Good mothers

Journalist Bronwen Clune moans that from the day she produced the first of her four children everyone expected her to be a "good mother" and assessed her every action against this impossible ideal. Any careless lapse was instantly jumped on.

But can this really be true? Surely in this day and age everyone - including non-parents like myself - knows that parents are not perfect, children are not perfect, and obviously you have to make allowances for normal, fumbling human behaviour.

Not so, says Bronwen. She's expected to make gourmet school lunches, supply everyone's favourite breakfast cereals, be a maths wizard and always have matching socks on hand. She's meant to be forever smiling and free of foibles and oddities.

I don't believe people are so censorious. Doesn't every other parent know full well how hard it is to bring up children? How demanding and awkward they are, how exhausting and infuriating, how unpredictable and startling. Do parents who know all too well the non-stop craziness of parenting and their own constant inability to measure up really expect other parents to reach some exalted standard they couldn't possibly reach themselves? Are they truly such mean hypocrites?

Even those of us who've never had children and may know little of the day-to-day turmoil and weariness of looking after them can surely imagine what it's like and sympathise with those mums and dads who're temporarily losing it or collapsing in a defeated heap while their offspring happily misbehave?

Who are all these people who expect Bronwen to be so saintly? If they're friends and relatives, then shouldn't she either keep well away from them or tell them to go screw themselves? If they're complete strangers, why take any notice of them at all? Or are these elevated standards ones she's actually setting herself, some kind of internal perfectionist streak?

This "good mother" hang-up seems especially odd for someone who's had four children. Hasn't she realised by now that there's no perfect way to bring up a child and you just have to take things as they come and do the best you can? Isn't the best response to other people's sniffy disdain a gale of raucous laughter and another glass of pinot noir?

The secret's out

Over the 66 years of my life, I've confided some very intimate, very personal thoughts and feelings to other people. Mainly to Jenny but also to other close and trusted friends.

Have I ever regretted such confessions? Strangely enough, I haven't. I can't recall anything that had damaging consequences or made me feel a reckless idiot.

Other people seem to do it all the time. Those familiar phrases - "Me and my big mouth", "I open my mouth and put my foot in it", "Did I say that out loud?"

Well, I don't use them myself. Have I, for example, ever been unfair to someone, shocked or horrified someone, diminished myself, exposed my weaknesses and frailties? Yes, I've done the last. But I'm happy to do that with people I trust.

Have I revealed things that are simply too private and personal to be shared? I don't think so. Someone can only get to know me properly if I tell them everything that goes on inside me. And that means everything.

There are people I haven't seen for decades who know quite mind-boggling things about me, but I'm not bothered. I doubt they've abused my trust in them, and even if they have, even if they've gossiped shamelessly, it'll be to people I don't know who can't do me any harm.

Then again, I don't need to have confessed to anything. There are glaring shortcomings I've revealed simply in the course of everyday life - sexual hang-ups, social ineptness, nasty habits, chronic self-doubts. But so what? Why be embarrassed that people have stumbled on awkward faults? They have just as many themselves.

I've got nothing to hide. My only worry is what others will do with the information. But by and large my trust hasn't been misplaced.

And so to bed

The meaning of the bed has changed drastically over the centuries. Nowadays beds are just something for sleeping, having sex or recov-ering from illness. But during the Middle Ages they were mainly a sign of social status.

While the poor had tiny beds made of canvas and straw, often slept in by an entire family, the rich had large and elaborate beds with canopies and curtains and lots of pillows. Some of them were so luxurious and worth so much they would be bequeathed in a person's will.

When bedside tables were invented, they too became a symbol of wealth and social status. As did the number of beds in the household, Louis the 14th having more than 400.

A rich person's bed was so impressive that they would often receive guests or preside over meetings while in bed. A big contrast to today, when receiving guests in your bed is seen as totally disreputable and degenerate.

The poor of course would justify their spartan bedding by saying that anything more extravagant was just a sign of self-indulgent pampering. Pillows, they insisted, were only necessary for sick women and invalids.

It was only in the 19th century that beds started to lose their social status to other possessions, and comfort became more important than how fancy your bed was. All people want to know today is whether they will sleep soundly or toss and turn all night. Or whether the bed springs will squeak embarrassingly as they pleasure a new lover. Or whether the bed's so narrow you and your loved one will be rather too intimately entwined.

In a hotel bedroom, I also want to know that the bed is clean and bug-free and not bearing traces of the previous occupant's frolics or nausea or greasy takeaway. And that the bed linen isn't threadbare from a thousand washes. And that the bed won't collapse in the middle of the night.

If I could also have a bed that guaranteed blissful and beautiful dreams, instead of the anxious and scary ones I usually have, that would be an added bonus. But I don't think the neuroscientists have cracked that one yet.

After-birth

Pictures of post-natal female bodies are seldom seen. They're thought of as ugly and embarr-assing. But one woman has set out to change that negative view by publishing a book of over 70 post-natal bodies and inviting us to make our own judgments.

The photos make no attempt to hide all the physical effects of childbirth - the scars, stretch marks, wrinkles and knobby bits that are usually seen as unattractive and to be kept out of sight. There's no airbrushing or photoshopping or touching-up of any kind, just the honest reality of what a new mum may actually look like.

"So many people tell me, oh, I've never seen a body like that," says the photographer, Jade Beall of Tucson, Arizona. "I want people not to have to react as, you're gross, but instead, oh, that's a woman who is incredibly human, or that's a woman who has scars and lines with stories to tell. My goal is to help these mothers feel worthy of being called beautiful."

Most of the women who took part were deeply self-conscious of their bodies and reluctant to display them, but they took the plunge and agreed to be photographed.

Both men and women have pointed out that they're unprepared for the physical changes to a new mother's body precisely because they're always hidden from the public gaze. The sudden appearance of unexpected "blemishes" that go against media images of female beauty can be shocking and upsetting only because people don't know they're commonplace and normal.

Not everyone thinks the book is a good idea though. Sociologist Meredith Nash thinks it's quite natural to be horrified at your new stretch marks or scars and the book may simply pressurise women to feel good about something that isn't good at all.

"I don't think there is anything wrong with women feeling upset about the fact that they have stretch marks, because culture tells them they are ugly. There is a reason women feel upset about the way they look."

Maybe initial upset is natural, but surely it's right to challenge that reaction and ask why women are so mortified about their changing bodies? Why this endless pretence that women's bodies are always perfect and flawless when we all know the reality is something more wayward - and more interesting?

Loosening up

The sixties are always seen as the decade of the "sexual revolution", when all of a sudden people lost their sexual inhibitions and were jumping into bed with everyone left, right and centre.

That may have been true for some, but for me it was quite the opposite. Although I was a teenage boy and supposedly awash with testosterone and erotic yearnings, I was actually totally chaste until the sixties were virtually over.

My various girlfriends seemed to be equally chaste and made no attempt to seduce me. Clearly libidos had not yet run amok in the strait-laced London suburbs.

Though I did know one guy who was assiduously bedding every woman he came across, I had no wish to do the same. He seemed to have little time for anything else but proving his manhood. But there was certainly no shortage of eager women happy to satisfy his urges.

I suppose I never quite saw the point of the so-called sexual revolution. Of course it was a step forward that people were losing their sexual inhibitions and prudishness, but it didn't follow that you had to prove your newly liberated attitude day after day with as many partners as you could handle. Shedding inhibitions was somehow equated with promiscuity and lack of commitment.

I must say it's refreshing to hear younger people discussing sexuality with a degree of candour and directness that would have been unthinkable when I was growing up. That was the age of tortuous double entendres, coy references to "down there" or "consummation", and the elaborately evasive and euphemistic "Carry On" films. Any clearcut mention of sex was enough to traumatise the assembled company and have you frozen out of the conversation.

Certainly I wish I'd been able to talk about sex with the same frankness and in the same detail when I was an innocent and ignorant teenager. It might have saved a lot of confusion and embarrassment in later life when my sexual naivety was all too obvious. And still catches me out even now.

Unsung heroes

Reports of the San Francisco plane crash made it sound as if the cabin crew simply scuttled off the plane along with the passengers. This is insultingly ignorant of their vital role in getting passengers off the plane and saving lives.

It's not generally realised that cabin crew have very intensive training on how to handle emergency situations of every possible kind, including fires, crash landings, hijacking, medical crises, disruptive passengers and childbirth.

The one thing the crew did not do was scuttle off the plane like frightened mice. They stayed right there and did all the things they were trained to do to rescue the passengers.

Despite the possibility the plane might have caught fire or blown up, they did what was needed. They deflated an escape slide with trapped passengers under it, slashed seat belts open, guided people through the smoke, put out small fires, and calmed the panic-stricken.

Only when they had done everything possible to evacuate the passengers safely did they leave the stricken plane themselves - thankfully without it exploding around them.

Many of them did their work in the regulation pencil skirts and high heels, having trained in their flight clothing and having worked out how not to be hampered by it.

It's still widely assumed that cabin crew are just glorified food-servers, doling out the skimpy airline fare and then having a nap or devouring the latest Patricia Cornwell. Their exhaustive training on handling emergencies and in-flight glitches in general is still overlooked - mainly because you only see it in action if your own plane is in trouble.

It's a professional skill-set we should all properly appreciate. After all, guiding terrified passengers out of a smoke-filled plane while mincing along in a pencil skirt is not a feat we could all manage. Unsung heroes indeed.

Here are two articles about the cabin crew's training at Jezebel and NBC

PS: A new report says the pilots delayed evacuation for 90 seconds

Bug alert

American cheese lovers are incensed that a rather tasty French cheese, mimolette, has been banned by the US government on the grounds that the cheese mites that give it such a tangy flavour could cause allergic reactions.

The French are also pretty cheesed off that 1.5 tonnes of the distinctive cheese, first made when Louis XIV wanted a domestic version of the Dutch cheese Edam, are rotting away in a warehouse and can’t be eaten.

The manufacturers claim that nobody has ever become ill from eating mimolette, that the cheese mites are essential for the taste, and just can’t understand the fuss. They say the cheese has been imported into the States for around 20 years with no previous problems.

After all, many foods that could cause allergic reactions – like peanuts and wheat - are on sale without any objection. Allergy-prone individuals are expected simply to avoid the offending items.

I’ve never tried any mimolette myself so I’ve no idea whether the special taste is worth fighting for or not. In fact until today I’d never heard of mimolette or for that matter milbenkäse, another cheese that uses cheese mites.

Cheese lovers are protesting vigorously, especially on a “Save The Mimolette” Facebook page, whose slogan is “No to the Mimolette ban in the US! Let us eat stinky cheese!” The right to nibble freely is being stoutly upheld.

I imagine the only real hazard of eating mimolette, like cheese generally, would be a few extra pounds on the scales. But US food inspectors seem to have got it in for the poor defenceless cheese mites. What miserable killjoys!

Pic: not mimolette but something reassuringly mite-free....

Just be grateful

When I was young and complaining about something, my parents were fond of saying I should be grateful for what I had and not be too greedy or demanding. There were many people in the world with a lot less, they would point out.

Well, for a while I accepted that. It seemed a valid argument. It smacked of common sense, practicality and realism. I wouldn't be carried away by high-flown ideals and impossible dreams.

At some point however, I started to question that rather blinkered view. I started to ask myself, what exactly is wrong with wanting more? What is wrong with aiming for something bigger and better? And so what if other people have a lot less? Won't that always be the case, whatever I happen to have?

I think I first seriously questioned the "settle for what you've got" approach when I was living in a scummy London bedsit while all around me were rich professionals in luxury mansions. How could it be in any way smart to accept such a dreary hovel rather than looking for a decent, comfortable home? Or the sort of income that would make that possible? Or the sort of job that would push up my income?

Working as a bookseller, I questioned the "just be grateful" line again. I didn't see why poor working conditions and low wages should be cheerfully adjusted to rather than challenged. So I became a trade union member and pushed for improvements.

At the end of the day settling for what you've got means accepting the second-rate and imperfect and pretending it's better than it is. It means never wanting to push the boundaries of your life and your abilities. It means closing down your imagination and making do with what's in front of you.

Why is wanting more seen as greedy and demanding? Isn't it a natural human desire to enhance, to embellish, to upgrade? How else does civilisation progress?

Of course my parents' real motive for discouraging "greed" was probably their own limited income and inability to meet my expensive whims. But it became an entrenched belief that permeated my thinking well into adult life. An unfortunate consequence.

A move too far

You don't hear much about couples who disagree about moving. But from what I can gather, it's quite common. One person wants to move but the other passionately doesn't. And even if they end up agreeing, it can all work out badly.

A person can want to move for all sorts of reasons. They might just want somewhere bigger and better. Or they might want to move for work purposes, or to be near their family or a frail relative, or they think the area they're in is dangerous or not good for children.

Their partner is having none of it. They're happy with their home and happy with the area. Lots of their friends and relatives are there, it has great parks and shops and facilities, it's full of "people like us", the kids would have to change school, they wouldn't know anyone in the new place, it's a leap in the dark.

So they're at loggerheads. They argue and fume and bully and stamp their feet, but neither partner is giving an inch. They both have their reasons for not relenting.

And what happens? In extreme cases they split up and the one who wanted to move does so. Or they agree to stay put. Or they agree to move.

But if it's not genuine agreement and one of them is just giving in to end the conflict, there's often more trouble on the way. The person who agreed to stay put gets frustrated and resentful and harps on any negative aspect of the local neighbourhood. "Did you see that? Another nasty mugging. And just in the next street."

Or the person who agreed to move hates where they've moved to, hates the locals, hates the crummy shops, hates the schools, misses their old friends, is profoundly miserable and depressed and just wants to go back. They can't imagine why they ever agreed to move to the arse end of nowhere. Every day they're living there is torture.

Jenny and I have moved several times. Luckily, despite initial disagreement, we've always agreed in the end - and genuinely agreed. We've moved into bigger and better homes and we've moved to a completely different city - from London to Belfast. It always ended happily. But for some couples, it's the battle to end all battles, and it ends badly. Home Sweet Home turns very bitter.

Warts and all

Is there such a thing as uncond-itional love? Is it really possible to love someone warts and all, despite their many infuriating flaws and faults, and not walk away in disgust at one enraging quirk too many? However much we love someone, aren’t we always full of secret ifs and buts and maybes?

I think unconditional love is very possible – unless there’s some serious wrongdoing involved. Most character traits are livable with if you’re sufficiently tolerant and flexible, however weird or annoying they might be. There’s not much that’s genuinely impossible to handle. Unless the other person is a serial rapist, or terrorist, or bank robber, or pathological liar, most personal behaviour can be adjusted to.

There are several people I love to bits, and I think I do love them warts and all, however nasty or vicious they can sometimes be. I can live with their unreliability, bitchiness, amnesia, wild emotion, paranoia, or grumpiness, because I love them as a person and well, those traits are just part of the person so I absorb them along with everything else. I don’t pick and choose what I accept and what I don’t.

Of course I’m probably fooling myself. The people concerned will no doubt say that my love isn’t as all-embracing as I imagine, that there are loads of things I recoil from or get judgmental about, loads of things they keep secret or raise very cautiously in case I throw a wobbly.

I think unconditional love is not that common. Certainly there have been plenty of people in my life who have given the impression of loving me wholeheartedly but in reality their reservations were rampant. Starting with my father, who always maintained he loved me but in practice really wanted me to be just like him.

When it comes down to it, many seemingly tolerant people are actually hideously judgmental and would clearly like to change everything about me if they had the chance. I can see them bristling and steaming at my every utterance. Not many people truly accept me for what I am.

Unconditional love is not easy when we’re all so full of preconceptions and assumptions and fixed ideas, but it’s possible. And when it does happen, it’s a very beautiful thing.

Rotten writers

If writers can only create their master-pieces by being thoroughly selfish and mistreating their family and friends, is that a necessary price to pay or would they be better off writing less and being more likable?

An article today points out that although James Joyce wrote brilliant novels that are acclaimed all over the world, as an individual he was quite unpleasant. His wife Nora is said to have described him as weak and neurotic, ruining her life, drinking too much and squandering money he constantly cadged off other people.

The private lives of many other writers and artists have turned out to be equally unappealing and hard for others to cope with. Behind the glossy public image there is often a less savoury tale of long-suffering spouses and domestic mayhem.

It’s standard practice to play down their shocking personal behaviour and insist that it’s the necessary downside to works of genius that will be feted for centuries to come. In any case, their dissatisfied partners are always free to walk out and find someone more attractive.

There again, it can be argued that they just happen to be inadequate individuals, and their objectionable traits have nothing to do with being writers or artists. They could stop writing tomorrow, and still be a total pain in the arse. In fact their frustrated desire to write might make them even more obnoxious.

If they stopped writing, maybe they would just take up some other all-consuming interest that would make them just as selfish and just as careless about other people’s needs.

Some people would even suggest that their flawed private lives make their creative output more interesting. Doesn’t a book written by a notorious philanderer and drug-addict have more of a frisson than one written by a polite, neatly-dressed tea-drinker? And isn’t it impressive that they even managed to write these extraordinary books despite all their personal failings?

At the end of the day, I guess it’s simply a question of what others are willing to put up with. If their nearest and dearest are prepared to suffer all manner of indignities and mistreatment in the name of public esteem and a distinguished artistic legacy, then who is to say they shouldn’t? Is it any concern of ours?

Picture courtesy of the Missouri Review, University of Missouri

Sharp as knives

I was re-reading this old post about some insults being more hurtful than others, and I thought how true it still is. Some words are just water off a duck's back, others are like six-inch knives. It all depends on how you see yourself and what crushes your self-image. These are the insults that wound me:

"Mean". Who wants to be known as mean, either emotionally or financially? Never showing warmth or sympathy or understanding? Or keeping every spare penny to yourself? Not me. Generosity is much more attractive. And it spreads happiness.

"Cowardly". I like to think that if someone was in trouble and needed help, I would do what I could even it was a bit dangerous. And I like to have the courage of my convictions, saying what I really think and not what's polite or convenient.

"Bad-tempered". My father flew into colossal rages, terrifying me and my mother and sister, and I vowed never to be the same way. To this day I seldom get angry, and I'm very patient with other people's failings and idiocies (and even their insults!)

"Stupid". Stupid I am not. I may be slow to react, I may consider things carefully, I may see things from a strange viewpoint, but that's not stupidity, any more than the obvious, predictable response shows intelligence.

"Lazy". I don't know how to be lazy. Not interested, maybe, or having better things to do, or not seeing the point, or not wanting to be a dogsbody. But not lazy. If I'm really committed to something, I'll put my heart and soul into it, I'll do whatever it takes.

"Anti-social". I like my own company, I like to sit and think, but I also enjoy being with others if they're funny, intelligent, open-minded and compassionate. Unfortunately a lot of people are dull and narrow-minded, and I avoid them for my own sanity.

Now if people call me a leftie, or a nutcase, or ungodly, or effeminate, that's just fine. I freely admit to being all those things - in a big way. What's to object to? But some words are thorns. They pierce me easily, and it can be hard to pull them out. They can get lodged in my psyche like splinters.

The slippery slope

Just how corruptible am I? I like to think I'm honest and decent, but if I found myself in a situation where I could bend all the rules and get away with it, would I yield to temptation?

If I were an MP and I knew I could fiddle my expenses outrageously, and I knew most MPs saw it as normal behaviour, would I join in? Or would I resist the trend and keep to the straight and narrow?

If I were a high earner and I knew I could fiddle my taxes and not pay what I ought to pay, if I knew I could salt money away in a secret account, would I bury my scruples and scoff at the public interest?

I'm not likely to be in any such situation, given my humble employment, but I sometimes wonder if my self-righteous objections to such immorality are truly sincere.

After all, I'm corrupt enough when it comes to the petty everyday rules I happily cock a snook at - ignoring speed limits, dodging bus queues, embellishing my CV, squandering fossil fuels. Would it take very much to up the ante a notch or two, to be a bit more ambitious in my misdemeanours?

Actually I think it would seriously go against the grain. I'm not cut out for badness. I believe in social rules, I believe in personal responsibility, I believe in fairness and justice. Large-scale, flagrant screwing-the-system is not in my nature. I would feel too guilty, too selfish, too degenerate, too shifty. I would feel like the infamous used-car salesman. And how low-life is that?

No, I shall continue to look down my nose at those who are willingly corrupted, in the full knowledge that were I in their shoes I wouldn't be so decadent. I would be the steadfast goody-goody refusing to join in and despairing of the weak-willed suggestibility of the human race. I would sit tight and leave them to it.

Ignorance is bliss

If you asked me which was best, anonymity or celebrity, I wouldn't hesitate. I much prefer to be anonymous. Celebrity is such a burden, I can't imagine how people endure it without going completely crazy.

I love being anonymous. I love being able to walk the streets and go about my daily business without attracting any undue attention. I love not having to worry too much about what I look like or other people's expectations.

Celebrity on the other hand must be a daily nightmare. You can't even amble to the corner store without people staring at you or complimenting you or taking photos. The slightest imperfection in your appearance or clothing will be noted and remarked on endlessly in the media.

If you're interviewed, you have to field sneaky questions designed to winkle out something embarrassing. You're constantly pursued by a false public image that defies any amount of trying to explain the real you. And if you flee all the attention by avoiding public exposure, then you're accused of being a loner, a recluse, a camera-shy eccentric.

I'm not just saying that because I'm not a celeb, because my life happens not to attract any widespread interest. The idea of being a relentlessly-scrutinised celeb makes me shudder with horror. It must be like living in the proverbial goldfish bowl, unable to escape the gawping faces and asinine remarks.

I much prefer an existence in which I can stroll around my very beautiful neighbourhood with most passers-by knowing nothing whatever about me - not even my name or occupation or who I live with. I'm very happy just to be the tall guy with glasses who sometimes strokes cats and mutters to himself. I don't want every detail of my life to be promiscuously chewed-over by strangers. I'll keep myself to myself, thanks.

Judge and jury

The older I get, the more reluctant I am to judge others, and the more astonished I am that so many people feel qualified to do so. I know so little about other people - their lives, their psyches, their personal struggles, their burdens. Who am I to judge them and tell them what they should or shouldn't be doing?

I know how little others understand about me, about the complexities and subtleties of my personality. I know how often they jump to conclusions, or give me idiotic advice, or turn me into someone I'm not. If others are so bad at judging me, can I be any better when I'm doing the judging? So why not keep my thoughts to myself?

It's easy to over-simplify other people's lives, to think their problems are obvious and the solutions equally obvious. But how much do I really know about the tangle of motives and feelings and compulsions and desires that have made them what they are and make them behave the way they do? My glib views and assumptions are probably laughably ignorant and insulting.

But how often do you hear people casually passing judgment on others, as if it's a totally normal thing to do? "You really ought to lose a few pounds." Or "you could get a job if you tried a bit harder." Or "that hairstyle doesn't suit you at all." Or "you're just too self-absorbed." Why do they think they know better than the person they're dissing? As Laura Mvula puts it "Who made you the centre of the universe? Who made you judge and jury over me?"

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about people's opinions. Opinions are always fair game, always open to challenge and argument. I'm talking about people's identity, what they actually are. Unless they're threatening my life, that's none of my business.

So be what you want to be. Pure-hearted or wicked. Fat or thin. Hairy or silky-smooth. Lazy or industrious. I'm saying nothing.

Revenge is sweet?

I don't understand revenge. I've never sought revenge on anyone, however badly they've treated me. I've never felt that it would do me any good. If anything, it would just make me feel guilty and mean and belligerent.

But apparently a lot of people find revenge deeply satisfying. They find it cathartic, liberating, perversely enjoyable. They like to rub someone's face in their failings and make them feel as dreadful as possible.

It seems especially common among jilted or dissatisfied lovers. Women who slice up their partner's clothes or write insults on their cars or circulate embarrassing photos on the internet. Men who cut off their wives without a penny or make out they're promiscuous sluts.

Can it really be cathartic? Maybe if the person has treated you particularly shabbily. Maybe if you just want to get the frustration and anger out of your system. Maybe if you want to show them you're not simply a doormat they can wipe their feet on.

But I've never felt the urge. My father treated me badly. One or two employers have treated me badly. Some supposed friends have treated me badly. But mostly I just shrugged my shoulders, rescued my self-esteem and moved on. I never "had it in" for them. I never wanted to "give them a good kicking." That desire in itself would affect my self-esteem. It would feel undignified, cheap, vulgar, primitive. I prefer to hold my head up high and turn my back on them.

Revenge strikes me as a kind of "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" principle, which I've never agreed with. Two wrongs don't make a right, and to my mind revenge is precisely one wrong added to another. If you want catharsis, why not just look for a better lover, a better friend, a better employer? Surely that'll do more for you in the long run than cutting up someone's clothes?

But maybe I'm just lacking a normal, healthy, full-bloodied emotion that needs to be indulged from time to time. Maybe I'm simply too kind-hearted, too phlegmatic, too rational.

Man hunt

Once again, people are saying there's a "crisis in masculinity", that men are paralysed by uncertainty, no longer knowing what it means to be masculine. They just can't function, the poor dears, without some clear-cut definitive gender role to help them on their way.

Well, pardon me, but I think this alleged crisis is pure bullshit. Who cares about masculinity anyway? Why are men so hung up on this irrelevant concept? What the hell does it mean in any case?

It's one of those nebulous terms that changes meaning about every five minutes. Ask a hundred people what it means and they'll all give you a different definition. It's about as clear-cut as San Francisco fog. If it means anything at all, it's mostly negative qualities like toughness, aggression, hardness, lack of emotion, insensitivity and stubbornness.

I've got a much better suggestion for all those men rushing after their elusive masculinity. Why not kiss it goodbye and concentrate on being a human being, a valued friend, a decent person, a caring citizen? Much easier to understand and it does everyone a lot more good. I mean, who would you prefer - someone "masculine" or a trusted friend who helps you through a tough time? Isn't that a no-brainer?

Who cares if  a man is "gender-confident"? I would just want him to be someone I can talk freely to, someone who understands my hang-ups and my complexities, someone who's encouraging and sympathetic, someone who accepts me for what I am. Isn't that what we're really searching for?

All these well-meaning pundits are missing the point. They're chasing after something that simply doesn't matter. It's not a crisis of masculinity, it's a crisis of character, of decency, of compassion. Let's start looking in the right place.

Eating disorder

"Almost no one has a normal relationship with food" - Lionel Shriver*

How very true that is. When I was young, people had breakfast, dinner and supper, and that was it. They might have had the odd biscuit or slice of cake in between whiles. Nowadays we all have different eating habits. Snacks, sandwiches, full meals, binges. Who knows what I'm eating or what you're eating? The old routines have vanished.

Likewise, when I was small, people mostly just ate what was put in front of them. They weren't especially faddy or particular. But now everyone has their personal likes and dislikes, not to mention allergies and medical problems, and providing meals that cater for all tastes is increasingly difficult.

Again, when I was a kid it was rare for people to eat in the street; it was considered vulgar and improper. Maybe a bag of chips or an ice cream. Anything else had to be eaten indoors. But today people eat absolutely anywhere, regardless of the mess, the smell or the sheer amount they're eating.

And now there are also the huge numbers of people who're anorexic, or bulimic, or grossly overweight, and whose eating habits are even more out of line.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the way we eat has become so individual and so unpredictable? Does it encourage unhealthy obsessions and fetishes that are screwing us up? Or does it mean people are free to follow their own bodily needs and not other people's?

Lionel Shriver faced the same dilemma as she watched her brother Greg get heavier and heavier but was powerless to stop him. By the time he died from respiratory failure at 55, he was about 400 pounds. Lionel herself is small and skinny and eats only one meal a day.

So when do we treat someone's eating habits as a personal matter we shouldn't comment on, and when do we say it's a health issue that needs urgent attention? It's a very tricky question.

*Lionel Shriver - American author of "Big Brother", "We Need To Talk About Kevin", "The Post Birthday World" and "So Much for That"

A bit of lippy

It's funny how lipstick has fallen in and out of fashion over the centuries. Nowadays it's so normal that most women wear it regularly and around 25% of women wouldn't leave the house without it. But it wasn't always that popular.

Lipstick was common in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, but as Christianity took hold in Europe in the 4th century it was seen as irreligious and rapidly banished. The Catholic Church condemned cosmetics, linking red lipstick with Satanic worship.

Then it returned in the 16th century when Queen Elizabeth I ignored religious scruples and inspired the fashion of a white face and garishly painted lips.

But lipstick fell out of favour again in the 18th century, increasingly seen as gawdy and vulgar and relegated to lower-status women like actresses and prostitutes. The obvious use of cosmetics was frowned upon by respectable women.

It was only in the late 19th century that lipstick made another comeback when it was marketed commercially during the industrial revolution and American actress Sarah Bernhardt started putting on lipstick in public.

By the early 1920s American and British women regarded lipstick as an essential daily requirement. Lipstick became so popular that by the 1960s it was women without lipstick who attracted criticism, often dismissed as lesbians or oddballs.

And of course lipstick has seldom been used by men, unless they're gay or actors - or both. It's seen as a classic indicator of femininity and woe betide any male who gets in on the act. He'll either be scorned or laughed at for such emasculating behaviour.

Well, just imagine if men always wore lipstick and heels. You simply couldn't take them seriously, could you?

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