Ali

My Codex account turned 14, which is almost half my life now and a tremendous waste of almost half my life at that.

 

My marriage turned 9. Which as a 29-year-old in London, makes us realise more and more that I was practically a child bride. The last year or two we've started going to all our friends' weddings and we're coming up to a whole decade married.

 

The Boy turned 30, which is terrifying because to me he'll forever be an impossibly cool 18-year-old that I can't believe even talks to me, let alone loves me.

 

We sold our house and moved to a different part of London. It's wonderful, but I was so attached to our home and it did break my heart a bit to leave even though it was time for a new chapter. Still trying to find my feet in a whole new bit of the city after years of Kentish Town.

 

Started a part-time Masters degree. 

 

Added a very small version of us to the family.

Almost 8 years on & I wouldn't change a thing about mine. Slightly soggy July day in England. There was huge amounts of tequila and dancing and it was all done massively on the cheap because we were so young. I had peonies for my flowers. One of the Boy's friends from art school made my dress and it was incredible. Went interrailing around Europe on our honeymoon. Marrying him was the best decision I ever made.

We have spent truly silly amounts, what with living in London and Paris. Boy is food-obsessed and there have definitely been a couple of holidays where the opportunity to go to certain restaurants has been the tipping point in favour of certain destinations. 

What side were you on, and why?

Also, I think emma is overhyped...

There's no side to be on, it just doesn't exist in the UK. We have the Equality Act, women aren't paid less for the simple merit of being women, it has to be shown that your work or experience is materially different from a man in the same role. I realise it's very different in the US and you do genuinely have a pay gap, but we don't.

What DOES exist here is an earnings gap. Women earn less over their lifetime careers and their average salary is lower over almost all sectors (with very few exceptions where women tend to have the majority of roles; I think nursing may be one but not positive). But that's not because they're paid less because of being women. It's because they make life choices which may be related to being women.

In terms of lifetime earnings, men are able to claim their state pension at 65, women at 60. This is changing in the coming years to equalise but for years, many women retired 5 years earlier than men. I was all for retiring early personally, but of course that means 5 fewer years of earning power. That's a hefty sum straight off.

Far more women are part time workers. Mostly because of motherhood. They go back to working 3 or 4 days a week instead of 5 once the children arrive, their salary takes the pro rata hit. Women are more likely to take maternity leave than men are to take paternity leave. Yes, there's the physical hit women are taking and want to recover from, but also there's still a stigma to men taking the time off. You have to remember that maternity is a FAR more attractive prospect here than it is the US, because there's statutory pay and a lot of good employers will top that up. I'd get the first 3 months on full pay, months 4-9 on 50% pay and the remaining 3 months on 25% pay. In that time, I'd still accrue my benefits including paid annual leave, again much much higher than the US, so any maternity leave I took would end with the 25 days of paid "holiday" I'd earnt during that leave. So almost 13 months out, with some money coming in all that time.

Because of that it's not uncommon in the slightest for a woman to take an entire year off for maternity. A whole year. And then they come back, work for a year and then get pregnant and have another one, the whole process repeats. If you take 1/2/3 years out the office, your career suffers. Men aren't doing that. They're in the office, gaining experience, furthering their prospects. And when their female counterparts come back, not only are the men now more experienced, but they're not leaving the office dead on 5pm for the sake of childcare, they're picking work up then too. So they get promoted, they get payrises and it's actually very reasonable.

There's also just a big split between the careers men and women pick. Look at low paying careers such as charity workers, nurses, carers, administrators, there's a heavy bias towards women. Bankers, city lawyers, engineers, C suite execs, other high flying corporate roles, far more men.

Arguably a lot of it comes down to traditional gender roles and issues when we're much younger, girls don't tend take STEM subjects at university for instance, and are more likely to pick softer subjects all the way through their academic careers, which limits what they can do afterwards. More needs to be done to promote paternity leave so women feel they can go back to work if that's what they want. Companies are wising up to flexible working so women can work from home to maintain their workload whilst at least being physically present at home.

Still, a lot of it comes down to choice, pure and simple. If you want to be a mother, and take a year's maternity leave, and leave on time every day, that affects your earnings compared to the man who doesn't. If you want to be a legal secretary rather than a lawyer, you will earn less than the man who becomes a senior partner.

And none of that's wrong. I'm not saying women shouldn't be mothers, or nurses, or whatever they want. Study fine art instead of physics. But there's a financial hit compared to men who don't make those decisions. If you don't want to be paid less, make better life decisions and consider the effect it will have on your career.

There's this weird idea that men "have it all", but they don't. They make choices and sacrifices the same as anyone else. My brother is a lawyer, he spent years missing out on bloody loads of time with his children. He earns about 10x as much as his wife, but he has also had a lot of days where the only thing he's seen of the kids is their sleeping heads.

I can imagine how that discussion went. Worst. Feminist. Ever.

Oh to be barefoot in the kitchen for the rest of my days. Bloody menfolk making me "have a job" and "allowed to vote".

Emma Watson is one of my least favourite women.

I have spent most of IWD having a fight about the gender pay gap with a woman in my office.

Basically everything, I think I'm ace. *shrugs* Life is too short for self-loathing, accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can.

 

I have excellent hair.

I have a brilliant Boy who adores me, so wonderful taste in men.

I had the talent and the determination to achieve my dream career.

Then I had the self-awareness and courage to pack it all because I missed aforementioned Boy too much.

I'm a good hostess so all parties are at our house.

I have a body that lets me run miles and miles and miles.

I met him a few years ago. Less of a dick than I thought he'd be. Is he still in Brighton? If so, I wonder if this falls under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act. I've no idea what the threshold is for inciting religious hatred or creating inflammatory material, and I also can't be bothered to research it. Perhaps there needs to be clearer intention than is in the video.

 

Disney is a private corporation, sponsoring Pewdiepie on a privately run online show. If Disney thinks that Pewdiepie's jokes were distasteful to the point that they didn't want to be associated with that, it's Disney's right to sever ties with Pewdiepie. Free speech still means speech has consequences, unless if you're the President of the United States

This, entirely. (Let the historical records show this may be the first time I've ever agreed with ortin). Commercial partnerships like this involve a certain amount of toeing the line. His line was pretty blurred given the nature of his work but clearly, Disney (no matter what people say about Walt) were never going to maintain the relationship after this because it's damaging to their reputation, and if he didn't realise that, he's a fucking moron. I presume there's some vague clause in his contract somewhere about reputational damage and them being able to pull their plug without warning if he's jeopardising their business interests. Quite frankly, if anybody in my team at work did this, I'd fire them tomorrow.

 

Maybe he's an anti-Semite, maybe he's not. Regardless of his personal views, I suspect he didn't intend it in context as a serious malicious attack, he's done it for shock value and for laughs and sadly he doesn't have the comedic talent to manage that. He's that guy on a lads night out when everyone's joking around who takes it one step too far and suddenly everyone falls silent and is horrified. Does he deserve the extent of the backlash? Maybe not. But given the content, I don't see how he can be surprised.

Different meds affect different people differently. She should try different formulas until she finds one she responds to. Anti-depressants also take a while to ramp up. I'm on the maximum dosage (200 mg/day) and it took 8 weeks for me to notice a difference.

This. There's no one size fits all approach to mental health, and to medication especially. A bit like birth control, each medication has a different effect on each individual and so it can take a while to find the right approach. Side effects are a pain, and it can take a while for them to ease off, and for the positive effects to take hold. Suicidal thoughts can be a side effect of some antidepressants (oh irony), and that tends to affect younger people more - worth bearing in mind if they've changed her medication at all recently.

 

Her therapist needs to be aware that this has happened, and there's definitely an argument for there being either couple's therapy or you attending individually in addition to her own existing appointments, you need to work through this too. How long has she been with the therapist for? Does she feel it's helping? Again, it can take a while to find the right therapist and style of therapy for an individual. Don't be afraid to say that something isn't working and see somebody else.

 

Might be a bit much for her so soon after the event, but potentially worth the two of your drawing up an informal crisis plan together, the idea being that she gets a say now in how and when you intervene, at a point when the choice is out of her hands. Agree on things like what you both agree to be warning signs, what you should do when you spot them, who you should involve to support both of you at that time, who will look after the baby whilst this is happening?

 

How old is the baby now? Any chance that PND is affecting her on top of her usual mental health issues? How much support does she have from friends/family whilst you're working? Being on your own with a baby whilst your husband works 80 hour weeks is really freaking tough. 

 

I've been on SSRIs intermittently for a decade now but I still think the best thing I can do is to live a really balanced life. I sleep well, eat well, run 30 miles a week, don't drink caffeine, have largely given up alcohol because I know that not doing any of those things means I start to slip. It's a constant adjustment process of altering meds and therapy and lifestyle choices to keep me in check, dependent on what's going on around me, but I know that so it's largely fine. I've also got the best husband in the world who knows exactly what's likely to trigger me, can spot anything at all out of the ordinary with my sleep/diet/mood/etc. and has an agreed course of action to try and balance me again. It's taken us the best part of 10 years to get there though.

Life without cheese is my biggest fear.

Shikoku in Japan for the Shikoku pilgrimage. Or India to visit Benares, Sarnath and the Bodh Gaya. (Buddhist if you can't tell)

I wouldn't spend my own money to travel most anywhere else before I've been to those two countries. I've seen a good bit of the US, and a small sampling of Europe, Canada and the Caribbean. But mostly on touristy trips. I don't like that sort of travel, even if you do get to see the Louvre and the Mona Lisa or whatever.

I've just rewatched The Darjeeling Limited, which is all about India, and it's just got me in a really funny mood.

The Mona Lisa is small and dingy. The only point of the Louvre is to try and break the Louvre Record and pretend you're in Bande à part.

Feminism in the UK is primarily ridiculous whining and perceived inequality is due to women's poor life decisions. People go on and on about the gender pay gap, but we have the Equal Pay Act. I cannot be paid less purely by merit of being a woman. What a woman can do, is have less lifetime earnings because they choose a low paying career, choose to have multiple maternity leaves and choose to work reduced hours compared to their male counterparts once they have the children. Then we criticise the Sheryl Sandbergs of this world for being back in the office too soon after their babies are born, as if that isn't exactly what men do. We're never going to have true equality on issues like this because of the glaring biological differences but it's possible to largely level the playing field. It's just that women don't really want to. And that is fine, men don't "have it all" either.

I can't imagine just how dead I would be if I told anybody I was pregnant before I told the Boy!

No, I am 27 going on 40. Always been a bit old before time.

 

Although I still drink like a 15 year who can't handle their alcopops.

I fired someone this week for being passive aggressive.