Good morning,

I am sure you know, in your heart if not as a matter of deep consideration, that embarrassment is often used as a tool against women and the fear of same stops them from speaking up about what is wrong in their lives and in the world. To demonstrate that this is really nothing to fear, here are two stories of times when I have unambiguously embarrassed myself followed by some loosely related links. In case you’re wondering, neither of these concern me speaking up against injustice, in fact they mainly concern me being a dick.

The first of these stories is going to start with me looking okay, socially and so forth, but stick with it. It begins when one of my colleagues asked me if I’d be happy to have a chat with his girlfriend about jobs and careers, as she was not enjoying what she was doing and it was quite similar to my job. Of course I was all over this opportunity both to talk about work and to have dinner with a new friend, so we went out a couple of weeks later and had a really great conversation about marketing, careers and so forth. This was inevitably followed by a shift to more general topics, which my dinner companion launched with “So, Alex, you strike me as being maybe a feminist.”

Which again I leapt on with some variant of “haha yes totally this is a point of identification for me”

Following which what I heard her say was

“Have you read Anaïs Nin”

And in my mind I was like

WOW

this new generation

just casually asking their partner’s colleagues about their tastes in erotica while stone cold sober

millennials!

tumblr!

So I tried to be cool and said, “Well no, but one of my friends did, and she thought it wasn’t working and then a couple of pages later it was doing what it does”

And my dinner companion, who was lovely, went on to describe in detail a book that was very clearly Lean In, which, of course I’ve read Lean In, but I had to spend the rest of the conversation saying things like “interesting!” and “does she use examples from her own life!” and “so do you think I should read it?!”

Here is an article and it’s not about Lean In, it’s about writing romance and erotica, and the specific mechanics of how women succeed at it. This is also something that requires a certain imperviousness to embarrassment!

Faced with rejection and ridicule from other writing groups in the 1970s, romance writers formed their own professional association, Romance Writers of America. It now has some 10,000 members. From its start in 1980, the group embraced newcomers. Unlike other major author groups – and most professional associations – this one welcomes anyone seriously pursuing a career in the field. Newcomers may join once they’ve completed an unpublished romance manuscript.

https://theconversation.com/shades-of-green-what-gig-economy-workers-can-learn-from-the-success-of-romance-writers-88379

The second story is both more recent and more bad, both for me and for the other party. I was at a festival recently – and I wasn’t drunk, but I was massively feeling festival ~vibes and so super friendly – and I saw a woman with an… emblem… embroidered on her tshirt.

Right now I am genuinely pausing to rub my face in horror.

I saw this emblem and I thought oh cool, I wonder if this is a Tampon Club thing? We can have a fun interaction about that!

So when I got the chance I said to her, “hey is that a tampon embroidered onto your tshirt!”

What I would like to make very clear here is that I had planned a range of responses for me for exactly one response from her. She would say “yes” and I would say, maybe “cool” or maybe “legit” or maybe – I’m feeling the ~vibes here, remember – I’d say “sick”.

It should also at this point be extremely obvious to you that this is not a story about me gaining a new newsletter subscriber.

Because she turned to me with a look of utter dismay and said

“It’s a log”

“It’s a log like in Twin Peaks”

As it happens I have some quite good Twin Peaks chat but I could neither deploy it here (I had not prepared for this situation) nor apologise gracefully (I had not prepared for this situation) and nor could I move from where I was standing, very close to her, because I was awaiting a companion who was bringing me a beer.

(If this was actually you, I am really really sorry, it's not you it's me, I see tampons where there are none, thank you for subscribing to my newsletter.)

I mentioned Tampon Club above so here is an opportunity to read an interview with its inspirational founder Alice Bartlett:

I work in a big office that doesn't provide sanitary products in the toilets except for those machines that only take exact change. For about the first five months of working there I would frequently get to the toilet, realise I needed a tampon, and have to go back to my desk to get one or go buy some. Sometimes I'd be too busy to go back to my desk and just have to feel uncomfortable or use a toilet paper stop-gap until I had an opportunity to get back to my desk and then back to the toilet. I was thinking how undignified it was, and how much better it would be if I could legitimately keep my tampons in the toilets, when I realised that a communal tampon stash would solve the problem for me and any other disorganised slobs in the office.

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gq89kx/meet-the-woman-who-wants-you-to-fill-your-office-bogs-with-free-tampons-873

Go forth and be unembarrassed, team-o,

Alex xx.