The Cows Read online

  Martha x

  And another …

  Hey Cam

  Every morning I have to walk past builders at the end of my road and every morning they embarrass me by shouting things like ‘Nice tits’ and ‘Smile love!’ I always skulk past and go red and wish I’d gone the long way. Anyway, yesterday morning it was really sunny, and after reading your article I just thought ‘fuck it’, and I stopped, lifted up my top and shouted ‘THANKS, LADS’. Their faces were priceless. They were so embarrassed they nearly fell off the scaffolding. This morning, they didn’t say a word. THANKS x

  Cam chuckles to herself. She’s always wanted to flash her tits at builders but to be fair, she’s never had the guts to do that. As she sifts further through her emails, one name keeps appearing. It’s usual for fans to email her regularly, but this ‘Stella Davies’ has sent a few. She clicks on the latest.

  I see right through you. Your self-serving posts about feminism mean shit. You have no idea about struggle. Your perfect life, your money, your regular sex. You don’t represent me. You cause pain, you don’t take it away like you think you do. Shut the fuck up, or who knows what will happen.

  Woah! ‘Who knows what will happen?’ Is that a threat? She looks at the other messages. This ‘Stella’ calls her a ‘bitch’, a ‘liar’, a ‘disgrace to women’. Who is this woman, and why is she taking this time to be so angry? Threats and aggression are commonplace online, but at what point should Cam report someone? Surely not until they are waiting outside with a bucket of acid? Stella clearly hates her more than most people who get upset by what she writes.

  Hormones are giving her the fear. It’s probably fine, just some lonely, sad nutter who will move on when she doesn’t get a response. Cam shuts down her public email, and looks at her work inbox. There is a message from Samantha Byron. Just what she bloody needs.

  Dear Camilla

  We are very happy with the latest site figures but we were thinking that maybe it is time to recruit some guest writers for the site? We would like to suggest a mummy blogger, to set a balance between your childlessness and normal women?

  Looking forward to your thoughts on who that might be? As a start, I’d like to recommend Maria at Bubbsywubbsy.com? She’s one of my personal favourites. She’s hilarious and does great recipes for the little ones. She also gives great advice on which TV shows are best for development and toys that encourage academic nourishment. Anyway, take a look. We think she’d be ideal?

  Samantha x

  If her entire life wasn’t centred around it, and if she didn’t feel so sick, she would throw her computer out of the window in a fit of rage. How fucking dare she ‘normal’ her? Cam logs onto BubbsyWubbsy.com and it’s as grotesque as she imagines. The home page is pale pink with pale blue writing. On the left is a picture of an ugly baby, to the right a little box saying ‘Funny Mummy Moment of the Day’. Underneath that, ‘I got halfway to the park this morning and realised I still have my slippers on. Uh oh, mummy brain! Luckily the dog didn’t notice.’

  Cam hates this fluff. She can’t think of anything worse in the entire world than having someone like BubbsyWubbsy Face blogging on www.HowItIs.com. She takes a few deep breaths, she needs them anyway, it helps with the nausea. She’s about to reply to Samantha, when the urge to be sick becomes unbearable. She runs into the bathroom and vomits.

  Stella

  I pour boiling water into my Pot Noodle and sit on the sofa. This is always where Phil sat, my spot was the chair. The cushion has dipped in the middle from the hours and hours he sat here watching football after I’d gone to bed. I haven’t even turned the TV on since he left. The thoughts in my head take up most of my time, the Internet fills the rest.

  I can’t finish the Pot Noodle. I saw it in the corner shop and thought I could remember the taste, Alice and I used to eat them all the time without Mum knowing. We loved them, but the taste isn’t how I remember it. I chuck it in the bin and sit at my laptop at the kitchen table. I log onto www.HowItIs.com and look through Camilla‘s old blogs. One called, ‘Why I Love Having Small Tits’ pops out. I remember reading it at the time and thinking it was cool she was being positive about having small boobs, now it makes me want to kick a dent in my fridge. It’s from 2006.

  The truth is, men think they love big boobs, but actually, they love big confidence more. I have it under strictest confidence that the sexiest women are the ones from the French movies whose boobs sit proudly on their chests like little shuttlecocks. They have no bounce, they do not require a bra, and they are natural. This isn’t to say if you have big boobs men don’t love those, of course they do. But if you have fried eggs, like mine, then you’re still hot. All guys care about is that you have boob for them to feel. It’s you that makes the issue out of what they look like.

  ‘All guys care about is that you have boob for them to feel’? How does Camilla Stacey know how to hurt me?

  I email her again.

  You’re such a smug bitch. ‘My perfect life’. ‘My hot lover’. ‘Everything going the way I want it’. That isn’t real. You know what is real? Death.

  I log onto Facebook for the first time today. Scrolling through other people’s joy, I feel less impelled to read every status. I don’t need to emotionally self-harm in that way, not tonight. For years, I’ve written post after post of aggressive abuse that I’d never have the guts to send. But now I’ve found my release, Camilla Stacey can take my anger, she probably doesn’t read it anyway.

  I also have a plan.

  I log off Facebook and write, ‘How to get pregnant’ into Google.

  To get pregnant you must have sex on the day of, or days surrounding ovulation.

  As I read on, I learn that out of the entire month, you can only really get pregnant for about five days, and even then you have the most chance on three days. Why didn’t anyone ever tell us that in school? That would have saved me a ton of pregnancy scares. I search ‘How do you know when you are ovulating?’

  Most women ovulate on day fourteen of their cycle. This is calculated from the first day of your last period. However, everyone’s cycles are different, so be sure to calculate your own cycle. Over the counter ovulation kits are very accurate.

  Over the counter ovulation kits? I need equipment for this? I had no idea getting pregnant was such a science. I try to get the image of me pouring sperm into my vagina out of my head. It was pointless. That doesn’t help with the shame.

  I’ll go and buy an ovulation kit before work tomorrow. I can do this. I can make this happen. I snap my computer shut, turning off the only light source in the room other than a few red and green spots from the kitchen appliances. I hadn’t realised I was sitting in the dark.

  Tara

  Dinner times have been terrible. After I’ve put Annie to bed, my mother has insisted that we all sit around the dining table in front of a ridiculously extravagant meal, all designed with the intention to distract from our reality. Our reality being that I haven’t left the house in seven days. That my personal hygiene is at an all-time low. That my father has tried, but finds it almost impossible to look me in the eye. And that now 5.6 million people have watched me masturbate.

  Tonight, when we’ve exhausted the amount of times three people can compliment a lasagna, more silence fills the air until I dare to break it by broaching the subject of my life.

  ‘I had an email from Sky News today. They’ve offered me thirty thousand pounds for an exclusive interview that they would broadcast during the news.’

  My dad thumps the table and a spoon flies up and lands on his lap. He rests his elbow on the table and drops his forehead into his hand to support him, while he sighs and huffs. I turn to my mother and continue.

  ‘I’m worried about money.’

  My dad sits a little straighter. No matter how angry he is, he knows he can’t support all of us forever. Money is a legitimate reason not to leave the room in another strop, like he has almost every time I have opened my mouth for anything other than
food for the past two weeks.

  I’m over it. I know he’s upset about it all but it’s my life that is ruined, not his.

  ‘They say if I apologise, then it will get better.’

  ‘Are you sorry?’ says my mother.

  ‘No,’ I say, causing my dad’s anger to return in the form of an actual growl. ‘And I don’t want to apologise, but maybe I should.’ Another slam of the fist. This time a couple of peas bounce off his plate and onto the table. ‘I have to think about Annie. And I’m going to have to work again one day. If I say nothing, it will brush over in terms of people talking about it, but what is the reality of my life after that? Who will employ me? Who would let their kid come over to play with Annie? Who would date me? I don’t want that video to be my legacy, so somehow I have to reclaim my life. Maybe if people see it from my point of view, they’ll understand that I’m not some sex-crazed lunatic.’

  That was the straw that broke the camel’s back; my dad is up and out the door in seconds. I can’t deal with his anger at the moment, I just need support.

  ‘I think I should do it,’ I say to Mum, who would never walk away from me, no matter how embarrassing she thinks I am. ‘I know the TV world; I’ll speak in un-editable sentences. I’ll say things that show I’m not crazy. I know it won’t make all of this go away any quicker, but at least I’ll have said my bit. What else am I supposed to do – sit back, do nothing and let the whole world create a version of me that doesn’t exist?’

  ‘It could backfire,’ she says. And she’s right. It could. But I don’t see how things could get worse. ‘I’ve Googled famous apologies and they do work,’ I reply. ‘Hugh Grant said sorry after getting a blow job from a prostitute, Tiger Woods said sorry after having sex with pretty much everyone, Bill Clinton said sorry after he lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. All of those men have gone on to thrive since their scandals; people can move on. Life can continue after being shamed.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ my mother says. ‘But those men had popular public profiles beforehand, long careers they could fall back on. And of course, there is the obvious.’

  ‘What’s the obvious?’ I ask.

  ‘They’re men. People don’t like women being overtly sexual. There is one rule for men, and another for women. It’s the way of the world, darling. I don’t think it will change.’

  My mother’s defeatist attitude to the progress of feminism is the rocket up my arse that I need. I excuse myself and go back upstairs. I reply to Damien Weymouth’s email.

  Dear Damien,

  Let’s do it.

  Tara.

  What have I got to lose?

  Cam

  Cam carefully pours boiling water into her hot water bottle, and screws on the lid. Wearing light blue denim leggings and a big white shirt, she lies back on the chaise longue and pushes it against her belly. These cramps are strong. It’s like her womb is speaking to her. ‘Don’t act like I don’t exist,’ it would say. If wombs could talk. She laughs to herself, despite the gripping. She needs to blog but for once doesn’t feel like writing. She looks in her ‘Emergency File’. It was for moments like this that she has sat writing on cold wintery days, writing blog after blog to cover her back.

  She wrote this one some time last year, when a well-known tampon company got in touch and offered a pretty feeble amount of money to advertise on www.HowItIs.com. They said in the email, ‘We think your website is a perfect match for us, because you could really become a spokesperson for periods.’

  A spokesperson for periods? What even is that? Would she be The Face of Periods? Cam thought it was a ridiculous idea and never even replied. On top of this, Cam hates periods. She had the contraceptive implant put in her arm a few years ago with the hope that they would stop, but they never did. Some months they come and go, some months they wipe her out like flu. As she is sitting here tonight feeling like her uterus is about to burst through her belly button, anticipating menstruation to come flooding at any moment, this blog feels like the perfect piece to post.

  Camilla Stacey, www.HowItIs.com: I Don’t Want to See or Hear About Your Period. Period.

  Before I begin, there are some things I want to say:

  1)I do not think women should be embarrassed about periods.

  2)I think shame around periods is terrible.

  3)I hope that all young girls who get their periods feel they can talk about it and are educated and they don’t feel embarrassed.

  4)I don’t think women should have to pay for sanitary protection.

  5)I think period pain is a legitimate reason to take the day off work.

  6)I think men humiliating or dismissing women over their periods is shit.

  I think all of these things, but that doesn’t mean I want to:

  1)see YOUR period

  2)make an announcement every time I change my tampon

  3)see adverts with actual periody women on them, making me dread mine even more.

  Let me explain myself.

  Seeing Your Period

  Artist Rupi Kaur put a picture up on Instagram of her lying in bed with bloodstains on her clothes, quite obviously from a period. No big deal, it happens to everyone. I’ve bled through so many clothes and in so many places and fully appreciate it’s normal, but I don’t know if I want that image popping up in between photos of avocado on toast on my Instagram feed. You know I’m no prude, no subject on this blog is not tackled head on. I pride myself on being un-shockable and open minded, but I think I draw the line on visuals of stuff that comes out of other people’s bodies. Feminist issue or not, it’s just eeewwww.

  I think we should talk about periods more. I don’t think that means we should SEE periods more.

  Announcing Your Period to the Room

  I read some weird statistic that one in three women feel they have to hide their tampon up their sleeve at work, and that this was considered a problem. Help me understand, what are we supposed to do, yell, ‘HEY GUYS, I’M OFF TO STUFF THIS UP MY BIG BLEEDING FANNY’ every time we go to the bathroom? I do so very hope not. But now I’ve read this, I am worried that people really do think hiding tampons is problematic. If I choose not to announce my period to the room, will I now be seen as someone who is ashamed of my period? Because I’m not. Or someone who has given into society’s misogynistic view of menstruation? Because I haven’t done that either. I just like to keep what I do on a toilet to myself. Sorry if that is not helping your version of feminism.

  Periody Women on Adverts

  The way so many women hate sanitary protection adverts baffles me! If you search for articles on it, you find hundreds of feminist writers in uproar because the women in the tampon adverts are being sporty and happy while they demonstrate how effective the product they are advertising is. HOW is that so offensive? What should the alternative be?

  I think it’s great to see that my tampon won’t leak if I climb a mountain, but it seems that some feminists want a more honest portrayal of periods in the adverts. Like what? A spotty, bloated girl eating a tub of ice cream with Nurofen sprinkled on it, crying at Dirty Dancing after routinely dumping her boyfriend after too many Pinot Grigios? Oh God, who wants to see that?

  I’d argue that is actually more insulting than women achieving quite impressive sporting goals. My periods are a pain but I’d rather not be represented by the media as mental or ill every time I have one. I like the ‘get up and go, no need to mention it, this doesn’t hold me back’ vibes of period ads. I think that is the best way to stop men thinking we are incapable because we menstruate. What says, ‘this makes me no different from you’ more than jumping out a sodding plane to a great tune with a massive smile on your face?

  If I was a man, that would make me want a period.

  I look forward to your emails (kind of). I won’t open anything with an attachment ;)

  Until tomorrow,

  Cam x

  Stella

  Mum would have loved grandchildren. She always said having twins wa
s tough but that she loved babies so much she never wanted us to grow up, even when we both cried our heads off and she hadn’t slept for days. Mind you, she also always said that Alice was a really easy baby, and that if we had both been like me she probably would have lost her mind. It’s weird hearing things about how you were as a kid. Really it means nothing and is no reflection on who we are as an adult, but it was still us, and I never liked hearing about me being a difficult baby. I guess I never understood how Mum couldn’t resent me for it; apparently I screamed and screamed. She never expressed any anger towards me about it, but deep down I always knew she preferred Alice.

  Mum encountered so many bad things in her life. Her own parents were awful, she never had any luck in love. But when she was dying, she said she felt whole because of us. I’ve never forgotten her words, ‘I never needed anything but you girls.’ They stuck with me. They gave me hope that one day I might feel fulfilled, because the truth is, even before she died, and before I even knew about Alice’s cancer, I was already struggling with who I was.

  Maybe it was just that I lived in the shadow of my brilliant sister. Identical to me in every way on the outside, but almost my polar opposite on the inside. I was dragged into the spotlight because of her infectious character. If she had been more like me, the Davies Twins wouldn’t have been the girls everyone wanted to hang around with, they’d have been the girls everyone wanted to ignore. I lived most of my life pretending to be like Alice, copying her, mimicking her excellence. When she’d gone, I couldn’t remember how she did it.