Gemma on Gender

In the closet: Cameron's cabinet

2010-05-17T22:05:00.000+02:00

still only 4 women in the Cabinet...

UK lags behind on women in cabinet | Politics | The Guardian

Another reason not to vote Conservative!

2010-05-10T13:23:00.001+02:00

Only 15 out of 568 Conservative candidates support women's equality, pretty shocking!

according to this survey by the Fawcett Society

Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms

2010-04-29T12:59:00.000+02:00

They're not complete yet but you can already read about strategies women have found for combating Christian fundamentalism in Africa here

Teen motherhood is not all bad, says novelist | Books | The Guardian

2010-04-08T23:35:00.000+02:00

Teen motherhood is not all bad, says novelist |
Books |
The Guardian

This is something I've been thinking about for a while. Like most women of my age, I was brought up with the idea that you have to get your career sorted before you procreate. Working in Kazakhstan with women of 35 who already had teenage children, I saw an alternative. Hilary Mantel asks us to consider if the 'career, then children' rule is just one more way we have to fit in with the male-oriented working world timetable. Actually the problem with having children early might not be so much about career as about finding the right person to have children with in your early 20s....

Burqini: the latest in modest swimwear

2010-03-28T23:49:00.000+02:00

I saw this site offering a brand of modest swimwear for Muslim women (Speedo has a version but it is far more clingy and therefore doesn't quite cut the mustard).

BBC News - Deutsche Telekom sets gender quotas

2010-03-16T21:51:00.000+01:00

It's the next Enlightenment: BBC News - Deutsche Telekom sets gender quotas

key snippets from European Parliament equality resolution

2010-02-12T21:33:00.000+01:00

This European Parliament resolution on equality between women and men, adopted on 10 Feb has some interesting points: Texts adopted - Wednesday, 10 February 2010 - Equality between women and men in the European Union ‐ 2009 - P7_TA-PROV(2010)0021

For example better protection of immigrant women (given that 1 in 5 highly qualified immigrants is working in a low-paid job). Trying to mainstream gender into the EU2020 process. Urging governments to introduce programmes to encourage female secondary school graduates to take up careers in engineering (too late by then?). Highlighting the fact that the European Institute for Gender Equality is still not up and running (due latest 2008).

The EP also criticises the Commission for not yet bothering to respond to its November 2008 resolution on revising equal pay legislation.

A key point in my opinion is that this resolution also urges Member States to conduct more outreach with regard to combating stereotypes, through

'awareness-raising campaigns in schools, workplaces and the media in order to promote diversification of career choices, especially for girls and combat persistent sexist stereotyping and degrading images, with particular emphasis on campaigns that highlight men's role in better sharing of family responsibilities and in work-life balancing'

Let's watch this space..

The Stepford Sylvanians...

2009-12-25T23:01:00.003+01:00

Sylvanian Families, the bemusingly twee brand of plastic animal tribes which live in tree houses, is enjoying a surge of popularity. Amongst its new creations is the new Pig Family.

It would be hard to imagine a more obvious reinforcement of gender stereotypes; I quote:

'Richard E. Grunt is a builder and a very good one. He builds lots of houses of all shapes, sizes and materials in the woods of Sylvania as well as garden walls, shops and schools. No job is too big or small for Richard E.

Constance Grunt like her name suggests is constantly preparing food for her large, hungry family. Pastries for breakfast, biscuits and tarts for snacks, at least five vegetables for main meals as well as puddings, it never ends!

Hugh Grunt is a 'chip off the old block' and hopes to become a builder like his dad. He has built his own den and treehouse in the garden as well as drawing up plans for a shed to store his tools; just like his father's shed!

May Grunt is a slave to fashion. She spends her time scanning magazines and shops for the latest designer outfits along with all the must have accessories. Once she has chosen her new look she then works out how to alter her clothes to create her new outfit.

I mean, please! Although the pig father's name is tantalisingly similar to Richard E. Grant, accident or design?

More descriptions of servile Sylvanians to follow...

UK slips down world equality league for third year in a row - Business News, Business - The Independent

2009-10-28T04:42:00.000+01:00

UK slips down world equality league for third year in a row -
Business News, Business - The Independent

When men breastfeed

2009-10-02T23:51:00.002+02:00

I just saw this on the Swedish Local news in English site.

Now that would be something, if fathers could breastfeed! I'll be following the results of his experiment and will keep you posted

the fun gap and orgasms

2009-09-23T00:41:00.003+02:00

As always, Penelope Trunk is entertaining. Here is her latest take on the final gender frontier: the fun gap. She posits that 'What actually prepares you for life is athletics, aiming high, breaking rules, playing video games', oh, and orgasms. Not sure about her claim that there are no salary differences though...

while boys explore the world around them, girls will 'always be the little angel dressing her dolls': oh please!

2009-09-14T15:20:00.005+02:00

The latest example, from US toy retailer educational toys planet, is frankly terrifying.

You click on 'Boys' Toys', and get the following:

Are there any special toys for boys? All boys from 1 to 99, either they enjoy assembling simple machines or complex constructions, putting together electric chains or simple mechanism, creating endless mosaic designs or new breed of dough animals, digging dinosaur fossils or pirate treasure, pretending being spies or garbage truck drivers, have one thing in common – they love to explore the wonderful world around them. Toys for Boys section brings a diversity of children toys, games, puzzle and learning products for different ages. Not only boys will enjoy the popular items from Toys for Boys, but their friends, sisters, and the whole family playing together.

And what if you click on 'Girls' Toys?':

It doesn’t matter if she is a newborn, an infant, a schoolgirl, a student, or even if she already has the children of her own, she will always remain mom and dad’s little girl. She’ll always be the little angel dressing her dolls, singing her songs and playing her girl games; so loveable and adorable... Please feel free to look at our toys for girls section to find exactly what your little girl wants to stay happy and joyful. Toys for Girls department brings fun educational toys and games for the whole family!

This is for real, from a mainstream retailer. Can you believe it? So the uniting feature for boys is that they 'love to explore the wonderful world around them', whereas the girls are all about the relationship with the parents, and keep to indoors activities like 'dressing her dolls,' which ensure she'll be 'happy and joyful'.

I'll look for some UK/European examples of this enraging trend. and some more inspiring examples, if possible...

Pervasive pinkification

2009-06-14T23:02:00.003+02:00

Thoughtful piece by the Antonia Senior in the Times on the pervasive pinkification of girls, linked to the OECD's stats on the UK's disproportionate occupational gender gaps.

I write this under a well-meaning avalanche of baby girl gifts, nearly all of them pink. Taking my 2 month old daughter to a book launch dressed in a unisex velour brown babygro, it was assumed she was a boy. I've solved this for now by having a whole box of pink baby clothes that I prefer not to use, especially that sicky pastel shade. But how to defend her against the dragons of dumbed-down Disney princessdom?

When the neighbours can hear you scream: homebirth in the Netherlands

2009-05-19T20:53:00.009+02:00

So now I'm a convert to home birth.

This is something I would never have even considered doing, if I hadn't lived in the Netherlands where homebirths are the norm, still accounting for around 35% of all births. Recently the BMJ published research concluding that home birth is perfectly safe for low-risk women, and I was swiftly sorted into this category by the brisk, highly trained Dutch midwives in charge of my care.

My son was born in Belgium where they do things very differently, more according to the French model of dashing, omnipotent male obstetricians summoned at the last minute, giving birth lying on one's back and garbed up, an epidural catheter discreetly snaking its way into your spine so that you won't trouble them with any moans and groans, a varied hospital menu to choose from for afterwards.

Not so the Dutch. They are stoic and resistant to pain and there is an interesting dichotomy on what childbirth says about you as a woman here. On the one hand, birth is presented as an opportunity for empowerment, 'No-one tells women what to do here, you give birth how you want' said the midwife. This is backed up by the slightly scary and very anti-epidural Beatrice Smulders and by the persisting normality of homebirth (midwife turns up at 7 cm dilated in jeans with a birthing stool and cheers you on). On the other hand the same advocates make sure to pile on the natural childbirth propaganda: if you have an epidural it affects bonding with the baby, you are letting yourself in for increased interventions, the pain is good and natural etc etc. So it's your body, your choice... as long as you don't want real pain relief.

On the other side of the bench, there is growing pressure from women themselves which has forced health policy towards offering the epidural to all women in labour (previously it was only on the say-so of the attending doctor, or only given during office hours, since it was not considered to be really 'necessary'.

Armed with this knowledge I had a home water birth, complete with lovely Canadia doula, and it was all very idyllic, in an agonising yet mercifully brief kind of way. I came out of it wishing to put flowers on the grave of whoever invented the epidural as I now understood quite how painful natural childbirth is, but also, genuinely feeling extremely happy and empowered, compared to the brain-donor feeling of giving birth in hospital. Home birth, and especially water birth, should be much more encouraged for low-risk women, that's my conclusion. However, I'm still not sure which way is more empowered. Time to 'push' for change?

Early Learning Centre: make sure she's a mermaid and he's a pirate

2009-03-17T11:55:00.008+01:00

So I go on to the ELC site. It is a UK shop which has developmental toys for kids of all ages. I was often taken there as a small child, and was highly impressed with all the toys because they let you play with a lot of them; it was forward thinking and different from other toyshops. That brand image persisted in my mind until recently, when I went to the shop and then went to the website to buy something.

It seems that Early Learning includes one important element which takes away the fuzzy warmth of the brand for me. Along with developing fine motor skills or hand-eye coordination, ELC seems determined to teach and reinforce traditional gender stereotypes in the most obvious way, starting with blue and pink segregation and going on to limiting types of toy by gender. Someone has devoted considerable time to assessing which of their toys are, and are not suitable for little boys and girls, and we are talking little, here, from birth onwards.

I won't even mention the boy-dressed-up-as-doctor, girl as nurse which they repeat faithfully in their dressing up gear for kids. The boy-doctor is even taller to emphasise his authority.

I'll rein myself in to just two issues.

First the blue/pink divide. You want to buy an easel for your 2 year old to do some chalking or painting at. The main thing about the easel: whether it's blue or pink. What is that teaching very young children? They quickly have to learn to identify with one or the other, and the spiral into princesses and mermaids versus pirates starts here.

If you search for arts and creativity toys for 2-3 year olds, boys versus girls, ELC tells you that it is OK for girls to have blue or pink variants, but it is not OK for 2 year old boys to have a pink art centre, pink plastic table, pink wooden table, a messy mat depicting flowers rather than bugs, a pink height chart or a pink bookcase. For them, it is blue only.

So in more gender neutral categories like art, girls just have additional girly versions of things, which are forbidden to boys. Boys are narrowed into blue, and girls are conditioned towards the next stage of princessdom.

In the next stage, there are attempts to steer boys and girls towards gender appropriate toys. In the dolls section, there are twice as many toys deemed suitable for girls as boys, and the reverse is true in the construction section.

It still starts young, though. It is not OK for 2 year old boys to have a play sewing card, but it is ok for girls. It is not OK for girls to have the dinosaur adventure set or the pirate cove. It is not OK for boys to have any dolls apart from rag dolls or dolls linked to an activity (that come with a highchair or bed). Baby dolls are out. It is also not ok for girls to dress as a pirate, doctor or astronaut, or to have most of the Thomas the Tank engine trains, only a basic selection, or have the wooden garage set.

I'm not even going into the genders of the children showed playing with the toys, you can guess.

From 2 years old, girls can only have 13 of the 19 construction toys. The ones deemed unsuitable are the Bosch workbench, build your own vehicle, hammer drill, meccano easy and mechanics and the Build it Up. The bigger, more active toys where you really build something.

So if you want to gender-condition your child young, ELC is a great place to buy toys. n the 1-2 year old section, boys and girls even have their segregated colour scribbling pads, blue for boys, pink for girls, just in case they're not sufficiently conditioned by the time they reach 2 years old to ask for the correct colour of easel.

And in case you want to start even earlier, there is the same blue versus pink version of 'buggy driver', a little steering wheel that fits on a baby's pram for them to play with (suitable for conditioning gender stereotypes from 3 months)

The swim toys range lays it on particularly thick: you are either a mermaid or a pirate, and that is that!

What hope is there of our children really having equality of opportunity when developmental toys intended for such very young kids are already pushing them firmly into these little boxes?

ELC has lovely creative toys, but the gender stereotyping is so insidious that I am scared to buy anything from them except crayons.

Let your monkey do it: pregnancy in the Noughties

2009-03-17T10:46:00.003+01:00

There are many worlds lurking under the surface of our daily existence, both magical and unsavoury, and one of them is pregnancy. The two blue lines on the test are a bit like getting that letter from Hogwarts to say you're special, and you are about to enter a steep learning curve involving complicated ritualistic jargon, transformation of your body up to the bounds of physical impossibility, potent and behaviour-altering hormonal potions as well as spiritual visions tacked on to your everyday consciousness, and of course training for the final battle of labour, where life and destruction collide.

However, the subject of this post is how we pregnant women are viewed in society and that part of our gender regime which governs fecundity.

We have just about emerged from the sailor-collar-and-tent Princess Di maternity look where maternity clothes actually tried to minimise the bump in a kind of modesty drive, and where the pregnant woman was a kind of non-sexual being, looking as if she was on her way to baptism by immersion, robed up and ready for surgery or rebirth. Now you can have your bump out, well not usually as out as this but at least a tight-fitting top is an option.

As someone who is heavily pregnant but walks in a jaunty, unencumbered manner down Amsterdam streets and in local neighbourhood, these are the reactions you get:

Anyone over 65: kind, sentimental smile, tells you to enjoy it while you can

Young men: terrified, ignore, ignore, ignore. There might be a leak. Avert eyes.

Younger family men: quick medic-style visual assessment of bump, rapid worried eye contact.

Older family men: Cynical smile bordering on the suggestive, visual assessment of breast growth, more likely to attempt to stroke bump

Young women: giggle helplessly, glance at bump, look away, giggle

Women with small children: pure pity, on the point of offering help of some kind

Other pregnant women: unashamed mutual fascination and longing to co-emote

Older women who probably have school age/teenage children: knowing stare with more of a gloat to it, never, ever, give up their seats on the bus.

Now we move on to any medical personnel who are aware that you are pregnant. They display a very calm manner but they always make sure they are facing you and there is an edge to their voice like a metaphorical hypodermic held behind their back, as if dealing with a large chimp trained to be with humans from birth but always with that risk that they might lose it and rip your arm off.

Once you're in labour in a hospital, you really are treated like a brain donor. When I gave birth last time, I questioned or refused certain interventions, and asked for more time for things to progress naturally. The doctor, for whom it was her first day working in the hospital, was beyond incredulous at my attitude. She could not believe it when I reminded her that she as a medical professional was recommending a certain course of action, and I would let her know whether or not I was all right with that. It was unfortunate that my statement had to be delivered to her in the form of hysterical yelling, but then I was in a lot of pain and truly hysterical; those words came from the womb.

I looked up the human rights implications of being in labour, and found that as with any hospital patient, a woman in labour can refuse treatment, but there is a particularly strong culture of pressurising women into whatever routine interventions make life easier for the hospital, rather than leading to a better birth outcome. After all, if you have a rampant chimpanzee in pain roaming your hospital corridor, they can't get as far if they're hooked up to a drip.

In summary, pregnant women's bumps are a locus for people's hopes, fears, something to rest their beer glasses of personal philosophy on. Society sees us as temporarily both vulnerable and slightly dangerous, a powder keg, due either to explode or just to ooze something unknown and distasteful on to the seat below, morally superior (unless caught swigging a beer: I had to laugh at the little picture of a pregnant woman with a line through her which is now depicted on bottles of wine and the stronger Belgian beers), sexually off-limits, our impending and inevitable surrender in labour and motherhood evoking awe and pity and reminding people of their own final surrender to death, or just life.

Playtown: Doctor Jack and Nurse Nancy

2008-12-18T22:39:00.001+01:00

Playtown: Doctor Jack and Nurse Nancy
Originally uploaded by Gemmitygem

Given that the UK has one of the highest levels of occupational segregation by gender in the EU, toys like this aren't doing kids a favour. Just better hope your daughter doesn't expect to become a doctor!

domestic goddess

2008-12-18T22:30:00.001+01:00

domestic goddess
Originally uploaded by Gemmitygem

wrong on so many levels! This T shirt is available from newborn onwards.

Why only men use their phones for business

2008-11-28T21:09:00.001+01:00

voda
Originally uploaded by Gemmitygem

My husband spotted this on the vodafone website.

If you want to check your account, and you have a business account, you have to click on the man. And if you want to check your private account, you click on the woman.

That's because... er... men are business people and women are private people in the domestic or leisure sphere. Hmm.

This is a sobering and somewhat depressing example of something which must have been developed and tested quite carefully. Maybe more men use their business accounts, who knows? But so many more? These tired cliches are surprising coming from a European company with, one assumes, customers of both genders.

What's so special about YOU?: injecting life back into concepts of gender equality

2008-11-13T22:56:00.003+01:00

Gender fatigue, or rather gender apathy seems to be a feature of EU policy at the moment, especially in non-traditional areas such as environment and health. Ludovic Lacaine of the European Men's Health Forum bemoans the fact that the 2.1 billion Euro Public Health Programme 2008-13 does not even mention gender, you can check out his analysis here. The same is true of the European Employment Strategy (EES) where gender concerns have been watered down in favour of 'activation', that is, getting people into work.

One factor is the plethora of groups seeking equality. Inequality has many faces; what marginalises people? Gender, yes, but also where you live: in a forgotten rural community or derelict inner city, your level of education, degree of poverty, disability, age, race, caste, sexual orientation or certain cultural attitudes and practices: so many interlinked dimensions that you suddenly wonder: is gender actually that important? Shouldn't we move beyond it into some kind of more holistic index of inequality, taking into account various factors to determine the barriers faced by a particular individual? A kind of inequality DNA whose different faulty genes need to be addressed all at the same time?

There is no easy answer. Of course the involvement of men and of those who are more equal than others is indispensible in solving the problem of inequality. But then you have the turkeys campaigning for Christmas problem, or in this case the top dogs: how will it ever be in their interest to let the more marginalised rise to the surface? Perhaps that's what underlies gender blindness in (male-dominated) EU and member states policymaking, a generalised reluctance that beneath its apathy, is all about resistance to actually changing the balance of power in any meaningful way.

I wonder what the best way is to wake up the gender-weary. Whichever way we choose, it's time to set the alarm.

Dad in a skirt

2008-11-07T22:16:00.003+01:00

Despite reading a lot about gender recently, especially the very scholarly and interesting articles by Professor Sylvia Walby, UNESCO Chair of Gender Research, about how different types of gender regime have developed in Europe and have influenced ways we think about gender, and why 'gender mainstreaming' is so European (lots of her articles are available here:http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/profiles/34 ), I've been too mentally fuzzy to draw many conclusions. This bodes ill for the draft of a gender policy for the NGO I work for.

So your gender tidbit for this week is something I spotted while at the local children's farm in the Westerpark area of Amsterdam with my 2 year old son this afternoon. There was a couple with a kid of about my son's age, but there was something about the father that made you look twice: he was about 6'4'' and well-built, wearing a plain black jacket, long biker-style hair, and: a denim knee length skirt, 60 denier brown tights and brown leather knee-length boots. He was cross-dressed, but not ostentatiously, really it was only the skirt that led one's gaze downwards to the boots. His wife was dressed in the normal Dutch anorak mumsy look which I was sporting myself. I wondered about the story behind it; would he have liked to look more feminine but restricted himself, or was he just making a statement? In any event the effect was very surprising, as the other parents there did the same double-take, just because it so strongly confounded people's visual expectations of a father out with a toddler for the day.

Next week: children's clothes.

the post-Soviet woman

2008-10-04T21:17:00.002+02:00

A brilliant analysis can be found at http://valt.helsinki.fi/staff/rotkirch/gendcontract.htm

It's a few years old: I will search for more recent work by these people.

Lovely kids' books: pity about the sexism part 1

2008-10-03T20:33:00.005+02:00

Do you notice how kids' books are still propagating the same old gender stereotypes?

I'm picking on Julia Donaldson and Axel Schaeffer, purely because their books are lovely and imaginative. They're great, but they are sexist! Take a look at these three:

Rabbit's Nap:

Rabbit (female) tries to sleep while various busy male animals, Builder Bear, fox chopping wood and tortoise on a bike, mice musicians, all keep her awake. They are mostly wearing tweeds. Finally, they sing her to sleep. Whilst the book is very charming, it's clear that the female role is reclining, static, the passive recipient of annoyance, and the male roles are all active: chopping, building, cycling, playing music.

The Smartest Giant in Town:

George the giant gets a new suit of clothes but gives each item away one by one to animals in distress. At the end they thank him. It's beautifully illustrated and takes place in a semi fairytale, semi-real landscape. However, why do all the characters have to be busy fulfilling stereotypical gender roles? Women are shown pushing prams, hanging up washing, shop assistant helping male shop manager. Men are shown wheeling wheelbarrows and reading the newspaper. All the animal characters George helps are male except for 'mother mouse' who is only defined through being a mother and having lots of children.

The Snail and the Whale:

Snail is female, whale is male. The whale plucks the snail away from her static existence and shows her the world, opening her eyes to its wonders. He is the mentor, teacher, enabler, and is physically massive and powerful. She is small and the pupil taking it all in. She does, however, save the whale through her intelligence.

Now I'm not advocating some sterile universe of kids' books where everything is PC, but it would be so easy and liberating to to project the idea that all kinds of people do all kinds of things in the illustrations and stories. The Shirley Hughes books, though dating from the 1970s and 80s are streets ahead. You can be folksy and imaginative without being sexist, you don't have to copy tired old stereotypes into beautiful imagined worlds. So come on, let's see Mother Mouse with a hammer.

Hot in Kazakhstan, not in the Netherlands.

2008-10-02T20:40:00.003+02:00

'Western women walk like men, like this', my Kazakh friend said, doing an impression of a kind of dyke cowboy swagger with shoulders thrust out. 'Why do they do that? It's so ugly.

'If I had a daughter, I would teach her that a woman's duty is above all to be decorative,' another female Kazakh colleague told me very seriously. She was a highly intelligent professional woman who had brought up a child alone whilst working full time. She admitted that even on a recent ranch holiday, she had always applied her lipstick before going down to the stables.

I was definitely not decorative enough for Kazakh standards. Most young women were extremely good-looking already and also spent hours making themselves glamorous every morning. Like Ukraine and Russia, Kazakhstan is like a country sponsored by FHM: models everywhere. Profoundly disquieting for your average hearty Western girl.

'May we ask you a personal question, Gemma?' probed another colleague. 'We noticed that you do not wear make-up; is it because you have an allergy to cosmetics?' They were bemused when I said 'no'. Why would a woman not want to look as gorgeous as possible 24/7? Why would she wear glasses and flat shoes to work (they considered that trousers and flat shoes were just not 'prilichny' or 'decent' in an office environment. They all knew I was living with my boyfriend and not married (also not mainstream in Kazakhstan), and were gently trying to nudge me towards better personal grooming in the hope that he would do the decent thing and marry me (he did: was it those eight blonde streaks I had done in the summer of 2005 that led to his mountaintop proposal?)

So in Kazakhstan (as well as Russia), the predominant opinion amongst people I knew is that a woman makes herself attractive as a kind of duty of respect to others and to herself. In Soviet times it was also part of trying to add some glamour to the bleakness, and was a kind of valiant resistance against the feeling of being knackered out and dehumanised by daily life, when women queued for food around 7-8 hours per week. Cultured grannies sported perfectly whipped-up maroon beehives, nowadays toned down at Toni and Guy in Almaty or Astana.

Although grunge has been washed in to this region through MTV and the internet, it is too late for the over twenty fives who must stick to the beauty norms, with a Western size zero flavour: eating disorders have skyrocketed in the former Soviet Union since 1991.

None of this is true for men. A friend in Almaty was deeply disturbed by her teenage son's vanity and the way he cared for his appearance. Any trip in a shared 'marshrutka' or minibus taxi reveals a certain disregard for personal hygiene amongst the men, added to the usual post-Soviet infusion of tobacco, meat fat and last night's spirits. The harsh truth is that in Kazakhstan, if you wish to get a boyfriend with his facial features more or less in alignment, you have to look like Agyness Deyne, or better.

Cut to the Netherlands. Tall, statuesque women stride fearlessly about wearing leggings with baggy flowery dresses over them and long flat boots, their manes of wild hair in varying shades of blonde blowing haphazardly in the wind. Of course, the more soignee exist, but unlike the UK, not everyone has ironed hair and pastelly lipsticks (perhaps because they are incompatible with rain and gales), and there isn't the same trend as in the UK towards the Because I'm Inferior L'Oreal Zombie look that has taken over a lot of my home country.

A lot of Dutch women dress functionally, as if setting off on a Girl Guiding expedition, wearing sensible waterproof jackets over their black polyester work trousers. Do they get boyfriends? Yes. Does this make me feel more comfortable, as a person who a) believes women shouldn't have to be dressed as Carry On style dolly birds to be considered sexy and b) is basically unwilling to wear uncomfortable clothes and shoes unless for a special occasion. I don't know. Anyone want to borrow my straighteners?