Headspace

- Putting off worrying about my impending university interview using the combined forces of chocolate and films. And reading huge books of the angry feminist persuasion. And finding hilariously brilliant pictures. Need to stop this.

- Another uni rejection. So I'm left with an offer, an interview and three rejections. Hrmmm. So I'm pretty much utterly at the mercy of myself not to make an utter horlicks of this interview. Because I love this uni. It's perfect. And lovely. And it's in London. I don't think I could love it more if I tried.

So come on, Lovely University. You know you want me.. don't you?

(This is a woman dressed up as Sylvia Plath. It has made my week.)

- Life is back to a strange kind of normal. I am back in London twice a week (or thrice, if I go in on saturdays)(or four..-ice if I go in for a jumble on sunday). Life's good!

- Must remember to start driving lessons again. Keep forgetting to book them!

'Cave, girls!'

So, this month I've been in a really third-wave kinda mood. 

> The sort of mood that makes me grind my teeth in anger every time Cheryl Cole is dubbed the 'nation's sweetheart.' I stopped wearing make-up for about half this month while I was reading Naomi Wolf's 'The Beauty Myth', until I'd made up my mind about my stance on the whole thing.

One thing that has come out of this is I'm re-evaluating the way I view other women, and the way they viewed me.

> I'm so sick of feeling this general loathing for every woman who I perceive to be 'more beautiful' than me, and therefore a 'threat'. It's knackering, and it knocks my self-esteem for six. As soon as an attractive woman stood next to me in line at a shop or got onto the same carriage as me on the tube I'd feel all kinds of hatred for her and for myself. How can it be positive? 

This is what a Feminist looks like...

Bill Bailey. Brilliant.

In defence of Baggy Jumpers.

- How much do you tell people about yourself? I don't mean just in conversation, but in how you look, how you carry yourself? They say that a marginal amount of communication is through speech, that presentation and other factors are key. I have to admit, I use this to a truly ridiculous degree.

- The amount that people will judge you purely on face value is just bizarre, though. Your clothes, hair and makeup seem to be so defining to the outside world - partially because I don't speak to 90% of the people I encounter, mainly on my busy commute. I sometimes wonder what they think about me.

- I like to use people's assumptions for my own amusement. For example, I can't remember the last time I wore a dress. I primarily live in an outfit of enormously baggy proportions, and my uniform for school is principally a pair of cutoffs, and a man's jumper. 

- Friends have described me as a 'tomboy'. Some have even found my androgenic dressing grounds to question my sexuality, as though masculine attire and lesbians are inextricably linked. In reality, I dress this way because: 1) it's easy, and 2) you're going to have a bastard of a time working out what I'm like from what I'm wearing.

- I don't want to give up my secrets easily. I like a little intrigue, you know? So when people see me crushed up in on the underground, with my straightened hair, excessive-to-say-the-least eye-makeup, and my unfeminine outfit, I wonder whether they feel a little apprehensive in selecting a pigeonhole?

- I enjoy subverting expectations. As a woman, my body is a battleground, and everyone, male or female, will make an immediate opinion of me based on my appearance. My dearest wish is for a blank canvas - one that would let people judge me on my mind (which I can improve), instead of my body (which I ,largely, can't).

- Of course, this is an impossible dream. So every monday morning, I stumble blearily to my wardrobe to select the most indistinguishable jumper from my ever-growing collection and drag on the same ragged old shorts. I spend twice as much time on my face as I do getting dressed, and three times more on my hair.

- I think this is mainly because I don't want the blank canvas effect wasted. I don't want to come across as a woman devoid of care for her appearance - I like to look good, I like to wear make-up, I like to wear my hair down. Interestingly, I've never dressed up an outfit but not put on make-up, though it would probably have much the same effect.

- Sometimes my friends complain about my general attire, and force me to drag out of my brimming wardrobe something with a bit more pizazz. My wardrobe is full of pizazz, but I tend to reserve it for when I am amongst people who know me - who will not make unfounded assumptions from my appearance, who won't see the clothes wearing me.

- I was recently forced to dress up for a ridiculously fancy shindig - think marquee fitted out with chandeliers and waiters with trays of champagne loitering by the ice sculptures. I was forced to contend with a lot of unwanted male attention, which distressed me. In my usual outfit, I have a very decent pulling rate, simply because men seem to find my personality attractive

(this is something I wish more women knew. Talking a man into bed is the easiest thing in the world). 

- At this gig, guys wanted none of it. I was fondled and groped. Older men leered. One of the hosts even tried for a quickie on a snooker table. To me, this outfit did not imbibe confidence or empowerment - it simply suggested sexuality and provoked a response that I was unable and unhappy to contend with. 

- I do not mean to suggest that all women should dress conservatively - not at all. A true enjoyment in the expression of your body is completely right-on. I just wish sometimes we'd try a little harder with our minds and a less with our bodies, and make men work to understand us rather than allowing them to draw their own conclusions.

In vogue.

- I am absolutely terrified of fashion magazines. The amount of shit they've sold me over the years is ridiculous. Lonely, catty women write articles on which lipstick will make you a happier, thinner person. And we all buy this crap with utter dedication.

- And the models make me sick - whippet thin, androgynous, purported to be the image of womanhood, posed in the most childlike, pathetic ways, made up like a child's ragdoll. The magazines endow them with five page spreads, each image more gormlessly misognyistic than the last. Probably just before a mock-empowerment article telling you which hairstyle will make you most likely to have a successful career as a receptionist until Mr Right sweeps you off your feet and into a family-sized faux-Tudor cottage in Kent.

- All in all, I'm just bored of this bollocks spouted by know-it-all magazines. The advice given is always hollow and meaningless. They hold up a life of rabid consumerism as mecca. They relate shrinking in size with growing in character - doubling articles on weight loss with enlightening little messages about 'detox'

Ms.

- It's odd what catches your attention. Watching 'Grumpy Old Women' on BBC iPlayer yesterday, my interest was sparked by a section concerning how to address a woman correctly. Many of the woman said they preferred to be addressed as 'Ms.' as opposed to 'Miss' or 'Mrs'. I'd never even heard of this before! I suspect it's a second wave thing, and being born in 1991, I'm probs a bit late.

- Anyway, roll forwards a day and here I am at 1:57 am, crippled by period pains, hating my uterus, buying cheap old second-hand feminist literature off amazon. It's very exciting. And not just because I get the opportunity to look clever in front of my fellow commuters.

- I only really know one feminist, and really, she's enough for the moment. She's my ex-english teacher. I'd never tell her, but she's the reason I carried it on to university. She was the sort of woman you loved to hate and everyone respected her and feared her with equal measure.

- I fought with her a ridiculous amount. Literally, would not back down. She wasn't an ideal teacher - she undermined my confidence and there's opportunities I missed out on simply because I imagined she didn't think I was up to it. But she was maddeningly brilliant, and looking back, I wish I'd shut up arguing a bit and maybe listened some more.

- My mum is a pseudo-feminist. It makes me really sad because her desperation to be 'hard as nails' hides everything motherly about her. She's supported the family through hard times and she works bloody hard. She should be my hero.

- But she's not. She smokes. She had bulimia for twenty years. She throws money at my sister and I to see if it'll stick. She hates her roots. I don't go to her for advice because it's straight out of a leadership skills book. I once cried because I thought I'd got fat, and she screamed her insecurities at me for forty minutes. She complains, at length, about other women's weaknesses.

- That's not feminism to me - I don't need to be hard as stone. It wouldn't make me complete or happy. Sometimes things hit me and I break or I take them. Why should feminism make me less female? 

- I want these books to make me question everything I see. I think of feminism like a science - it's the art of calling into question what's been there all along.

- Anyway. My period pains have subsided and I'm off to bed, as there's a chance of me getting some sleep, which will be pretty scant over the next week. But I'm certain the next time I have to fill in a tedious form for a return, or check a box on my railcard application, the box I'll be checking is 'Ms.'