Does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop?

3rd May 20203rd May 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I wanted to know whether these young men feel like they need to act/look/talk/think a certain way when they like someone, and whether they think there’s a generally accepted version of ‘attractive’ for the male sex.

My favourite response was: ‘I’m not saying I go around crushing beers against my forehead but I do maybe try and avoid slutdropping for hashtag bant’. I mean, that first part is just a really funny mental-image.

But overall, the answers were interesting because they were all pretty 50/50 on ‘yes’ and ‘no’, with equally passionate viewpoints on both sides. However, the ‘no’ answers had quite a lot of contradictions, with boys saying ‘no, not really’ or ‘definitely not’, but following it with ‘I try to be the most appealing version of myself’. Noting that it’s ‘pointless’ to be something they’re not in the first stages of getting to know a person, but still wanting to make themselves ‘more likeable’ to ‘not put girls off’.

I did completely understand what they meant: we all try to temper or alter ourselves when we first meet someone because we want them to like us. But, I can’t help feeling sad at how much pressure we put on ourselves just because we want the approval of a stranger…

Regardless of how many of these lads said ‘I just kinda do me’, there were a lot of mentions of the ‘tall, dark and handsome’ trope. The ‘v-line’ and the ‘older look’; the ‘jawline’ and the ‘muscular look’; the ‘confidence’ that always almost crosses over into ‘arrogance’. Oh, and ‘that typical white boy look’: I’m learning that for both men and women, other races have a lot more trouble with fetishisation than us Caucasians. But that’s a whole other blog.

Overall, the boys were saying a lot of things which equate to the experiences girls have our age. We all overthink how we should be when we’re trying to impress someone. We try not to change in front of strangers we fancy, but often we do it anyway. We have social standards we kind of want to live up to – no matter how impossible they might be. Our upbringing and our social class influence what version of ourselves we think is preferable to whoever we’re talking to. We’re all just kind of insecure and unsure at this age.

However these boys made a point that deserves a specific mention: not enough time is given to how much these pressures to look a certain way damage the mental health of young men. My friends were so right to tell me that ‘body image amongst men isn’t taken as seriously’ as it should be, because according to the National Centre for Eating Disorders in the UK, men are thought to make up around 50% of all cases. And I don’t know about you, but that statistic came as a surprise to me…

I think we’re doing pretty well in diversifying what it means to be ‘masculine’ in the modern world. But we’re moving so slowly. We still need to fully recognise that sexism is a huge problem for both men and women now: in 2020. If we sorted it out for women, then men would definitely feel the benefits too. Maybe we’d even realise that if someone likes us, then they probably couldn’t give less of a sh** about our hair colour or our height. Imagine it! A world without gender rules.

So, does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop? Well I certainly hope not. And FYI lads, if you want to play with gender expectations, then a little bit of eyeliner can go a long way too…I’m just saying.

Question 1

26th Apr 202026th Apr 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

We all know that horrible (kind of exciting) feeling when you see someone, think they’re fit, and you want to go up to them but don’t really know what to do once you get there. And normally, I’m pretty clumsy about it: I’m probably too loud and giddy, or too flirty or too subtle and then I spend hours after the time I saw the boy thinking about how I should’ve acted, or what I could’ve said, hating on what I actually said…it’s just a big old mess to be honest hahahah.

So I wanted to know, whether the boys us girls are embarrassing ourselves in front of, feel the same way in this situation…

And oh my god they do.

The overriding feeling coming from the answers I received though, was that they’d rather not feel like they have to make the first move. And I don’t blame them. We all know that this is a pretty toxic expectation of our society, but it’s also not an easy one to change. For example, I wrote an entire blog on how when I’ve made the first move it’s often made me seem like a slut…so…

But unfortunately, this huge pressure on young men has made some of them ‘not even bother’ because they ‘don’t know how’. Some boasted confidence with comments such as ‘I don’t approach, I get approached ;)’ but then went on to talk about how terrified they are of rejection. Not only that, they’re extra frightened that other people will ‘find out’ about it. And they’re especially wary of girls and their friendship groups because as they said, ‘once the girl hates you, so do all of her friends’. (*not always true, but fair assumption*)

Many were frightened of ‘having the piss taken out of them’. Or not being able to ‘come up with the most interesting conversation starter possible’. They don’t want ’embarrassing stories’ made up about them ‘failing’. And nobody wants the ‘reputation’ of always being the guy to ask lots of people out because then they look like a ‘f***boy’ and that’s not going to help them much either. Others also spoke about fears of ‘coming on too strong’, or seeming ‘creepy’ and accidentally ‘making the girl feel uncomfortable’.

So first of all, I’d just like to say that the fact all of these things are even thoughts going through your heads means that you’ve all got very little to worry about. You’re clearly decent, considerate, lovely people. A fact I already knew. Still I recognise, that my saying that won’t make the paranoia disappear.

Clearly, many of these boys don’t want to be that hyper-masculine, pushy version of a ‘man’, but they’re also not that comfortable with being the opposite. They fear that if they go in completely the other direction, they might be deemed a ‘coward’, ‘too quiet’, or just plain ‘awkward’. And finding that middle ground is difficult to do when you’re only 20.

It would also be entirely futile for me to respond to them and say ‘just be yourself’, ‘just relax’, or ‘try not to overthink it’. Since telling someone to relax in this situation is about as helpful as ‘where’d you leave it?’ when you’ve lost something.

But if these boys will allow me to give them a little piece of advice, since I’m part of the gender many of them are trying to pull, I’d say that awkward is not a deal-breaker. It’s not ideal, but it’s not a deal-breaker. Pushy and rude is a deal-breaker. So defo lean more towards awkward.

It’s completely unfair and pointless that we still have this social standard where boys are expected to make the first move. So I want to end this blog by making a request to all the girls reading this: do us all a favour and just risk it sometimes. If boys can be brave enough to put their egos on the line when they find someone attractive, then so can we. We’re all going to suffer some blows and experience rejection. It never feels great, but you don’t die either.

So f*** it: ask him out.

Yes, I actually sound like that

22nd Apr 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

I’ve had many people tell me that social class is really not a thing that’s relevant to Britain anymore. But then the people who say this tend to be from middle to upper class households. Thus their opinion isn’t going to be so appropriate when applied to those lower down in the pecking order…

I’m pretty solidly middle class: I was born in Durham and grew up in a very pretty part of Bradford. Both of my parents are English teachers, I went to a normal West Yorkshire state school and I’m not the first member of my family to go to University. But I’m also not rich: there have been many things in my life which I couldn’t afford, and I’ve had jobs since I was 16. In fact, I worked 3 of them to pay for my entire gap year and then spent most of my time abroad working anyway.

Whereas, both of my parents are working class through and through: my mum is from Bradford, West Yorkshire and my dad is from Blyth, a small ex-mining town north-east of Newcastle. They were the first of both of their immediate families to attend University and are very proud of coming from these parts of England.

This means that whilst I’m a comfortable middle class citizen, a significant portion of my values, experiences and personality come from being raised by my parents. Therefore part of me will always be kind of working class.

When I moved to University, my parents were so specific in making sure I knew that I was going to be surrounded by people who came from different, wealthier upbringings than I. They didn’t want me to harbour any prejudices but most of all they didn’t want me to feel intimidated. Luckily, I’m pretty non-judgemental as it is, so social class and where people come from or what they sound like matter very little to me. And if you asked most people, it’s likely that they’d say the same. However, just because someone says that they don’t actively care about things such as this, it doesn’t mean that the differences don’t exist.

So at University I’ve found myself in a bit of a sticky spot. This is because whilst I’m middle class like many of my friends, I’m also Northern English. And the north of England is an entirely different world to the south. I’m not working class enough to fit with the working class students, but a middle class life in London is very very very different to one in Bradford.

But how exactly do I not fit?

Well let’s take my accent as an example. I love the West Yorkshire accent, and in all honesty I really don’t have a strong version of it. But it’s definitely there and I definitely made a point of keeping it when I moved for University. I’d expected some teasing of my accent, because I knew that most of the other students would probably be southerners. But what I didn’t expect was someone to just straight-up ask me ‘oh wow, do you actually speak like that?’, surprised that I could be clever and still miss out my ‘t’s.

Mad isn’t it? Clever people with Yorkshire accents exist?!

I also just don’t have access to so much of my friends’ experience of school. I mean, we sat around the table one time and they were talking about their time as prefects. Prefects?! That wasn’t a thing at my school hahahah, and it sounds like something straight out of an old Enid Blyton book to me.

I love Durham University and many of the people I’ve met. But I’d be lying if I said that I feel like I fit in. To be honest, I don’t really feel like I fit in at home either but home is easier, because everything is so familiar – and nobody comments on how I sound, since we all sound like that.

I don’t prefer one world to the other at all, in fact I love that I can live in more than one. Moving has just made me realise how much of a north-south divide there really is. Sometimes I feel like I’m from an entirely different country, but I’m really not and it shouldn’t be like that.

But all that these differences come down to is wealth, and the north needs more of it.

Boys are just as scared of you, as you are of them

19th Apr 202030th Nov 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

When I talk about my experiences, they’re always from the female perspective – a very important one to hear. However, it’s not the only viewpoint out there, and I’m aware that a lot of lads read my blog. I’m also aware that young men are renowned for hiding their thoughts and feelings – and that this contributes to a lot of them having poor mental health.

So as a feminist, and a big fan of the male species, I’m going to try and make this a space for them to voice those thoughts. Not just so that they can see themselves reflected in what I write about, but also so that as a young female with brothers and lots of close male friends, I can understand them better – and help them if they ever need me.

And also because girls want to know what goes on in their heads anyway…

This week I asked as many boys as would let me (surprisingly ended up being 25 of the buggers) a set of questions focused on how they perceive themselves, and how they think they’re perceived by whatever gender they’re trying to pull.

There were so many interesting details in their answers; far too many to summarise in one blog. So I’m going to give them lots of attention and scrutiny in the coming weeks, writing blogs discussing each question one by one. Plus some of these lads are eager to have a feature on my blog anyway, so that’ll give me plenty of opportunity to quote all of them…as well as making them obliged to read more than one and up my ratings hehehe.

What surprised me most when I received all of their answers though, was seeing how grateful many of them were to just be asked. A few of them even straight-up thanked me, and that really plucked on my heart strings.

It became so clear that many of these young men lack someone who just asks them how they feel, without having any exterior motive like wanting to pull them or get some gossip out of them. They have amazing groups of friends who they love and trust, but they don’t always have spaces where they feel like they can just give their opinions – without judgement.

Some of them appreciated the fact that I wasn’t about to call them a ‘fboy’ or a ‘pr**k’ for saying that they didn’t want a girlfriend right now. Since, at our age, everyone’s entitled to make mistakes or just want to flirt with whoever. Many appreciated that I’d keep it anonymous, and they liked that all I wanted to know was what they thought. I didn’t want them to cloud it with jokes or euphemisms.

Young men are the same as young women. We all want to be made to feel interesting and relevant. We all have good parts and bad. We’re all in the middle of learning who we want to be and who we want to love. But more than anything, at this point in our lives we just want to work out all of those things without fearing judgement.

With all that in mind, in the coming months I’ll do my best to write some good blogs with the information you gave me lads: I hope I do you proud.

(If not, then I’ll do a wottle……jk, I’m not doing that hahahaha)

*wottle*: young person’s terminology for downing an entire bottle of wine as quickly as possible a.k.a a death sentence

Sometimes I’m in a wheelchair

12th Apr 20203rd Mar 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Occasionally I develop a problem with my feet, and it can be as small as a blister or a cut but it almost always becomes infected. I can’t walk on it until it heals, and *POOF*: I’m in a wheelchair.

So…what’s that like?

Well obviously it differs from person to person. It’s also pretty impossible to generalise ‘a normal day’ of having an infection for me because: how did it happen? do I have the correct footwear? do I have enough footwear? am I at school? am I at home? am I at University? is it the holidays? am I still growing? have I just had an operation?- the list goes on.

Now is the longest time I’ve gone without using a wheelchair because I’m able to just avoid it since I don’t have school anymore. But so I can paint a picture for you, this is how it was during my last experience when I was 15 and I stayed in that bloody thing for 6 months:

I’d wake up, check my foot, take the bandage off and see what level of infected I was that day. Then I’d crawl into the bathroom – I can’t hop, my balance is non-existent lol. I’d do some next-level spider-man moves to get into the shower without allowing my infected foot to touch any surface, then I’d get washed. Finished, I’d have to carefully dry around the wound and make sure to not damage it further. Next, I’d have to dress my foot.

So I’d take out my medical kit, with all the specific products my feet require. I’d make a perfect bandage, ensuring that there were no creases in the entire thing because creases mean blisters and blisters are not my friend. It’s also important to mention that I don’t have any feeling in my feet, so infections don’t hurt: I recognise when my foot is infected simply by looking at it. So these bandages have to be perfect because the second I put my sock on, I’ve got no idea what’s kicking off down there.

NEXT, I’d have to get changed without accidentally catching the bandage on my clothes, or making it roll up once I put my sock on. Whenever it did catch or roll up, I’d have to start again. Then I’d slide down the stairs on my bum; hopping around the house using my zimmer-frame. (That’s right, I used to have a zimmer-frame, I’m cool.) My dad would bring my wheelchair into the kitchen and after my breakfast, I’d strap in. Once at school he’d push me to my friends and I became their responsibility for the day.

At every point in my life, all of my friends have become friends with me whilst I’m physically independent. So we’ve never started off with them being used to, or knowing what it’s like, for me to be in a wheelchair. Thus being in my wheelchair doesn’t just change my life, it changes the relationships my friends and family have with me.

Thankfully, my pals were mostly brilliant and loved the novelty of pushing me around. But we were children. So there were times when they were accidentally really unsympathetic or insensitive because they just didn’t know what it was like. Plus, they knew me out of the chair, so were used to me doing things for myself. This meant that sometimes they forgot that I wasn’t asking them to go and get me food, or to push me to the bathroom just to be annoying: I was asking because for that period of time, I couldn’t do it for myself.

And they also didn’t realise just how humiliating it felt for me to have to ask them to do these things. Even though I physically felt fine, since I never have any pain, all of a sudden I was overwhelmingly dependent on other people.

I’ve chosen to live a life where most of the time I’m so independent that I don’t seem disabled at all. And that has meant that in those moments when my Spina Bifida catches up with me, and all the actions I take behind closed doors to monitor it come into full view for the rest of the world, it’s just really hard to navigate.

It’s easy to say ‘I’m in a wheelchair, so everyone should be sensitive to that and help me with whatever I need’, but people are people, and you can’t tell them how they should or shouldn’t be. You can ask for help, but you can’t also expect them to fully comprehend something they’ve never had to experience before.

This is a part of my life that very few will ever know the full scope of because ultimately my disability is mine to deal with – not anyone else’s. My family and friends have always done their best to support me when I’m in my wheelchair, and their best is more than enough. And thankfully, being in a wheelchair is not a reality that I have to live in very often – but it does still happen. And even when it does I try and stay as chirpy as I am normally, because why make my frustration worse by spreading it?

After all, I’m one of the lucky ones: at least I always get back out of the chair.

International Women’s Day

8th Mar 202011th Apr 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In the spirit of International Women’s Day, I thought I’d dedicate a blog to all the strong women out there in the world. So to all my male readers: I’d really like you to read this one.

It’s no secret that I adore men. I grew up in a male-dominated household and will always have a huge part of me which craves attention and friendships with men. So that makes it even more infuriating when I speak about the struggles I face as a female in this world, and people think I’m attacking men. I’m not attacking men by being a feminist, I’m asking them to agree that we’re equal: I’m asking them to love and respect women, as much as I love and respect them.

Sexism is a word that has become trivialised and made into a joke. Feminism is brushed off as ‘crazy’ women growing out their armpit hairs, burning bras and hating men. But sexism exists everywhere, and feminism literally just means that the sexes should be equal – one shouldn’t be perceived as superior to the other. So, if you don’t identify as a feminist then you think that women aren’t entitled to the same rights and respect as men – and if you think that, then seriously, what century are you living in?

No matter your gender, you’ll face various struggles and moments of prejudice in your life – but objectively speaking, you’re already lagging behind if you’ve come into this world as a woman.

We have so many things we have to rail against when it comes to just existing: our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our successes, our failures, our opinions, our desires, our words, our clothes, are all subject to scrutiny and judgement on a day to day basis. And the fact of it is, if we were seen as equal to men in all respects, then every single human on the planet would benefit.

Just think about it: if women weren’t ridiculed for being over-emotional, then would it be so taboo for men to talk about their feelings? If women weren’t objectified sexually and encouraged to be passive, then would men always have to be strong and dominant? If both of the sexes were treated as equals, then how much time and energy would we save on not having to have this conversation over and over?

I’m 20 years old and I’m already bored of it; I can only imagine just how bored women and men who’ve been feminists for years are by now. However, regardless of the obstacles I face living as a young woman, I will always be proud of my gender.

I was lucky to grow up in a household where both of my parents chose to raise 4 feminists: 3 boys and 1 girl. If anything, my brothers got the most attention when it came to that because my parents knew that raising a feminist daughter was important, but not as important as raising feminist sons. No matter what I do, or how proud I am to be a woman, my gender dictates how much respect I’ll receive in the wider world. In order for the genders to be treated equally, unfortunately it’s the men who have to make the most noise: they’re already more likely to be listened to.

So when you see things talking about ‘International Women’s Day’ or ‘Feminism’, they’re not just directed at the women. Women AND men should love, respect and celebrate each other as much as possible, then maybe we’ll get somewhere.

Let’s affect some change boys, and trust me once we’ve done it, we’ll all feel better for it. But can we do it quickly please? I’m getting kinda antsy over here.

Walk it

9th Feb 202010th Feb 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So here I am: it’s Tuesday, I’m full of whatever illness my friends at college have gifted me and I’ve somehow been bothered to make it to my 2 hour Korean lesson. The day’s going well. (This blog is going to be pretty emotionally-charged by the way: strap in).

What I didn’t need added to my day, was some old, male, traffic warden peering through my windscreen whilst I was STILL IN MY CAR, to check if my disabled badge was a fraud. For the record, it’s weird and intimidating to have a stranger looking inside your car whilst you’re still in there. But the core of my annoyance, was the fact that I’m sick and tired of the disabled parking bays situation.

Now, if you aren’t disabled, or don’t have any close relatives or friends who are, then you might be thinking: what situation? Is there even a situation?

Well, my dear reader, yes there bloody well is a situation. And it’s one that has made my parents furious for years before me, but now I also have the joy of being angered by it too. Lucky me!

So it’s simple, right? You go to any public space and most of the time there are parking bays with bright yellow hatching, and the universally recognised symbol for disability. Everyone knows that that then marks those parking bays as exclusively for people who need it i.e. ones who own a blue badge issued by the government, indicating that they’re legally recognised as disabled. I won’t go too into it now, but trust me when I say that you don’t just get that badge. You have to undergo what is in my experience, an insanely gruelling, somewhat traumatising process so as to be recognised by the government as ‘eligible’ for it. But I’ll write a blog detailing that process another day- look forward to that one, it’s a corker.

Anyway: you need a disabled badge to park in the space closest to the destination, seen as it’s predominantly the people who’re disabled who’re unable to access things and places easily. Surprise!

Why is it then that when my dad dropped me off at Secondary school, on average only 2 out of about 8 disabled bays had cars with blue badges in them? One of which was my dad’s car. With my badge. I’d also like to add the information that my school was attached to a Special Needs school: attended by children with severe disabilities, whose parents probably needed to use those parking spaces when picking them up.

Why is it that this also happens every time I go to a supermarket, a shop, or just anywhere really? Why did I have to ask the receptionist at my University college today – a college which prides itself on diversity and acceptance – to ask the woman who uses a bay every week and doesn’t display a badge, to please park somewhere else?

You might wonder why this is so offensive to me. Or, like the traffic warden, think me ‘silly’ for even being offended by it. (His patronising choice of words really added to the moment, I must say).

It’s offensive because when people park in these spaces, they’re not thinking of how insanely immoral and unfair what they’re doing is. Those spaces are for people who literally need them. People who can’t walk that extra few steps to the building. People who need equipment to move and to live. People who have in recent years had to fight so hard, just to be deemed ‘eligible’ by the government for things that they need to survive.

If you park in those bays when you don’t need to, then you’re depriving a disabled person of their right to get on with their life and to be independent. I’m not always in a wheelchair, and on the surface it appears that I walk pretty well, but if I can’t park in those bays then I might have to walk a distance which will cause me to develop an infection, and to go in a wheelchair for months on end. So if that’s what’s at stake for me, then think about the people who’re wheelchair bound and what that space might mean to them.

Again, this might sound like an overreaction, but trust me when I say that it’s not.

It’s not just the walking distance, it’s also the backlash that comes from people abusing those spaces. Namely, the fact that it creates a culture of doubt. If those spaces were respected, then I wouldn’t have had some old man looking into my car to see if I was lying today. I wouldn’t have had him looking me in the eyes in disbelief as to why I was asking him not to do that. He told me that he was checking the disabled badge ‘for’ me: to ‘help’ me. I obviously understand why he checks, but I resent the fact that he thought I would lie.

So I appeal to you, to think about your actions and to just park somewhere else. Just walk those extra steps. Not just because you have the physical ability to do it, but also because I would never ask for something that I don’t need. I don’t abuse the system, in fact I probably don’t use it enough. But I need to park there. And I’m tired of defending my right to that space.

Eyes up here please

11th Dec 201915th Dec 2019 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

When I write or talk about my disability, I have to remind myself that the tiny things I experience are not also a part of everyone else’s day-to-day. So this Sunday, I’m going to tell you about one part of my life which may surprise you, though it seems tediously normal to me.

To put it simply: I can’t step out of the house without someone staring at my shoes. For instance, just the other day I was walking in my college at University and one of my fellow St Aidanites walked past me. She stared at my shoes for the entire time we were passing each other – a good 15 seconds – and at no point did she take the time to tear here eyes away from my feet to look me in the eye. Now. People. I get it. Often when you see my shoes it’s the first time you’ve seen anything like them in your life. But come on. Is it really that exciting? Did your parents never teach you that it’s rude to stare? Plus, the object of her amazement was literally just leather boots with some metals bars coming slightly up my legs. Wowee 😮

Growing up I became so used to people staring at my shoes and not looking in my eyes that I was sort of numb to it: on the street, on a bus, in a museum, at the cinema, at school, at the park, with my brothers, with my friends, on my own – you name a time and a situation, someone was probably having a look. Amazingly, I can’t remember ever really being phased by it as a little girl. But then I got older, and I got angry.

A particularly memorable experience is when I was 12 years old and I went to a shopping centre with my family. I was standing on my own in a queue for some food, when I saw a middle-aged woman abandon what she was doing just to gawk at my boots. She literally stopped in the middle of the floor and just stood there looking. I’m not even exaggerating. I was furious and humiliated, so I crouched down to make her realise that there was a person (a child) wearing those shoes who could see exactly what she was doing. She didn’t apologise after she realised I’d seen her, she just walked away. I’ve had more instances like this than I care to remember; with some days gifting me more than one.

Fortunately it’s not always like this. Very rarely, I’m made speechless when someone sincerely says that they like my shoes. Like! The first time in my life someone did this was when I was walking up the stairs at school, aged 17, and a supply teacher said ‘Nice shoes’ to me as he walked past. I stopped dead in my tracks with my mouth wide open, mumbled a stunned ‘thank you’ and watched him walk away. In all honesty I was ready to pounce because I thought he was taking the mick, but I realised that he wasn’t: he actually meant it. So I legged it into my common room and still in disbelief, told my friends about what had just happened. That was the first positive comment I’d ever gotten about my shoes from a stranger, and to this day, that’s only happened a handful of times.

Now that I’m older, somehow I don’t really care about my shoes or the stares. Although if you catch me on a bad/insecure day and I see you staring, then I will hate your guts for a second. Regardless of my mood though, I’ll always at least notice it.

I know that people stare because my shoes and my disability are probably things that they’ve never seen before. So if that then means that I have to be the one to watch you gawk at me like an object for a few seconds, so that you won’t do it to the next disabled person you see then that’s fine, I can take it. Just remember that whatever you’re staring at is being worn by someone, with feelings, and eyes to see you too.

An Indelible Friend

Tag: diversity