things I've written...

Last week, George Osborne implied that the recent trial of Mick Philpott is linked to the benefit system that fuelled his immoral lifestyle. On Thursday, Philpott was given a life sentence for killing six of his children in a house fire in Derby and is set to serve a minimum of fifteen years in jail. Philpott and his wife Mairead set fire to their house in a failed attempt to frame Philpott’s former lover Lisa Willis, who had moved out of their family home earlier in the year with her five children. Philpott was unemployed, lived in a council house and received more than £8,000 a year in child benefit. But is it right for Osborne to be "playing politics" with the deaths of six children? Although he did not directly link the deaths to the welfare state, he suggested that there may be some sort of connection between the two. Osborne claimed that “there is a question for government and for society about the welfare state – and the taxpayers who pay for the welfare state – subsidising lifestyles like that, and I think that debate needs to be had.” Predictably, the Daily Mail has also directly linked the Philpott case to the welfare state. Osborne, the Mail and others are simply using the incident to legitimize Tory cuts.

Philpott has a history of violence and abuse, particularly of women, whom he appeared to treat as possessions. He carelessly brought about the deaths of six innocent children. The judge at his trial claimed he had no "moral compass" to restrain him, but did not suggest that his actions had been driven by welfare or benefits. Equating such a man with the benefit system is an attempt to indirectly vilify others who rely on welfare in order to legitimate conservative cuts that are frankly demoralizing. Pamela Nash, the Labour MP for Airdrie and Shotts highlighted that Osborne’s remarks are "deeply offensive to all those who are really struggling to live on benefits at the moment through no choice of their own, but mostly it's disrespectful to the memory of these children.” Furthermore, the Middlesbrough MP highlighted that the debate over the welfare system is a separate discussion to the Philpott trial: “It should not be had in the context of the most appalling crime of a father killing his six children”, he claimed. The fact that six children lost their lives to the hands of a careless and evil man should not be used for Osborne’s political agenda.

This month new legislation will cut fifteen per cent off a person’s housing benefit if they have a ‘spare’ room. Parents who have their kids at the weekend, parents whose daughter or son work for the armed forces, and disabled people who need a spare room for equipment, are not exempt from this rather unsettling law. The welfare minister told a parent whose three children stay with him half the week that he would lose the spare room as the kids could just sleep on the (presumably enormous) sofa. The conservatives claim this law will affect 660,000 households. Only rather awkwardly, there aren’t 660,000 spare smaller houses for people to relocate to. In Hull, 5,500 people have been told to chase 70 one-bedroom properties.

Worryingly, the welfare reforms are not just about cuts to benefits. The Tories are privatising the NHS and stopping legal aid for people in debt. A freeze on the tax-free personal allowance will create an £83 cost for the 4 million middle-income pensioners living in this country and a £285 loss for the 360,000 people who are set to retire next year. What is worse is that despite these merciless cuts, that will ultimately impact on the living standards of so many, the top rate of income tax dropped on Saturday from 50p to 45p for people with incomes of more than £150,000. As a result, millionaires will get average tax cuts of £42,000.

‘The Gap’ has 713,521 likes on Facebook. If you’re not already following Cara Delevingne’s thigh gap on twitter, let me explain ‘the Gap’ phenomenon using the very scientific terminology on the Facebook group. The gap is ‘the ‘distance between a girl’s legs, directly below her pubis symphsis. (There is a slight distance decrease as the inner thigh usually bulges in, about 1-1.5" down from the perineum. This is natural in even the most perfect 18 year old specimens)’. I believe this description may have prompted you to ask yourself the following questions: do I have a gap? Should I have a gap? Am I less of a human being if I don’t have a gap? Does Gisele have one? And most importantly, am I a ‘perfect 18 year old specimen’? In my case, the answer to these questions were ‘no’, ‘unsure’, ‘I HOPE NOT’, ‘probably’ and ‘being 21, it’s pretty impossible for me to be counted a ‘perfect 18 year old specimen’’. So, I’ve concluded that I’m faced with two options: either lose so much weight that my breasts shrink to the size of pen lids and I’m forced to take iron supplements, or physically carve chunks out of my thighs whilst weeping about how repulsive and undesirable I am. Neither option is particularly inviting.

Ever since the interwar years and this thing called MASS CONSUMER CULTURE took off, we were all told that beauty supplements were a good idea (don’t cry though, consumerism also brought you your iPad). If I were you, I’d probably buy a gym membership to work on your ‘flanks’ and get rid of your bingo wings. Also, make sure you buy hair care products. And makeup. And fake tan. And anti-cellulite cream. And breast-firming lotion. But yeah, the scary thing about 'the gap' is, it’s pretty much unobtainable for the majority of women. In fact, quite sensitively, the gap Facebook group reassures us that: ‘Possessing a gap does not depend on the weight of the female, it is genetic. Slim or plus-size women can have the gap. It's a bit like having thin ankles or thick ankles.’ After reading this terrible news I immediately went out to buy a tape measure to find the circumference of my ankles. Not.

Unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail online did not hesitate in posting an article in which some bellend personal trainer called Matt Townsend instructs all of us despicable thigh-chaffing bitches to do SQUATS, the ‘SINGLE-LEG ROMANIAN DEADLIFT’, the ‘GLUTE BRIDGE WITH MEDICINE BALL BETWEEN KNEES’, the ‘LATERAL LUNGE’ and the ‘WALL SQUAT WITH MEDICINE BALL BETWEEN KNEES’ in order to obtain the apparently extremely desirable thigh-gap. Townsend claimed that: 'One of the most common questions I receive is how to get rid of inner thigh fat'. But apparently it isn’t just fitness trainers that are hounded about the thigh gap. Plastic surgeons are seeing a rise in the demand for thigh-specific cosmetic procedures. One British cosmetic clinic, LoveLite, told the Daily Mail that they've seen a TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY PERCENT rise in demand for procedures like lipoglaze, which freezes up fat cells so they die and disappear. Can we just consider for a second that aspiring to achieve a thigh-gap is about as realistic as trying to gain weight under your armpits? It’s POINTLESS, and anyone who is judging your personal worth on whether you have a thigh-gap is frankly an enormous fucking idiot. Personally, I couldn’t care less whether you have a thigh-gap or not and the majority of my (female and male) peers feel the same way. 

(Disgraceful Daily Mail comments include: ‘i wish more women would follow the wonderful example set by these gorgeous ladies [Victoria’s Secret models]’ and ‘Anyone who disagrees that the thigh gap look isn't a good look is obviously a jealous, bored and fat house frau that would kill to look like these [Victoria’s Secret] models.’) 

I’ve no doubt that many of you have trawled through Tumblr or Facebook, staring at the smooth brown arses of the thigh-gap elite, thinking back in horror to the time you put Vaseline in between your thighs on sports day that year, and feeling like an insignificant human being. I’ve got excellent news for you. You’re not! Just because the media tells us we’re all failing in life because we don’t have a gap between our thighs, it doesn’t mean we actually are! There is no naturally ‘perfect’ way to look. Think about it this way: the slim body images many of us aspire to are pretty different to those of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, right? Marilyn Monroe didn’t have a thigh-gap. Twiggy was pretty skinny but do you reckon she went to the gym? Unfortunately, today women’s slim and muscular body ‘has become a public expression of success, achievement and androgyny’. Social scientists Rebekah Fox, Kristin Heffernan and Paula Nicolson claimed in a 2009 article that ‘many women do not want to admit that they are influenced by such media pressure, but secretly they put pressure upon themselves if they do not conform to societal ideals’.

In the 1980s, it was decided that the ideal female body was not only thin but also muscular and, in the last thirty years, there has been a substantial rise of participation in keep-fit classes, especially by women under 30. It is assumed today that if we GO AND BUY specialised gym equipment, GO AND BUY a gym membership, GO AND BUY a sports bra and a workout top and go to the gym four times a week we’ll all be getting closer to that ideal slim and muscular female body smiling at us patronisingly from the pages of Vogue. In 1977, walking and swimming were the most frequent forms of exercise among women, with ‘gymnastics, yoga and keep fit’ practised by only 2%. This figure rose to 12% in 1987, was at 17% by 1993 and by the mid-90s a third of women under 30, from non-manual occupations, ‘worked out’ regularly. The fitness market was worth £682m by 1996, £1.6bn in 2001 and now stands at a healthy £2.5bn. It is clear that while some of us might think contemporary representations of idealised bodies are ridiculous, we are not immune to them. And do you know what is even more horrible? Unfortunately, physical appearance is too often seen as a person's defining feature. Women in particular are regularly judged by their appearance, as opposed to their intellectual capacity, sense of humour or virtues. ‘Failure to conform to narrowly prescribed beauty ideas has become not merely aesthetically disagreeable but morally deficient.’

Although admittedly it’s not their fault, at the moment Victoria’s Secret models quite expertly represent the ideal ‘slim and muscular’ female body. They must have thought they had hit the jackpot when it became clear that the ‘bow-legged, prepubescent’ look was all the rage now. Unfortunately though, not all women are naturally tall with ‘good’ breasts and ridiculously long legs. Nor does every woman fancy going to pilates, ‘pump and tone’ or ‘step’ or whatever every other day of the week. These models give women an unrealistic image to aspire to. Also, not only are these kinds of preposterous beauty ideals making women feel like dog turd, they are also fairly condescending to men who, we’re led to believe, find a gap near our vaginas arousing. That is, they find a space arousing. Ultimately they find NOTHING arousing.

Still yearning for a thigh-gap? Pay a visit to http://fuckyeahthighgap.tumblr.com and take note of how the girls posting photos of themselves are clearly starving and emaciated. I had a scroll through the images whilst eating pizza, and I didn’t feel guilty. In order to scare you a little bit more, I’m going to talk a bit about eating disorders, which occur mainly among teenagers and young women. Anorexia was extremely rare and bulimia was virtually unknown before the 1970s. Yeah I know. Like, those diseases were pretty much invented by preposterous and unrealistic beauty ideals. While treatment appears to be relatively successful for anorexia, psychological and physical health problems can frequently persist and between 5 and 10% of diagnosed cases are fatal (some of those are suicides).