The Gender Blog

Over the last ten years or so,  “fertility” to many of my female friends, colleagues and wider circle of acquaintances has often been about encouraging the arrival of babies,  rather than preventing them.

Inadvertently, I’ve become familiar with words and phrases like IVF, surrogacy, Clomid, cervical mucus and the like.  Although two-thirds of British women in the 20-24 age group take the Pill, when you’re in your 40s (or even in your late 30s),  you tend not to do so, either by virtue of your age (and weight, or smoking status) or because you actively want to have children and so popping a daily pill from its little multi-coloured blister pack is an act from the past.

In series one of iconic TV show “Mad Men”,  there’s a scene where ambitious Peggy,  newly working in Manhattan and determined to be independent,  goes to see a doctor (who smokes throughout her examination – another example of how this visually stunning TV show uses props to invoke a sense of time, place and era) in order to obtain the Pill.

It’s the early 1960s and,  for the first time, there are doctors who will provide (unmarried) girls like Peggy with the tool to free them from their fertility.

I’m nearly as old as the Pill,  a fact of which I was reminded by this article in the weekend’s Observer,  which celebrates the Pill’s 50^th birthday and reminds us of how far we’ve come since Peggy’s day. How about this quote?

“Well into the 1970s, women in Britain and America were still pretending to be married in order to get a prescription; some used to pass around the same battered wedding ring in the doctor’s waiting room.”

And as novelist Margaret Drabble comments:

“I think I would have had a child a year if I hadn’t started taking it.”

So, happy golden birthday to the Pill, an iconic symbol of late 20^th century autonomy for women.

Tomorrow is the 100^th celebration of International Women’s Day,  and I’ve been really interested to note the extent to which it, as an event, has gained popularity and awareness over the last couple of years.  One of the first projects I ever undertook when I started working in gender diversity around five years ago was a global survey in order to understand which countries celebrated (or even,  were aware of ) IWD and I remember that the results made quite depressing reading. My colleagues (and these were people in senior diversity and HR roles) hadn’t even heard of IWD in countries such as the US, Canada and Australia; it’s commemorated on a different day altogether in South Africa (there it’s “National Women’s WEEK” each August, as I witnessed at events in Jo’burg and Cape Town in 2008) and in the UK it was celebrated but in a very low key way,  with only a few corporates getting on board and doing something to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

It was (and is) marked in a big way in countries like Russia and China,  where it’s a public holiday,  and quite a few western European countries also make it a social occasion,  with activities tied into fund raising for women’s charities,  but there was no sense at all of it being a global multi-media event.

Fast forward to this year,  and I’ve seen references all over the press,  even in the mass market tabloid papers – where it perhaps has most impact in terms of readership numbers.  From the official IWD website,  you can see that Reuters are on-board as a media partner and there are things happening all over the world,  including in many of the countries where just a few short years ago IWD was a relative non-event. I’ve been invited to celebrations in London, New York and Bangalore; of course,  I am actually going to the London one,  which is being hosted by Plan and the Africa All Party Parliamentary Group at the House of Commons and is a lunch thing to “Celebrate the Potential of Young African Women.”  Click here to read more about what Plan are doing to help girls in Africa and elsewhere complete their education.

I’m then legging it across town to join in the Fawcett Society’s photo shoot, which they’re organising to support their new pre-Election campaign, “What About Women?”. We all have to wear our FS “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt,  so I really hope the weather warms up a bit …

My favourite TV channel (it shows “Mad Men”!) is BBC4,  who are truly brilliant at creating themed programming strands: a week of shows from the BBC archive on any one of a number of concepts; prog rock, India, advertising, blues music and Islam, to name but a few recent memorable groupings.

Starting tomorrow,  and this surely has to be to commemorate IWD,  even though they’re not explicitly saying so,  is a week of programmes about women and feminism – most of which will be repeated if you miss them tomorrow night and/or are also showing on BBC2.  I’m setting Sky+  for the all-female audienced version of “Question Time” later in the week (still only ONE woman on the panel itself, though – why? Click here  to suggest more female panellists) and for Vanessa Engle’s three part documentary series on the impact of feminism called, simply, “Women”.

Part one is set in the 70s and is about what were then known (usually disparagingly) as “women’s libbers”.  Also from that era is Monday night’s repeat of a documentary on the 1976 Grunwick strike,  now regarded as a key moment in union history and one at which female and Asian workers first tested and protested their employment rights.

Check out the BBC4 listings (or iPlayer) if you’re in the UK,  there’s some great stuff in there from the amazing BBC archive.

A couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of “New York” magazine when I was out there on a business trip, and instantly found myself enthralled by its mix of news stories, political commentary (John Heilemann’s election campaign coverage during 2008 kept me very well informed), TV and movie reviews and, perhaps best of all, the now-on-the-back-page “Approval Matrix”, which divides the page into quarters and dubs news stories and events as “Highbrow/Despicable”, “Highbrow/Brilliant” and the “Lowbrow” equivalents.

Always good to know, for example, where a woman alleging that she was asked to leave an IKEA store in Brooklyn for breast-feeding sits on the moral compass, I think.

Because I am married to he who is officially the World’s Nicest Man, TLS, I am now a happy recipient of a massively overpriced but much loved by me subscription to “New York” magazine, which hits my London doormat at annoyingly sporadic intervals but which is always pounced upon and read immediately.

The most recent edition arrived yesterday, mid way through my as previously mentioned “Mad Men” marathon so I hit pause and opened it up … only to discover that the on-the-pulse editorial team had not let me down and were running a couple of “Mad Men” stories.

Here’s a link to a good interview with Christina Hendricks who plays Joan – and also a typically (but wittily, in classic NYM style) episode summary of the first two seasons.

I am so envious of all those based in the US who get to see the first episode of season three tonight. To quote from Monty Python: “you lucky, lucky bastards.”

Season two of “Mad Men” on DVD has just been delivered to Casa Cleo – thank you, Amazon. I have of course already seen it on TV, but:

a) So what?

and

b) the special features include “Birth of an Independent Woman” (parts one and two) and something called “An Era of Style” – both of which sound as if they have the potential to rock my world.

One of the things which I love most about the show is the depiction of three such different women in Peggy, Joan and Betty.

As the on-box cover endorsement from the “Independent” newspaper says:

“Yes, it does live up to the hype.”

I may be some time.

This is a very cool tool, isn’t it? It’s called “ManMen Yourself” and offers the chance to “Recreate Yourself in Swanky ’60s Style.”

Brilliant.

OK, hands up – who wants to look like Joan?

And here I am: