Insert Wine Here

I'm pretty much fed up with articles going on about women and their binge drinking. It's Friday, I want some wine - I might even have *two glasses* (because I'm that wild) and that will completely tip me over into binge drinking territory. And if any Daily Mail reading arsehole wants to come and chastise me for it, I'll then end up as one of the "women and violence" statistics too. Which I think secretly would turn them on a little bit. All they'd need to really get them going would be for me to be pregnant and eating a bit of blue cheese. Ooh - such a rebel!

On that note, I have to really restrain myself whilst commuting when I'm sitting next to someone dressed in a suit and reading the Daily Mail. How they accept that alarmist drivel let alone use at it as the Primary Evidence for all Opinions is completely beyond me. Sometimes I am tempted to ask how they can stand making themselves look like ignorant bigots in front of their fellow commuters, but it would make me look like a bit of smug bitch. Whereas, obviously, you know, I'm genuinely interested...

In some ways it's worse than the men on the train/tube who open up the Sun and openly stare at naked boobs for 15 minutes with weird little smirks on their faces. At least it's widely accepted that these men are socially inept freaks. The worst thing is that Daily Mail readers think they are being informed and respectable. There is nothing respectable about a paper that is practically a hate crime in and of itself.

Gah. I'm so grumpy.

Born to ramble

Several thoughts for the day:

(1) Marilyn French passed away over the weekend. An article here. It's so sad. The Women's Room is one of my favourite books - it really means a lot to me.

(2) It is obviously almost summer - the little bats have started flying around the garden again. I love the way they fly - so erratic but at the same time very graceful.

(3) I was secretly hoping someone in my office would get swine flu so I could have a week off work whilst being quarantined. I know this makes me a bad person, but in my defence, I was only hoping they'd get a *mild* case. Obviously, I have now ensured that should a terrible pandemic break out, I will totally be patient zero and die an horrible, lingering death. There'll probably be boils involved. You know, just because.

(4) Annie Lennox is totally awesome.

Is that your mother on the phone?

Early May is the time to celebrate my mother's birthday (for that, unsurprisingly, is when she was born). So, happy birthday Mum! Not that you read this blog, thank goodness. One feature of the event this year was my sister declaring herself to be a feminist. Hurrah! Apparently she got very into gender when researching her dissertation. Her own description of this epiphany was "Damn those men with penises" (men without penises apparently not so bad) but she hastened to point out that this was in a socio-historical context, rather than a straightforward men=teh evils way. Anyway, I'm not going to push her, but I'm pleased and excited that she's discovering feminist thought. Hopefully she'll start to form her internal narrative over the next year or so and then we can have lots of interesting discussions. Where I will attempt not to trample all over her views. Go me.

This whole episode is completely bewildering to my mother, who for years has treated my own feminism like a slightly socially awkward speech impediment. She was pleased when I announced my impending marriage (which probably merits a whole other blog post - do not get me started on the inherent contradictions in my decision to do this) - I think she secretly thought I was going to become a lesbian and join a commune. However, now that my sister has joined in, it's even more perplexing to her.

"What did I do?" she asked, as though maybe it was because she'd allowed us to eat too many e-numbers as children. Then: "Why did it pass me by?"

This is an interesting question. I've always felt a bit left out, because other feminists seem to talk a lot about how they were inspired by the feminism of their own mothers. This was certainly not the case with me. And it's not that she's particularly anti-feminist, more that she just never thought feminism was an issue that concerned her. I don't think she'll ever really "get" why feminism is important to me, but I guess my sister and I have the chance to do things the other way round - perhaps, after a while, we might inspire feminism in my mother. And that would be just as good.