Tag: Opinion

creative writing

Book Review: Can You Keep a Secret?

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Sophie Kinsella’s 2003 ‘stand-alone’ novel ‘Can You Keep a Secret?‘ recently caught my eye. Between the hectic storm of day to day life, in the moments where I can put my feet up, I have been absorbed in Emma’s relatable life of humorous disaster.

Emma, the protagonist, is character you can sympathise with. Even 16 years later. Between her whirlwind life of awkward moments, difficult career path and her heart-wrenchingly dysfunctional family life, Emma is a timeless character the modern young woman will recognise. She is full of good intentions that circumstance always seems to twist and turn into little white lies. So when Emma unintentionally spills out all her secrets to her top boss, her world is thrown upside down.

Jack, the romantic masculine character with a vast fortunate, perhaps too soon seems to be the answer to all of Emma’s problems. Inevitably, today’s feminist critique of literature would be very sceptical of this. However a large part of Emma is a strong and confident woman. She feels confident enough to speak up for the inequalities between them, and even her two other flatmates encourage her to recognise her rights. Instead, Jack has walked out of a Jane Austen novel and chosen to pop into 2003. He is thoughtful, well-intentioned and meaningful; His millions are almost invisible.

When life gives you lemons – lie?

Whilst somewhat predictable, with points where I screamed for Emma to speak up for herself, Kinsella’s book was funny, satisfying and a downright pleasure to read. Even though the book has aged well, imagining 2003 flip phones, crazy hair dos and 00’s clothes (pink crochet!?) was a comforting blast from the past (particularly as we approach 2020!).

Verdict? A definite recommendation for my friends. Kinsella certainly came through on the humour/’chick-flit’/contemporary romance front. Crucially, she has created something both timeless and nostalgic, before the age of Tinder and a Google search engine to pour your woes into. It raises a moral questioning of why we lie; provoking the idea that we should be brave and transform our lives for the better, like Emma, and step forth into an honest world. A strong 7/10.

Miscellaneous

Being Vegetarian

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News headlines of late have been littered with Extinction Rebellion, air quality, electric cars, the reduction of coal powering power stations and the latest David Attenborough environmental programme. At a time when climate change is converging ever more into the public eye, conversation about the vegetarian diet has never been more topical.

Almost three years ago I made the switch. I cut out bacon, sausages, Sunday roasts. But it’s all been worth it. Before, I would go piscetarian over the lent period. It makes you think about your food differently, question what’s in it, where it came from, who might have handled it. I came to realise that generally, I did not consume an awful amount of meat anyway. But that didn’t stop the cravings for pork scratchings during the early stages!

It was a particularly inspiring philosophy lecture that prompted me to go veggie: on Peter Singer’s personhood. He carries the pioneering view that animals have personhood, even going as far to say that they have more personhood than newborn babies and people in comas. This goes against Aristotle, Plato and Descartes who deny that animals have spirits. He’s actually convinced Richard Dawkins too! As funny cat videos and animal rescue centres take social media by storm, I don’t think we have ever cared more about animals more.

More than protecting animals, we are being encouraged to cut down on meat in order to reduce carbon emissions: Whether that might mean only having meat dishes on weekends. You can cut down nearly a quarter of your carbon footprint by simply cutting down on red meats, such as beef and lamb. Being carbon conscious is increasingly trendy, with vegetarian menus cropping up (shout out to Wetherspoons who do a fantastic veggie breakfast!) and vegan cafés.

However this brings into question the farming industry. And a dilemma. Is it better to let these slaughterhous animals to die out so they no longer suffer but do not exist? It would affect biodiversity for one thing. We have breed cows so much that the Chillingham Wild Cattle in Northumberland are one of a few natural cattle left in the world. Check out Bong Joon-ho’s Okja on Netflix for a vivid dystopian view of meat farming.

Ultimately, I enjoy being veggie. It’s a challenge to minimise the suffering of animals I respect as possessing personhood; and it reduces my footprint. Although I am not entirely sure I could commit to being vegan (and I have full respect to anyone who does!), maybe one day I will take that extra step. For now though (without coming across as an angry radical vegetarian!), I would encourage anyone looking to contributing a small change for the wider good to look into flexitarianism!

Miscellaneous

In a Man’s World

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Hearing Caroline Criado Perez on the radio this week (yes, Radio 4, because I am essentially an old lady) has opened my eyes to the world in a way I would never have expected. Her book, Invisible Women, exposes subtle ways First World countries have permitted a startling gender bias to lie dormant: in plain sight.

50% of women in car accidents are more likely to sustain serious injury

Perez throws a splash of realism onto the world, revealing to what extent female needs have been overlooked. Her study of data bias reveals to what extent the world is designed for men: how phones are too big for women’s hands, fundamental army equipment being unsuitable for women, and even office environments being tailored to the male metabolic resting rate. But perhaps most concerning is her research into car crash dummies. European regulations require only the ‘Reference Man’ dummy to be used in simulated crash tests in order to determine the safety rating of a car. ‘Female’ dummies are merely scaled down male ones; an inadequate representation of the female physiology. Moreover, this scaled-down dummy is only required to be used once in the passenger seat in five tests. This exposes an invisible world of ‘gender-blind’ policy. Alarmingly, as a result 47% of women in car accidents are more likely to sustain serious injury. What does this imply? Decision-makers do not agree with female drivers and are secretly killing them off? Women are less valuable than men? It is a hard fact to swallow when you consider its implications.

And there is more. Medical trials misrepresent the female body. Specifically heart failure trials tend to use male participants. Resultingly, women are 50% more likely to be misdiagonised following a heart attack. This ‘one-size-fits-men’ approach, Perez describes, has even taken a hold of technology. The emblem of the future. VR headsets are more likely to make women sick; speech-recognition software is 70% more likely to recognise the male voice; and most prevailently, smartphones are too long for the female hand span.

This is a world where we are in the Third Wave of feminism and the Me Too movement. In December 2018, a record-breaking 71.4% of women in employment. However:

  • 41% of employed women are part-time compared to 13% of men.
  • On average, full-time women earned £509 a week, whilst full-time men earned £100 more.
  • 17.9% gender pay gap is indicative of the higher proportion of female part-time workers.
  • The gap between full-time men and women was only 8.6%.
The Ford sewing-machinist strike of 1968 over unequal pay whereby women effectively worked unpaid for two months a year

Compared to the conditions that led to the 1968 women’s strike at Dagenham’s Ford factory (which I can proudly say my great-grandmother participated in!), we have much improved. Nevertheless, there is very much still room to do better. Overwhelmingly, women choose to go part-time. Often, it takes an empowering decision to juggle child-care with maintaining a career. Yet, I wonder whether if more men stepped up to the mark, how things might be different. I appreciate that gender bias of part-time work will never be 50-50. But if more men were to balance their work life with their family life, perhaps more women in work to represent the female voice would transform the inequalities Perez has unveiled.

I am not a strongly politically opinionated person. Looking at this issue with an inquisitive mind has stretched my view of the data bias against women on this matter. However you stand on feminism: whether you believe it’s gone too far or equality has already been reached, the Invisible Women book starkly outlines issues that need to be addressed. Out of basic humanity, why should one half of the population have better survival rates in a car crash or after a heart attack?