protest Archives - Lulastic and the Hippyshake

Some post for Weetabix – it’s pretty, pink and Barbie-based

21 March, 2013

Dear Weetabix

You *may* get some intriguing post tomorrow. It is a creative response to your most recent, most uncreative latest advert. Yep, the one in which the superhero lad plots to save the day while the young girl busies herself prettifying her pink bedroom and re-arranging her dolls.

Yes, THAT one, with the gender stereotypes that belong to the era of your inception, 1932. Welcome, friends, to 2013 – here you will find that most parents HATE these limiting roles.

Here, not all little girls are doll-obsessed, and some of them want to grow up to change the world too. Pink is a colour that belongs to all children, and not every little boy wants to climb and fight.

When I see adverts like yours I despair. How is it possible this kind of repressed perspective is still out there? Let alone boldly stalking amongst us promoting Flakey Morsels of the Dawn to young children.

When I feel this gutted about the state of the world I have to act. I firstly tweeted, then I sent you an email. But all afternoon I have been feeling the need to do something more, to really try and make you see how sickening this stereotyping is.

So I popped a little something in the post for you.

I am not sure how my protest- post will go down. For the ten minutes I spent writing the letter and packaging her up I thought it was a bit funny and clever, that postpeople along the way might think “Oooh, what sexist antics have Weetabix been up to?” I hoped it might just grab your attention and prompt a response from you.

And then, I have to admit, as soon as I saw her feet disappear into the mouth of the letterbox I suddenly wondered if you might think it sent by a Barbie-maiming psycho- that it might even contain Anthrax. (It doesn’t, promise.)

I’m not a Barbie-maiming psycho, just an irate mum who is utterly sick and tired of having her young daughter put in these boxes by big companies. With the huge amounts of money you throw into marketing, you are EXTREMELY influential in how our children define themselves.

I may do all I can to help Ramona celebrate all colours, to find joy in millions of kinds of toys, but if she is bombarded every day by images that tell her girls should like one thing and boys another, my own nurturing counts for little.

We are massive fans of Weetabix in this household (only in non-porridge season, OBVIOUSLY!) but until this ad is placed on the Shameful Shelf of Relics where it belongs we will not be buying your slightly-tasteless-but-still-somehow-delectable breakfast.

I look forward to your response.

Yours Sincerely,

Lucy, and Ramona, and also every cereal-munching child in the world who deserves better.

PS- If any readers want to contact Weetabix and share their own disappointment you can do that here.

PPS I’d hate for you to miss a post… enter your email to get them pinged into your inbox. I won’t be spamalot, promise!

Activism, Parenting

Why the Occupy LSX protest is the perfect place for kids

29 October, 2011

I really believe in activism. I am absolutely sure that protesting changes things, so bringing the baby on board was always gonna happen. But today I realised that sometimes a protest is the perfect place for the baby. Not just as there is an extra amount of people she can woo and then phones she can steal and chew.

We had a wonderful time with the nippers up at St Pauls for Occupy LSX today- facepainting, parachute games, poetry, juggling, one of the dads even turned up with a bouncy castle. While some of the older kids reflected on and drew their ideas of utopia all around us debate, speeches and conversation took place about how we can change the utterly bankrupt society we live in right now.

I’m no stranger to the shaper edge of protest. In fact (don’t tell my mum this) the first protest I took Ramona on saw us sitting down to breastfeed in a cafe just as a Black Bloc walked past- they picked up a bus stop and smashed the entire front window with it. About 3 feet away us. I have also been in peaceful, sitting down crowds as riot police have bought their truncheons down on heads.

I realise it is not always balloons and bubbles.

But the cost of our younger generation NOT being there is higher than the tiny, one in a million chance of them actually getting hurt.*

For it is here that the little ones learn that there is HOPE – that people do believe in an alternative to the economic apartheid we currently live in. Here they see true, live, democracy – people listening to each other and voting together. Here they hear the melody of diverse voices, discussing problems and solutions.

But it is also the perfect place for them as it reminds us why we do it. Because they are the generation who will either inherit all this- greed (and the inequality greed gives birth to) – stretched and bloated, many time worse then we have even now, or they will inherit a much fairer and more beautiful society. It is completely up to us.

Someone told me today that there are over 900 occupied cities in over 82 countries. There is an incredible global connection happening that is totally unprecedented. The Occupy movement is gathering momentum and could become enough to change things. As a friend pointed out this week, anti-apartheid protesters couldn’t envision the world beyond apartheid- all they could do was say ENOUGH, enough of this injustice. It doesn’t matter that Occupy LSX doesn’t have a list of policies, we are simply saying ENOUGH.

We have had enough of a world where FTSE 100 directors experience a pay rise of 49% on average compared to 0% increase in the public sector. Enough of a world where CHEESE is the top shoplifted item, because people just literally need to eat (baby formula is the FIFTH, the FIFTH!!!!!) and ENOUGH of a world where one years worth of bankers bonuses could pay for 23 years of the youth service being shut in every poor community in the UK. (More on all this in Polly Toynbee’s excellent article here.)

For our children’s sake. We have had enough.

If you’ve had enough too but weren’t sure about bringing your baby along to Occupy London, please get in touch and I can introduce you to some of the coolest parent and kid activists in town.

There.

I’m sorry, all seriouspants once again. I promise my next post will be about poo.

* There are safety measures you can take, I for one would almost certainly leave with my baby at the first whiff of the riot police or other violence.

**Also, beware of the haters who can be equally vicious. Someone told me off today for taking Ramona to Occupy LSX, suggesting I was teaching kids about squatting and oppressing the rights of others. (Eh?!) Thankfully it was only on Twitter so I was able to take a breath and graciously respond about how we were actually teaching kids about equality, justice and a loving, fair society. (While mentally taking his 140 characters and flicking them at his ragey right wing eyeballs of course.)