Autumn at the Bakery - can anyone find any publicity for the fact women are paying for the bulk of the public sector cuts?

me and Mad Men on my wall big style

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness be damned, this is the Autumn of our miserable anxiety ridden discontent, made bearable by Mad Men Season 4, A History of the World in 100 Objects (though it does feel as though we have had more than 100), my mum's lemon drizzle cake turned into buns and yellling abuse at radio 4 every time someone intones solemnly that we are all in this together. No we bloody well aren't. Arms dealers, apparently, are the new nurses, the profession we should admire for their selfless devotion to the human race and to whom we should give all our money, yay, e'een unto the very last penny in the small child's piggy bank. They aren't in it with us, whatever 'it' is.

Updates on bakery business 1: the Fawcett Society’s legal challenge to the Coalition Government’s failure to obey the law on gender equality has not exactly been all over the press, TV, radio or blogosphere. In fact, their own website is startlingly lacking in recent information. Yet Osborne appears to be happy to ignore the rule of law and we, the public, remain braced to experience the full force of bankers’ revenge without supporting the sole legal challenge to the cuts we know will be unfair, cruel and, well, how can I say this politely, illegal. Various research papers have identified the unfairness of making poor women pay for rich (mostly, but not entirely) male bankers’ frivolity, but this isn’t making enough press yet.


The ConDems are making a great deal of "fairness" and how "we are all in this together". But, despite the fact that women make up the majority of the low paid workers and are still far from on equal pay with men, we are asked to shoulder the majority of the burdeen of the public sector cuts, as workers and service users. And some nice governmental advisors have started saying that the Equalities Act was a mistake...


Anyway, despite this crucially important aspect of the public spending cuts (there are many others) we are hearing very little, nay, practically nothing, about it. The only people I have heard mention it in public are union leaders - the left wing blogs and the Labour Party aren't exactly trumpeting it either (and I say that with love and regret).


So pass it on. Post it on your facebook status, send this blog to others, make a donation to the Fawcett Society, write to your MP or councillor, write to the newspaper. Do something!

Any bakery readers who remain at the hand wringing stage about the impending doom, or who are teetering on the brink of the sleepless with worry stage, try writing a letter to your MP, particularly if she or he is a Lib Dem or Tory. Let them know what you think. Whatever happens, at least they can’t say they weren’t told and at least you won’t feel that you stood by and did nothing. But honestly, writing letters does have an effect. If you don’t believe me, ask Troy Davis’ sister (see previous blog), or any prisoner freed from prison or granted reprieve from the death penalty after pressure from letter writing by Amnesty supporters.


Or – bakery past blast – consider that about twenty years ago, the Secretary of State for Benefits (he wasn’t called that exactly, but you know what I mean) did a complete turnaround on allowing parents who had been abused or whose children had been abused by their ex-partner to refuse to agree to a child support agency claim for maintenance, if they feared harm or distress would result to their child or to them as a result. It cost public money (which we were told was impossible to convince a Tory government about) and it wasn’t perfect, but thousands of women and children have benefitted from this tiny but significant clause in the Child Support Act 1991 known as the good cause clause. At Women’s Aid back then we hopeless idealists naively thought writing letters to MPs would make a difference. You know, it did.

It's Mint Julep o'clock!

Two blogs or so ago I retired to my chaise longue and dreamt of mint juleps. The mint julep pixies provided for me and it was a life changing experience. Yes, I felt like I was in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, in fact I think I was actually one made flesh. Very unsuitably rounded ample flesh rather than board like 20s flapper like flesh but definitely created by the great man himself or would have been if he had stayed off the Mint Juleps to live longer.

So here it is. The sun seems to have returned so it felt like a good idea. Enjoy.

Per person (if they only want one drink)

4 fresh sprigs of mint - well, how much is a sprig? It's a sprig! which is a fancy word for twiggish stalk thing.

2.5 fluid oz Bourbon or similar (don't be put off thinking you don't like whiskey, this is something altogether different)

1 tsp powdered sugar
2 tsp water

Muddle mint leaves (rip them off the sprigs), sugar and water. Some would make the sugar and water into a syrup first, for ease of blending. But you can just muddle. Not sure how to muddle a mint leaf? look at it firmly, tell it first that Keynesian economic policies are an outmoded method of reinvigorating an underperforming economy, then tell it that monetarists' approches to fiscal stimulation are SOOOOO last century, then say you are going to give up cash and only obtain goods from Freecycle and services from TimeBanking. It'll be muddled by then or my name's not George Osborne. Oh, OK, muddling means mix it up with a stumpy pokey stick to release the aromatic flavours.

Fill glass with shaved or crushed ice. How to shave a block of ice? I still don't really know but I do know if you wrap the ice in a tea towel and whack it madly with a rolling pin, you will crush the thing.

Add bourbon.

Top up with more ice and another sprig mint for looks.

Serve with a Straw (by clicking on the top right hand link to Left Foot Forward?). Or serve with a straw.  

If you want to make in bulk, do all the above but in a cocktail shaker in multiple quantities. Try not to think of Tom Cruise. That's a good motto for life.

Ladies in their pants

First, by way of easing us into a discussion about women wearing not much more than pants, a publicity push for whomadeyourpants? collective. They make pretty underwear - hooray! - but concerned girls can be assured that the women who made them were properly treated and have a stake in the business, a rarity in any business involving women and intimate garments. I have ordered mine and will report back on future Bakery pages. I also have a pattern for knitting lacy pants so we can see whether commerce triumphs over home craft shortly.


Last week's Bakery posting urged support for the Fawcett Society's admirable attempt to take the government to court for failure to abide by the Gender Equality Duty and notice that they are disproportionately affecting women in the proposed cuts. It's pleasing to see that they are garnering much support, but saddening to find that they are getting so little coverage (try googling this or searching in any of the major newspaper websites or political blogs and you will see what I mean).


But let's try to keep the rant level low. Is there anything good to report on women's lives in the UK in summer 10? Well, yes, actually there is, though it is a strange thing to have to celebrate and is a bit like celebrating the end of a war. Thanks due to Object, a wonderful campaigning organisation. Even if you don't agree with them - and I do hope that by the end of this blog you will - they gladden the heart, they remind us all that you don't have to be a Freemason to influence people.


As of 3rd August 2010 (two weeks ago), Job Centres were no longer allowed to advertise posts in the so-called 'sex industry' (some of us choose to use the less factually challenged  term rape-and-sexual-abuse-industry when referring to lap-dancing clubs, sex shows, prostitution, pornography and the like, but call it what you will). 


I will pause for the effects of this to be clear....yes, that's right, it was legal before 3rd August for lap dancing clubs (known quaintly as the Adult Entertainment Industry) to advertise for staff in Job Centres. Which meant it was perfectly legal for Job Centre staff to put these adverts in front of unemployed young women. Did they put them in front of unemployed men, I wonder? And did the adverts carry the footnote about Exemption from the Sex Discrimination Act? If not, the Job Centres were themselves breaking the Sex Discrimination Act, but let that slide for the moment.


If you had an unemployed daughter, niece, friend, or if you yourself are a young unemployed woman, what would be your response to a Job Centre employee telling your daughter/niece/etc./you that you should consider this line of employment? Yes, the Job Centre guidance did say that job seekers should not be forced to apply, but at the very least, putting up the adverts in a government office gives them some sort of respectability.


What, Bakery Thangam, I hear you ask. What can you possibly have against nice ladies taking their tops off for kindly men who mean them no harm and simply want to give them some cash to buy a cardi with?  Pen and paper ready, please, take down the following:


Increased risk of sexual harassment of women living or working in the areas surrounding these establishments: try walking past one at night. I have to cycle home past two late at night after I get off the train from London, coincidentally after runnning a re-education programme for violent men and so I can personally assure you there is anecdotal evidence to support this. But don't believe me, read the research which shows this clearly: lap dancing clubs create an atmosphere in which men feel free to sexually harass and abuse women in and out of the premises. When they leave the club, they do not get hosed down with reasonable thought processes and their minds are in the same foolish state when they are outside addressing we ladies of the general public. I can also assure you of the generally depressing effect the sight of the clubs has on me: just spent 4 hours trying to give men reasons to stop treating women as their property and play things, only to be reminded that the men will have already been given 10 times as many reasons to ignore me, by the time they get home.


Increased risk of sexual harassment and assault for women working in these establishments: sounds like a duh! factor but there it is. Research shows that clubs are not safe for women to work in, they regularly face sexual harassment and assault. The clubs respond that they employ security guards to protect the women - by definition this shows that the clients are not to be trusted and a security guard can't be there all the time. You could try arguing that women know that they are risking this when they take on the job, but then you would also be arguing that women give up their rights to bodily safety when they get a job in the Adult Entertainment Industry. Are you sure you really mean that? If men pay the entrance fee, should we just ignore whatever they do to the women?


Sexualisation contributes to sexually abusive beliefs: yup, another duh! factor.  Research into sexual assault and beliefs shows that about a third of UK population think that women are to blame if they are wearing revealing clothing and get sexually assaulted. Are any of those people the same as the ones who want certain other women to reveal a bit more, by not wearing the veil? What's a girl to do? Wear more or wear less? Or shall we just stay at home in sensible shoes and knit lacy pants?


Sex industries make young women want to work in the sex industry: Some polls suggest that about two-thirds of the UK's young women want to work in the rape-and-sexual-assault-industry. Is this what you want for your daughter? If you aren't fine with that, but think people like me are interfering old witches, why is it OK for someone else's daugher but not yours? Would you say nothing if you were in a club and it was your daughter the men were leering over and trying to grab?


Sexualisation puts young women at risk of sexual harm: Young women in their early teens are publishing pictures and videos of them naked online on various well-known social networking sites. Some of these sites have proudly announced the thousands of user licenses belonging to convicted sex offenders they have had to close down.  Do you know what the young women in your life are posting online? More glamourising of the lap dancing and similar industries helps make sexual abusers feel justified in watching and abusing young women and the internet is then able to provide the means for them to do this from the comfort of their own homes. Why would we want to help that?


Discrimination: The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) conducted an Equalities Impact Assessment on this topic, which makes clear that jobs advertised in the Job Centres have to obey the law on discrimination in employment. Lap dancing clubs recruit young, thin, women with a particular body shape. They are not well known for their equal opportunities strategies.


Lap dancing clubs who responded to the DWP consultation protested that they are simply a choice of employer amongst many, comparing their vacancies with those in butchers. Nice touch.


FACT: there is no reply yet from the government to the Fawcett application for a judicial review for gender discrimination.
FACT: just because something turns you on, doesn't make it right.
FACT: so far as I know, no-one has yet invented a device for checking if internet porn/webcams etc were produced with no coercion, trafficking, force, sexual violence against the people on screen.
FACT: there is much more to say about women in and out of our pants. But until then, do visit who made your pants and see good things about the subject and perhaps agonise over whether their pictures are objectifying us females....Comments welcome please.


So there we are, some good news, some bad. Mostly the not so good sort.


Keep on knitting and baking. But most of all, get active. And I am not talking about sport.

NEXT TIME: yes, there will be recipes. I promise. Fish pie looks likely, also some bread related item.

Take the government to court

I love the Fawcett Society. They are named after the lovely Millicent Fawcett and have been around since 1866. They are still keeping up the struggle for equal pay for equal work, still a long way from reality, 40 years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act (which means that women earn at best about a fifth less than men and if you take into account lifetime loss of earnings for child rearing, a great deal less). They are excellent at telling it like it is about so called lap dancing clubs and have cearly helped lots of people to persuade their local councils to adopt the change in licensing laws which will end the ridiculous practice of licensing lap dancing clubs and the like under the same rules as a cafe (as have their sister organisation Object, also wonderful campaigning network tackling the whole gamut of the so-called 'sex' industry - or rape, harassment and sexual abuse industry as it could more truthfully be known).

And they have put the Equality and Human Rights Commission to shame, by doing the only responsible thing in the face of imminent budget changes which will result in more hardship, fewer opportunities, lower paid jobs and worse services, disproportionately for women - they are taking the government to court.

Someone really should be taking the Condems to court for just generally doing things which are likely to hurt poor people more than rich people. But we don't have laws against being unfair to poor people. And we do have laws requiring public bodies not to discriminate against women (we also have ones requiring them not to discriminate against disabled people, or people on grounds of their sexuality, hooray).

Last time I looked (about 5 minutes ago) the government hadn't yet been put out to tender and sold to the consultant with the best score on Best Value Performance Indicators, so I am pretty sure that it is still a public body at the moment. So this rule, known enticeingly as the Gender Equality Duty, still applies. And instead of the body legally constituted to hold organisations to account for adherence to equalities and human rights legislation, paid for with public money, it has been left to the Fawcett Society, a charity, funded almost entirely by individual donations and trusts, to tell the government that they can't do this without at least considering how this will affect equality between men and women.

Theresa May, Home Secretary and expert of the apparent 180degree turn illusion, aka Minister for Equalities, has made the Chancellor aware of this responsibilities to avoid discrimination of all kinds, including discrimination against gay people, disabled people and others under the Equalities Act 2010, in a clear letter which you can have a look at by clicking on that link. In other words: THEY CAN'T EVER SAY THEY WEREN'T WARNED, by their own Home Secretary.

So, support the Fawcett Society in their work, kindly helping to keep the government from breaking the law. If you join, not only will you have the pleasure of knowing that your money is helping to sue Cam'n'Clegg'n'co (and honestly, wouldn't that be a pleasure?). You will get a t-shirt with "This is what a feminist looks like" running attractively across your chest.

I have been photographed wearing this in a range of appropriate poses: whilst knitting aside a raging waterfall in Northumberland (the photographer lost his nerve there, so you will just have to believe me); as a protective outer layer when baking almond slices (of more anon), knitting in an ancient beech forest (see left), attempting to cook a three course meal for a family of 12 in a cliff top campsite in Wales, as half a pyjama. Frankly it could do with better tailoring - I didn't win many sartorial points as you can see, so there is a cliche sadly supported - but the political point is, I hope, clear. Feminists may bake, (or not), knit (or not), skip through meadows (or not), dress up (or down), rear or care for children and older people (or not) and we all work (whether paid or unpaid). Just like everyone else. Except for the important detail that we don't want (nit pickers that we are) to be treated as less important, less able, less deserving of decent lives, just because we are females. That's it. Nothing threatening there.

Any woman who doesn't want to call herself one out loud, that's a choice. Any woman who wants to slam feminism can, in order, give back: equal pay, protection under the law from violence, child benefit, right to vote, right to work, right to remain in work after marriage, right to own property, right to have own bank account, right to privacy and bodily integrity. Give 'em all back, if you have nothing but bad things to say about feminists - most of these didn't exist 50 years ago, lots didn't exist 20 years ago (including the right to say no to sex within marriage) and don't think for a minute that powerful political men just woke up one morning and said "let's do something nice for ladies today". Feminists organised and got busy and wrote letters and took to the streets and raised money to pay for legal challenges and thus, equal rights got a bit closer.

In reality, lots of the apparent gains are still mere mirages or fuzzy images at best, which is why we still need the Fawcett Society.

To those dear friends who think that we have gender equality and I am just being old fashioned - I must have missed the meeting where it was announced that the gender pay gap had closed, that there was no glass ceiling any more, that women don't get raped and beaten just for being women any more, that degrading treatment of women can no longer be packaged up and sold as harmless fun in magazines, websites or clubs for men any more. Come to think of it, I must have also missed the meeting where it was announced that men were no longer also being denied certain opportunities, just because they are men, or coerced into joining the armed forces and becoming cannon fodder, just because they were men without other job opportunities, any more. Gender equality is good for us all and it doesn't deny us the opportunity to be women and men in the ways we want to be, it just stops us from being discriminated against for it. Simple as.

Donate and help them sue the government, we need this now more than ever...

Hot coffee news!

Quick update on the Fair Trade coffee saga: I have now received a lengthy, warm and encouraging email from the CEO of the coffee retailer I love the most. Sadly, though unsurprising, there was no immediate commitment to putting a Fair Trade coffee on their shelves but some possibilities and she was most certainly understanding of the value of the Fair Trade presence for her customers - a breakthrough. I won't be naming them till I see the logo on the right on one of the lines in her delightful outlet and then I will resume my overdraft maintenance activities with gusto. Till then, I may have to desist.


CEO says the issue for her is quality, that she hasn't found a Fair Trade registered coffee with good enough quality. Does anyone know of one? I mean really REALLY good? Yes, I have tasted the ones you can get ready ground but neither they nor the very few FT registered beans I have ever tasted even come close to this quality, it's a one way street and I may have to give up coffee completely if they don't find something Fair AND tasty from Peru soon (that seems to be the most likely candidate said CEO has got). I have heard rumours of fine coffe from Uganda - please share the love and pass on the information if you have it, my caffeine addicted bones won't rest till I can get my fix with squeaky clean conscience and taste buds as happy as does the champagne my champagne socialism occassionally tickles them with.


The main thing is I want to find out how much consumer power counts for in the modern day - we are supposed to be consumers and to exercise our political influence at the check out so I hope that this saga has inspired some to at least ask the question in their favourite shops; why don't they stock any (or more) Fair Trade goods. We do have some power, it may be small but when more of us ask for things that matter, our voices get heard. Or am I being naive? Answers in the comments box, or by carrier pigeon, or attached to a fine bottle of pink fizz (is there a Fair Trade champagne? Is there a call for one? or are champagne producers not in need of such a thing to protect them? I suspect the latter but would be grateful for further information).


It's too hot to rant. If it weren't, there would be words on GROWTH NOT CUTS. I might mention that the current proposed form of voting reform is NOT what a lot of people voted for and barely counts as proportional representation. I could ask, coyly, why there is a new line of comment around about, that the coalition agreement isn't actually giving anyone what they voted for (and it would be tempting to say I told you so...see previous blogs). I could rail against the ubiquity of football and hurl forwards the possibility that supporting INGERLAND is a rallying point for the reassertion of nationalistic heteronormative hegemonic narrative (but that wouldn't make me many friends at parties). Or I could point out, annoyingly, that in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, over 6 turgid volumes, in 1776, pointed out that said decline was marked by a public obsession with celebrity and sport. He also did a fine job of denigrating organised religion. If you happen to be in Bentinck Street in London you can lay a copy of Heat magazine and your St George's flag themed memorabilia at the foot of his blue plaque in tribute and pray for the arrest of the Holy Father when his lips touch the tarmac in Heathrow this Autumn.


But like I said, too hot. I am taking to my chaise with three papers about domestic violence and a loose idea for a board game called choose a new labour leader snakes and ladders. And a yearning for a mint julep. I have no idea what they are but I think F. Scott Fitzgerald characters would be sipping on one right now. They certainly wouldn't be blowing unitone vuvuzuelas.