I slid down his body and kissed him on his silver slither.He didn’t as much as flutter but his eyes were strangely bright in the dark.

  They always thought you owed them something, and you’re never quite equipped with the tools to chisel away at their persuasions. As a teenager you don’t feel  strong enough in your conviction when you say no. Maybe’s leave a gap, something they can wriggle into, wriggle next to you, try to wriggle right up inside of you. They all want to know you now, because you’ve got boobs under that top, because you wanted to wear a skirt, because you fancied a chat.

  I always kept my eyes closed at their half open mouths. Their thick saliva flowing into my mouth, and their hot breath in my ear. They all had things in common. Eventually the moan of one would lead into the whimper of another, and you couldn’t remember who's freckle you liked so much on that earlobe.

You don’t try to explain it, not in hushed voices at sleepovers or drinking wine with the girls; after they’ve nuzzled you, bit you and lapped up every inch of you, you start to feel adrift in something unknown.

They all had that in common – when they were finished between your legs they would look at you as if they were surprised that you’re still there. You’re different now, the potential is gone, and they fucked that away.

   You wonder how long you can keep it all up. You’re almost past your twenties and you don’t want to have children. You’ve never wanted to have children, ever since the secret of womanhood was passed on to you, ever since you let the first boy touch you – you just knew. You take your pill with pride, but they always want something.

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I am a feminist, hear me roar (by Indigo)

Image

Image: WeHeartIt.

“But doesn’t that mean you hate men? But doesn’t that mean you never shave? But what about egalitarianism? Or equalism?! EQUALISM!!!”

The word ‘feminism’ is heavy with connotations. By association, so is identifying as a feminist. Anybody who has identified as a feminist for any period of time can tell you this. Despite the weight of the connotations, I unhesitatingly and unapologetically call myself a feminist. Interestingly, I have found that identifying as a feminist is generally way more palatable to people than identifying as an anarchist… But that’s a different days’ work right there. Back to the feminism.

Throughout the years, mainstream media has done a very good job at painting feminism in a bad light. The Man dislikes anything that is a threat to him, and by golly gosh, you can bet a movement that wants to challenge and tear apart gender roles, liberate women and smash patriarchy (among other things) is not gonna be well-received by Mr Man. It’s reasonably well-known that The Suffragists who fought so hard were often called The Sufragettes, in an effort to belittle their struggles (generally a suffix of ‘–ette’ is added to a word to denote a noun which is smaller than its original form. Language is fucking powerful, man).  The feminists of the second wave were very often painted as hairy, smelly, bra-burners. The feminists of the third wave have been painted as seething misandrists, foaming rabidly at the mouth at the very thoughts of occupying the same space as a man. So yeah, it’s not surprising that to many, feminism has become this scary, all-but-impenetrable fortress.

If you’re a newcomer, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Though if you’ve managed to shake off the garbage that you’ve learned directly and indirectly about feminism to get a proper look, you’re on the right track. A quick Google search for ‘feminism’ will yield heaps of interesting things – scour the related images and one of the first things you will notice is there are lots of cute comic strips and cartoons, many of which are eager to illustrate the fact that you can be a feminist and NOT hate men.

I don’t think starting your feminist journey around basically pandering to the naysayers is a fabulous place to begin. Call me lazy or whatever, but I couldn’t be arsed convincing people how much I don’t hate men. To me there’s something extremely un-radical and un-revolutionary about opening a conversation regarding feminism with “yip, I’m a feminist… but I don’t hate men, honest, honest!!” Why should any feminist, whether they’ve been in the game 20 years or 20 minutes have to expend energy on affirming others of their male inclusivity? Why has the eagerness to convince people that you’re not a raging misandrist become such a large tenet of third wave feminism? There’s something so apologetic and whiny about it. It really and truly makes my skin crawl.

I’m aware that my unwillingness to convince people that I really seriously don’t hate men probably further enforces the angry man-hating feminist stereotype. Even though personally I’ve never done anything outwardly misandrist. When contemplating whether to educate somebody or not about feminism, I take my lead from the person in question. If I tell them I’m a feminist, and they appear genuinely interested to know more about what it means to be a feminist, then I will tell them all of my femmo tales! I will regale them with stories of protests and demos! I will spin them a yarn of how I transcend gender roles in my day-to-day life! Even if they’re an open-minded soul happy to listen, that gives me a good starting place to open a dialogue with them about feminism. But if they’re a jerk who has all these false pompous notions about what it means to be a feminist, then I honestly do not see the point in attempting to educate a person who has their mind made up about a large component of my identity already. In their eyes, I am more than happy to be the hairy, smelly, bra-burning misandrist.

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Killer Krafts: Submission - No Pocket

Created by Jem Girdwood

Jem is a 21 year old sewing and stitching queen. She hopes to open her all new online shop 'The Jolly Dove' this summer. Consent isn't sexy, it's absolutely mandatory.

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Forgotten Rights (tw: abortion. tw: rape)

-       Laura Dennet

Editor's note: This article was first written in 2013, and thus statistics are relevant to that year.

  When I was 19, I had a pregnancy scare; namely I was scared silly that I was pregnant.  As the days raced by with no period in sight, I was forced to contemplate what I would do if I was indeed with child.  I had been dating the potential father for 6 months and if I’m honest he was a rebound from my first ever heartbreak. Not exactly marriage material let alone the ideal candidate for my first born.  The ugly truth was that if the little blue line made an appearance then I would have had an abortion without telling said boyfriend.  Thankfully before I had to face peeing on a stick my period arrived.  Never before or after have had I been so pleased to see it. 

            I consider myself lucky.  Lucky that I wasn’t pregnant and lucky that I live in a country that if I were, then I would have had a choice.  Abortion is a contentious subject that invokes strong emotions on both sides. I have two friends who have had an abortion.  Both were deeply upset at having to have one but both were equally relieved they could. Not every pregnancy is greeted with tears of joy. 

             A woman’s reproductive rights are essential in the fight for equality.  When a woman can control when and if she has children, not only does she benefit but society does too. The UN argues that women cannot fully access their fundamental human rights such as education and employment, without access to information and services on sexual and reproductive health.  In developing countries The UN also estimate that 1,600 women die every day from complications caused by pregnancy and every year around 70,000 women die from unsafe abortions.  In the rhetoric surrounding abortion many argue for the rights of the foetus, often laid forgotten are the rights of the woman. 

            Abortion is not a quick fix nor is it a substitute for contraception but it is an important factor in women’s healthcare.  It is easy to condemn abortion.  With advances in medical science even babies born at 6 months have a chance of survival. The organisation Prolife Alliance argues that life is created from the moment of conception and that no one has the right to bring about the death of an innocent human being.  These don’t sound like the rantings of a crazed fundamentalist group but when you delve further into their propaganda it becomes clear that the rights of the foetus outstrip the rights of the mother.  In regards to rape they state, ‘…biologically speaking, there is no difference between a human being conceived by a loving couple and a human conceived by rape.’ Biologically yes, morally however there is a vast difference.  A difference Prolife Alliance refuses to acknowledge. Prolife Alliance regards the creation of life as all important, outweighing all other rights.  They even claim that if pregnancy does occur from rape, women ‘tend to love their babies even if they hate the father’.  How they know this, I cannot fathom.  Not only does this patronise women who have been raped but it implies if a woman does not love a child conceived by rape or chooses to have an abortion after a rape, then there must be something wrong with her.  This attitude affectively rapes victims all over again. It seems Prolife Alliance believe it doesn’t matter how a woman becomes pregnant but once she is, she is morally obligated to continue with the pregnancy, reducing women to mere vessels who are subordinate to men and at the mercy of their own bodies reproductive powers. 

            So why write this column when as previously stated we live in a country where abortions are legal? Because in 2013, the newly appointed UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Scottish Health Secretary Alex Neil both expressed views in favour of reducing the time limit on abortions.  Hunt wanted the limit reduced by as much as half, from 24 weeks to 12 weeks.  When faced with criticism both claimed they were expressing a personal opinion and that neither Government had any plans to reduce the limit.  Whether it is helpful for two middle aged men in jobs that neither seems particularly qualified for to express their own private views is debatable but the attack on women’s reproductive rights is not.  Women and men have fought long and hard to have these rights enshrined in law.  Yes a baby born prematurely now has a greater chance of life but not without huge medical intervention. To use this as an argument to reduce abortion limits or abolish it all together undermines everything feminism has been fighting for, for decades.  It forces women back in to the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant or worse to a backstreet clinic that may end up killing her.

            Abortion isn’t pretty but neither is rape, forced marriage, coerced pregnancy or even a split condom.        

For more information on the benefits of reproductive rights, visit http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womrepro.htm

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The 'F' bomb is in fashion.

Model: Paris Dunlop.

Clothing and make up provided: Paris Dunlop

Kristy Allan:

'This is how I'd go out if it wasn't for society!' wearing her D.I.Y studded plaid shirt, crop top and ripped tights she reminded me of Kurt Cobain in his perfectly unkempt grunge attire of the 90's. While we both scoffed at her statement, I've muttered, cried and internally clung to that same statement; beginning when my body decided to jump start into puberty

 The truth is, when it comes to the realms of fashion, no matter how cultivated one is in style, there is a lot of forfeit and even more compromise in our choices lest we’re criticised for inviting sexism in the form of cat calling into our lives. In a liberal world of underwear as outwear, a post punk and fourth wave feminist era, surely there aren’t cultural restrictions in clothing? – The short answer is of course there is.

 The meaning of clothing has shifted over time but the line between wearing too much or too little still exists as a neo Victorian Madonna and the whore complex. What flesh is acceptable to bear and hide is based upon largely what the fashion industry finds aesthetically pleasing that season and will eventually filter into the mainstream high street consciousness. Many people buy into this, and many don’t. What is important is to recognise that the fashion industry capitalises on the insecurity that it creates, by generating unattainable beauty as a process of exploitation and marginalization of women of colour, queer and trans* individuals. The fashion industry as a whole often erases these identities in favour of the idealised white western woman, and wrongly so. It is through this particular capitalisation that the industry is able to control what fashion means to women. After all, the leading designers are mostly men; Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren to name but a few.  With these factors, it would not be unjustifiable to conclude that the fashion industry as a whole is inherently misogynistic.

  However, as the tributary trickles down to the individual’s wearing the clothes it is impossible to ignore that fashion holds a cultural impact: The D.I.Y riot grrl movement of the 90’s has made a resurgence amongst the alternative subculture, where the concept of femininity that is normally determined by outside influence can be adjusted and tailored to the wearer – this echoes throughout spaces designed for marginalized groups, cultivating an identity does not begin and end in clothing, but it certainly helps.  It almost appears that no matter how one chooses to represent themselves through their clothing, sexism is always going to be invited but this reason isn’t solely down to the fashion industry itself, it stems to a larger cultural ignorance and outdated attitudes that consider clothing as an appeal to the male gaze and not a concept of individual expression, separate from the hyper sexualisation of female anatomy.

 Could manipulating, customising and making ones on clothes count as a feminist act? The customisations used in this shoot were not a political statement but instead were an expression of aesthetics. However, these touches have power. Fashion has the potential to reach a wider, more inclusive audience that doesn’t focus solely on white western women. 

 While there are problematic elements in the industry that desperately need to be addressed, there is potential in the movement of taking our style and fashion back from the larger industries and creating our own spaces of expression in a way that the fashion industry has been unable to do. 

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Stay at Home Parenting – Feminism vs Finance

By Emma Bulloch. 

In the 1960s the Women's Liberation Movement broke down the role of the 1950s housewife and gave women the choice to work and have a family.  Now, 50 years later, is the choice to be a stay at home mum due to Feminism advocating choice for the individual or is it one made solely from a financial perspective? 

  Choosing to be a stay at home parent means a lot of things.  It enables you to take a leading role in nurturing your child's development and catch a lot of those moments you might otherwise miss.  However it can also mean giving up your career and a loss of family income.  Taking into account expenditure such as mortgages and the rising cost of private childcare, the decision of whether or not a parent will stay at home can be a fine balance between financial restrictions and the well-being of the child.  Mhairi, a stay at home mum from Ayrshire, is one such example.  “It would cost more for me to work as well as my husband. We would probably get help with child care but not enough to make it worthwhile. I also wanted to enjoy the first years of my daughters' lives and to be there for them.”

  Some families may, however, be unable to have one parent out of work.  Kirsten, Aberdeen, felt that financial pressure forced her to continue working.  “I was working when I became pregnant and if I'd left of my own accord to become a stay at home mum I wouldn't have received any financial help (benefits etc.) apart from tax credits... bills and the mortgage ate up most money and if I wasn't working we'd have no money for treats like holidays or days out or just to give the boys a good life. I would dearly have loved to be a stay at home mum... but it was made so difficult to do that I just couldn't do it.”  Having both parents working can become a viscious cycle when the cost of childcare means that parents then have to work more to cover the rising cost.  Again, Kirsten felt this was something she had to do after their second child.  “I then needed to work to pay for childcare to work because again there was so much financial pressure on me.”  While the cost of private childcare can be claimed on top of the basic rate of Child Tax Credits, available for those who work more than 16 hours a week, this is calculated on a sliding scale and not all of the costs may be covered.  Child Benefit, £20.55 a week for the first child and £18.55 for each subsequent child, is available to all families however those with incomes over £50,000 may have to pay a tax charge.  At such low rates it can hardly be seen as adequate cover to allow a family to freely choose to have a stay at home parent. 

  For those on higher incomes the choice may be more easily made based on lifestyle and parenting choices.  Sandra, Leeds, had quit university when she found out she was pregnant.  “Because I'd not had a job previously, and my partner Phill was in a fairly well paying and steady job, we decided that I'd look for casual work until [our daughter] was born (I never got a job at this point). When she arrived things just felt comfortable and our style of parenting -what you'd probably call attachment parenting - is focused on one of us being there 24/7.  [Our daughter] breast fed until she was three so it was the most practical option for me to stay at home with her.”  A change in circumstance meant that their roles are now reversed but having a parent at home has been the right choice for their family.  “I love the closeness that staying at home has brought to our family, and it seems to benefit [our daughter] hugely - not to say that there are no other ways that work, only that this works best for us.”

  While income is obviously a deciding factor a family must also look at childcare options if both parents are to be able to work.  In England all children over the age of 3 are eligible for 15 hours free pre-school care each week, in Wales this is a minimum of 10 hours and in Scotland every 3 or 4 year old who's parents require it must be provided with part-time pre-school education, however a 2013 survey carried out by Family and Childcare Trust  http://www.daycaretrust.org.uk/pages/childcare-costs-surveys.html found that only 30% of English local authorities and 16% of Welsh local authorities are able to provide sufficient childcare for working families during school holidays while almost half of the surveyed Scottish local authorities were unable to confirm figures for demand and provision in their area.  In Scotland there is no legal obligation for local authorities to assess the level of demand versus their provision of childcare which leads to situations, such as that in North Lanarkshire http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8587834.stm, where council-run nurseries are being closed whilst new housing developments are approved in the same area.  With insufficient nursery places and the rising cost of private childcare (the same survey found that the average cost of private childcare in Britain for one week during school holiday time is now over £100) it could suggest that families have to have one parent stay at home because there simply isn't childcare available.

  While every family situation will be decided on many factors it would seem that the decision on whether or not to have a parent stay at home is one mainly driven by financial constraints.  Perhaps, instead of parents feeling forced into a decision, the UK should focus on giving parents the resources to enable them to raise their family the way they choose.

[femfics]

Opinion: Young Feminism

A young woman's account of feminism and identity in a Scottish high school.

- Gabrielle A.

  As a teenager it's really hard to take ownership of your own body. At school you're constantly met with the phrase 'It's not a fashion parade' which seems cute and sweet but really its just extremely ignorant and naive. School is not and can't be separate from the external day to day pressures that young people feel to look and act a certain way, this is because school isn't actually separate from that world but just another copy of it. You're surrounded by people that you either want to copy or impress. So yes, you tend to think about your appearance a lot. But then you need to question why its so terrible to care about your appearance? this, to me, sounds unbelievably similar to the argument where being masculine is wonderful but being feminine is an outrage. A brilliant example of this is the 'too short skirt' augment. People still use the excuse that its 'distracting' for the male students to be around girls with short skirts. Not only is that really patronizing towards the male students by saying that they are all unable to think about anything other than sex but its also really heteronormative because not all boys are attracted to girls, and even the boys that are straight aren't always thinking about sex.

Its extremely harmful to teach young girls to police what they're wearing based on what men  will think of them, young girls are getting that from enough places without schools adding to it by shaming them. And this my friends is called slut shaming. This is also the reason on how I got into feminism.

I'm 14 years old girl and I don't really see the difference between being a feminist when you're a teenager and being a feminist when you're older. You still pretty much faced with the same issues and still get those silly little ignorant comments that are seen as 'harmless banter'. The only difference I see is a lot of young feminists are not taken very seriously by authority figures or family and freinds or even other older feminists that pretty much just see you as the annoying little sibling that copies everything they do.

Saying that, there are  negative stereotypes and comments that can range from harmless to horrible and offensive, the main one that I normally get from guys is "shut up and go get me a sandwich" I try to just let it go but it does really wear me down. Luckily, I do have feminist friends that do tend to back me up when it comes to the misogynistic comments that come from other pupils and also sometimes from teachers. Without them I'm pretty sure I would have lost my sanity ages ago. Another problem that comes up at school a lot is when I try to explain that I don't want kids, you suddenly become bombarded with comments such as "You'll change your mind someday" or "Doesn't your parents deserve grand kids?" and the one annoys me the most is "No man will marry you if you never want kids" because that's what I'm worried about at my age. Another thing that happens a lot is gender discrimination, the amount of times that I've gotten into augments with teachers because of a sexist remarks is ridiculous, I now try to pick my battles instead of just shouting "You're wrong!" at every teacher that favours a certain gender. There's also a lot of slut shaming, racism, sexism, ageism and homophobia. My friends and I have our work cut out for us.

[femfics]

Gender Fluidity

Florie Stardust - see more of Florie on https://www.facebook.com/floriestardust?fref=ts

Florie is a genderfluid alternative model currently building their portfolio, capturing the essence of creativity with their works. Florie is 'obssessed with glitter' and weaves magic into every element of their work.

Florie: This is a picture I took for a project exploring my own and others gender identities. Mainly with this I was going for a look of a man wearing women's underwear. I am genderfluid, at times this would be something I Identify as and at times would kind of wish that my body would look the way of a cisgender mans body looks in women's clothing and underwear.