Category Archives: Books

Nap times, politics and radical feminism? New book explores Mumsnet today.

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the politicisation of mumsnet, politiczation The Politicization of Mumsnet

 By Sarah Pedersen

Publication: 15th October 2020

PB, £16.99, ISBN: 9781839094712

I have to be honest. My feminism has dulled at the edges the past six months. Two children under five and numerous work commitments have left me with a lethargy towards feminism and politics in general. Well consider me awake now. I forgot about the feminism threads on Mumsnet. I also forgot at how much snark Mumsnet gets because of its perceived anti-trans reputation and middle class readership. Personally I think that everyone who attacks Mumsnet for being middle class, and for assuming it is so, rude. I also note that Reddit and 4Chan have users with controversial views and no one gangs up on them quite as much.

The Politicization of Mumsnet is a brilliant book that is well thought out and researched within an inch of its life. It had so many facts it blew my mind.  Mumsnet is a huge achievement and it has saved countless women lives. Women generally becoming Mumsnet users during the most vulnerable, and isolating time of their lives. Men and Women are relatively equal until women have babies. Women’s biological clocks also put them at an unfair disadvantage. Read this book and you will want to level the playing field. An absolute triumph for Sarah Pedersen.

You can listen to Sarah Pedersen on Women’s Hour here.

‘This book dispels two myths about Mumsnet:  that it is heaving with entitled, middle-class yummy mummies, or drowning in hate and bigotry… This book is informative, amusing and a call to feminist action.’ – Julie Bindel, writer and activist

Whether you love it, loath it or are totally baffled by it, Mumsnet is a social-media phenomenon.  It now has 14 million users and over the past two decades it has grown to become the largest parenting website in the UK.

As the site developed, Mumsnet discussion topics evolved beyond traditional ‘mothering’ subjects to encompass politics, feminism and current affairs.  In fact, it now bills itself as a ‘site for grown ups’ with limited moderation and a commitment to free speech.  Brands swarm to it and it is a ‘go to’ source for journalists seeking a female viewpoint.

 In The Politicization of Mumsnet, Sarah Pedersen from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, explores Mumsnet’s role as a powerful and influential forum, including its use by politicians to try and secure the votes of middle-class women in the UK. The 2010 General Election was even dubbed “the Mumsnetelection” highlighting a growing awareness that women discuss politics online in places that have been traditionally perceived as non-political.

Its active community of users has led to high profile campaigns about rape awareness, miscarriage care and the premature sexualisation of children. The type of campaigns that Mumsnet supports is driven by the interests of its members, but also the realities that the site itself has had to face relating to libel.  Mumsnet has become part of the establishment in its contributions to government inquiries and as a place for ministers to air policies for families and children.

However, in recent years, Mumsnet has also become a central part of a resurgent women’s rights movement in the UK.  Understood as a safe space for gender-critical voices, the site has spawned real-life activism and continues to be both praised and attacked for its support of free speech on controversial subjects.  Pedersen argues that its openness to these discussions has allowed the site to function as a subaltern counter-public.  This development has led to both praise and bitter criticism of the site and a positioning within a resurgent grass-roots radical feminist movement in the UK.

Sarah Pedersen asks where does Mumsnet go from here?  While there is no doubt that the site will continue its campaigning on issues that concern its members, it must also continue to offer a space for women to discuss issues that are important to them, and to share and receive support and comradeship.

Fans and critics alike would do well to remember the quote from Robert Campbell after Mumsnetters had caused his agency’s advertising campaign to collapse within 48 hours……. “Don’t mess with Mumsnet”

About the Author:

Sarah Pedersen is Professor of Communication and Media at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Her research focuses on women’s use of media, particularly for political purposes, using both contemporary and historical sources.

 

The Politicization of Mumsnet By Sarah Pedersen is available here. 

 

SISTER SCRIBES’ READING ROUND UP: OCTOBER

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Jane

The most incredible thing about Joe Heap’s When The Music Stops is the way it mixes the ordinary with the extraordinary. In one way it’s a version of David Nicholls’ One Day, but set over a longer period (the protagonists meet in childhood) and in the world of jazz music; the parts of the book that happen in the present day are very surreal indeed.

The clever structure gives the book rhythm. It’s very much tied to the music, so rhythm seems like the right word. It makes for very long chapters (sections, really) but that’s fine, because I didn’t want to put it down. At first you wonder what’s happening in the present day but then it begins to make sense and you expect each section to have a certain chain of events. You even know what will happen in the end. But that’s comforting when the boundaries of your imagination are being stretched in other ways.

The love story running through the book is compelling too and each decade incredibly well researched so you feel each period, rather than words being wasted describing it. Ella and Robert meet as children in pre-war Glasgow and have so many near misses you wonder if they will ever get together. I would have enjoyed it on its own, and have appreciated the quality of the writing, but adding the extra dimension makes this a standout book.

Kitty

Anne O’Brien – The Queen’s Rival

I have long been fascinated with the Neville sisters and Cicely in particular so I was excited to read this book. Anne O’Brien is reliably one of my favourite writers of historical fiction and took the brave decision to write the story of Cecily through letters sent largely to family members but also to some of the major players in the turbulent story of her life, Margaret of Anjou for example, who literally held the life of Cecily’s family in her hands. This form must have been so hard to write but I really enjoyed it. It reinforced how hard life must have been without the immediacy of contact we are so used to nowadays. Writing letters to children and a husband that may or may not be alive or dead, knowing that your words could be the ones that help carry them to the scaffold. It reinforced the dangers and uncertainties of the times and all through the mouthpiece of a woman underrated for the role she and her family had to play in the development of Plantagenet England. Very well done.

Kirsten

What with publicity for Book One, final proofs of Book Two and starting to bash out the first draft of Book Three (and a fab new idea – I hope! –  for Book Four) I haven’t had much time to read this month. But one book I have finished and really enjoyed is People Like Us by Louise Fein. This is the coming of age story  – I’ve learned this month that this this can be called a Bildungsroman  – of Hetty who is brought up in a Nazi household in Leipzig in the years building up to the second war and who falls in love with a Jewish boy. It’s beautifully written and is – by turns – fascinating, poignant and heart-breaking with, I think, a lesson for the times we find ourselves in today. Highly recommended.

Interestingly, I’ve just been sent an ARC of a love story set in lockdown. It’s the first story I’ll have read with Covid-19 as a backdrop and I’m not sure how I feel about reading it. Having had quite a difficult year personally, the jury is out on whether it just too soon to read a story set in the time of Covid. I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The books that have changed me by Margaret Graham (aka Milly Adams and Annie Clarke)

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The books that changed me, or should I say perhaps, developed my understanding… Heavens, so many, but let me take a stab at it.

Margaret Graham, Annie Clarke, Milly Adams, books that changed me

As a child I read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett in which an obnoxious orphan Mary Lennox arrives to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire. Archibald Craven  locked  the door leading to his wife’s beloved garden on her death. He also secreted his son, with crooked legs and back , in his own quarters for his own safety, and went about his business elsewhere, leaving the kindly servants to care for this disparate household.

The children find the secret garden, and slowly as they work within it, and  as the seasons roll on, the healing of both begins.   This book introduced me to a love of gardening, to the relentless rhythm of the seasons which has given me solace and a sense of something ‘bigger’. It grounds me.

Then as a teenager I read I Never Promised you a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg. This is the story of a  schizophrenic young woman, who spends some years receiving therapy ina residential centre. As  the young woman recovers she is devastated to realise that the world is not perfect, that happiness is not a given. That there are ups and downs, and one must find a ‘centre’. But as the psychiatrist says: I helped you heal, but I never promised a rose garden, I promised you a life.

I found this profound, and it stabilized the angst of a teenager, and was a great guide as an adult.

As an adult I was struggling to write my first novel – to navigate my way through the muddle of my thoughts, . I read Cinderella to my children one evening, and realised that it is the clearest example of the common structural form. It enabled me to write my first novel, and create almost 30 other books. It also allowed me to teach aspiring authors, perhaps the most rewarding part of my writing life, apart from editing Frost Magazine.

Basically, there is one protagonist, Cinderella, she has helpers ( mentors) and enemies (antagonists). Cinderella is on a journey, which is the plot, in order to resolved the theme, which for me was her quest to find love. Fourth must be Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels. Erudite, immaculately structured with characters in complete balance, and scattered with laugh-aloud humour. They freed something in me, and made me brave enough to be myself, and allow the humour I inherited from my parents free rein.

Fourth are the Reginald Hill Dalziel and Pascoe novels, beautifully structured and written, with a superb balance of characters. Erudite, fascinating, and laugh-aloud funny. They gave me the courage to allow myself to use my own sense of humour, inherited from Mum and Dad. 

Fifth and perhaps most importantly From Both Ends of the Stethoscope by award winning author Dr Kathleen Thompson

Dr Thompson is ‘the doctor who knows’ what it is to face the chilling cancer diagnosis, and then find your way through the maze of information and treatment. The book is set out in an extraordinarily accessible way for the patient, and also for those like me who have friends with this  illness,  it gives me a way of helping, of listening, of supporting. It is life enhancing, and invaluable.

If I can sneak in a sixth, The Variety Girls series by Tracy Baines made me realise I should have been on the stage, not stuck in a study writing. You see, I could have ‘hoofed’ with the best of them, and hugged the spotlight, and showed off, and my mum would have been shocked, then proud, as I received a standing ovation – just me, not the rest of the chorus, of course. Ah, well, I can dream.

 

The Books That Changed Me by Catherine Yardley

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Is there anything more powerful than a book? I don’t think so. Life-changing, knowledge-giving, and entertainment. Though sometimes not all at once. They have the power to change the world and make us feel every emotion under the sun. With that in mind, here are the books that changed me and made me the women I am today.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

This book follows Raskolnikov, an poor student wrought out by his own nihilism, and thoughts of the struggle between good and evil. He brutally murders an old woman who is a pawnbroker as he beliefs he is above the law. He justifies his actions, but later is overwhelmed with guilt and terror. Raskolnikov confesses to the crime and goes to prison. He realises that happiness and redemption is only achieved through suffering.

This is an intense psychological thriller from the most famous Russian novelist. Dostoyevsky was in a bad way when he wrote it, his wife and brother had both died and he was living in poverty. Crime and Punishment will awaken your brain and make you rethink your opinions on crime and punishment. This is the perfect book on redemption and how our actions in life matter. The very last page has some of my favourite lines in literature, including the fact that a new life is not given for nothing. I will not spoiler you by sharing anymore but it is a hard, yet fascinating read. It opens your brain right up and makes you more intelligent by the end. Do not just read books that are easy to read, that is not how you end up smarter.

Life if Pi by Yann Martel .

A ship sinks and a boy ends up on a raft with a tiger he calls Richard Parker. This is a book about survival and wisdom. It is outrageous with its plot but is never not believable. This spiritual novel changed my entire way of thinking. This book will feed your imagination like nothing on earth. It is so cleverly done I will be forever be jealous that I will never be as good a writer as Yann Martel . It was made into a film that is a good enough watch, but the book is untouchable. This book left me with a spiritualness that has stayed with me until this day. Read it with a highlighter pen and go back to it often.

Catherine Balavage with Margaret Graham at the Words For The Wounded Literary Festival

Catherine Yardley with Margaret Graham at the Words For The Wounded Literary Festival

Becoming by Michelle Obama.

Before reading this searingly honest memoir from the former First Lady of the United States I felt like a failure as I had never become who I was supposed to be. I was forever changing and no one ever told me that was a good, and normal, thing. There are so many stunning quotes in this book and it is filled with wisdom. Michelle Obama leaves no part of her life untold: she discusses miscarriages, IVF, politics, race and her marriage. Michelle is from a working class background and her father was disabled. She has triumphed through hard work and intelligence. I cannot think of anyone I find more inspirational than Michelle Obama. Well, other than the next novelist….

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou. What a woman. What a life. What a writer. I am full of admiration and awe. I am obsessed with Maya Angelou. I read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when I was about thirteen. I already wanted to be a writer and I was already writing. I knew I was nowhere near as good a writer as Maya Angelou, I doubt I ever will be. What  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings did for me was crack me open like a nut. I learned a lot about racism and I became even more political, I also learned a lot about life and wisdom. I learnt that everyone has a hard life and we should be kinder to each other. It is more than a good book, it is a book that teaches you that strength of character, and a love of reading, can overcome trauma and create a beautiful life.

The Wives By Lauren Weisberger.

This book makes me appear much more fun than my other selections, I am aware. Lol. I think Lauren Weisberger is underrated. She has such a keen eye for detail and the satire of everyday life. Yes, there is The Devil Wears Prada which was a runaway (ahem) success. Lauren holds a mirror up to sections of society and captures them with absolute perfection. Her characters are honest, flawed and real. She makes me laugh and nod, and cry all at once. The Wives is a sassy and entertaining sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. It features Emily, you know, the one who looked great in her dress because anytime she was about to faint she ‘ate a tiny bit of cheese.’ Her books are a joy to read because she makes writing them look easy. There are anything but and Lauren Weisberger is a fearless writer.

The Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook.

Now, this book really did change my life. I have written my entire life. I wrote poems when I was in single figures and I tried to write my first novel when I was ten. It was terrible and I only got to fourteen pages. They were all written longhand. I decided to send some of my poems off but, how and where? Enter this book. It had so much advice and numerous agents and publishers to send my stuff too. I still use it to this day. The 2021 version has pride of place on my desk. This is an essential and life-changing book for all writers.

Guests of The Emperor By Janice Young-Brooks.

My parents have always had a house full of books. We had so many bookcases and books our home was more like a library. One of the books on my parents shelf was Guests of The Emperor By Janice Young-Brooks. It is a World War II novel about a group of women who are ‘guests’ in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The characters were so vivid and the story so well told it has always stayed with me. It is a good history lesson too.

What books changed you? Send us your selection to frostmagaziine@gmail.com.

My debut novel, Ember, is available here and here.