Feminine Wiles?

Recently I made a discovery which shocked me and made me wonder where we are going in our journey to achieve some very worthy aims. Does the end always justify the means? Does history teach us nothing? Do we need, as women, to ignore integrity, our sense of fairness and our democratic principles in order to develop our potential? Is this really what we want?

Please don't get me wrong. I am all in favour of women developing their potential. Of course I am. I enjoy seeing women bringing their own impressive and highly individual brand of creative energy, lateral thinking and feminine genius to a range of tasks that have  previously been a strictly male only preserve. I love seeing women freed from their traditional roles - if that is what they choose - to explore new settings and compete side by side with their male counterparts in a variety of exciting ventures.

 

You are sensing a 'but'. Right! Sadly, that is true.

 

The discovery I referred to is possibly something that other less naïve and squeamish members of 21st century society are already aware of and maybe are comfortable with. I don't know. However, I learned recently that in order to 'redress the balance' and correct the inequality in the relative numbers of male and female Members of Parliament, we are currently 'fixing' the short lists for electing MPs so that an all-female short list can now guarantee the desired female candidates in a number of selected constituencies. I confess I was shocked. Maybe I am over-sensitive, but can someone with a better grasp of history please tell me what is the difference between the current situation and the widely practised atrocity of 'rotten borough' election methods in bygone centuries in this country?

Apart from the fact that (hopefully) under the current system no money changes hands, I find it difficult to see what is the difference between fixing the shortlisting  of candidates (and then the subsequent vote) by squires and other members of the class hierarchy and the current practice of fixing shortlists in favour of female candidates. Please enlighten me if I am showing signs of paranoia or an excessive predilection for an outworn concept of democracy. In the bad old days squires and their lackeys toured drinking houses and hovels to impress on their employees and tenants that voting for the 'wrong candidate' would result in deprivation, eviction and unemployment. Sometimes a bribe of 'cakes and ale' would be offered to further tempt men (for no women had the vote anyway) to use their precious vote according to their employer's wishes. Moving to the present time, where we have evolved into a much fairer and more even-handed bunch, much as I love the idea of men and women having equal access to the opportunity of procuring seats in parliament, I would much prefer to see an equal contest conducted on a wholly democratic basis. Do any other women agree with me?

It seems to me that in a 'contest' where the entire adult population has been enfranchised, it is unnecessary to give any further advantage to any section of our society (even women!) than the one they already possess, i.e. one adult, one vote. If there are any other built-in inequalities in our system, surely we should be looking at the regulations governing who is able to shortlist candidates and what are the criteria by which prospective candidates are screened. Of course we want a fairer system and we want access to the very best government our country can procure, but can it really become fairer by means of a method that involves short list fixing?

Quart into a Pint Pot

It's always as well to pay your mortgage off by the time you retire! Of course, sometimes life happens to you and it doesn't work out that way... That's when you have to employ a lot of creative thought to try to beat the system and survive.
 

The early part of the 2lst century saw the beginnings of the 'squeeze'. An economic depression affected most of us and we became adept at finding ways round things, ducking and diving and planning for the future in ways that the wartime generation our parents belonged to would have felt quite at home with.

 

Living and working in the Netherlands had accustomed us to a certain way of life that expats come to expect. We lived in a cushioned little bubble on the whole - English speaking of course - and enjoyed the best of the rich cultural experience that was offered us in a multi-cultural and diverse environment. We lived well and we worked hard. We had a moderately sized house in the midst of a pretty Dutch city. The recession was a daily reality even there but we managed to limit ourselves to fairly minor economies and hoped that things would improve. Of course we had a mortgage. We had moved around too much and bought and sold houses too many times to have built up any capital or paid off our debts in nice steady chunks as our parents would have done. A long spell working in the voluntary sector for what seemed at the time like justifiable altruistic reasons also had an impact on our financial situation long term.

 

However, retirement was looming and ill health made it unwise to delay our move back to our homeland any longer. It was not the best of times to be planning a big international move but life doesn't always go quite the way you would ideally want it to. It took us a while to sell our home. We tried a fresh coat of paint, we decluttered and modernised and tried to be patient and eventually we struck lucky. However, what you can buy with the help of a mortgage is somewhat different to what you can manage next time round without one! Without a job no-one in their right mind was going to loan us money again - and with the economic crisis fresh in everyone's minds, no-one was keen to repeat the mistakes that caused it by offering a mortgage to bad risk clients like ourselves with only a pension to live on.

 

We talked it over. We planned; we schemed; we researched on the internet; we watched endless episodes of Escape to the Country and Homes under the Hammer to gain clues on how to achieve our dream cottage in the country with the minimum financial outlay. Our goals were modest, just like everyone else's - the big family kitchen, rural surroundings, a guest bedroom or two, a substantial garden with an impressive vegetable plot and a view to die for. Not much really...  Add to that yearnings above our station for a writer's summerhouse in the garden and an artist's studio where all the mess could remain undisturbed and the easel and paintbrushes would be ready to roll at a moment's notice, and we were in over our heads. Not a hope!

 

Two or three years later, all the planning stage now seems like a dream. The Big Move turned out to be the Big Squeeze and left us reeling, feeling a little like we had been squeezed unceremoniously into a small tube of toothpaste from which we would never escape. Our new home was in rural surroundings: one of the remotest parts of the UK, with a high unemployment rate and a challenging lack of facilities. However, the views are spectacular and the country setting was everything we had dreamed of. Our kitchen is modest and far from modern, but it has been adequate to the task. Homemade pies and quiches, crusty loaves, cakes and muffins fill the freezer, even if there is no space for the dishwasher and baking day necessitates a degree in logistics to cope with the task in the cramped surroundings available. The guest bedroom is there if you look hard enough. It contains a wardrobe (which is always totally filled with the overspill from our own wardrobes and never has any room for our guests' needs). It contains a sofa bed, with just enough space to extend it if absolutely necessary. It also contains a fine artist's studio (easel squashed in the corner by the window, with a shelf for paints on the wall next to it) and a writer's space (antique pine desk squashed in next to the easel) with a glorious view out of our back window to the hummocky green mountain behind our house for those moments of inspiration.

 

Behind our row of cottages you will find the garden. Each tiny cottage has a corresponding tiny garden, not necessarily in the logical order. The deeds for our cottage are lodged with the solicitor and contain a carefully drawn map, outlining the quirky details of our estate. We own a small cottage with a tiny extension, a share in our communal driveway, a tiny garden, enclosed by green stained fences, with a matching green shed, a concreted parking space, a grassed over area we like to think of as the lawn, flower beds and space for an impressive array of flower pots and containers for a small vegetable plot, if you don't park the car too far back. We also, in common with all our neighbours, own a minute square of land (now accessible via a right of way through one of the neighbour's gardens) on which we once boasted a small outside loo! We also own a useful washing line which cuts diagonally across the garden from the shed to the fence, where washing can be successfully hung, with careful attention to the respective length of the garments, avoiding (hopefully) the courgette plants, back of the car and the garden table and chairs where we like to eat lunch on sunny days. We have become experts at multi-functional living and the art of downsizing. Can you fit a quart into a pint pot? Well, I think the answer would have to be yes.

 

And do we enjoy our escape to the country? Again, the answer would have to be in the affirmative. Despite the squeeze we are proud of our little home and garden, proud to be living in these beautiful surroundings, proud to be part of a caring community where the neighbours have welcomed us into their delightfully antiquated but sociable and mutually supportive society. It's been a bit of a challenge, downsizing, and continues to be so, but there are times when trying to fit a quart into a pint pot can be rewarding and my cup 'runneth over', as the good book says. After all, it's not all bad when you have too much rather than too little.