Monday 4 April 2011

Day 23: Baby or no baby

Blogging at the end of a busy work day is probably a really bad idea. Rambling and incoherent thoughts, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and the disclosure of information I really should have kept to myself are just some of the potential pitfalls. So I'll keep this one very brief.

Firstly, a small addition to Saturday's blog. I wrote in my baby gap post that women who've never given birth will never know what it feels like to do so - even if they do end up loving their adopted children as if they were their own. I omitted to say that, likewise, women who have had children will never know what it feels like for those who don't and really want to. It's impossible to put ourselves in each other's shoes, as much as we might try to in an effort to understand, empathise or sympathise. I was also reminded that I'd noted recently that there was no point in me hankering after a baby while suffering from lower back pain and doing very little about it. Watching a heavily pregnant mother reach down to pick up her small son yesterday evening - without any signs of painful twinges - made me think I'd better get back to Pilates if I ever want to do the same. But then I'd better get back to Pilates anyway, baby or no baby, if I want a pain-free future (I've corrected this bit - I posted it as 'baby or no body'. What did I say about mistakes?!).

For the rest of this post, I'll let others speak for me. So here's an article by writer, teacher and speaker Courtney E. Martin entitled 'Botox, bingeing, bullying and breast ironing: we must stop the war on women's bodies' in which she calls for a new 'body image activism' to challenge a wave of body hate that's spreading around the globe. Courtney coordinated the Endangered Species women's summit in New York last month and is part of an international campaign of the same name. I've written a fair bit about the Endangered Species events on this blog and have just published this short feature about them in Six Magazine, a new ethical fashion magazine.

And that's it, short and sweet, and hopefully not too rambling.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Katherine, still enjoying your blog. Always full of really valuable info and I need to free myself up more to be able to track it all as I know a lot of it's relevant to what I'm doing. Glad to see you're coming to Women on Fire!
    BTW I did finally reference you albeit belated... regarding Endangered Species. You can probably tell, I am new to this and protocol is taking a while to filter in. Also am quite busy organising an event, so getting behind with other business. You know how it is!
    Kind regards and thanks for your fabulous example.
    Esther

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Esther, and thanks for the link re Endangered Species. Not as much time to blog right now unfortunately but hope to do lots more blogging next week. Maybe we should try and meet up at Women on Fire? And I've just checked your website and see your event is on Friday so will do a short post today or tomorrow and link to it. Best of luck with the event. Kind regards, Katherine

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  3. Indeed it would be lovely to meet at that incredible event. I shall be sure to message you nearer the time. Thanks for a happy posting, and best of luck with all your work.
    Au revoir :)

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