Sexual equality? Aliens would not be impressed

Posted on May 18, 2011 by fortewinks

VaaginoNever one to marginalise myself on the basis of gender I’m perplexed by the number of women in their thirties and forties who comment that their lot in the world is all the harder because of their sex; equality and motherhood are still pressing issues.

Over the last two weeks I have heard at least ten comments, reflected pretty accurately by: “I’d be taken more seriously if I wasn’t a woman / mother.”

What this boils down to is: “equality is based on the function of my reproductive organs.” It makes no sense and really, if aliens were to land and assess our inter-gender relations, I can’t imagine they’d be terribly impressed.

In our mature Western world, women should have as much chance of success and respect as our male counterparts. But a large number of us don’t, or maybe think we don’t, yet the fight for gender equality is generations old – although in the context of time, it seems it has hardly started.  Maybe today’s female dismay is merely a collective breath being drawn before we march ahead to finish the battle our feminist forebears began?

The women I know are clever, accomplished, articulate and I would have imagined like me, simply wouldn’t accept gender as relevant. So I’m troubled to find that my generation and even younger, really do entertain the concept that their sex or maternal circumstance are a barrier to achievement. Assumption of parity is an implicit part of feminism that must gather strength from generation to generation until it is as much part of the female self as our ovaries – those marvellous organs that help to provide us with children.

The mother-career path will never be easily navigated but does not preclude equality. Although babies won’t exactly shoehorn us into the Boardroom, they don’t need to stop us if we’re prepared to employ conviction and let’s face it, see less of our progeny. The bald fact is that even the army of nannies employed by women like Nicola Horlick can’t ease the relentless plate spinning. I can’t see a way round it and perhaps the sexes would do better to focus on making the most of our worlds together and establish genuine mutual respect.

I don’t write this lightly. My children’s upbringing has been as peppered with career-guilt, missed school dates, rushed bedtime stories and absentee meals as the next working mother. Not to mention divorce. I’m not proud of some of it and for years, harboured guilt for the bad stuff; but like every other life episode, that wasn’t the whole story. Lest we forget, there are always really good bits to be proud of, too.

Giving birth is a very basic female phenomenon; using it to undermine us in society is a diversion. A more appropriate response is that every experience and skill brought to bear by parenthood can bring a maturity that translates into the rest of life.

If there’s any compensation for the responsibility women have in being, largely, the most accountable parent it has to be that we’re the ones that actually make new people. I mean, really, you couldn’t make it up. Our bodies and minds have the capacity to craft another person, bring it into the world and create a unique individual.  Forgive me for coming over all soppy, but of all the privileges shared out between the sexes, imagine how pissed off we’d be if men had that one.

On completing the era of practical parenthood, I find that my well-balanced, unfettered and beautiful daughters have observed first-hand and learned from my feminine struggles and hearty outlook. And, it seems they understand.

Instilled into them is the mantra “Don’t ask for equality, assume it,” which some say is unsympathetic to women who may be less able or less assertive; this is patronising flimflam and if women’s right to equality is to percolate through the generations and take hold, then it must become part of all children’s upbringing from birth.

At the start of their adult lives, my Girls are mentally and emotionally far better equipped than I ever was. Sanguine with post-rationalism I may be, but in that respect, in our own small way we are perhaps part of feminism’s evolution because they will certainly pass it forward. This achievement gives me far more pride and pleasure than anything else.

In reality, the struggle for “assumption of equality” is woefully out of date. Women chained themselves to railings for this over 100 years ago for God’s sake. In terms of evolution, though, it seems that’s just not long enough.

© Giovanna Forte

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Been spoken for: the wedding suit

Posted on May 16, 2011 by fortewinks

Tim has lassoed Sassy Amanda, my soon to be married Best Friend. He’s the bow to her arrow – or perhaps with less poetry and more realism, the brake to her accelerator.  Tim is a fine man.

Following the success of our Wedding Dress adventure, the Bride has appointed me to assist her intended in his selection of tailor for the Wedding Suit, a task I accepted with pleasure and a little apprehension, because although they have been an item for some three years, Tim doesn’t live in London and to be candid, I just don’t know him very well. And how to manage a process I know so little about?

Unfamiliar with tailorish ways, I decided to begin with who and what I know, ask my smartest male friends for advice and forge ahead with an itinerary for Tim’s next London visit, Saturday 14th May.

Tim and I meet for breakfast at the appropriately named Breakfast Club by Hoxton Square, Shoreditch and we discuss The Suit. Tim doesn’t know what to expect and I tell him he has, ultimately to love the result. Amanda has to be happy, he says. I agree but add that the success of my job relies on him being so at one with the suit that he should barely notice wearing it on The Day. With bemused eyes, he smiles and we settle into an easy companionship, the blueprint for what evolves into the loveliest day.

Philip Start is always immaculately turned out, with a casually alert demeanour and wide smile. Today we find him in a beautifully cut electric blue wool suit, his black-frame spectacles emphasising a handsomely intellectual face that creases into a warm welcome as we step into Mr Start, his tailoring emporium on Charlotte Road.

We’re ushered into the elegant, relaxed lower ground floor space, which is lined with a well-edited selection of shoes, suits, fabric bunches and a scattering of accessories. Philip sends for coffee “in cups not takeaway” from the Bottega Prelibato on Rivington Street (arguably the best beans in EC2), and we settle in.

Philip quizzes Tim on the wedding: when, where, temperature, style, formality. Tim responds as he wanders the space picking up and examining a shoe here, a tie there, inspecting the collection of shirts and suits. I watch Mr Start almost imperceptibly scan his client top to toe, toe to top, side to side and back again. Philip is taking in Tim’s way, his posture and personality and guides us to the definitive design, fabric and some jazzy satin lining for this most important suit. We also discuss and agree a second suit, needed for the honeymoon and beyond.

While Tim’s vital statistics are meticulously noted in case we decide to settle on Mr Start’s made to measure, Philip asks where else we’re heading on our foray into men’s formal fashion. The name of our next appointment prompts an expression I can’t quite read and the comment “well, that’s a whole different thing.” What can he mean?

We find out within about twenty minutes when our cab sets us down at the end of Meard Street in Soho. At number six, the slight figure of John Pearse seems to fill every inch of his atelier, where we find the most rock and roll of tailors propped up against his counter, conversing easily and charmingly with a glamorous Italian couple.

In the old days, a customer may enter a tailor’s atelier , ask for something he saw there and be told: “Its been spoken for”. Of the few exquisite garments on view, no two are the same, no detail identical. This “whole different thing” is the world of bespoke.

John Pearse is simultaneously friendly and distant, casual and assertive. His measured movements seem to have grand effect somehow and behind the apparently scant attention, you become aware that very little escapes his notice.

John asks about the wedding and informed by our two hours with Philip Start, we have a better idea of what we want. He produces swathes of beautiful light wool and cashmere. He disappears into deep cupboards, climbs to high shelves and delves into drawers, emerging with brilliant and rich linings. When the burst of activity stops, he stands still, cups his chin, swings one ankle over the other and fixes his eyes on Tim.

The Pearse beam dissects his client’s body into wafer-thin slices and in about a minute using just four or five words, he describes the suit, summing up with “oh, and it’ll be fabulous.”  Then he smiles, and is on the move again, apparently taken up with something else and leaving us to our own devices.

Tim and I confer; he confesses readily to having no capacity for visualisation so we ask John to sketch something. With some amusement, he draws a rough suit jacket on a scrap of paper and when asked for any other images of stuff he’s made, unearths a folder saying: “I only really keep the more esoteric things,” and reveals cuttings of his work defining the figures of some of the world’s most rogueish men of music and letters.

Agreeing to make contact in a few days, we take leave of the enigmatic and brilliant John Pearse and make our way to Hix on Brewer Street to digest our findings – and some of the best British food in London. The Scottish waitress here is friendly, informed, calm and lovely, providing service apposite to the quality of the menu. Tim finds a Pinot Noir from Oregon, where Amanda is from and which she loves, but in her absence we order a full and fruity Montepulciano, one of my hot favourites. Ten out of ten to the Hix wine buyer.

Lunch is thoroughly relaxed and congenial; Tim and I review our day and agree that the very successful meetings have raised different options. We debate the merits of each approach and settle on a draft ideal scenario, to be confirmed – or not – by our final appointment, Timothy Everest in Bruton Place.

We arrive on the dot of 4.30pm, to be greeted by Julian who announces “I’d offer you a glass of champagne, but we finished it yesterday.” He asks us about the wedding suit and proffers some swatches, which he says are “nice”. “Its his wedding,” I say. “Can’t we do better than nice?”

Things pick up when Julian finds some fabrics more in tune with our sense of occasion, but a regular customer arrives and they become involved in the business of a new suit or two. While we wait, I discover my iphone is nearly out of juice and Julian kindly removes the Everest ipod from its sound dock so I can charge my phone.

By the time the other meeting is concluded, we’ve identified some fabrics and linings. Tim finds something, which I agree is exuberant and lovely. “But you can’t have it,” I tell him (it’s the wrong colour).  Julian joins us to embark on a debate about the suit’s shape, form, price and timing and tells us that Everest “has more bespoke business than we’ve ever had,” so it might take longer than usual – although it’s entirely possible in our still generous time frame not least because Everest’s bespoke is made in Spitalfields.

We head out into Bond Street for a quick spin around the Ralph Lauren bespoke floor but find Tim’s “regular guy” isn’t there and the prices a percent or few higher than the independent tailors we’ve already engaged with.

Tim and I make our way to Claridges where an elegant Amanda is waiting with some Very Cold Champagne – and a new hat for Ascot. Flushed with success,  we describe our day and present our decision: a bespoke wedding suit from John Pearse and a made-to-measure honeymoon suit from Mr Start, giving us the perfect outcome with clever people we like and trust.

With Start measurements already in the book, we can press the button on the honeymoon suit immediately and schedule just one fitting before delivery. The Pearse number will get going when Tim returns to London in a couple of weeks but will take less time to make because it is crafted “round the corner” in Soho.

Superficially, Tim and Amanda’s wedding is providing me with fabulous and interesting days out, beautiful restaurants and sophisticated cocktails. Responsibility notwithstanding, the matter of orchestrating their sartorial splendour is tremendous fun.

The greatest pleasure however, is that in the process, I’m getting to know my friends better than ever and glimpse the layers of love and affection that exist between them. When it comes to friendship, you really can’t get more privileged than that.

© Giovanna Forte

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Oestrogen: mid-life elixir is

Posted on April 18, 2011 by fortewinks

Feeling great

I am forty-eight and I am smiling. I have a spring in my step, a twinkle in my eye, focus in my day. I’m in control; I have a new drug of choice.

If you’re a woman hurtling inexorably towards middle age (or like me, are in denial about having reached it) you’ll be pretty interested in this apparently innocuous substance that despite having wonderdrug stimuli, is not strictly speaking a drug at all. It’s a common-or-garden hormone. It’s oestrogen.

The onset of the mid-life nightmare commenced a couple of years ago. A naturally sunny person, black days began to punctuate my life; for the first time since post-natal blues distorted early motherhood two decades ago, a tide of tears began to wash regularly over my days and weeks. Mood swings ruled; demons and monsters jumped out from behind the smallest, most innocuous task or engagement.  My first morning thought became “can I not cry today please?” The words alone would often make me weep with frustration at this inability to cope with anything.  That’s no way to start the day.

The ebb and flow of these episodes was not entirely unpredictable – they were timed to exacerbate the pre-menstrual days. Which turned into weeks. Which took over my life; I’d leaf anxiously through my diary, maniacally counting … trying to anticipate the disruption.

Let me illuminate because, gentle reader, you too may recognise the symptoms in yourself or your partner. Combined, they can threaten not just the individual’s relationship with herself, but with everyone around her.  Take heart: the problem is not insuperable.

I can pinpoint the start with disrupted nights. Waking up hot and bothered, my head swimming with stress caused by sleep deprivation, leaving me stunned with fatigue when, too early by half, John Humphries would penetrate my stupefied consciousness. Bless him; most men would have taken those husky, poisoned insults very personally.

Sleep deprivation – two words that surely strike fear into the hearts of all forty-something women. For without sleep, the coping mechanism becomes a fragile, broken thing that no amount of masking will fix. And therein lies the rest of it: tears, anger, frustration, self-doubt, broken confidence, low self-esteem and disrupted relationships.

My doctor was not unsympathetic, or unhelpful; she prescribed anti-depressants, sleeping pills (loved the sleeping pills) and blood tests to check my hormone levels, which were apparently perfectly well balanced. The anti-depressants, however, enveloped me in a rubber bubble, anaesthetising the senses but oddly, not the emotions, which remained unstable. Zopiclone restored sleep patterns, but cannot be taken daily due to addiction risk.

This state of affairs (well, I wasn’t exactly in the right shape for any of those) dragged interminably on for about two years. In utter frustration, and believing that I may be peri-menopausal, I requested HRT, initially rejected out of hand by my doctor, due to a complex and apparently dire web of risks. Conducting my own research and boosted by my findings I returned to my GP and was this time offered a visit to “HRT Clinic” where I would be counseled and, if absolutely necessary, given the appropriate treatment.

I decided, however, to make a rare claim on health insurance* and requested a referral to a Consultant Gynaecologist of my choice. A friend had recommended Professor John Studd, guru and champion of women’s sexual health.

Professor Studd knew exactly what was coming; he sees women like me, he said, several times a day. The world is apparently brimming with emotionally overcharged women, many of whom are much maligned with well-meant but inappropriate treatment.

“Oestrogen!” he declared, twinkling at me over his bifocals. Oestrogen, is, he explained, a much overlooked method for managing the destabilising mid-life symptoms that characterise the years preceding cessation of periods. This is menopause early warning. As well as exacerbating PMT the symptoms are just a normal female response to the aging process and for those women that experience them, a boost of this naturally occurring hormone can do the trick.

I am testament to the trick. I am a fine example of successful oestrogen treatment. After three short weeks, a tangible relief enveloped me. After five, I feel normal; no, actually, better than normal. I sleep. I smile. The anger has dissipated. I am able to navigate life’s hurdles with logic and calm. I don’t cry. I’m happy.

Women of a certain age, rest assured there is a God (I call him Professor Studd) and there is an elixir for female wellbeing (it is oestrogen). If you’re enduring the sort of symptoms described, read up on hormone treatment, believe that things can be better and take action. Life is good; reclaim it.

At this juncture, I should commence an Oscar-style thank you speech to friends and family who endured two years of hell and helped me through the black stuff. But it would go on far too long. I shall suffice with “You know who you are. Thank you.” And that includes you, Mr Humphries.

* NB: health insurers do not cover menopause

© Giovanna Forte

This article first appeared on moresexdaily.com in January 2011

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