THINGS ARE DISMAL. IS POLLYANNA THE ANSWER? In the past, the emphasis in these blogs has often been about searching for glimmers of ‘hope’ rather than relying on relentless optimism. We’ve been a bit sniffy about bouncy positivity, the ‘Hello clouds, hello sky’ way of seeing the world. Little Miss Sunshine does not go down well with gritty realists and to call someone a ‘Pollyanna’ can be a bit of an insult. We are women who roll up our sleeves and confront. But frankly, at the moment, a bit of vacuous joyfulness might actually be quite nice. Because, well, everything is really pretty awful. It’s hard to escape from an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Whether you are trying to find a dentist, looking for a decent public toilet, or standing aghast at what’s happening on the world’s stage and wondering about any prospects for peace, justice and a decent environment, it’s the same feeling – that of your head banging fruitlessly against a wall. The original nightmare vision of th...

EQUALITY? FREEDOM? FAIRNESS? ELECTIONS IN 2024 So many elections! Two billion people are eligible to vote this year, and more than 60 countries will be holding elections. The freedom and fairness of these elections will vary. The results of some of them are in the bag already, before even a single vote is cast, and others will take place in dangerous and unpredictable circumstances. Two major elections have already taken place this year. In Bangladesh, following mass arrests of opposition activists, the unsurprising result was to keep the sitting premier for another year. Taiwan also voted to keep their president, but citizens did so in the full knowledge that this would incur the wrath of China which insisted that ‘the motherland will eventually be reunified’. Ukraine is due to hold a presidential election on March 31st this year, but their state of martial law may lead to a postponement. Other elections, from Mexico to Somaliland and from Tuvalu to Russia are all scheduled for this y...

Grit your teeth, find inspiration and get ready for 2024! Was there anything good about 2023? It’s 8.30am on Christmas Eve 2023, a blustery, grey and unseasonably mild morning. It’s very quiet, but Christmas lights have begun to glimmer in a few windows. Over in the park, two women walking their dogs wave at each other and then stop for a chat. A grandmother brings out a toddler to play on the swings and a cat sits hopefully on a doorstep, waiting to be admitted. The only disturbance comes from male blackbirds squabbling over food. There’s nothing unusual here, it’s a peaceful and familiar British suburban scene. But when the morning news comes on the radio, it’s almost unbearable. The world is covered by dark clouds, horrors upon horrors are reported from the Middle East, the ‘futile logic of war’ seems to have domination and our own relative safety can bring feelings of guilt for those of us whose lives are a comfortable exception. As 2023 ends, women and children in so many places a...

  What? Not another one! November 25th. Another date to remember. Another ‘awareness day’. So, why should you bother with this one? It’s a month before Christmas, and you’re probably thinking that you’ve got better things to do at this time of year. ‘For heaven’s sake’, you’re muttering to yourself, ‘can’t we have at least one day in the year without some kind of celebration, commemoration or appeal. And all these ribbons? Why?’ Look at them – pink for breast cancer, green for mental health, purple for LGBTQIA+Youth, even black for the anniversary of the fateful Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, and blue (which is proving to be a bit controversial for the police at the moment). Not to mention all those songs - like the Harry Belafonte weepie about scarlet ribbons, and that 1973 hit urging you to ‘tie a yellow ribbon round the ole oak tree’. Surely we’re all ribboned out by now? And the days, the days – many of these of course are deeply embedded in our brains, whether we celebrate them or n...

  Black History Month Special Edition Saluting Our Sisters Black History Month has been described as a time for ‘celebration, recognition and sombre reflection’. This year the theme is ‘Saluting our sisters’ and members of the Milton Keynes Fawcett Group have put together this special edition of our monthly blog to pay homage to some magnificent women. Each of us has written a short description of one woman of colour for whom we have personal admiration.  We could have chosen hundreds of women, but this is a blog after all, so we don’t have many words to play with. We’ve sneaked a few more names in at the end though and hope that you are inspired to find out more about these remarkable women. Pansy Jeffrey In 1981, Pansy Jeffrey, a Guyanese born British citizen co-founded The Pepper Pot Day Centre in London with her colleague Bridget Davies. She’d noticed that older members of the Windrush generation, having left home and family to work in the UK, were finding themselves isola...

  ‘WATCH THE WALL MY DARLING, WHILE THE GENTLEMEN GO BY’ These days we are used to hearing about the darker side of nursery rhymes. We know that ‘Ring a Ring o’Roses’ is all about the plague, and that ‘Little Miss Muffet’ probably refers to a certain Dr Muffet who crushed up spiders and used them as medicine for his patients (including his daughter). But it’s sometimes a bit unnerving to read a poem that probably seemed quite charming in its original context, but then takes on a darker meaning in the 21st Century. ‘Smugglers’ Song’ by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1930) is a rhythmic and mysterious poem, where a child is told by a parent to face the wall and to ask no questions if she hears horses' hooves at midnight: Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark — Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk; Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie — Watch the wall, my darling,  While the Gentlemen go by Kipling’s smugglers are ‘gentlemen’, romantic figures bringing brandy...

MENSTRUATION. THE MYTHS, THE MADNESS AND THE QUEST FOR DIGNITY THE WISE WORDS OF PLINY THE ELDER! Well, if you haven’t heard what Pliny had to say about menstruation, be ready to be astonished at the remarkable insights of this Roman sage (23-79 AD) who confidently declared that: Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with incurable poison So, there we have it. The power of the period. And you won’t be surprised to know that dear old Pliny was only one of many many men who have felt entitled to give their crackpot views about a normal bodily function. Medieval writing shows them to be terrified of menstrual blood, seeing it as a deadly poison, linking it to lepros...