Tag: women’s rights

  • What’s in a name? Thank you Hillary Clinton.

    What’s in a name? Thank you Hillary Clinton.

    Like Hillary Clinton, I graduated from Swansea University in 2017, but that’s not all we have in common. We both have Welsh ancestry and we share a name, though mine is spelt properly (obviously). When it was announced that Hillary Clinton would be receiving an honorary degree from Swansea and delivering a speech, I applied for a press pass in the off-chance I might get one so early on in my career.

    To my surprise, this past weekend I had the extraordinary opportunity to attend the commemoration ceremony as a member of the press. I returned to my alma mater and experienced my first *real* press room. While the site I was writing for didn’t end up using my piece (ah, freelance life!) I got to catch up with friends and colleagues still in Swansea, experience a major landmark in the university’s history and find myself in a strange void, somewhere between student journalism and the real thing. Update: my article didn’t get published on the site because it in fact got published in print! Read it here and see if you can spot the irony in the byline… 

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BaOi3DGBAEk/

    As I scrawled my not-yet-mastered shorthand during Hillary’s speech I couldn’t help but get a little nostalgic. I had graduated on the same stage just three months earlier. A stage in a hall on a campus with which I had almost no sentimental attachment. My time at Swansea was spent on Singleton Campus and I had groaned on announcement that we had to graduate on the shiny, new Bay Campus. Now however, I have a genuine memory associated with the Great Hall on Bay Campus. I got to work independently with old and new colleagues, while watching a hero deliver an important speech on children’s rights that will also give my university recognition that will undoubtedly help struggling graduates like myself.

    My family have often wondered about the origin my burning advocacy for women’s rights. I have always and will always stay steadfast in saying that it comes from my mum. During Hillary Clinton’s speech however, I started to wonder if the former Secretary of State had something to do with it too. While my parents insist I’m named after a (rather depressing) Beaches character and my mother’s confidence in having ‘never met a stupid Hilary,’ I think I grew up associating my name with a very different source. One month and one day after I was born and named Hilary, the other Hillary delivered her monumental speech on women’s rights in Beijing. From then on, my name was associated with advocacy of women’s rights as human rights. While most of my friends associated my name with Hilary Duff and Hilary Swank, I think I must’ve been listening to the radio on 5 September 1995, because now I think about it, the only other Hilary I knew as a young child was Hillary Clinton. I mentioned this to my mum this afternoon and she spoke of how when she told the nurse my name the reply was ‘is that with two Ls like Hillary Rodham?’

    In her speech at Swansea Hillary spoke of how things had almost come ‘full circle’ with her return to Wales, where her ancestors began. Returning to Swansea not as a student but as a professional human being (boohoo!), things felt remarkably full circle for me too. What’s more, Hillary Clinton’s speech was about the children’s rights, where she drew attention to the fact that children are not simply ‘passive observers’ of what adults are up to. She spoke mostly of sad, negative examples of where that foolish assumption shows itself, but I think I have a slightly happier example of it. I grew up with a woman fighting for the rights of women, saying things that were revolutionary at the time. Luckily for me, she happened to share my name which perhaps made me listen a little closer. Hillary Clinton is one of many empowered women that I’ve been able to look up to, but one I didn’t full appreciate until now.

    So thank you Hillary Clinton, for giving me a genuine connection to Swansea University’s Bay Campus, God know’s not many Singleton students can say they have one. And thank you for saving it until after I graduated. I never expected a connection to the campus of my graduation to be conjured up after the fact, but I think you’ve given me some much needed self awareness in this period of Graduate Blues. An awareness of what my own name is starting to mean to me, an awareness of my sudden place in the professional world and an awareness of the importance and impact of role models on children. While it took me until your speech to realise it, you have undoubtedly influenced the course of my life so far, all because I was once a child paying attention to what adults were saying and doing.

    Read my last blog here

  • Conversations with others that shouldn’t have happened #Periodically 5

    Conversations with others that shouldn’t have happened #Periodically 5

    In my last blog, I talked about conversations with my doctors that I’m not convinced were fair. Today, I want to talk about conversations I’ve had with my nearest and dearest. They are an incredibly supportive bunch, but a few things that have been said to me over the last year really demonstrate how entrenched our dismissal of female reproductive issues, particularly for those not trying to conceive, are in our day-to-day lives and the language we use.

    “Sex isn’t meant to be good all the time, Hilary”

    Why the hell not? A friend of mine is determined that the two of us ought to champion the cause of making good sex a human right. Anyone, anywhere in the world should have the opportunity to practice safe, legal and consensual sex and for it to be good, if you ask me. Besides if it’s not meant to be good, why do it? And don’t say reproduction, while it is obviously a factor there is clearly a whole lot more to sex that the desire to produce offspring alone.

    “Have you tried not having sex?”

    Not. The. Point. Sex is important, I know it’s not everything, but it is important.

    “Shut up, everyone’s periods hurt”

    If we can put humans on the moon, harvest energy from the sun and transplant organs, why the hell can’t we find a practical treatment for period pain? For most people who have periods the pain is either manageable or easily calmed with painkillers, but we can’t keep ignoring those whose pain is interrupting their daily lives.

    “Have you tried anal?”

    Ah, the question that I’ve been asked the most and that makes me laugh more than any of the others. While I’m sure it’s a viable option, for me, it’s not the point. Symptoms like those I’ve been experiencing are red flags that my fertility is a little compromised, and even though I have no desire to start popping out sprogs any time soon, I’d like know what’s coming and whether or not I can fully restore my uterine health. Plus, my trend of constipation after sex leads me to think that anal sex might not be any more comfortable for me than vaginal…

    I have a few more of these, let me know if you want to hear them! 

  • Subtle signs that my repro health ain’t healthy #Periodically 3

    Subtle signs that my repro health ain’t healthy #Periodically 3

    Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, specifically the app Clue, I have every cycle that I’ve had in the last three and a half years tracked with excessive detail. But hang on, the maths doesn’t quite add up… three years is 42 months… and I’ve only had 18 cycles… right well there’s warning sign number one – irregular periods. Throughout this blog I’ll illustrate a couple of points with information from my Clue which is almost definitely a gross overshare but hey, here we go.

    Remarkably, my quest for treatment began during the last year where I have, for the first time ever, had a natural and regular cycle. But, with my period finally having regulated to a monthly cycle, it made all the symptoms I had been experiencing over a long period of time, condense into a month. Highlighting their severity and increasing their impact.

    Acne is the most obvious, but my sisters and my mother have/had normal cycles and acne long into adulthood. It was only once I became very aware of horrible chin acne during the same point in every cycle that I noticed it was, at least, hormonal acne.

    Painful and heavy periods have gone hand in hand since menarche (my first period). The more pain I’m in then the heavier I tend to be bleeding. This, has over the years, often resulted in at least two days of doubling up tampons with sanitary pads, frequent changes and dozens of destroyed pyjamas and bedsheets… (I’m still waiting for that TMI filter to kick in). This has become easier to manage with a menstrual cup, if only it could cure the pain too – so far, only ibuprofen can do that. One thing that put me off seeking advice was that I was ‘running’ a lot and irregular periods and even amenorrhea (disappearance of periods) can be caused by frequent exercise, especially running. However, when I say ‘run’ I mean a light jog that usually turns into a long walk and I think it is highly unlikely that my shoddy exercise habits had anything to do with anything. Here you can see how my cramps and painkiller use have increased over time.

    Ovulation pain is something I’ve only experienced during the last ten months or so, but while it seems to be somewhere in the vicinity of my ovaries it isn’t as strict time wise. It now is a pain I experience three out of four weeks of my cycle, particularly when I step on my right leg.

    IMG_5556
    An indication that my ovulatory pain must be something more sinister was that I couldn’t be ovulating this often…

    Random cramping, leg pain and fatigue are a few new dramas to deal with three out of four weeks of my cycle, particularly if I run. The leg pain is particularly strange as it is a bit like growing pains but in my upper thighs. Over the last four months in particular, lethargy has begun to accompany pain – though whether I’m tired because I’m in pain or whether the fatigue is coming from somewhere else, I do not know. I am a pretty lethargic person anyway so it’s taken a big move in my energy levels for me to notice.

    Back pain is something I’ve dealt with since I was about eleven and I actually think might have been the earliest sign. I remember my mum taking me to the doctors and chiropractors to try and ease this dull achey pain in my lower back, particularly when standing for a long time, but nothing ever worked. When I started my period four years later, it was weird to find that this pain that had plagued me for so long, was now part of my period pain every ‘month’.

    There are a few other things, some that I’ve discussed in my last blog like pain during sex and constipation before my period and after sex, and some that I’ve only experienced rarely or recently like occasional bleeding during/after sex and spotting. 

    Thanks for sticking with #Periodically thus far. I’m excited, now that I’ve got all the depressing symptoms and nitty gritty details out of the way, I can really delve in and write about what happens now and why more attention needs to be paid to reproductive and sexual health.