Sexism Can Go Both Ways, Right?
I work in education, as a teaching assistant. In my entire team of around 25 people; two are male. Education is predominately female — except for head teachers, IT staff and PE (gym) teachers to name a few. Obviously, there are exceptions, but generally speaking education features far more females than males. This is especially true in nurseries and primary schools. My guess is that it’s linked to pay, and traditional gender roles still play a big part in today’s society — with men expected to be the breadwinners and bring home more money for the family unit. …
A Survivor’s Poem
It’s always there — the feeling — is always there.
It’s there in the morning, it’s there all day, and it’s there at night.
It’s there when you’re happy, when you’re sad and when you’re anything in between.
It’s there in the late-night panic attacks.
It’s there in the bottom of all the bottles.
It’s there — at the root of the depression.
They think they win.
It’s there when we want to be alone.
It’s there when we need someone to comfort us.
It’s there when we want to give up.
It’s there when we need to find something…
“Long Covid” is awful
I consider myself to be a healthy 35-year-old man. Sure, I could lose a few pounds, but I’m fairly active — lots of walking and I even cycle to and from work. As such, I was not particularly worried about catching Coronavirus. I was more worried about my mum who suffers with diabetes and my stepson who has just half his heart. I figured that if I caught it, the virus would present as nothing more than a slight cold, or maybe I would have no symptoms whatsoever. I was wrong.
My colleagues at work were the first to test…
He felt his rights were being diminished
The killing of George Floyd brought racism into the public eye in a big way.
People everywhere are united in their disgust and their collective fight against a system which is set up to favour those with white skin. Finally.
I am white. I have tried my hardest to be anti-racist in recent years. I had an awakening really, that moment where you realise how easy you’ve had things based on the colour of your skin.
It is a privilege not to notice, of course it is.
A privilege which Black people do not have. Black people are aware of…
Why do certain shows leave a bad taste?
As someone who loves to binge watch television programs, I get the attachment both to the characters and the story being built over hours and hours of entertainment. People differ in their taste of what makes a show entertaining, of course they do. But there are those shows which absolutely everyone seems to watch and they are discussed with the assumption that everyone has seen every single second of them on the screen. People dash home from work to watch, whether they are live on TV or via a streaming service, sometimes both.
There is an addiction there with popular…
Mainstream media have proved that by misquoting him
Twitter Storm
I was a late-comer to Twitter, but now I go on most days. Sometimes I regret it. Today was one of those days. I was expecting my feed to be full of pictures and videos from Liverpool FC’s latest trophy win. Instead, quite a bit of it was taken up with ITV’s reporting of an interview with Stormzy. The headline reads, “Rapper Stormzy says UK is ‘100 per cent racist’”. Which is not what he said at all. Of course many people would not read the entire article or even go beyond the headline, because that takes time out of…
And why it worked so well
Opening Up
In 2017, I finally attended talking therapy with Family Matters, in Kent. I wanted therapy. I needed it. In fact, I had needed it for many, many years. I had something happen to me when I was just 18. At this age, a lot of the guys I knew were a lot more mature than me, but I had not experienced much of what they had. I was vulnerable, I guess. Which is tough to admit. Possibly tougher as a man, but who I am to say?
I was taken advantage of by someone I trusted. I won’t go into…
And why it doesn’t
That Old Nostalgic Feeling.
Today, I walked the route from town to my old house where I grew up and beyond it, passed the school I went to a million, billion years ago. I pass through that town all the time lately. It’s kind of the central hub in my journey to work. But I don’t often walk that route. The last time I did so was two years ago when I was invited to speak at my old school and open their new library. I walked that walk and I let my mind wander back to the days when I walked the same…
But it’s not
I mean, it’s incredible isn’t it?
A talented actress lands an incredible role which will mean so much to so many people on so many levels… but other certain people have to shit all over it.
The film industry, along with just about every other industry, has always been very white. Just about every movie or TV show has a white lead actor or actress and you could probably name a handful that do not. The fact is that the norm is white, and usually male. …
Looking forward instead of backwards.
I really try not to regret anything. I always believed in being ‘kind’ to myself and knowing 100% that I did the best I could in every given situation. I believed that if I could go back and live my life all over again, I would do it all the same way because I made the best decisions I could based on the information I had at that moment.
I guess I still believe that. But it’s no longer 100%. More like 80% – maybe, on a good day.
My personal regrets
I really wish I could have graduated university. The first time…
Richard Dodd
Children/YA author and literacy teacher. I write articles about writing, teaching, fatherhood, and gender/racial equality among other things!
