Those who bash women for 'delaying motherhood' are hypocrites, don't understand human reproduction

Having reached the advanced age of mid-thirties, my attention is called quite often to articles and opinion pieces in the news regarding us stubborn, career-driven harpies who refuse to reproduce until we are good and ready, only to find that after the witching year of 35, things aren't so easy. Your eggs are old, lady! Give up and get a cat. Serves you right, anyway. The Daily Fail is full of these types of pieces - 'personal interest' stories about some poor 40-year old woman who would give up all her success, designer shoes and non-essential organs if only she could go back and have a kid at 20. Or worse: a woman who did manage to have children after 35 or 40, but is now too old and decrepit to chase them up into trees or stay awake during Mommy and Me.

Now I can't be strictly sure that there are more such stories than before, (since when I was a wee sprinbok in my twenties concerned only with non-procreative sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, and that f**king career, I likely would not have noticed them anyway), but from all the apocalyptic yelling going on about it of late, it would certainly seem as if humanity is in decline: no one is having any babies, and the end is nigh, and it's all your infertile fault, thirty-something lady. Except, not so much. In the US, where much of the yelling is happening, infertility rates are on the decline, and not because more people are having fertility treatments; this latter statistic has remained flat since 2002. In the UK, adult infertility numbers are being linked more and more to male infertility, with "male factors now accounting for 30 percent of fertility problems - the same as female factors". Even in Europe, where falling fertility rates (ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area) since 2008 are being flagged as alarming, they are closely linked in the research to the economic recession. That is, countries like Spain and Greece which fared among the worst saw the sharpest decreases in fertility rates, while those with better performance recorded no change or even increases. In other words, it's less about women's 'selfish choices' (whatever those are) and more about real or perceived and/or future financial constraint. Even the Daily Fail is forced to admit the relationship between financial situation and reproductive decisions. A similar argument can be made in Latin America and the Caribbean, where fertility rates are in fact falling, though in general not yet having reached the below replacement levels of 'developed' countries. The region as a whole still reflects Bloom's 'demographic dividend' - with an economically active population that is greater than the dependent population - but this may not last much longer, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean. Still, high levels of migration in the working age population are more likely behind this than Caribbean women's refusal to have children.

And this new debate, if not presented as willful non-compliance in the business of populating the earth, is presented as emerging wisdom to fill some gap in knowledge: women have simply had the wrong information. Hey ladies, I know you thought you could wait forever and carry out your own, selfish lady-business before reproducing, but nuh uh, missy, NEW RESEARCH shows you're about to expire. As someone who has owned a uterus for over thirty years, let me say this: we know. I'm not saying that every woman everywhere is in possession of an identical body of knowledge. In fact, we know this not to be true, which is part of the reason sharing information on sexual and reproductive health and access remains important. But a high percentage of the target audience for this blame-a-thon - professional women with tertiary or advanced technical education - already. Know. They are all too aware of their declining fertility. This is one of those cases in which knowledge on its own cannot translate into action. In simpler terms: even armed with this information, what would you have them do? Certainly not run out and fall pregnant by some random, which itself attracts its own brand of she's-a-witch vilification, and is the basis of much urban legend. Everyone knows someone who knows someone whose dressmaker's neighbour's domino partner was tricked into fatherhood by some desperate thirty-something. Always something with these women - either they're 20 and poking holes in condoms to trap a cricketer (cause we all know how deep cricketers are rolling), or 30 and going off the pill so their boyfriend will marry them goddamit, or 40 and having one night stands with friends/strangers, then spiriting away their sperm. Tricky tricksters.

The thing is, every reproductive choice a woman makes at this age is criticized.
Happily child-free? You're selfish and just want to keep your flat belly and boozing ways.
Unhappily child-free? Your fault. You used to be selfish and just wanted to have your career, flat belly and boozing ways.
Child-free, single and trying to conceive? Hoor! Children are for couples. And what about your poor, fatherless child? Single mothers are everything that's wrong with the world. You're selfish and just want to have a child to love you.

Herein lies the hypocrisy. And even had they had this knowledge earlier, before it was Too Late, the same applies.

Me explico. Growing up in Barbados, getting pregnant was the worst thing you could do. Not just as a teenager, but anytime before you had secured your place as a DoctorLawyerBankmanager. I'm serious. The Worst Thing. Teenage or 'early' pregnancy was blamed for all the ills of society, directly or indirectly. Boys are under-performing in school? Teenage pregnancy (and girls' sexuality). Never mind that the boys' (teenage fathers') asses are sat in classrooms while the girls are the ones run out of school with pitchforks. The dubious problem of society losing its morals? The dubious explanation of teenage pregnancy. Drowning at Miami Beach? Teenage pregnancy. Winston Hall escaped from jail again? Teenage pregnancy. And so on. It doesn't matter what issue is at hand. Invariably, in any meeting anywhere on the island, someone is going to raise his hand confounded that we are four minutes into the session and no one has brought up the scourge of teenage pregnancy.

None of this was lost on the generation of women now in our mid-thirties. In the Caribbean, for children of the working class, education - and I'm not talking just high school I'm talking first or advanced degree - is the handful of magic beans. You had better get it and stick with it until you can prove to people that your family is officially out of the working class. So for women, pregnancy is to be avoided at all costs even into your twenties. Of course, people get pregnant in their early twenties and are not made to wear a scarlet A, but it is hoped in general that you get your papers before you get your pickney. And then there's the whole wedlock business. I noticed growing up that the least Christian of Caribbean people could utter the phrase 'out of wedlock' with the highest amount of reverence - for wedlock. The single mother business was nothing to be admired, so there's another delay. No babies yet. Get your papers, get your husband. And this is what I mean about how reproduction works. In general and for most of history, for a heterosexual woman, if you want a biological kid, you find a man. He has the rest of the genetic material required. One cannot just grow a baby by sheer force of will. So this emphasis on the selfishness and willfulness of women is just silly. Are we supposed to be selective in partner for all other purposes save for that of reproduction? It seems to me the place to be most selective.

At lunch with an older woman friend recently, I saw a man she knew say to her, in disgust: "Why don't you go and get your children? What else you waiting for?" She said, without hesitation, "I going when I leave here. Where they selling?" And that's really the point. Apart from the inappropriateness of commenting on a person's reproductive choices, have we forgotten the several variables involved? Some of which we have all actively enforced throughout that woman's life cycle and until this point? I can't help but consider that in small societies such as ours, we see women who have 'opted for' marriage and/or children by 35 as well-behaved, and we are pleased. Whether that has meant a great, old-fashioned love and family story (I know some) or settling for marriage to some less-than-adequate (in her estimation) dude so babymaking could ensue, or something else, we can more readily live with a woman who has accepted misery as a cost of motherhood, than with one who has, for whatever reason, not chosen motherhood at all.

Most readers could guess my private and public position: child-free by choice? Ok. Child-free and trying at 39? Ok. Adopting? Surrogacy? Platonic co-parenting? Whatever. Not only are the success stats not as dire as the flailing people suggest, but there are several paths to happiness.

But what strikes me is that just as a generation of women hits 35-44 and are grappling with their reproductive choices, we are now, conveniently, getting over some of our puritanism just enough to discover that in fact, 'early' pregnancy is not the worst fate that could befall a woman and society. No pregnancy is. I tell you. If it isn't one thing - and by 'thing' I mean false set of values based on nothing but ascribed to all - it's another.

Not-so-live blogging the 12th Annual AWID forum

This month, representing both my day job and WHAN, I'm off to the AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) International Forum on Women’s Rights and Development in Istanbul, Turkey to present as part of a panel with other Caribbean women. This year's theme is Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice, and my segment will look at enhancing opportunities for women's economic participation, particularly in emerging and own industries. Happily, the conference also brings together some of my homies from another network of which I'm a member, The International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics, which will be presenting special, toolbox sessions on gender and economics. Reunions everywhere! A reuniopalooza. I just made that up.

So a few of us are blogging the 4-day meeting. I'm sure some of the others will be live-blogging. I can make no such commitment. But I will be covering the sessions I attend, and sharing some of the emerging research and ideas, as well as linking to the other blogs. I'm excited! Are you? Yes. Yes you are.

Damned homeless people and their hunger

**Trigger warning for reference to violence and half-hearted warning for a bit of profanity that is censored anyway**


How does one write an entire article about the homeless and manage to completely avoid even the vaguest reference to their vulnerability and lack of well-being? This is how.

There are too many gems to quote them all, and by "gems" I mean "instances of blatant disregard for the humanity of these people who dare to be hungry enough or desperate enough in their particular dependencies to beg for money". So just read the entire thing. It focuses on how bothersome the homeless are to businesses and tourists. Here are some quotes from the business owners consulted for their wise perspectives:

"As a tourist-oriented place we need to have the issue addressed as it may have adverse effects."

And another store owner:

"It is not right for people to come here and have this type of harassment. We cannot be spending this type of money to advertise Barbados and having a few people ruining the experience for them."

"It is a big problem and nobody seems to be dealing with it," he continued.

I have two things to say to this. First, tourists: "here is my country Barbados. It is lovely, the food is outstanding, the music is entrancing, the weather, the beaches, the people, all great. Some of these people, though, just like some of the people in your countries, have mental health challenges, substance dependencies and other circumstances which contribute to them living on the streets and sometimes not being able to feed themselves. Do help them if you'd like. Welcome to Barbados."

And second, yes, the 'issue' has to be addressed because there are 'adverse effects'. You know who is most adversely affected? The f**king homeless. I swore there, see. And I hardly swear in print. Such is the absurdity of the notions expressed here.

The idea that we have some kind of obligation to the people who visit this country to shield them from some of the manifestations of poverty - poverty that is in some instances maintained because of the unbalanced economic and political power relations between their countries of origin and ours (I know I should qualify this since it begs discussion, but that is a whole other post, so do ask "What?!" if you want to hear more) - is problematic. There are issues of safety, of course. And we should strive to maintain peace and security for all people, native or other, who happen to be resident here at any given moment for any length of time. But to frame this 'vagrancy problem' as 'a few people ruining the experience' of tourists, which is what I'm sure they set out to do when they left their pavements this morning - and to suggest that solely for this reason should we try to get human beings off the streets and into homes with food to eat and livelihoods to maintain themselves is getting things a bit ass backwards.

Our primary obligation is to secure the well-being of the citizens of this nation and region. That's what our development agenda, of which tourism is only a part, is all about. Economic arguments are sexy. I know. I make them every day. I'm often asked to make various cases for things "in economic terms", because that's what those with influence understand. And this is true. It's useful sometimes to show people the costs of certain policies or behaviours. When a woman is abused, when she is burnt with acid or stabbed or punched in the face, there are real costs to the State, to the economy, to the society. But you know what else? When a woman is punched in the face, a woman has just been punched in the face. So inherently, you see, this is a very bad thing. And while one gets that macro considerations are important and one does not want to lose one's job making these linkages clear, one gets jaded making economic arguments for things that should just be about common f**king decency and basic human rights.

Similarly, homelessness is bad for tourism, I suppose. So is littering and other forms of environmental degradation. Perhaps, so is getting annoyed with your friend in public and yelling YEAH? WELL F**K YOU TOO within earshot of a nervous tourist, since one gets the idea that we're all supposed to do the friendly native dance and not sully the tourist landscape with our actual character or personality or challenges. But poverty, homelessness, environmental decline, these are all problems that compromise the well-being of real people. And tourism is an important income earner for many, yes, but I am frankly afraid of the notion that all that is important is the tourist dollar and not spooking the flighty tourists dem, even if that means cleaning up the streets by stuffing the homeless into the nearest manhole out of sight of the money-spenders.

Quite a few of us realize the value of helping displaced people off the streets. There is a pretty impressive young man who started a local charity, the Barbados Vagrants & Homeless Society, with this as its mandate. And while the name is a little unfortunate, the work of the organisation and the support it has received from government are encouraging. Still, articles like this one contribute to the popular intolerance of the homeless. There's nothing wrong with considering some of the spinoff effects of homelessness, but showcasing the homeless as a nuisance and nothing more removes their humanity, and tells people it's alright to do the same.

Has Caribbean feminism failed? Or did it just never exist?

Last week, I sat down with two of my favourite male people, over some Guinness(es?) and some wicked, fried pot fish, to catch up on the happenings. The conversation soon got around to feminism, because these two male people are actually interested, and don't just pretend to be in the hopes that when they ask me "how's work?" I'll just say "You know, it is what it is. Pass the pepper sauce."

So they had some issues, among them my confession that in my work, when I talk about my theories of economics to people who are presumably non-sympathetic - or who at least start out that way - I avoid the term 'feminist'. I do not call my work 'feminist economics' outside my group of colleagues or friends because:

1) It is irrelevant, almost so irrelevant as to be counter-productive. I'm suggesting that in the traditional conceptualization of the economy, there are missing markets, and missing actors. Some of women's work, and some of the consequences of economic policy and activity on women, are rendered invisible, and if we are to obtain a true picture of the economy, maximize its productivity and advance development goals, we need to start thinking about that economy in different ways. This argument hinges on the idea that mainstream economics is lacking, whereas 'my' economics is more complete. To then present my views as 'feminist', to qualify them in this way, only marginalizes them, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

2) It is inflammatory. 'Feminist' is a bad word. This is a surprise to no one. Many people I encounter are eager to distance themselves from what they see as feminist ideology, and are in fact relieved to have that basis on which to reject your ideas. If advancing that ideology without using the F word is going to improve women's access to economic goods, then I'm prepared to use other words.

3) It is not true. Based on the first point, if I believe that an economic model that values women's work and counts it as an economic input is a truer model, then what I do is just Economics, only properly done. (One could argue that insofar as feminism is a belief in the right of women to have political, social, and economic equality with men, all economics should be feminist economics, which is also true. And so we could argue each of those points, and probably both be right.)

This is an age-old argument, and while I call myself a feminist, language is an important part of the political strategy that gets things done. So using language like 'women's rights' and 'equity', and employing methods like first establishing the existence of a problem and then revealing that the majority of those experiencing this problem are women or men or children is often more expedient.

But they thought that I was wrong to do this, and that if feminism was not at all problematic, as I was suggesting, then I should use my work to make it visible as a movement. Because, they said, the feminism that everyone knows, and that men in the Caribbean are so turned off by, has been imported from the US and UK, with all their bra-burning and armpit-hair growing. They suggested that the women's movement in the Caribbean has failed to adequately represent its cause, to refocus the business of feminism within the Caribbean context, and to disabuse people of the notion of feminism as a foreign, outdated ideology. They believed that rather than treat as separate issues like violence against women and sexual and reproductive rights, we should frame them within the larger context of women's human rights, showing the linkages, and in that way, it would all become clear to the masses and we, the feminists, would win. I explained that we had done this, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. They were not convinced. I suggested that they were considering the issue as already-feminist men, assuming a reasonable, blank-slate audience that does not always exist. Again, they were not convinced.

I had, and have, several responses to this, including the idea that 'feminist', both as a qualifier and a noun, is not strictly tied to 'feminism' as a movement. There's some merit in what they say, as well as some confusion, I think, about what the advancement of women's rights in the Caribbean has looked like, and what it looks like these days. But I wanted to ask you first, readers and lurkers and bears, what you think, before I address these ideas in a subsequent post.

Are Caribbean people really thirsting for feminist knowledge, and have we simply been doing it wrong all along?

We're all in IDAHO now

Today is IDAHO: International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, and being from the Caribbean, boy am I glad this day exists as an internationally-recognized occasion around which we can advocate for people to stop the hateful nonsense that is homophobia and transphobia. From the IDAHO UK website:

[IDAHO] was founded by Louis Georges Tin in 2005. Campaigns and Initi[a]tives take place on or around May 17th every year to combat prejudice against LGBT people. May 17th is chosen because it marks the anniversary of the day in 1990 when the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental diseases.

IDAHO is needed because: 86 member states of the United Nations still criminalise consensual same sex among adults. Among these 7 have legal provisions with the death penalty as punishment. In addition, there are 6 provinces or territorial units which also punish hom[o]sexuality with imprisonment.

IDAHO day can also be celebratory because all over the world people are fighting against the persecution of LGBT people and are involved in positive initiatives and campaigns which can be celebrated and give hope for the future.

[...]

This year the IDAHO theme is "End Transphobia: Respect Gender Identity". Please sign the petition to support this campaign.

In December 2008 a declaration against homophobia and gender identity discrimination was finally heard at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

http://ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/08/Dec/1802.htm

The website also lists IDAHO events in the UK by region, and you can see what else is going on worldwide here.

Amid growing calls in the international activist community to boycott tourism and products that would benefit 'homophobic countries' - on the list of which Jamaica features high - Barbados too has been censured in a recent shadow report "for its criminalisation of same-sex sexual activity and the violation of the rights of lesbian[s], gay[s], bisexual[s] and transgender[ed people] (LGBT)." While I think that the types of boycotts mentioned are often ill-conceived and counter-productive (if you want to change public attitudes towards the LGBT community, maintaining the already poor in poverty is not the way to do it), and based on the absurd notion that for example Jamaica is one homogeneous society thinking and acting as one, I do believe that properly-implemented action by the international community is one of the ways to develop political will among these countries' own governments to effect change from within. Tying development aid or representation on certain international bodies to the proven enforcement of human rights conventions is one place to start, and while it is not the place of the US or any other country to wholly dictate cultural values to another country, it is certainly the place of all of us to expose institutionalized bigotry and hate in countries that claim to promote human freedoms for all.

And positive momentum is already building. Barbados, with a highly-educated young population who acknowledge the value of complete civil freedoms, is fully engaged in a discussion on LGBT rights. While there is a significant, religion-led voice that would seek to withhold these rights - as there is in the US (let us acknowledge that this is not some purely 'third world' scourge as some would represent), there is also a progressive, politically savvy community that is becoming less afraid to support the LGBT struggle for equality. And this community is growing, and becoming more equipped to expose the insularity and fear that are at the root of most of the anti-gay arguments.

So on this IDAHO, I feel hopeful and encouraged to continue to advocate alongside and in support of LGBT individuals, especially in my corner of the world, one of the places it is most needed. I think that with our commitment, truth, justice and - let's face it - plain common sense and decency will win.

How male is the recession?

One of the most common statistics emerging during this recession, in various incarnations, describes the extent to which men are disproportionately suffering from resulting job losses. A month ago, the NY Times speculated that women may begin to outnumber men in employment figures as layoffs rise, and Spiegel's Susanne Armann last week deemed the crisis "a very male recession".

But these kinds of articles that take aggregate layoff numbers, line them up and declare men the losers in a global recession are missing several issues. Take for example Armann's article, which deduces that men are worse off while acknowledging the following [emphasis mine]:

..a significantly higher number of men work than women. According to the Federal Employment Agency, male employment is currently 81.6 percent while female employment is only 69.2 percent. Those who work more are more likely, therefore, to lose their job.

In addition it is mostly full-time positions that are being cut -- and many women do not work a full 40-hour week. Around a third of employed women work part-time, while only 5.5 percent of working men are employed on a part-time basis.

That means that women are more likely to work in low-paid jobs. The Federal Employment Agency says that 67.4 percent of those in low-paid jobs are women, who often work as carers in retirement homes, supermarket cashiers, childminders or cleaners. These jobs may not be well paid but they are still required even in times of economic crisis.

So just to be clear: we're neatly bypassing the facts that more men than women work, that women's work tends to be part-time, and that it also tends to be lower-paid, and surmising that women are coming out on top in this economic crisis because fewer of them are losing their part-time/occasional, low-paying jobs.

However, better-paid women are also doing well, such as those working in traditionally more female spheres like education or health. The major industries like construction, manufacturing or even the financial services industry have always been more vulnerable to economic cycles and therefore suffer when the economy dips.

"Women are also more flexible when it comes to location or type of job and they adapt more quickly," says Falk of the DGB. "If a woman realizes that she hasn't got any more prospects somewhere then she tries to go somewhere else.

And once again, the old 'women are tough, they can handle it' argument. We seem to assume that women's response to economic hardship (moving or changing to find work) has little or no cost, whereas men's reality (lost employment) does. There is a cost associated with this perceived flexibility, that may involve education, transportation, shifts in family care arrangements, or increased care burdens within the home. If anything, women in some countries are less flexible because of a gendered division of labour which often sees their lives tied to those of their children. But they adapt in what is perceived as a cost-free shift, but may in fact carry several costs to the household. They adapt because women's incomes are still overwhelmingly skewed towards the health, education and well-being of their households, as against men's.

We also have to be careful not to ascribe the same economic behaviours and consequences to all men and women everywhere. In countries, especially in Europe, where there have been historically higher levels of state investment in the household economy, towards universal day care for example, there tends to be a lower cost associated with labour shifts. And while the recession began in developed nations, it certainly did not end there. Developing nations with large export markets are also being hit hard by reduced demand from the global North, and those markets often employ far more women than men.

And if the response is to invest in those industries with the highest losses, where men are more heavily concentrated, then at best, the post-recession economy will position men and women exactly where they were before: with women earning much less. What is required is not just worker protection laws to eliminate discrimination and create equal employment in those sectors without regard to sex, but also more jobs in women-dominated sectors, with higher, living wages and increased benefits.

So given all this, and while we observe all kinds of gendered job-loss phenomena, like positive correlations between male unemployment and incidences of intimate partner violence against women; a slow supply response to domestic care demand by newly-unemployed men (that means that apparently some men pretty much sit around and do nothing - for a really long time - as they adjust to their new situation, increasing the care burden for those who already provide it rather than lightening it. Don't eyeball me. I'm just reporting it); and increased anxiety among women regarding the economy (although this same writer says that women are more worried but men are more likely to just pretend not to be worried and freak out anyway), I wouldn't be so quick to summarily declare women the 'winners' here. There's a little more to the story than that. And while we do need to address men's overwhelming job losses where they exist, and their psychological responses to the recession, we also need to go a little deeper on both sides in order to gauge the real costs and risks, and shape adequate policy responses.

"It's Hard to Talk When You're Tea-Bagging"

Given the number of times I find myself mentally stuck on a task, I might be forced to concede that I am, in fact, not so bright. But of course, that's unpossible.

Still, here I am, flush against a deadline for a paper I'm writing, and with too many thoughts on all the hilarious and just plain stupid teabagging activity and other news to order them all into something that sounds marginally clever. I will say, though, that it's finally happening. The right-wing Republican side has just realized not only that it has well and truly lost and that the Obamas, their mother and literally their dog are in fact settling well into their roles; but that all the unreasoned fearmongering is not serving to convince more moderate Republicans that the sky is falling. I could go on about the facts that most of these people are in fact not paying higher taxes and that the federal spending they're so opposed to was never higher than under George W. who killed the surplus chasing WMDs, terrorist unicorns from Pluto and god knows what else. But instead, I'll just post various ridiculous photos that I've stolen encountered.

Title quote courtesy the intoxicating Anderson Cooper.


Via Megan at Jezebel as passed on by Zachary:



Via Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress:

AP image:

Obama owes me $50

Dear silly mongoose,

You thought you were going to venture into the city on the eve of the G20 summit and have a smooth ride, but guess what? Your connecting station is closed, biznatch! So here, have an extra 45 minutes to add to your journey. April Fools!

xoxo,

The Universe

The actual diversion didn't really cost me more, directly, for the journey. So I just pro-rated my imaginary fee for the time taken, and when the president comes to my neighbourhood tomorrow, I'm going to fold my bill into a paper plane and fly it his way. Of course, it will probably be shot down by tiny secret service arrows before it even catches a wind, but that's to be expected. I didn't actually sense much of the hype around today's meetings, but that is not to say that there wasn't plenty hype to be sensed.

The media are already wagging their tails over what Michelle O is wearing, which admittedly is becoming more and more of a thing to behold (although she had something of a miss today what with the granny cardigan and gingham skirt, but after the yellow, cinched-waist dress she arrived in, we can forgive her that transgression.) I always love to hear Michelle speak and see her very expressive, always smiling face as she greets colleagues. You just know there's a load of smartness and sincerity about to spill forth.

But outfits and celebrity chef-procured dinners notwithstanding, most of the attention, believe it or not, was on the president today, with quite a bit also on the protesters of whom we were all meant to be so fearful.

Police made at least 24 arrests as anti-capitalist protesters tried to upstage the G20. They included 11 demonstrators trying to drive an armoured personnel carrier towards the Bank of England.

Thousands gathered outside the Bank and scuffles soon broke out. The most violent action came when a group of hardline protesters stormed a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which received billions of pounds of taxpayer funds last year but has been widely criticised for rewarding its former chief executive with a huge pension.

I'm right now blinking slowly at all this, because while I firmly believe that citizen participation - whether by protest, letter drafting or other methods - is necessary to such processes, I don't understand how destroying a bunch of crap and breaking and entering sends any message other than "we really like to break things." Of course, we also have to bear in mind that we're talking about the Metropolitan Police here, who, if last year's Notting Hill Carnival experience is anything to go by, have no clue how to contain small skirmishes without bludgeoning scores of unsuspecting bystanders. So we might want to await a more balanced account.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has also been attracting plenty attention, what with all his threats to pick up his toys and flounce off tomorrow if the G20 doesn't deliver on his desire for tighter regulation of international finance. The spirit of his threat can be understood - he does not want to waste time with a bunch of fancy, touchy-feely language that yields only promises and no plans - but I'm not sure what such an upset would achieve. A better tactic might be to continue yelling from the inside, until the final communique at least resembles a plan for scheduled, direct action.

So the summit comes to the Excel Center tomorrow. Between the nervous bankers trying to look all down and incognito in their pressed jeans, and the security officers instructing you that you must take a roundabout walking route so as to pass within sniffing distance of their dogs, it may take me a while to report. But report I shall. Because of course everyone will want to know if I in fact managed to get my fifty dollars.

It's them islands over there! Them's the ones!

It was only a matter of time before the long finger pointing from the global North in the midst of the financial crisis extended outward towards the Caribbean. Much is now being made of the role tax havens have played in this economic depression, and the Obama administration is being joined by its European counterparts in stamping out "harmful tax competition", with the Cayman Islands featuring high on the US's hit list. While Obama's laudable come-in-and-clean-up attitude has undone many of the foolish and frankly unconscionable practices of his predecessor's 8-year term in office, he has to take some responsibility for the facts not only that George W Bush halted the OECD plan to ferret out secrecy jurisdictions at the beginning of his term, so sending these economies a very clear message of non-pursuance, but that small island states have increasingly been pressured to implement "more competitive tax policies" in order to grow their financial services' sectors. So while it may be desirable to uncover the tax practices and offshore destinations that have removed a large part of the tax burden from the wealthiest citizens of the US and Europe, and to have a small, convenient scapegoat in the South at whom to point the finger, we need to consider the repercussions of such an immediate blow to some of our smaller island economies.

Now one might argue that each territory has its own responsibility for how they structure their outward-facing industries, and that the onus is on developing nations to diversify their economies away from products that are so wholly subject to the whims of larger countries. But we all know the politics of the international financial architecture, and a big voice from a small territory is still just a squeak in the grand scheme of things.

For years, Caribbean countries have been doing the rating agency dance - nipping and tucking their financial practices in order to avoid the damning "inhospitable business environment" label of the S&Ps and the Moodys. And for as many years, the haves of the North has been benefiting from the very practices they now seek to condemn. To be fair, Obama has always been ideologically in favour of a Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which in itself is not undesirable, but whose implementation and economic fallout for the developing world have to be fairly weighed before ploughing full steam ahead.

And let us not be fooled that "more compliant" territories like Barbados are exempt from scrutiny simply because we employ a silly little thing called a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA). TIEAs are quite close to useless, since the requesting body has to know what information it's looking for in order to request that information. Wrongdoing can only be uncovered if specific wrongdoing is suspected. So TIEAs aren't fooling anyone, least of all the big sticks that are going to be coming poking around in the affairs of small, Caribbean offshore financial centres. Negotiation (and by this I mean real negotiation rather than economic threats) of new terms for TIEAs would be one possible, measured advance towards the elimination of tax haven abuse.

I have always been uneasy about the irony of the offshore financial centre: we provide the means by which richer nations can increase the global inequality that maintains us as essentially colonies to their empires. So I am not at all opposed to increased regulation that is introduced in a way that does not leave developing nations disadvantaged and stripped of fundamental sources of income. What I am not in favour of is the demonization of these nations at a time when it is convenient to pass the buck - for governments to say "No it wasn't us, it was the bankers," and for financial institutions to say "No it wasn't us, it was the evil island economies." Seriously? Of these players, with whom does the majority of power disproportionately lie? You can argue over whether it's the government or the finance industry, but you for damn sure can't say it's Caribbean economies. It's not that tax havens have not contributed in some measure to the poor regulation that led to economic collapse, but who were their beneficiaries and originators? Let's keep things in perspective, and acknowledge that when you ask the right questions, the fingers are going to point right back in the opposite direction.

Our "let's see what they hand us" approach to doing business with the world's economic superpowers is not going to cut it this time around. (Did anyone notice how the region's grand policy idea for a response to the crisis was to beg for more money? That's some inspired economics right there!) We're going to have to do our homework, get it together and strongly represent our interests.

LolTimes: 10 Most Expensive Vacations

Reader Camel sent this Times story with Barbados topping the list of 10 most expensive places to vacation. She says, "I think they're lying," and I'm inclined to agree, at least if not lying, that they're being disingenuous. Their calculations are based on a basket of vacation goods. This basket costs over £150 in Barbados: £55 more than it does in the number 2 country on their list, Mexico. The exchange rate they use for Barbados is wrong (it is closer to 2.80 to the pound than their 2.58), and as for the list of vacation goods, well, I have some responses:

-Cup of coffee, Bottle/can Coca-Cola:
Many hotels have free/price-inclusive breakfast drinks. Besides, you aren't likely to be knocking back 3 cups of coffee a day in 28 degree weather. Plus, um, Diet Coke is actually cheaper in Bim than it is here. Ssh.

-Bottle of Heineken:
Drink Banks!

-Bottle of mineral water:
The tap water is perfectly drinkable, and locally-bottled brands are much more affordable than say Evian or Volvic.

-Factor 15 suncream and Insect repellent:
Just buy this crap at the chemist's or in the airport. As Bajans would say, bring it from home (or walk wid it)!

-Three-course evening meal including bottle of house wine in a local restaurant:
They say that for this you can pay £135.52. Of course you can. You can pay a lot more than that if you feel like getting rid of your money. But you can also pay a lot less.

This article is such inconsequential, poorly-researched rubbish. It's amazing what people are paid to write. That is all.

Offset the effects of your strained marriage with power-walking and celery

As those of us working within feminist economics have been saying for some time now, the economic work of reproducing and sustaining the population from within the domestic economy is not an inelastic, constantly renewable input. That is to say, women, who are in general tasked more than men with unpaid care work* in the home, cannot, unsupported, continue performing this work indefinitely and not have it adversely affect their health and well-being. And such negative effects mean that women's unpaid work will not necessarily be there no matter what, as policymakers often take for granted.

Add to this a strained marital relationship, and the prognosis looks even worse. That is, at least, according to a study presented to the American Psychosomatic Society, which finds that

Women are more likely than men to suffer damage to their health from being in a strained marriage.

US psychologists found wives in tense marriages were prone to risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. In comparison, husbands seemed relatively immune from such problems.

The factors the study sought to assess were those related to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of related risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and other health issues.

But the researchers are of course not suggesting that those in poorly functioning marriages seek to lower these risk factors by working on their marriages or dumping their husbands. Because that would be absurd! Their suggested fix? It will look familiar: diet and exercise.

Professor Tim Smith, who co-led the research, said there was good evidence that a healthy diet and regular exercise could reduce a woman's risk of metabolic syndrome.

However, he said: "It's a little premature to say they would lower their risk of heart disease if they improved the tone and quality of their marriages - or dumped their husbands.

So, following their interpretation of the findings, if your bad marriage is killing you, trying to fix it or getting the hell out is not necessarily as indicated as say, going for a run and eating a salad. Treat the symptoms and not the cause, people. You heard it here first.

* "I'm not reading all that crap". Of course you're not. Just scroll down to the graphic on Page 6 and you'll notice the 'depletion of human capabilities' from the domestic economy, i.e. the household.

Mugabe: "Let them eat...well, nothing. The cake is for me"

I believe that karma is a myth. Some people who seem to be made of pure evil just live well forever.

There is no truer testament to this notion than Robert Mugabe, who recently turned 85, but looks 60. While over half of Zimbabwe's population struggles to fend off starvation and with a cholera epidemic having killed 4 000 people, Mugabe has just held a $250 000 birthday party with 3 000 guests and a 187-lb cake, as part of a week of celebration.

It surely requires great restraint and courage on the part of Morgan Tsvangirai to share power with a despot as he watches his own country crumble, and while I understand his caution to the international community to 'get over' Mugabe and focus on the people of Zimbabwe, it is apparent that the country's ruler of 30 years is at the root of many of its problems. It's easy to use the language of revolution while safely tucked away here in London, but I don't think that Tsvangirai should discourage the world from being outraged by Mugabe. Perhaps in a new world order, if that is indeed forthcoming, that outrage will spark decisive change.

Hey there, stupid

Stop using the homeless to try and appear clever. It is not working.

You know, I was starting to think we were now overusing terms like "language of privilege" and other expressions meant to shame the wealthier classes into acting less silly. But some people just need to pack up their 'edginess' and move the hell along. Nothing happening here but a writer with too much time on his hands and not much of anything in his brain.

Stop-the-madness Monday

Today is definitely a peanutbuttereggdirt day, made worse by the myriad fools out there trying their utmost to see who can win the "piss off a mongoose today" competition:

• Jezebel reports on this Rihanna deserved it T-shirt that was on sale at CafePress, but was eventually removed from its site. I would post the actual picture, but I can't stand to look at it any longer that I have to. There's also an I Beat It Like Chris Brown T-shirt for sale. At this rate, my "boycott all morons" policy is going to save me vats of money.
  
  

• Then there's Rapeplay, a PC game that allows players to gang rape virtual women and then force them to have an abortion. Amazon has banned the game after complaints from users, "deeming it to be inappropriate."

  Rapelay, which was released in 2006, encourages players to force the virtual woman they rape to have an abortion. If they are allowed to give birth, the woman throws the player's character under a train, according to reviews of the game. It also has a feature allowing several players to team up against individual women.

  I have now officially ceased to be shocked by the wanton stupidity (and violent misogyny) of 21st century "civilization".

• And finally, not as jaw-dropping but almost as confounding, is the suggestion of international consultant Trevor Hamilton that the Jamaica government cut public sector employment by 30 percent as a way of reducing government expenditure and stimulating the economy. This one-third of over 100 000 workers are then meant to:

  ..automatically be eligible to bid for [the] divested government services (he recommends too that 300 state-run entities be divested), possibly through the establishment of Employee Share Ownership Plans, as well as enjoy eligibility to government-secured low-cost business loans.

  Apparently, these displaced workers are now supposed to have the get-up-and-go to start their own businesses. Hamilton also assures that under his plan, "there will be increased opportunities for local investors to invest their excess liquidity." It seems the Jamaican economy is not suffering from this pesky little global recession that is afflicting lesser mortals. I hesitate to completely condemn the plan without seeing it in its entirety, but these parts of it at least seem ill-conceived. Who are the employees to be made redundant? What will be their barriers to re-entry? Why is everyone talking nonsense today? It's really quite exhausting.

No weather for a mongoose

In the midst of the recession, by which the UK will reportedly be the worst hit, along comes an arctic blast to top off the (psychological and financial) depression.

The Federation of Small Businesses estimated this morning that the 20% of workers who fail to reach work today will cost the economy £1.2bn. Although, the FSB has also calculated that a typical bank holiday costs the economy £6bn, so I'm not sure whether they're suggesting we never take a day off. Still, with so many smaller companies just getting by, this weather could hardly have come at a worse time. Read the FSB's and other analyses here.

In the meantime, here's what your furry tropical friend is dealing with in her backyard: Send reinforcements.