Recession feminism

When The Observer declared three weeks ago that women were the real victims of the credit crunch, I sat up and read on. I went along with the theory that employers could potentially be swayed to fire women over men either because they felt that these women would be able to fall back on the financial support of a husband/partner or because, I quote, "employers will also be more reluctant to hire women of child-bearing age because they don't want to pay for maternity leave." (I quote because I have a problem with the words 'child-bearing age' coming directly from me. Makes me think of rearing pigs. For reasons best known to a psychologist) I was not unconcerned on reading this article and felt that these were points well-made but, on catching a whiff of the feminist about my person, I decided not to think further on the subject and save my lovely underwear from the flames.

Then last week I read the following:

'Peter Stringfellow, the nightclub owner, said that “tableside dancing” was gaining in popularity. “Does it surprise me? Not at all,” he said. “At this precise time during the credit crunch, my business is as good as ever.” He added that his clientele was not the type to be affected by the recession. “It might hurt the young guys, but not our guys,” he said.' [The Times]

Apparently a glance at calls made to 118 118, the directory enquiries service, in the run-up to Christmas revealed that inquiries into pole-dancing and lap-dancing clubs shot up by 599 per cent. In the same week I read that City bankers were booking themselves similar visual treats over breakfast meetings to soothe their fiscal troubles. Firstly, let me just say that THIS IS FINE. Although my one and only unsavoury brush with a Croatian lap-dancing club left me cold, I am accepting of their existence and others' desire to frequent them.

My problem is Peter bleeding Stringfellow. He seems to be having a lovely time raking in the cash while his aging, panting clientele lick their credit crunchy wounds (among other things) in his establishments. Just not on. So women are being laid off because they might try and rear some sprog while Stringfellow lines his pockets satisfying Viagra-fuelled desires. Well that's the sentence you get when you bring these two stories together and I just wonder what Germaine would make of the social equation.

It was in this indignant frame of mind that I launched into Week Ten (rough calculation..) of the job search. It just so happens that Week Ten is also the week of the great Valentine's build-up. And it seems that, try as I might to avoid him, St. Valentine is determined to keep hammering me over the head with his vile, exaggerated marketing techniques. I thought that my usually thoughtful and level-headed monthly magazine would provide some solace. No. It raved about the benefits of 'recession sex'. I am convinced that the economic crisis will soon require its own dictionary. Recession sex. It's a very basic concept hardly worthy of a coined phrase. It's sex during a recession. Although that doesn't really cover it does it? For, used here in an adjectival sense, it suggests that recession sex is an entirely different kettle of passion to average, solvent sex. This is assuming of course, that everybody is solvent in non-downturn time and also that they're not having very good sex. This is, at least, what my article implied. Attempting to turn the concept of sex into a cerebral topic (a knack that this magazine has down to a fine art), it seemed to suggest that sex would be better because we'd value the fact that it was free (I am aware of the exception) and that where before a woman may have opted to spend the evening grazing wine bars with work colleagues she would now be magnetically drawn to her previously neglected boyfriend. Now, without squeezing my brain cells together too much, I can quickly come up with two problems here: Firstly, there is the question of a possible rejection once things pick up in the financial department. And secondly, surely having more sex during a recession will only increase the probability of pregnancy and give the potential for greater financial burden, thus perpetuating this couple's money worries? Just a thought. Of course, the ease with which they suggest that this anxiety-busting sex can be obtained is another matter entirely. For those with not-so-easy access to a "loved one", nevermind a "cosy bolthole [quoted in one Valentines-themed article]" in which to nestle and forget the doom and gloom, I conclude that Valentine's Day during a recession must be THE most depressing time in the life of a financially-strapped singleton. I can hear Mr Stringfellow's distant gloating snigger.

The odds were beginning to stack up against me as an unemployed, single woman; so women were being fired because they were a sort of unreliable component of a company while men were kept on and treated to dancing ladies - and the only way to get through it all was to get some on-tap sex which was impossible if you couldn't locate a tap.

With this fresh bout of indignation, I reviewed my options. Securing myself a relationship I would be satisfied with in a short space of time was out of the question. It took long enough for me to identify a potential candidate or come around to the idea that the person was interested and then there was the agonising game of establishing and maintaining contact, accompanied by sophisticated translation techniques to try to figure out if a date was on the cards. Then it would all be down to chance whether that date materialised. By this stage exhausted, I would probably just give up because I realised that I had been far too indiscriminate at the first stage. Or, having got the impression that interest was waning, I would embark on a few months of frantic pursuit, otherwise known as obsession, thus closing off all other, possibly better, possibilities. I decided that my traditional methods of courtship would only leave me feeling deflated at a time when what I needed was an injection of confidence. And so I decided to channel this burgeoning feminist energy into taking a more proactive approach to the job hunt. Although the potential for rejection was still there, I felt that the process would at least be slightly less emotional. After all, I was dealing with jobs, not men. Or so I thought.

I am already working a few shifts at a local radio station but felt that I should attempt to garner further experience by approaching the local commercial station. I found a number, made a call, sent an email and CV and by the following Wednesday was sitting in the reception area waiting for the station's head to greet me. Handshake, "after you", lift, "after you", take a seat. I sat on my chair. He sort of straddled his. He had a half-smirk spread across his 'I'm the head of the station' face. Focus. DO NOT JUDGE. He might be a lovely person. "OK, I'll cut to the chase. I don't have any shifts to offer you at the moment." "OK," I said, affecting my best media-wise tone of voice which I believe gives off an 'I know what the current climate is like, I'm clued up' impression. But he hadn't finished. "And to be honest, if I had something, I couldn't offer it to you. You just don't have enough experience in broadcasting." What? My smattering of free work at the other radio station was not sufficient? He picked up on the questioning flicker in my eyes. "You have a lot of experience and I can see why you're looking at radio, the state newspapers are in at the moment, but you're looking at six to eight months of unpaid work before I would even consider you. I need to see real commitment." He had swivelled his chair round during this exchange and it was now pointing the right way but he had not given up his straddling pose and so I was now faced with a smirk and a crotch. Bile rising. Was that it? Did he not want to enter into the briefest of conversations to try to establish who I was, what I had done, even the fact that I wasn't a psychopath?! "OK," I said in the most measured tone I could spit out. "So, I really don't want to waste your time any more today. I mean, I could have you in here for a week of work experience but it wouldn't do me any good and it wouldn't benefit you in the grand scheme of things." He was the type of person who said 'in the grand scheme of things' and made it sound like, after having lived for a million years and seen all there was to see, he could safely say that, after having weighed up all the pros and cons, the fact that he was making this decision was actually a favour to me. "I like to be honest," he announced grandly. I believed this. I didn't believe that he WAS honest but I did believe that he liked saying that he was. Silence. I sat, he continued to thrust his crotch out in an effort to command the room. He stared. I fantasised about magically shrinking him and then rolling him between my fingers and flicking him away. Like snot. "Well, thank you for your time," I managed. "No problem. It just wouldn't be worth your while or mine. That's how it is." Stop talking stop talking stop talking, my head yelled. The lift took uncomfortably long to arrive and excruciatingly long for the door to close once it had and I had stepped inside. I knew he didn't want to wait. And he was off as soon as the door twitched to close.

I used the walk back from the train station to glue back together the pieces of my broken confidence. Suffice to say that the finished product had a shiny new feminist gloss to it. Then, i-pod whirring, I made out the sound of wheels slowing and suddenly got the sense that I was being followed along the pavement. "Excuse me?" I turned. An orange face beamed at me from the window of a black BMW. I turned the i-pod off. "Sorry to disturb you," she said. "I'm from Avon. We're trying to recruit women to become representatives [hands me a flyer 'AVON: Hello Tomorrow']. Would you be interested?" Think. Say something. "Sorry?" Think. Why was I being kerb-crawled by an Avon saleswoman? Flashback. Oh god, I do remember. I remembered reading something a month ago about how the downturn had seen a rise in the number of new Avon recruits. And this was me becoming a statistic. She was talking but I wasn't really listening, just fixated on a smearing of lipstick she'd got on one of her front teeth. "...Pass it to your friends and see if they're interested too." "OK". She sped off. I have to admit that I was in equal part flattered that she had felt that I was pleasantly enough presented to represent a line of cosmetics and concerned that Avon seemed to be the only people willing to offer me a job.

Years of education, a few years of voting and I felt about as feminist as Jeremy Clarkson. After all this, I was faced with only two options to assuage the pain in my credit crunched heart: desperately seek a male companion or sell beauty products door to door to make other people look good. I think Germaine just had a palpitation.