The future we inherit

I like to imagine my daughter saying to me, in 20 years time, 'I cant believe you were walking around when pregnant next to all those polluting cars in cities. How were those cars allowed? It was so dangerous. People were dying every day, from car crashes and from diseases caused by car pollution. And you walked around with me pregnant in all that pollution! Unbelievable'

Will it be the equivalent to smoking indoors, smoking while pregnant or drink driving when my daughter is my age? When I was at university I couldn't imagine people not smoking inside. It seemed an integral part of going out - the smoke went with the music. Now it seems amazing that we ever did.

I hope that this will be the same with car pollution. Its crazy really given how much we know about the health threats of cars, the impacts of pollution on our health, the risks of road accidents and the contribution to climate change. Of course the vested commercial interests and the social norms of having a car as a sign of freedom are hard to break. Car advertising is so ubiquitous. The latest Bond film I saw last night seemed like one long car advert. But it doesn't have to be this way. Imagine buses advertised like cars:

My hope is that for one, cars in cities will be a rarity. In fact driving cars in cities will be considered the worst choice - why drive yourself when someone else can drive you on public transport (because  in my fantasy public transport will be efficient, clean and affordable).  Cities and towns will be mostly pedestrian with cycling or a super efficient clean public transport network the main ways to travel. 

We stumble into our future, rarely due to a plan but because of a million micro decisions and a few with power channelling money into where they think profit lies.  Sometimes a breakthrough will happen when a bold vision is given, leading to changes in behaviours and social norms. I like this story of neighbours who have got together to take over residential streets and block out the traffic so their children can play together. 

How about this for adults as well as for children? Mass weekend ‘Occupy’ of our favourite streets, blocking off the traffic in order to simply sit and read the newspaper in peace.If anyone has been to Venice, you know how amazing it can be to walk for hours without seeing or hearing cars. If only we could will that vision here too.

Radio 4 are looking for suggestions for a 'Women's Power List', which comes accompanied by the ongoing debate about why there are still so few women that hold powerful roles. Or rather, so few that are publicly prominent and recognised. I was really shocked to hear John Humphrey's on the Today programme saying that they couldn't find a female expert to discuss breast cancer so asked a male expert to 'imagine' he was a woman. Luckily some women have taken the initiative to address this with a new website listing experts.

One obvious change that I never hear suggested is to reduce the crazy work hours of these senior roles. The macho culture of staying in the office for 10 to 14 hours is ridiculous. Its bad for our health, social life, relationships. And I'm convinced that long hours doesn't necessarily mean you are more productive. Granted when you have a very senior role you do have to work harder, as your responsibility grows and there are more decisions to take, but this shouldn't mean that you spend long days in the office every day. There is this amazing invention, the internet, which has removed the need to physically be in an office all day at certain hours. So why not work when you can, arranging it around all the other commitments life has? And if you are working from 8am to 8pm 5 days a week, and on the weekend, perhaps you are actually doing two people's jobs.

you don't need to look this to be superwoman

If you are in a senior role, you have it within your power to change this working culture, to lead by example, and to create a more positive working environment for those lower down the pay scale. This is the revolution that will enable more women to go back to work once they've had children, and for more men to spend time sharing childcare without the stigma that less hours means less commitment. Or for those that don't become parents, they should be able to finish work at a reasonable hour without having to pick up the slack for those leaving to pick up their kids from school.

A friend told told me about her (female) director who denied a part time working application for a new mother on the basis that 'I had to work full time whilst being a mother, I found it hard but had to make sacrifices, so why shouldn't you too?' Where's the sisterhood! If I ever get to a senior role where I can shape the working environment, top of my list will be making sure everyone is able to work around their life, not live around their work.

Internet inspiration

Just in case you missed this inspiring story from t'interweb.

When a Sikh woman was ridiculed on the social news site, Reddit, for having facial hair, she responded not with anger or shame but with a calm and enlightening explanation. Heck she even apologised herself if her looks were confusing for some people.

It got even better when the idiot that posted the surreptitiously taken photo then apologised with humility. The power of her straightforward acceptance and lack of concern about her looks is amazingly refreshing and inspiring.

I'm not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it's who I am. Yes, I'm a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn't reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying 'mine, mine' and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. 

The response from the guy who posted the photo was also a delight to read:

I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.

So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.

The curse of multi-tasking

At a party last weekend I was reassured by a group of inspiring women about taking a week to write one simple blog post because of baby distractions. Your brain feels fractured into endless simple, repetitive tasks. One had managed to write a chapter of a forthcoming book about how to be a writer on parental leave with all the unavoidable perpetual interruptions (while caring for her four month old).  Impressive!

The hard truth is that to do most things in life to any successful level you need stretches of uninterrupted time to focus or let the imagination wander. A painter, composer, designer, architect, carpenter, brick layer, they all require focus whether to make sure the walls stay up or the joins fit.

So it concerns me that women are always told they are naturally good at multitasking when this is beneficial to managing a household or caring for a baby, but translates badly into most work contexts.

Multitasking in the work environment – checking emails while trying to draft a paper, or sending a text while in a meeting – has been shown to reduce your IQ level and damage your efficiency.  It is common sense that trying to do several things at once often means that no one thing is done thoroughly.

I've observed so many times in offices how it is women who are left, or volunteer, to do the juggling of the administrative tasks while the men focus in on opportunities to concentrate that will further their career. I think it’s this cultural belief that women are naturally more suited to those multitasking roles that contributes to gender inequality.

I have done this myself so many times. I envy my husband who can sit at the kitchen table, enter his creative world and write a chapter while surrounded by dirty dishes and the phone ringing. I will always allow myself to be distracted by thinking about what to cook, who I need to phone and whether the floor needs a clean, before I focus on writing.

Perhaps the multitasking woman was selected for in cave times if it meant you could look after a baby and keep an eye out for danger. But cave dwelling is long behind us, and so should the myth of women being the only multi-tasker. 

If we are to see greater equality at work and at home then women need to get over being the ones that multi task the best, and men need to learn to become better at this when it’s needed – for domestic and child care. This multitasking myth simultaneously lets men off the hook – “I can only do one thing at a time” means the dishes and laundry pile up while the baby is being cared for – and keeps women from breaking free from the tyranny of a million tiny distractions.

paper anniversary

This time last week I was trying to get to sleep with sirens skidding past my bedroom window and helicopters circling overhead.

It was our second wedding anniversary and we had decided to walk home after dinner with some friends. Tentatively walking down Old Street and Hackney Road the reality of the riots we have been glued to on-line suddenly turned my stomach and pricked my skin into high alert. All the shops were closed and the usual stream of wannabes coming out of the pubs were nowhere to be seen.

It was shocking the scale of the violence and how arbitrary it spread. It felt like the illusion of peace and stability was just the emperors new clothes, and that night it felt like we would remain insecure and scared walking home at night, gangs of feral kids and police powerless to control.

And it was confusing; community spirit was revealed in the Stoke Newington shop keepers protecting their livelihoods and in rival gangs who normally shoot at each other for crossing into the wrong street were joining forces. Initial empathy for a generation who have been abandoned quickly replaced with deep concern for the small shop owners and the people fleeing their burning homes. 

Yet how quickly we return to familiar and the predictable. How quickly its over and we have to remind ourselves it wasn't a dream.

I can't analyse why or what caused the riots or what the solutions are. Its complex and there is enough analysis right now. But it did remind me of this poem. Did the rioters in England in 2011 know what they are fighting for? And did the Latin American revolutionaries know what they are fighting for?

I'll never forget my philosophy lecturer at university spontaneously scrapping the set topic and railing against the introduction of the tuition fees, how he had to publish a quota of articles in order to pay his family bills, leaving him no time to 'be a good tutor'. He apologised, said it was an outrage. He couldn't believe we weren't up in arms, protesting, rioting for the poor education we were getting at rip off prices. And this was over a decade ago, before university graduated you with a £25k debt. Well I remember feeling ashamed and momentarily inspired. But as soon as I left the hall I was out buying records and dancing at what felt like the most important place to be while the world outside shaped our future.

Self Portrait at Twenty Years

I set off, I took up the march and never knew

where it might take me. I went full of fear,

my stomach dropped, my head was buzzing:

I think it was the icy wind of the dead.

I don't know. I set off, I thought it was a shame

to leave so soon, but at the same time

I heard that mysterious and convincing call.

You either listen or you don't, and I listened

and almost burst out crying: a terrible sound,

born on the air and in the sea.

A sword and shield. And then,

despite the fear, I set off, I put my cheek

against death's cheek.

And it was impossible to close my eyes and miss seeing

that strange spectacle, slow and strange,

though fixed in such a swift reality:

thousands of guys like me, baby-faced

or bearded, but Latin American, all of us,

brushing cheeks with death.

Roberto Bolaño

(translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy)

Boys chatting football, girls chatting love

In the office while making a cup of coffee this week, I was impressed by a professional and serious discussion taking place about strategy by two of the few men in the office. They sound so serious, expert and intelligent discussing tactics and management.  It was only after a few minutes that I realised they were discussing football, a hobby. It was a way of having small talk and bonding (with the few other men around) but sounded more informed and intelligent than when they discuss work – their actual expertise. 

I am also amazed at the amount of chat by women about relationships, their love lives, family, parents, or friends. Not just in the office, but in the pub, over coffee, walking in the park. The analysis is often as in-depth as the football chat.

This is an old cliché. That men talk about football and women talk about emotions and relationships. Its obviously an absurd generalisation and stereotype. There are lots of women that love discussing sport. And I discuss relationships and love with my male friends just as much as with my female friends. Sometimes more.

What is interesting though is how these habits are ascribed gender characteristics. Apparently men talk about football because they don’t do emotions and are better at facts and physical strength. And women talk about love because they are better at emotions and relationships.

But I really doubt how much this is down to differences in men and women and whether these are ‘male’ or ‘female’ characteristics. 

I have a longstanding argument with my husband about the differences between men and women. I think that there are little or no differences except physiological and biological differences and everything else is a process of social conditioning and learning what it is to be ‘male’ and ‘female’.  I sometimes go even further and argue that women are ascribed characteristics that prevent them from succeeding in life. My pet hate is multitasking. I think women are told they are naturally good at multitasking because it means they are more conditioned to perform menial jobs that require juggling lots of small things, and gets men off the hook with domestic chores.  Multitasking is a useful skill if you’re a mother juggling a baby, cooking and your long list of things to do. Its useful if you have an administrative role at work. But its no good if you need to focus and concentrate – an apparently ‘male’ trait. 

Gustavo thinks this is absurd and that men and women are clearly totally different and have different clusters of characteristics because of their gender.

Well a new report out this week by the think tank Demos put this debate on the political agenda. In the report Yvonne Roberts argues that there is evidence to support my theory that it’s all largely learned and conditioned by parenting, schools, and the wider society. She does point out that the scientific evidence is confusing and could be used to draw either conclusion.  

But while the jury is out on the evidence, I think it makes sense to try to keep gender away from characteristics as much as possible because of the constraints that this can put on equality, success and happiness.  The report argues that confusion about what is masculine and feminine restrains women (it’s not feminine to be tough at work and push for promotion, and women are good at multitasking so take the lion’s share of domestic work) and it also constrains men (its not masculine to be good at communication – a skill required to find job where there has been a shift from manufacturing to predominantly service economy).
 

Roberts adds some evidence to my previous post about the lack of good female role models in film.  In a study of Hollywood films released from 2006-2009 out of 5,554 lead characters only 29% were female and out of these a quarter were eye candy (compared to 4% of men). Roberts asks the same question I’ve been wondering, ‘So where are the positive heroines?’

Female Warrior, Greek statue

Interestingly a worthy new group, the Man Collective, has been set up to help men redefine what masculinity is. They feel they are part of a generation of men who feel lost and confused about their role now that they are no longer the ‘breadwinner’. 

I have many male friends struggling with this inherited idea they should be the ‘breadwinner’, earning enough to ‘take care of the family’, while in reality their partners are earning more or they aren’t in a position to earn enough to be defined as the ‘breadwinner’.  And this is despite the fact that they know rationally this is absurd, that we don’t live in that world anymore, and that one of the reasons they are attracted to the women they are with is because of their ambitious or success at work. 

Generations of women, rightly, have been trying to redefine femininity. Men need to do the same. And together we need to try to loosen the expectations of gender and allow for men that enjoy gossiping and women that run companies.

So an ambitious woman who is good at negotiating is not masculine, she’s just ambitious and good at her job. Or when a man is sensitive or makes an effort with his appearance he’s not ‘in touch with his feminine side’, he’s just more balanced and making an effort.

One of my favourite quotes from Roberts paper is from Edward Glover who gave an influential series of broadcasts for the BBC, arguing that women were naturally weak, needed domesticity to impose discipline, without which they would fall to ‘an orgy of knitting. Failing such solace they are inclined to eat their hearts out.’ 

Harsh! Although I quite like the image of an orgy of knitting….

Honey Bee Justice

On Friday my husband opened up his urban honey bee hives for UNICEF’s lovely youth climate ambassadors. He pointed out an interesting honey bee twist in generational fairness. 

When the hive starts to get crowded because there is an abundance of forage and good living conditions, instead of the younger bees leaving to start their own hive (as happens with humans), the elder bees leave with their queen. They leave, so that the younger bees can benefit from their accumulated resource, stability and wealth, and can create their own queen and their own colony from a strong position in an environment that is proven to support life sustainably.

In the honey bee world, parents leave their assets for their children at the point at which they most need them, in youth, rather than at the point at which the parents can no longer use them. The elder bees have the responsibility for moving on and starting from scratch, rather than expecting the children to. 

In my job at UNICEF UK I've have been thinking and writing about intergenerational justice in the context of climate change for a few years now. Children are being left with the burden of climate change largely caused by their parents’ high-carbon lifestyles. 

Children everywhere, but especially in developing countries are growing up in an environment that is more at risk of disasters, drought and instability, largely because of the lifestyles of previous generations, especially in developed countries. This goes against a core human instinct and a common shared value across many countries that parents try to leave improved opportunities and accumulated wealth for their children, or at least attempt not to leave the world in a worse state for their children.

There seems to be a growing interest in this as a framing concept  – not just for ascribing blame – but for finding an equitable solution. And it is uniting young people across countries with very different contexts with a shared sense of injustice and agency. 

Intergenerational justice seems to have now become a mainstream political concern in the UK. Ed Miliband recently stated that his overriding focus for the Labour party was fairness between generations, not just social and financial equity within generations. Ironically Nick Clegg and David Cameron, started with David Willets's publication of The Pinch, have also used the argument of fairness between generations to justify the budget deficit – on the grounds that it will reduce the burden of debt for future generations (some may argue that it might do the opposite for the current young generation as they have to take out greater loans to pay for higher tuition fees and waiting for job opportunities to pick up again - implemented by the very same David Willets as Eduacation Minister).

I met David Willets at an event on intergenerational justice and he said he hadnt really thought about solutions to the generational inequality in climate change.

If the solution proposed is along the ‘polluter pays’ principle – those most responsible should pay, compensating those least responsible but bearing the brunt.

Maybe honey bee justice would see be retired baby boomers downsizing and handing on their wealth, knowledge and resources to the younger generations creating the solutions to a more sustainable world. Or maybe just spending their life accumulating benefit, knowledge and assets in order to create an abundant, healthy world for their offspring to start with.