The Doughnut Agenda

As I bit into a birthday doughnut my work colleague, Peter, bet I couldn't eat it without licking my lips. He is convinced that doughnuts do not have as much jam in these days which made me wonder if there is a doughnut hidden agenda. Perhaps we are all worried that too much jam will ruin our constant dieting (less-jam doughnuts - the lower fat option?) or perhaps the idea of creating all that potentially scalding hot jam has caused a heightened health and safety issue reduced by the smaller volume of jam to doughnut? It may even be the case that over-flowing jam has caused jam discolouration to clothing or upholstery that has led to an increase in legal action for compensation. As an accountant I think it probably has more to do with profit - less jam equalling less production cost. It seems a shame, though, as there is something so deliciously childish about messy food, food that cannot be eaten gracefully, food that sticks to your lips and fingers demanding a concentration level to eat it that makes us pause for a moment to give it our full attention.

What price Equality?

My mother was born in the twilight of the second world war and hit her twenties just as London started swinging. She and her girlfriends experienced an independence unknown to their mothers and grandmothers, an independence they grabbed with both hands, living life to the full.
In the seventies these independent women questioned their new roles as they wondered why they had proved themselves outside of the home and yet still did not have equality with men. The sense of the fun and freedom of the sixties turned to something darker as men were lined up as the enemy and the traditional roles of wife and mother became synonymous with repression.
With the dawn of the eighties strong women wearing shoulder pads turned their back on this victim view and instead set out to prove that, not only were they equal to men, but that in a man's world they were superior. Women fought tooth and polished nail to have successful careers, to have financial independence, to prove that they were as tough, as intelligent and as self-sufficient as any man. We who grew up in the eighties have felt the benefits of these strong women; throughout our schooling we felt no different to the boys and fully expected to have the same opportunities as adults. But we are now also feeling the consequences of this battle. You see no-one told us that rather than seeing our right to work as a hard fought for privilege it can, at times, feel like a financial shackle as homes are priced out of reach of families with only one working partner and parents are forced back to work with young children just to keep up with the cost of living. Women feel the constant pressure to prove that they can do everything, with the responsibilities of home and children still falling predominantly on their shoulders. And we certainly did not realise that those women who chose to follow the traditional roles of full time wife and mother would become second class citizens, ostracised by other women for somehow letting the side down. I can't help but think we have gained equality by suppressing what is feminine and not by striving to be proud of what we are and demanding that it be treated with as much respect as all the qualities associated with masculinity. It is no wonder that marriages and family life are under so much pressure today with home-making and child care, traditionally female spheres, now considered secondary activities to work. Don't get me wrong, I would not give up my right to a career for anything but I dream of finding a balance that does not seem possible and yet it would not involve much - a more flexible working life that would allow me to be at home when my child came home from school, maybe a part-time/job share role that still allowed me to reach my full potential and be paid properly for it. Perhaps this war for equality is not yet at an end and perhaps this is the new battle that needs to be fought so that our daughters can feel equal to men without the need to sacrifice the feminine.

The Training Gap

My husband has fallen victim to the training gap. A couple of months ago my husband's boss went bankrupt and he and his colleagues found themselves out of a job - not so Happy Christmas! But as with relationships you pick yourself up and start looking for the next thing that will suit you and, more importantly, pay the bills. These days, though, finding a new job has become a paperwork nightmare with cvs, lists of past employments, references and of course qualifications. And this is where my husband falls down. You see he went to the sort of school where careers advice involved handing out the address of the nearest dole office and as with most of his friends he left school with nothing. Now a few months off his fortieth birthday he has no official trade, no qualified profession, no noted skill set that can take him from job to job at a pay level he deserves after over twenty years of working. The problem is that when we were teenagers the country seemed gripped with the idea that academic qualifications were all that mattered and anything vocational was somehow inferior. School kids were encouraged to take A Levels in traditional subjects and those that did wanted to go onto universities, not polytechnics. In the midst of all this madness polytechnics all over the country changed their names to university, almost apologising for their roots in training people to do proper jobs. And then we all wondered why ten years later we could not find a plumber or a builder or even a mechanic! Thankfully this madness has now passed and school leavers are being offered apprenticeships and vocational training that will set them up for life, but for my husband, with half his working life still ahead of him, this is too late. So we are now reading through course lists from the local colleges hoping that he can finally get the qualifications to get the job he deverves - they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but I am really hoping that is not true!