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Mar 02
2018
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Helen Whitten
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As many of you know, we are selling our Hampshire house looking to move to Kew for the next stage of our lives. [See https://search.savills.com/list/property-for-sale/england/hampshire#/r/detail/gbwnrswns170335] So, as the snow falls outside, I am gradually working my way through a fairly massive job of decluttering. Between us, having come together at the ages of 60 and 67 respectively, we have a good 40-50 years of adult hoarding, family photos and memorabilia, and life history hidden away in our offices, filing cabinets, sheds and attics. I am usually reasonably good at clapping my hands and getting on with a transition but this process of letting go has been more challenging than I had imagined.
When I sold Positiveworks to Jackie and Chris of Sixth Sense Consulting in 2016 I naively assumed that it would be both easy and liberating to go to the filing cabinets and dispose of the 25 years of papers, presentations and articles that I had filed away in various cupboards and filing cabinets. And especially the accounts and VAT books (sorry Jeremy!). Of course – as those of you who have done this before me will probably know – it’s not quite as simple as that! When I finally started looking through the papers, slides and the various brochures that took me from 1992 to 2016 I found I was far more emotionally attached to things I had created and to the memories of clients, presentations, and geographical places I had visited on this wonderful Positiveworks’ journey than I had thought I would be.
And so, gradually, I have made myself shred this, chuck that, bit by bit. It does clear the mind somewhat. I am now on my third stage of going through the files, each time more capable of being a little more stringent than the time before. “Will I really ever need this again?” I ask myself. I know I won’t but I am also sort of aware that in later life, when I am perhaps in my 80s and more vulnerable, I might need the confidence boost of looking back at the books, articles and programmes I produced and feeling a little more pleased with myself than I might if I only have a rather elderly face to look at in the mirror every day!
I know that David is experiencing the same hesitancy, the same rerun of old memories in his head, the patients he has seen, the research papers he has written and the good work he has done. Ultimately, it’s about identity.
But there’s no way there will be space for all these old boxes and papers when we move to a three-bedroom terraced house in Kew!
And of course at our stage of life there is also what they are, I believe, calling the ‘death declutter’ – eg going through papers and items to ensure that your offspring aren’t (a) horrified by what they find of their parents’ past (b) not overwhelmed by the amount of clutter they may have to go through when they are anyway extremely busy with work and family and (c) wondering where on earth you have put your wills and bank details.
I don’t want to put them through that. My own parents were wonderful – I think the paperwork had come down to one small file of banking, accounting and insurance documents and that was it. It made it so easy for us. Luckily, though, my mother had written some pages documenting her memories of childhood since her birth in 1918, snippets about the war, her life with my father in Portugal, and beyond. Invaluable social and personal history.
So I believe we should all leave our children a little glimpse into our lives as younger people, to give them an insight into how, socially and politically, the world has changed. There is a real danger, with computers and passwords, that much will get lost. Where will be the love letters when so many are written as disposable emails and texts? Where will be the diaries, poems and photos?
As a probably rather over-sentimental historian I have assembled a photo album each Christmas of David’s and my year, alongside another annual album tracking the events of my children and grandchildren. They give me such joy to look at. I have also had the love poems that David and I wrote to one another assembled into a printed book. And when I get the chance and inclination I am also pulling together poems and the odd paragraphs documenting my own life, which I have so far entitled the Life and Times of a Baby Boomer, with memories of the 60s, seeing the Beatles and Stones in 1964-5, powdering Elton John’s nose in 1976, and more! Far more, of course.
And the trouble is that these items in my desk – my History finas essays and notes (I kid myself I might use them again), my sons’ old school reports (why?), the contracts of house purchases and sales (*** taxmen), the collection of Positiveworks’ papers (ah) – represent so much of what helps me to piece my memories together. The adventures, the lonely moments, the transitions, the many countries I have visited with my sons and with work.
My father’s family tree goes back to a Roger de Buckenhale in 1327 and continues up to the latest additions of my granddaughters and great nieces and nephews in 2013, though it doesn’t yet record the birth of my latest grandson, born in January 2016. But there are the names and places of family members long gone. I don’t know enough about them and have a note in my diary to go up to Staffordshire to get a feel of the place my ancestors came from. It is heart-warming, too, to be reminded of grandparents, aunts , uncles and cousins of whom one has distant memories. We recently took my granddaughter to see the rather spooky cartoon movie Coco, which is set in the Mexican Day of the Dead. Its rather deep message was that once there is no-one alive who remembers the dead members of the family, their spirit fades. Made us think! I have a vague recollection of my great-grandmother and my maternal grandmother but no grandfathers…
Last week I came across my mother’s memoir again, and also the small brown envelope she kept in her desk containing philosophical and spiritual quotes that represented her view of life after death, or the lack of it. I found again the notes I wrote to my parents as a small child, the cards I had written on my father’s death, her letters to me in difficult moments of my own life. They bring tears to my eyes but I wouldn’t be without them for anything.
I don’t know what my own sons will think, or my grandchildren. I don’t want to burden them with memories but equally I don’t want to deprive them, when the time comes. And so the slow but steady progress of letting go carries on and more must go before we move. It’s hard work and yet it is also a wonderfully poignant experience to touch once again many happy and fulfilling moments. Even memories of the difficult times are precious.
I still haven’t made any major dent in the massive paperwork filling the cupboards of our filing room, let alone the outside shed – I had better go and do another half an hour now. Downsizing certainly focuses the mind on that hard decision of what is clutter and what is not! And that, I guess, has much to do with who one thinks one wants to be in the next phase of one’s life. How are you doing, on defining and managing clutter I wonder?
Feb 21
2018
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Helen Whitten
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How do we distinguish between the normal emotional upheavals of life and something that can be defined as a “mental health” problem? I recently heard the jockey Sir Tony McCoy speaking on the radio of his difficulty in adjusting to retirement after horse racing. The headline of the report was that large numbers of people facing retirement are suffering from mental health issues. I know that many of my friends and clients have found it difficult to adjust, as McCoy has, to retirement. They miss the structure, purpose, social life and status of work. However, this is generally a fairly natural period of bereavement when there will be an inevitable cycle of loss. And what I am questioning is the ease with which people seem to be given labels of mental illness these days. Could it not be that they might be experiencing the fairly typical emotions of just being human and going through a difficult patch?
Don’t get me wrong, I am delighted that mental health issues are being spoken of in a more transparent way. I remember a close family member who had recovered from a nervous breakdown saying that she wished people had been able to see her illness in the way they can see a broken arm. Luckily we are now gaining more understanding, although a cure for psychological problems is still quite hard to find.
But at the same time, I worry about the burgeoning number of mental health labels that are given as diagnoses of emotional problems. The number of disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), increases year by year. In the United States, the DSM serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnoses but according to recent surveys some 46.5% of Americans will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, based on this manual. Really?
Let’s look at these labels – grief can be packaged as ‘Adjustment Disorder’, a child’s temper tantrum as ‘Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder’, shyness can be defined as a mental health illness, where it was a totally natural, if uncomfortable, experience when I was a child. Three to five people in every 100 are estimated to be diagnosed with ‘personality disorders’ in the UK, with one to three in every 100 living with ‘schizophrenia’. Are these diagnoses accurately differentiating real mental illness, which can be life-threatening, from a transitional period of emotional disturbance? Is it that people are now expecting to feel ok all the time? Is there some new intolerance to feeling miserable, uncertain, sad, uncomfortable that leads people to seek a fix that in previous times they might just have to have accepted as a phase of life? A pill for every ill rather than accepting emotional distress? Have we always been mentally sick or are the labels increasingly embracing what would previously have been perceived as normal?
In her new book “It’s OK That you’re not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand” Megan Devine emphasizes that grief is not a problem to be solved or resolved. Rather it’s a process to be accepted, tended and lived through. The suggestion is that those going through bereavement, redundancy, retirement or teenage anxiety could benefit from accepting that they will feel bad some of the time and that this is perfectly normal. Having experienced bereavements myself I endorse the view that the pain is very real and difficult to bear but I don’t believe it would have helped me if someone had tried to medicalise it. Being upset when someone you love dies is absolutely natural. Time is, as the saying goes, a great healer but if grief becomes long-term and overwhelming it is at that stage that someone may need help, not necessarily by handing out anti-depressants before.
I personally believe that we need to communicate more realistic expectations of life. Young people are bombarded on the one hand by celebrity ‘perfection’ on social media and on the other by angry ranting politicians and news media complaining of everything that’s going wrong. So it is hardly surprising that people end up feeling aggrieved that they sometimes find life difficult. But when has life ever been easy? With all the money in the world you can still get ill, lose a child, be struck down by war, natural disaster or terrorism. Life is and always has been challenging and it is surely more helpful to enable people to accept this and learn the tools of resilience to support them in managing these ups and downs. One of the insights I gained recently about the statistics that suggest Scandinavian countries are happier than we are is that they have different expectations of life and so are not so disappointed by it.
The other problem with labels, if given too readily, is that they can ramp up anxiety about a condition, both in the individual and also in their family, and so become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There can be a negative pay-off in the fact that the person can be treated in a special way and allowed to retreat from the responsibilities and challenges of life. This is certainly a very difficult balance for families to manage.
Research has also shown that clinicians can tend to box those whom they have labelled with a mental illness. They can wrongly assume tendencies and behaviours associated with the label that may not actually be present in the specific individual. Patients have reported being told that they will never recover – a real ‘nocebo’ effect. Experiments have also shown that a label can immediately change the perception of those interacting with them – in experiments someone introduced as a ‘patient’ was seen as having serious psychological problems whereas someone introduced as a ‘job-seeker’ was seen as ‘well-adjusted’. The mere use of the word ‘patient’ can encourage a more pathological view of someone’s behaviour, and so can trap the person within the label. Consider the weight of negative associations connected to a diagnosis of depression.
I remember watching the BBC Horizon programme How Mad are You? where a team of psychologists observed a group of people, some of whom had been diagnosed with mental health conditions such as schizophrenia, anxiety, depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The team of psychiatrists were tasked with identifying which individuals had which condition. They frequently got it wrong, diagnosing normal people with conditions they didn’t have and missing the signals of bi-polar in another participant. In the end, participants were delighted that their condition could not always be detected, even by experts. It helped them feel more normal.
The programme demonstrated that mental health is something we all experience on a spectrum – after all we all have some quirks and neuroses, don’t we? As Freud said, “Every normal person is, in fact, only normal in part”. His suggestion is that most people are relatively unhappy most of the time and – contrary to the aims of the celebrity social media age – “The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside”.
The Horizon programme also demonstrated that the stigma that the individual associates with their condition, and which is transferred so readily to those around them, can negatively impact their ability to recover. As an article by Chris Langer, an integrative counsellor, argued, the label of a mental health illness not only stigmatises but also isolates people, creating an artificial divide between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. Langer suggests that once these perceptions become embedded, the patient can become institutionalised in a framework of healthcare to the point that the label reinforces, rather than alleviates, the presenting symptoms. It also pigeonholes people in the same box when the reality of one person’s ‘bi-polar disorder’ symptoms may be very different to another’s. Interestingly, Carl Jung believed that a correct diagnosis could only be made at the end of treatment.
Of course a specific diagnosis or label can be helpful, in the understanding of an individual’s predicament, the potential support of network groups with similar conditions and information about medications and actions to alleviate symptoms. What one doesn’t want to do is infer that what might be the normal but uncomfortable experience of, for example, being a teenager means that the person is mentally ill. Last week there was a report of numbers of girls ordering, from the internet, Xanax as a self-prescribed medication for anxiety. The teenage years are always difficult ones, full of angst and anxiety about the future. It is inevitable that teenagers get worried about how it might pan out – will they pass exams, will they get into university, will they find a job, will they find love, will they get married and have kids, etc. Nothing is certain and at the same time the neurons in their brain are doing a major rewire and their hormones are rampaging around their bodies so it is not surprising that they feel unsettled. And the endless headlines about increasing numbers of them suffering from anxiety, loneliness and depression hardly help, in my view. Being sad and lonely sometimes can be part of life. Being alone is not necessarily being lonely but it can become so if someone tells you it is and if you don’t take action to get out and create new connections.
Surely it is more helpful to provide resilience tools to those going through such transitions, to help them manage the uncertainties and changes of life? Don’t we need to learn to accept that emotions, however uncomfortable, are part of the rich and deep experience of being a human being in a complex world?
Of course there are those who have serious conditions who absolutely need clinical support and medication. I just worry about the tendency of medics and journalists to dish out quite so many labels to quite so many people when maybe those people are just going through a normal, if difficult, stage of life.
Further Reading:
Bath University: Mental Health Labels can do More Harm than Good http://www.bath.ac.uk/research/news/2015/08/18/negative-impact-mental-health-labels
The Guardian: “How TV show turned the spotlight on stigma
https://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2008/nov/19/how-mad-are-you-mental-health
250 Labels used to stigmatise people with mental illness by Diana Rose, Graham Thornicroft, Vanessa Pinfold and Aliya Kassam
Understanding Grief by Jane E Brody, New York Times, 15.1.2018
National Health Executive: Be Wary of Mental Health Labels, 7.4.16
http://www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/Comment/be-wary-of-mental-health-labels
Emotional Healing for Dummies: Dr David Beales and Helen Whitten, Wiley, 2010
It’s OK that You’re Not OK by Megan Devine, available on Amazon
The Almost Nearly Perfect People, Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia by Michael Booth.
www.thelostconnections.com Johann Hari
Feb 08
2018
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Helen Whitten
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My goodness what a muddle we seem to be getting into around men and women and what is offensive and what is not. When I heard that Manchester Art Gallery had removed the pre-Raphaelite painting Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse in case, in the current climate, modern audiences might find it offensive, I exclaimed, like Victor Meldrew, “I don’t believe it!!” I gather I wasn’t alone and, thankfully, the painting has been put back. See https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jan/31/manchester-art-gallery-removes-waterhouse-naked-nymphs-painting-prompt-conversation
But where are we at, on this centenary of the Suffrage movement? Are we getting distracted up misguided alleyways that potentially do a disservice to the intentions of the suffragettes? Actions like removal of a historical painting diminishes the aim of equality with men. Paintings depict our history, male and female, good and evil. The wonders of humanity and its bestialities. We can’t just wipe it out, however distasteful some people might find it today.
Personally I worry that acts like taking down the painting in the Manchester Art Gallery does little for women’s rights and freedoms. In fact, to remove a painting feels like a worrying step towards some puritanical purge. After all it is dictatorships that ban culture, paintings, music, dance and – often – remove women’s rights. Are we now to remove all paintings that depict nude figures? What about so many mythological paintings – masterpieces depicting rape and kidnap? Do we wipe the myths from our history books? What about Botticelli, Titian, Picasso, to mention just a few? What will be left in our art galleries? Bare walls probably because the thought police can find offence in almost everything if they think hard enough.
At the same time we heard, this week, that the female models who accompany the Formula One drivers on the grid will be replaced with ‘grid kids’. This seems totally pointless when several of the girls who used to be employed to escort the racing drivers were perfectly happy with the way they earned their money. And why shouldn’t they be? Surely these kind of high-handed decisions lead to limiting women rather than empowering them? Surely this creates some prescriptive model of how women should behave, which could take us back a few centuries rather than forward?
But while we get into a predicament about whether to remove nude figures of women from the walls of art galleries and museums there is a serious point to remember. This is that huge numbers of women around the world are less fortunate than we are in the developed countries. That many women still don’t have, or don’t dare use, the vote. That many women are routinely abused by men and the system in which they live. That we still have a long way to go to enable women to be recognised as a valid and equal part of the human race (which of course we are if you are brave enough to challenge religious texts and outdated habits of thought and behaviour).
So when I hear comments such as “feminism has gone too far” and “there’s going to be a backlash against feminism” I disagree, because so many women are nowhere near equality. But I do question whether some of the arguments being used are less pertinent than others and perhaps are being presented in ways that can alienate people, which is unhelpful.
OK, so the painting shows naked nymphs tempting a handsome young man to his doom – but who is powerless in this? Is it really the young nymphs? Surely they are using their power to lure him in? Are the young women really represented as passive decorative creatures or are they actually using their subtle art of seduction for their own benefit?
But this is where the muddle lies and where there are such confused messages. After all, alongside this puritan movement we are also living in an era where celebrity models strut their stuff wearing very little and where we regularly have television dramas that broadcast horrifying scenes of rape and violence against women. Not to mention the porn and sadism of some video games. Surely there’s a balance to be had here as this seems to be in direct contrast to discussions of whether advertisements or paintings are “sexist” or objectify their subject.
But I am wary that what is being done in the name of protecting women is actually removing the freedoms that we have battled so hard to achieve. These freedoms could be removed in the blink of an eye if we were subjected to a dictatorship or religious movement and so we have to be watchful, however well-intentioned a suggestion might appear to be.
The female or male body should be allowed to be displayed, whether on canvas, screen or at a party. As long as it is a choice. As long as no-one has been bullied into doing something that makes them feel uncomfortable.
What will make a difference is education. A World Health Organisation survey revealed that “men are more likely to perpetrate violence if they have low education, a history of child maltreatment, exposure to domestic violence against their mothers, harmful use of alcohol, unequal gender norms including attitudes accepting of violence, and a sense of entitlement over women”.
So we have to teach children to identify the boundaries within which they feel safe and in control. We have to alert them to the dangers of being lured into sexting photos of themselves or being groomed into doing things they don’t want to do through social media or bullying. This requires teaching girls to be more confident and assertive of their rights and to rehearse the words they may need to speak in order to say no. We have to help boys and girls to understand that every one of us has a responsibility to manage ourselves wisely and also a responsibility for our impact on others. I also believe it will help for everyone to learn more about the sexual arousal system and the way that testosterone hijacks rational thought, leading to increased risk behaviours.
But taking a painting off the wall isn’t going to provide those skills. Great art demonstrates the command of observation, creativity and painting, depicting philosophical ideas, social and religious concepts. Namely, it educates us and broadens our minds.
Let’s keep the focus on making sure that women’s voices are heard and taken seriously. If the conversation revolves around concepts of powerlessness and victimhood it taints the reputation of women. Women come in all forms. As the playwright David Hare commented recently when asked if he would have “strong women” in his new television series Collateral , “I have the right to portray all kinds of women without being called misogynistic… I want to be free to portray silly women and weak women and clever women; I want to be able to portray all women. When we can portray all women equally, that will be equality.”
This feels right to me – after all there are silly men, weak men and clever men and we all add to the rich diversity of human life. Let’s make sure that our freedoms of speech and creative expression are not limited by the “I can’t be offended” brigade. We have come a long way and it would be nice to feel that in future education will have brought about further change in many more areas of the world.
Jan 26
2018
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Helen Whitten
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“A fair trial is one in which the rules of evidence are honoured, the accused has competent counsel, and the judge enforces the proper courtroom procedures – a trial in which every assumption can be challenged”. Harry Browne
I have been hesitating to throw my tuppence-halfpenny-worth into the arena on the #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein conversation. I still hesitate but I do feel drawn to write about the subject because I am concerned that the #MeToo and social media movement is in danger of demonising men without giving them a proper legal process to establish who is guilty and who is innocent.
I also don’t like the fact that women seem to be adopting the role of victims, when they are also capable of creating their own victims, as we have seen with recent rape charges where women misled the courts through false accusations.
The events at the Presidents’ Club dinner have raised these issues again and I guess I would like to bring a little perspective, as I see it, into the conversation.
Let me start by making it clear that I am in no way condoning rapists nor those who harass or abuse their position through force or by blackmailing female – or male – employees with bribes regarding their career or financial position in return for sexual gratification. This is wrong. People who abuse, whether they are Catholic priests, Harvey Weinstein or gymnast doctor Larry Nassar need to be penalized.
But trial by digital media is like rule by a lynch mob. Without a due process we can’t tell where innocence or guilt lie. In the meantime men’s careers and reputations are being trashed by accusations made by one or more women. There seems to be no due process of law or investigation to identify those who have truly behaved abusively and those who have just made a crass approach where they needed to be told firmly to stop.
Reaching a verdict of “beyond reasonable doubt” when it is one person’s statement against the other’s is hard enough even when there is a court case. But here no judge or jury are involved, just accusation. In the world of Twitter people are condemned before they have had a chance to open their mouth.
What I am saying is not intended to diminish any person’s experience. Simply to ensure that both accused and victim are adequately protected, as is the practice of democracy and the law in the UK.
There is certainly a broader problem of macho-dominated cultures to be addressed, both here in the UK and worldwide. Men have ruled and governed countries, religious establishments, businesses and their women, for far too long. They have been given messages by philosophers and religious leaders that men are here to command, women to obey. Women still have to opt out of the words ‘to obey’ in marriage services so we are talking recent history – and let’s accept that some women liked this. Also let’s acknowledge that much of this has already changed and is changing but sadly one can’t alter millennia of beliefs, perceptions and behaviours in the space of sixty years or so.
This latest set of scandals provides a wake-up call for both men and women to adjust their behaviours to one another further. We need to ensure that men, young and old, move out of any sense of entitlement of their right to touch a woman’s (or a man’s) body without overt permission or encouragement. At the same time women need to be absolutely clear about their boundaries, what they find acceptable or unacceptable, and speak up immediately to stop abusive actions and also misunderstanding. But communication between men and women is subtle and easily open to misunderstandings. The dance of relationship is a tricky one. Both in romantic and workplace situations things can be taken the wrong way. I don’t envy young people who fancy one another in today’s world – one wrong move and your reputation is ruined.
With the Presidents Club, it seems to me that merely attending a male-only charitable event that raises considerable money for good charities is not in itself an evil or disrespectful thing to do. Women have women-only events and hen parties, some with rowdy behaviour and male stripagrams. Are we saying the male stripagrammer is being abused, in the same way we are saying the female hostesses at the Presidents Club party were? A male undertaking to strip is being paid and knows what he is in for. The female hostesses were also being paid and, although some behaviour got out of hand, some of those hostesses had apparently been to such events before and nonetheless signed up again. They are not slaves, they are adult and have every right not to accept the job and, if they do, to bat off any wandering hand if they don’t like it.
Whether the Presidents’ Club dinner should have been held at all with these themes is dubious. And this isn’t to excuse the behaviours of such men but to put them in perspective. Again, I am not talking about victims of rapists or abusers where force is used, nor where someone is underage. There is a significant difference between a rapist and a man who gets drunk and aroused and touches someone inappropriately. Something women, when drunk, have been known to do too. Let’s not tar all men with the same brush. Some men behave badly, many don’t.
“If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Something I didn’t understand when I was young was how shy and nervous many young men were, how anxious they were about asking us for a dance, or to go out on a date, because they faced rejection. I believe even recently girls and women have tended to expect the first move to come from the man. I wonder if those women have experienced the rebuffs that can occur when you do make the first move and are rejected by someone you care for or fancy?
It’s easy for women, who tend to be intuitive, to imagine that a man knows when we are upset or understands how far he can go. The reality of life is that he usually needs to be told. He doesn’t guess. He is often, though not always, less intuitive and needs to have boundaries articulated clearly. Otherwise he can imagine that he has the right to make first moves, indeed that a girl or woman expects him to do so. Some men are practised Casanovas and seducers. Others are somewhat incompetent and inept in terms of relating to a woman. I am talking of the muddle that can occur when there is flirtation or a sexual buzz in the air. It’s heady stuff. I think most women have occasionally flirted or responded to a man’s advances and perhaps later regretted it. At other times it can just be fun and one shrugs it off and puts it down to experience.
When adult women feel empowered – and let’s face it there’s never been a time in history where women were as empowered as we are today – they are capable of managing a man’s predatory nature in such circumstances. They can say no firmly, or expose him to the assembled crowd for what he has done. We don’t have to hide behind the label of victim. Indeed if we are suggesting we need protection from men we are on a slippery slope to Puritanism and to the influence of cultures such as the Middle East where women have been kept covered up indoors to keep them safe from other men. Surely we don’t want that. For those of us living in countries where our rights are protected women need to learn to step up and own our power. We are not frail creatures. We earn our own money. We have the vote. We have equal rights. We have found our voice and we need to use it.
We don’t want to make communication between the sexes any more complicated than it already is. Many men respect women and treat them well. Some men push their luck, and others can be downright violent and abusive. We need to be more careful with categorisation of labels and only give punishment where it is due. The arguments and accusations must be fair.
In this current forthright disclosure of the behaviours women have silently accepted for too many years and now reject, we do, I believe, have the potential to create more mutual respect, equality and cooperation. The messages that boys and girls need to hear within their families and schooling is that they are both equal, that either a woman or a man can be a boss, that both can be strong, that both can be in the kitchen and look after their children, that both can be on equal terms in the dance of sexual attraction. Let’s make it happen but don’t let’s lose the light-hearted fun of flirtation and courtship in the process.
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw
Jan 18
2018
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Helen Whitten
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What bright spark thought up the idea of dry January? To go off booze at the most miserable grey month of the year? It’s madness. Perhaps it was the same person that came up with Movember – the idea that men should grow weird moustaches in order to raise money for charity? Surely we could raise money without this spectacle? But how can we survive dismal, chilly January without the odd gin and tonic or glass of wine? What worse time of the year to decide to keep off the odd tipple or two?
So far I have managed 18 days without alcohol – probably the first time for some forty years (other than pregnancies and hospitalisations) that I have not had a glass of wine with my dinner. Some people say they feel marvellous without alcohol – fitter, happier, sleeping like a baby – and that they take off weight miraculously quickly. Not me! I can’t claim to feel happier nor fitter, nor am I sleeping better. Worse still, despite jumping around to an aerobic video every day I haven’t taken off a single ounce of weight … so what’s the point I ask myself?
On top of this every Sunday magazine covers the topic of post-Christmas detox – we can’t even eat the chocolates everyone gave us for Christmas. So all we can eat is quinoa and brown rice … oh how dull do we have to be in such a dull month? Apparently we should be going vegan. Ouch. I wish I could feel as virtuous as others seem to feel about all this.
But it did get me thinking about the idea of a cleansing of the body and soul. We went to a church service at St Luke’s, Chelsea, last Sunday and there was a baptism service within the Eucharist. The church was full of children running up and down the aisle, the boys clambering over pews as if they were on a climbing frame, the little girls sitting pretty in their pink bows on their Daddy’s knee, a Just-William style boy balancing a fidget-spinner on his nose like a seal. It was fascinating to watch as parents attempted a losing battle at discipline and yet, at the same time, I felt that the Christian words of celebration and love would be seeping into those small souls, sewing memories of values and sacred music into their young minds that might last a lifetime.
And all the while the priest rose above the mêlée to speak of baptism, of a dramatic immersion of renewal and reminded us that we can, at any time of life, choose to begin again in faith, in newness of purpose.
And so perhaps I can see this painful detox as just such a cleansing. I am determined to keep going until February lst. More than that I have actually booked myself in for a ‘health regime’ at a spa where maybe I shall only be able to eat gruel but my goodness I shall feel pleased with myself at the end of it all. Even if I am pale with desperation and haven’t taken off any weight, what a heroine I shall be to myself!
So to all of you endeavouring to plough through the same miserable no-alcohol no-naughty-treats January, good luck! I empathise with you and haven’t enough energy to write a longer blog … too exhausted from the effort of being good. Roll on Foodie February … and a Happy New Year to you all.
Dec 18
2017
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Helen Whitten
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I drove up the King’s Road the other day and noticed the hundreds of tiny boutiques and independent shops that line the road. It made me reflect on the changes that I have seen in the high street and beyond over my lifetime.
I was struck by the amazing creativity that has happened in this country and the extraordinary choice of products and services we now have. Thinking back to the High Street of my 1950s youth, there was a dullness in the displays, the products, and few of the services, personal or professional, that are now on offer were available then.
This was emphasized again when David and I went into Winchester last Saturday to take his granddaughter, Bo, to the panto – Peter Pan. On every street corner there was a band or a choir, stalls selling home-made food and crafts. The colour, care and creativity of these community groups and individuals was startling. And, of course, the pantomime was fantastic – up-to-date with its Brexit jokes but timeless in the “oh yes we do” and “it’s behind you” that sent the small children wild with delight.
I remember my mother doing some AmDram with her Women’s Institute group, and there were cakes and jams but now countless small towns have Literary Festivals, Poetry Festivals, Music Festivals, Open Mic poetry evenings. Every village has it book groups, meditation groups, yoga, mindfulness and therapeutic workshops. The choice is staggering when you add to that the U3A and other local courses and education. And choirs and rock groups. Wow, aren’t we lucky?
I used to set my workshop groups an icebreaker to draw something that made them go wow. Some things are changeless – a sunset or sunrise, a child, the moon, a tree, nature, birds. Others change all the time and many that make me go “wow” today were not around in my parents’ day. SatNav, how cool is that to have someone tell you in good time which way to go in complicated cities and one-way systems? He occasionally has a mad moment and sends me somewhere ridiculous but most of the time he gets it right. Even in the remotest winding country lane in deepest Wales, Scotland, Eastern Europe and almost anywhere on the globe you no longer have to prop a map dangerously on your knee and try to fathom out where you are. And he will even read me my text messages.
My mobile phone amazes me daily with what it can do and what it can tell me – and I can bet you that even then I probably only use 5% of its facilities! The apps that my 6-year old granddaughter uses to learn, to write computer programming script and improve her maths are so useful, and creatively programmed to be entertaining as well as educational. There are emails and skype to keep us in touch with family. friends and work colleagues who may be far away (or sitting next to you!). And the internet, mainly a source for good though, like human society in general, also a source of evil. It can bring together communities in compassion and altruism but also in terrorism or paedophilia. But that’s humans for you.
In moving house we have had the help of Jayne and Maria, M&J Home Solutions, clever declutterers who have been a huge support in focusing our minds on what needs to go to charity or the tip, how to clear the house to show it at its most attractive and appealing to those who might look around. I don’t believe my parents would have been able to avail themselves of such a service.
There are dogwalkers, homesitters, people who will cook and deliver you your everyday meals when you are working hard. And food that you can actually eat! We weren’t allowed in pubs in my childhood, there was no decent coffee and mostly only disgusting food. Now every other shop is a café or patisserie and the food in the UK has improved beyond measure. If I dare to say so, I find it even better than the food in France these days, where the menus have hardly changed for forty years. In England you can find food from every part of the world and also a wonderful creative fusion – even in provincial towns. Pretty much impossible in days gone by!
And as I waltz around our lovely warm home and look out at the pretty but chilly frosty garden I remember times before central heating, when a home would have one warm room with a radiator, leaving the rest of the house freezing. We would get dressed beside the radiator but shiver when we had to go down the corridor to the loo. No more dangerous geysers in our bathrooms to asphyxiate us. And we are finally learning from our mistakes to seek more sustainable methods to keep ourselves warm in winter and cool in summer.
My mother had to struggle with twin-tub washing machines and hand wrangles. My young adult days were spent at the launderette – the fact that there are very few of these on the high street these days speaks of the fact that most people have their own washing machines and probably tumble driers too. Previous generations have had to hang their washing on freezing cold or damp washing lines or string it around the house. The carpet sweeper was pretty exhausting, too, in comparison to a Dyson … and that’s not to mention the hours one would spend washing up the dishes!
And that is not to begin on the medical front. That is truly a wow. My mother’s generation were enraptured by antibiotics, penicillin and vaccinations because before these so many children died. People forget how medicine has transformed our lives. And now we have MRI scans and the technological innovations that have been invented over these decades and it is quite astonishing what hospital doctors can do to save people and make their lives better, even in the most difficult circumstances. People who would inevitably have died in earlier times are kept alive. What we now have to tackle is the terrible human tendency to live somewhat unhealthy lives of too much eating and drinking (oops, Christmas is coming…oh dear, note to self).
Air travel was only for the wealthy – the route from London to Nice was one of the most expensive in the world but today one can get a return for £50 at some times of the year. And cars are so much more reliable – I recall more-or-less every journey having some breakdown with the cars we drove in our early 20s.
In 1969 I remember standing in the garden with my father when the first man landed on the moon. My father was delighted and would have been thrilled to watch the antics of Tim Peake on the space station and gain the knowledge of the universe that we have gained since that time, thanks to photographic technology and the ability to transfer data home from outer space. Near miraculous as far as I am concerned!
I have booked myself into a spa in January – another thing that was few and far between for my mother’s generation. I ought to be booking in for a diet programme but actually am taking the time out with a girlfriend, an old schoolfriend, to enjoy hydrotherapy, massage, warm baths, swimming, and manicures. What a luxury. I come from a generation that grew up doing our own nails but judging by all the nail bars on every high street obviously this is no longer the luxury it was for me. There were no credit cards, of course, and very little credit despite astronomic mortgage rates.
Inevitably all this is relative and difficult for younger generations to compare. But I hope that those who are young today will be able to look back in a similar way in forty years time to stop and notice the improvements that have occurred in their lifetime. It’s too easy to get into pessimism and become blind to what is all around.
And so, as we head up to Christmas, I wanted to remind you, remind myself, of how much our lives have become more comfortable and how important it is not to take it all for granted. Keep looking and noticing because there are so many people in the world who do not enjoy these things that used to be luxuries but are now commonplace experiences of our every day life. There’s nothing commonplace about them – they are amazing and are the output of human creativity, teamwork and ingenuity. So we can choose to focus our eyes and minds to appreciate and be grateful for all these incredible advances that make each day easier and more enjoyable for us.
Happy Christmas to you all and I wish you a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2018!