The small ads in pregnancy magazines are suddenly full of these strange postnatal accessories, designed to shield onlookers from a supposedly offensive, unsolicited flash of lactating boob. Many of them are all-enveloping “nursing shawls” that make it look as if you are trying to smuggle a suitcase. The UK’s Baby BuBu Breastfeeding Covers, for instance, are enormous body aprons, while the Bebe Au Lait Hooter Hiders Nursing Cover is a giant tent with a rigid neckline

As a non lactating non mother I can’t say what my personal experiences are as a breastfeeder, however I am lucky to have lots of confident friends who happily wapped out a bap to feed their young in cafe’s and parks. And so I can’t imagine why anyone would feel the need to cover up something that rarely needs covering up – I can’t remember a time when I saw someone breastfeeding that I also saw a mass of breast, but then maybe I don’t spend a lot of time staring.

Anyway, when in doubt – crowd source. After a  quick tweet to my followers I found a flurry of wonderful replies.

Lady Gaga presents an extremely empowered vision of sex and sexiness. Hers is a million miles away from the cynical, soulless titillation of your average Britney Spears video; of …Baby One More Time, say (in which Spears, who was 17, dressed as a schoolgirl and beseeched whoever to “Hit me, baby, one more time…”). It’s the opposite of the sex offered in most R&B and hip-hop videos, in which unnamed, interchangeable bikini-clad models dance for the slathering delectation of the male recording artists. Because men dance for Lady Gaga.

Gaga owns this version of sex and she’s not asking you to approve it. She’s a complete pop icon – but she’s no pin-up. She hasn’t bothered constructing a version of herself designed to please a straight male audience. Lady Gaga doesn’t do pretty, or available, or submissive, or obviously glamorous. Instead she does scary, she does theatrical, she does brave.

And these are my thoughts exactly. Perhaps a pop princess like Spears is indeed presenting an oversexualised image and encouraging young girls to dress/dance/act in a provocative manner. Lady Gaga I think not. To me, Lady Gaga represents a different kind of sexuality, one which in my eyes is certainly not run of the mill heterosexual. And perhaps Mike Stock wouldn’t feel comfortable watching a Lady Gaga with his children or mother, but I certainly would.

“Now that feminism has reclaimed the territory of traditional ‘housewife’ and empowered it…”

It’s a pity that came up in the press release because they had me at ‘practical advice’. I would just have enjoyed the book, maybe I would have said that it’s useful for anyone to have lying around in case the Internet breaks and they need to fix something.

As a woman with a penchant for vintage clothes combined with a skill at spilling food and drink all down the front of them and with a want for eco-friendly care of my belongings the older way of doing things is sometimes exactly what I’m looking for. Added to that I’m a serial sucker for prim looking things for my bookshelves and, my, Home Economics is prim looking all delicate fonts and illustrations anyone with an eye to past times style would be happy to leave it out for people to have a look at. It would have been fine. But they’re telling us we need this as part of our feminist day.

This is not a feminist bible (though, if we do put one together lets find out who did they design on this). Time isn’t enough to make doing the household chores twee and fun, particularly for those of us who have to wash our own clothes and floors. Particularly when you find that most cleaning and caring roles inside the home and within industry are filled by women. At the end of the day I can safely say it isn’t feminism that makes me want to wash things, its health and hygiene. So where does a book get off telling me that traditional feminist roles being played out in the most traditional of ways is reclamation of anything?

You’d be forgiven for thinking that feminism had better things to be doing, arguing too and fro about prostitution, objectification, lack of care and support for those suffering domestic violence and the many myriad ways violence against women shows itself and what to do about them. You’d think when it comes to the homes feminists would be embroiled in working to make sure refugee and asylum seeking women have somewhere safe to stay that isn’t a prison.

Well, look at you being wrong. Every other feminist you know is secretly swatting up on table manners and ‘the happy way of doing things’ as well as curiously studying how to fold them big old men shirts properly. Oh wait, are you reading that new feminist politics book? Now I see you were using to create a straight line you clever thing.

Hilarious rib poking aside, this book is a practical and slightly scientifically flawed repackaging of age old adages and soft focus advice from yesteryear very much pitched at the heterosexual female keeping the home and family clean and upright.

The introduction pays brief service to the interesting ideas behind flicking through now yellowed and unused home economics text books – homemade eco-friendly cleaners and an ability to mend and reuse your own clothes among them. It also makes the great point that many of today’s time saving implements freed women from slaving at the hot stove and the steaming laundry. But that’s not enough at all to try and crowbar feminism into what is a jovial little book with a few nice tips on removing stains and putting an end to food waste but little else.

But here, take an old adage from my book ‘not everything has to be feminist your feminism will be enough to keep you safe, sometimes’. So buy it, enjoy it, love up the vintage olden times glory but don’t buy or repeat throw away marketing pitches aimed at soaking up another segment of the audience know as “women”.

In the meantime if you know any good books which look at how modern kitchen implements freed women from the kitchen let me know, and if there aren’t any pay me to research and write it.

We haven’t given enough attention to the Big Bum Jumble just around the corner, it’s not only going to be an amazing day of size acceptance and fatshion but it’s also going to be a fundraiser for the fatty olympics.

Here’s a quick run down of what you can do and how you can get involved.

You can donate your large clothing still in good condition to the Big Bum Jumble to make somebody’s day – DONATE

You can attend the Big Bum Jumble and make your own day – ATTEND

You can tell as many people as possible and spread the Big Bum Fun far and wide, perhaps get some other Big Bum Jumbles in the mix – FLYERS AND POSTERS

Dear Supporter,

I’m delighted to tell you that on Friday the Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced that she would extend the current No Recourse pilot project until March 2011. This enables women trapped in violent relationships by the ‘no recourse’ rule to access protection from which they would otherwise have been turned away.

Even better, she said that she would then be working on a permanent solution. The Home Secretary made this pledge despite the cuts climate, saying “some things are too important”. This is great news.

We will, of course, continue to try to work with the government to ensure that the project addresses some of the weaknesses in the current pilot, but this announcement is a major step forward that will give hundreds of women safety over the coming months, and beyond. Definitely something to celebrate.

Thank you to everyone who supported this campaign – especially those who came to the mass lobby of Parliament back in November, or wrote to their MPs on this issue.

Sincerely,

Heather Harvey
Stop Violence Against Women Campaign Manager

Background on this campaign
Many women come to the UK, often legally, in the hope of improving their lives. They may come on temporary work permits, student visas or spousal visas. Some women come to the UK to marry. The ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule says that a woman in this position – even if she’s married to a British citizen – is not entitled to certain state benefits, including housing benefit and income support. But these are the benefits a woman must be able to claim to get a place in a refuge if she needs to escape violence. In December, the last government launched a pilot project to help these women. Active campaigning led to the pilot being extended until August 2010 and we’ve been keeping up the pressure ever since for a permanent solution. Read more

I know that Jezebel is not necessarily a feminist website, and it doesn’t claim it is, however it has cultivated a large audience of feminists and I’m sure it has feminists writing for it. However, the occasonal rants about gender, sexuality, rape culture kind of go out of the window when Jezebel is no longer a safe space for discussions to take place, when an aggressive male is at the helm, even just for one day.

And dammit, I’m angry. And I know all my feminist chums who don’t like Jezebel will be a bit “told you so” but, well, fair enough.

Extra anger appears because not one of the big feminist blogs has come out with  critique, the editors who returned on Monday have nothing to say about it and I feel like maybe I missed the memo when everyone decided it was OK to let this slide didn’t reach the Subtext inbox. In failing to say anything, Jezebel failed to fight for the readers and Gawker put visits ahead of reader loyalty. Fail.

Here is a rather good blog about the fiasco. No links for you Jezebel.

CWS at University of York Announces A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism

Carol Ann Duffy Reading, Questions and Book Signing in Lincoln