I was speaking with one of my best friends last night about men. We said a lot of things - I won't repeat them all - but we concluded in the end that the reason they often don't understand what we are being angry and feminist about is because they have 'Penis Privilege'. Like white privilege, except for men. White men probably have the most of this. Anyway.

I had been speaking to my boyfriend about running. This is something I feel quite ambivalent about but have tried a few times recently in an attempt to somewhat improve my fitness. I say 'fitness' as if I really possess any. That's not the point. I was annoyed in the first instance because he had even asked about running, given how conflicted he knows I am about exercise, but when I responded 'no' to the question 'have you been running this week?' he asked why.

I thought about it for a minute and realised it was because every time I had got back from either work or being out doing things, it was dark.

'It was dark'. I said. He actually laughed at me. He thought this was hilarious and a, and I quote, 'poor excuse'.

When I explained how I don't like to go out on my own on foot in the dark at all because I'm afraid somebody may jump out of the bushes and rape me, he was completely baffled.

'What are you talking about?'
This was the wrong question. 'What are YOU talking about?' I said.

Well last night, I realised. He is a man. He has probably never experienced that fear. Even if a man is sexually harrassed in some way, it is a much more rare occurrence for a man to be raped. Obviously it happens, and that's just as devastating as when it's the other way around, but it isn't something men walk round the streets at night fearing. They probably feel safe most of the time. I couldn't even imagine feeling that way, and he couldn't imagine how I felt. And that's because he has Penis Privilege. I've decided now that this applies to a great many things in life, and I am going to begin informing men that they have it at every available opportunity until they understand.

In the mean time, I won't be going running in the dark. Or possibly at all.

I wrote this poem after realising 'light diet' is the new (presumably politically correct?) description for children who are sent back from the school medical room having been suffering the effects of not eating enough. I'm thinking of sending it to David Cameron.

‘Light Diet’

Shaky, pale children come back from the medical room where you sent them - because they were shaky and pale - with a note.
They pass it to you.
You look at it, confused.

‘Light diet?’
They shrug. They don’t understand what it means either. They’ve only just started learning English and even though they’re doing really well, this is beyond them.
And it’s beyond you.
‘Have you not had anything to eat?’
They shake their heads.
‘I’m OK!’

But they’re not OK and ‘light diet’ does not explain the emptiness in their eyes or the sadness in their stomach because their dad is earning minimum wage and they don’t have any more money and he’s been giving them two pounds a week for their lunch because that’s all he has.

Light diet makes it seem like a choice.

But they don’t have a choice. They don’t know what choice is because they’ve never really had one, and those who do have a choice...to change things, to make things better...don’t care. Because they’ve got food, got a job, got a house to call their own.

Number 10, Downing Street. A place these shaky, pale children have never been because they can’t even afford the bus fare to their own under-funded school.

I get mad, a lot. And a lot of the time people tell me to calm down. Maybe sometimes they are correct, but the more I consider everything, the more I don't think I want to calm down, thanks. This blog is probably going to be about all the things I am angry about. I apologise in advance.