A Bindoff

🎼NOW OUT IN PAPERBACK🎼

Reposting this - This Will Not Do. …nistsagainstantisemitism.substack.com/p/this-will-no…

@BirthTrauma None of the pregnant women I have known before or since have ever heard of it, but I accept that’s a small sample.

@a_bindoff Thanks! It was certainly taught in NCT classes 20+ years ago and probably still is. (It's also promoted in some maternity units, eg royalberkshire.nhs.uk/media/ykul0pto…)

Question for midwives/obstetricians: does biomechanics during pregnancy (exercises to get your baby into an optimal position for birth) work? Is there an evidence base?

“After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.”, Italian Proverb It is wise to remember this. Memento Mori

@roisinmurphy thank you for your superb address to @Freedom_in_Arts , delivered with hard-won and much needed authority.

@TheAttagirls @GussieGrips Very understandable. I really didn’t like it at all and I don’t really like it yet, although I haven’t seen it in reality so shouldn’t judge, I suppose.

@a_bindoff @GussieGrips I think it would take many many years before I could be reconciled with MW’s statue…

Woman of the Day philosopher, historian and author Mary Wollstonecraft, born OTD in 1759 in Spitalfields, London, widely regarded as Britain’s first feminist. Her reputation was unjustly shredded for a century after her early death but her influence was far-reaching and can still be seen today. Born to an affluent family, Mary was treated very differently to her brother: an expensive education for him, a couple of years at day school for her. It rankled. Her profligate, abusive and drunken father made her hand over money held in trust for her till she reached adulthood, and she had to endure his violent rages. The teenage Mary tried to protect her mother by lying outside her mother’s bedroom door. Those early years left a mark. Friendships with independently minded women also made their mark and by the age of 25, Mary had opened a small girls’ school in North London with her two sisters and her friend Fanny Blood. Money was short and when Fanny died in childbirth, Mary reluctantly worked as a governess for an aristocratic couple in Cork. It was a fractious working relationship. She found the lady of the house ‘frivolous’ with ‘neither sense nor feeling’ and was sacked. Back to London she went, penniless and depressed, but it was a turning point. In 1787, Mary found a radical publisher willing to publish her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, based on her experiences. She built a literary career, meeting and sharing ideas with other radical thinkers including William Godwin. He didn’t impress her when they first met in 1791. They argued all evening and he left, irritated. Five years later, Mary defied social convention and got in touch again with William. By this time, she had lived in Paris during the Reign of Terror, had two affairs, given birth to a daughter out of wedlock, attempted suicide - she threw herself off Putney Bridge and was saved only by the intervention of passing watermen - and published her groundbreaking work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. Her Vindication was prompted by Talleyrand’s 1791 report to the French National Assembly which loftily concluded that women were only fit to have domestic education: taught to run a home. It went against everything Mary believed in and she argued that women were not inferior to men, and if they appeared to be, it was because they were denied education. She posited that men and women alike should be treated as rational beings and treated equally. “Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” In 1797, Mary and Godwin married but their domestic set-up was regarded as controversial. She was pregnant when they wed, he spent his days twenty doors away so they could maintain some independence, and they communicated via letters. On 30 August 1797, after eighteen hours of labour, Mary gave birth to her second daughter, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. The attending surgeon (she’d actually wanted a midwife) was out of his depth and she suffered acute haemorrhaging followed by infection. Eleven days later, she died, aged just 38. In 1798, William published a well-intentioned but poorly judged account of Mary’s life. The affairs, the child born out of wedlock, the unorthodox religious opinions: they were the sticks by which Mary’s reputation was comprehensively trashed, and the mud stuck for a century. A man would never have been judged by the same standards. Look at Mary Shelley’s contemporary, Lord Byron. Mary’s Vindication of the Rights of Women was influenced by Olympe de Gouges’ Declaration of The Rights of Woman, published the year previously in 1791. In turn, Mary influenced the views of Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We know how Millicent devoted her life to securing votes for women but Elizabeth, a vocal supporter of Mary, reflected those views in her verse-novel, Aurora Leigh, which influenced Susan B. Anthony’s thinking about the traditional roles of women, especially in relation to marriage versus independence. Susan’s fight led in time to the Nineteenth Amendment which finally granted American women the vote. Mary said, “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”

Triggering to write ( and perhaps read) about PND, but it plays a part in the plot of High & Low (7 May) when a group of people come under siege in a small N London street of shops… RT please theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2…

@AmandaPCraig I’m sorry you had such a horrible time. I think the way we treat new mothers (let alone women who have had such a traumatic experience) in this country is utterly cruel and inhuman.

@mc_math17 @sueveneer (But lots of Brits are indeed using ‘bangs’ for ‘fringe’ now, sad to say)

@mc_math17 @sueveneer Sorry, meant jokingly!

British people calling a fringe “bangs”. #thingsthatmakemestabby

@mc_math17 @sueveneer Enjoy your last days of innocence, Lady O de P

@sueveneer We don’t, it’s Americans that do that.

I’ll accept that Russell Brand has sincerely repented when he disappears completely and permanently from public view and lives out the rest of his days cleaning the toilets in a hostel for homeless men.

@lascapigliata8 @JillCollier16 I’m sorry things have been so awful for you and I’m hugely relieved the bill has been defeated this time round. I really hope you have lots of wonderful days heading your way now x

As my hope that the Assisted Dying Bill (in truth, human euthanasia) would die a death in Parliament was fulfilled, and countless vulnerable people have a better chance at life now than they would, had it passed into law, I want to write something deeply personal about this issue. 🧵 As a doctor, I decided long ago that humans weren't sufficiently evolved to be given power to put vulnerable humans down, especially not for profit. My decision has been justified by the ongoing scandals and victimisation of the vulnerable in every jurisdiction where human euthanasia (under whichever euphemism) is allowed. But only in the last year or two, I have come to understand the perils of this practice on a deeply personal level. I live with a chronic illness, which manifests, amongst other ways, in breathing difficulties. I was lucky for a long time for these to be well controlled, but in the last year or so, things started to change - not necessarily for the worse, but symptom control became a problem, in context of underlying fungal chest infection, which is very insidious, difficult to diagnose and it takes a long time to treat successfully. I had chest infections before, and one of the symptoms I get, especially when the infection is insidious in onset, is impending sense of doom. I learned that it was my body's way of alerting me that if I don't do something, it won't end well. In recent months I started to experience terrible distress - mainly because I couldn't find the right treatment for quite some time - and with it, I became acutely suicidal. Not many people know what it's like to not be able to eat, sleep, concentrate, tolerate anything on their back, due to unrelieved and constant breathlessness. Fighting for breath every minute of every day. Randomly being able to breathe but then not and there being no rhyme or reason. Going dusky in the face, desperate, keeling over after a couple of steps, in such pain and anguish that you both wish you could die, as well as are terrified that what is ailing you will kill you. Only my poor husband knows how it is to live with someone in that state for months. I had come as far as settling on the method, and I promised my husband I would call him if I was at risk to do anything of the kind, but the reality is that once you are in extremis, anything can happen. I begged him to let me die many times. He dragged me from the brink, we scrambled to find doctors, the right treatment, considering the nightmare in the NHS. Last time this happened was only two days ago. I had stopped the antifungal medication in hope that the treatment was long enough, and then slowly slid back into unrelieved breathlessness over the 5 day period, culminating with the return of these awful symptoms of hopelessness, doom and suicidality. I have little doubt that somewhere along the line, should the abominable "euthanasia instead of adequate healthcare" bill had passed, I would be at risk of either availing myself of their services in a moment of desperation, or that I would be preyed upon by the unethical healthcare system. In Canada, things have gotten so bad that a woman who went to hospital with a treatable infection and resulting confusion was put down within hours, none of her family being informed. Dead don't talk, so who can prove she didn't "consent"? The risks of what the irresponsible champions of the euthanasia bill were proposing were vast, and would have ushered an era of inhumanity which would have claimed many innocent lives, as it has done elsewhere. As for me, I went back on the antifungal tablets and within 24 hours the symptoms of suicidality and sense of doom, alongside with breathlessness and the rest, simply went away. It's as simple as that. Many have spoken way more eloquently than me, why this bill was dangerous. I can only offer my heartfelt thanks to every person who helped stop that particular slide into barbarity. You have saved many lives. Now, please, let's kick that particular nasty idea, which is so beloved of the privileged classes who so mindlessly liken it to a choice of perfume or an ice cream flavour, into the long grass. And lets fund halthcare, social care and palliative care instead, which would offer ethical and safe assisted living as well as assisted dying to UK patients.

@KateClanchy1 @dinahbrand2 Thank you for giving these brave poets a platform.

Adiba and her mother venture out into their Afghan town. Like mothers and daughters everywhere - but not.

Somewhere in Afghanistan a woman of 20, clever and studious as they come, is cleaning the windows and looking through them for the rest of her life. Please let Adiba know you can hear her - it makes a difference.

@AmandaPCraig Absolutely fabulous!

My wonderful publisher @Abacus/LittleBrown has made this reel about High & Low, out 7 May - with huge thanks to many generous fellow authors of distinction.

@AudreySuffolk @AmandaPCraig I hope someone gives Erec Smith his own show. I’d gladly listen to him talk about rhetoric all day.

Really excellent 2 part documentary

@RoisinMichaux I’m glad your granny got to have a sit down eventually. I don’t know why the guy in that clip, who looks not much younger than me, doesn’t seem to know what life was like for many well within our lifetimes.

She immediately made me think of my granny, who had 8 kids (one baby died) and worked between the field and the kitchen her whole life, starting from the crack of dawn, with no help, no welfare, no midwives, no thanks, no glory. I knew her when all that was over and she just sat in a chair in the corner all day and read Mills and Boon novels (the dirty minx), and watched the snooker or listened to mass on the radio. And I never heard he complain about anything. Not once.