One for the women and the men who love us

Soooo, how are you all doing?

It’s been quite a week and I wish I could say that I was shocked by the outcome of the American election but depressingly, I’m not.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like the shit show of the last few years has left me all out of shocks to give.

A friend of mine summed it up perfectly in a voice note she left for me:

“First there was Brexit, then Trump, then a global pandemic, then war in Ukraine and Gaza and now Lebanon and now Trump again. Is this how life is going to be from now on - one terrible thing after another?” 

It’s a very good question and of course, we also have the climate crisis and AI to contend with - neither of which will be going away.

Soooo, how do we deal with all of this?

Actually, before I get to that question, I need to address something else really quick. And I mean really quick because I don’t have the energy - or quite frankly the f***s to give - to list all of the reasons why I and so many others are so disappointed by the outcome of the election.

We all know what Trump stands for and what he’s done. He wears these things like badges of honour. It’s all out there in glorious tangerine technicolour. We all know what he’s been charged with and convicted of. We all know he attended Epstein’s parties. We all know what he campaigned for - and against. We’ve all been able to read Project 2025 and what it proposes. But I will share a couple of things that I think speak volumes.

When I woke up and heard the election results on Wednesday morning I felt sick to my stomach and I cried for all the people I know who are now living in real fear.

Especially my female and LGBTQ+ American friends and family members, and most especially my trans cousin, who has already had to move states due to fears for her safety and even her life.

I can’t ever remember seeing so many posts sharing suicide helplines the day after an election. 

Just like I reached out to my Jewish friends after the horrors on October 7th, I began messaging everyone I know and love who I knew would be struggling with the news.

It took me all day.

All day long messaging with and talking to people who were hurting and heartbroken.

And, given that I’ve just seen a post from someone who supports Trump mocking the ‘meltdowns’ of such people, let me share something I woke up to today on Instagram.

The guy who tweeted this is a huge supporter of Trump and has 10 million followers on Twitter - most of them young men.

And here’s another gem from a well known Trump supporter which has led to countless American boys taunting girls with the same line in schools across the country this week…

So don’t tell me that I’m being over-sensitive or overreacting or accuse me of having a meltdown. How can I, as a woman, not be concerned by this?

And actually the truth is, rather than melting down, I’m feeling a strange kind of calm because I genuinely no longer care about a system that is so blatantly rotten at its core. And I’m not just talking about America here.

All around the globe a shrinking number of rich are getting richer and a growing number of poor are getting poorer.

Our leaders on all sides strut around starting and funding and supporting wars. Using mainstream media as their mouthpieces, they pit us against one another, dehumanising entire races and religions so that when they start deporting or killing them, we remain silent and look the other way.

The fact that they’re able to manipulate so many with their blatant BS would be laughable if it wasn’t so deadly.

Here’s an example for you: For so long, America believed Russia to be the ‘bad guys’ - evil communists who could nuke them at any moment. But now they’ve elected a president who openly praises Putin and has proudly proclaimed that he’ll stop helping Ukraine defend themselves.

When I was in Ukraine this summer I experienced several drone and missile attacks.

I have a vivid memory of taking shelter in my bathroom in the middle of the night, hearing the booms of the air defence shooting down the drones attacking the city and feeling so grateful to the American and other governments who had helped fund or provide this life-saving support.

And before I go any further I need to state that I do understand when some Americans say, ‘Why should we help fund a war so far away when so many of us are struggling to feed our families?’

I was once a broke single mum working six different jobs to keep a roof over our heads and if the leader of the party I supported had put so much emphasis on trotting out millionaire celebrities like Taylor Swift or Beyonce telling me how to vote, rather than directly addressing my concerns with tangible policies,  I would have felt pissed off and patronised too. 

But what I don’t understand is why you would withdraw defensive support for a country that has been invaded by Russia and is attacked every single day, while simultaneously doubling down on supplying weapons and funding for the attacks on Gaza and Lebanon as Trump has also promised to do. In my humble opinion, there’s a real lack of consistency - not to mention integrity - here. 

And this is just one example of many that demonstrate the hypocrisy and self-serving of those on power, and it’s why I no longer want to play their game. 

And it’s why I’m not in ‘meltdown’ or ‘hysterical’ or any of the other ways in which women are demeaned for actually having feelings.

I have lost all faith in the system that has brought us to this point.

A system that worships war and celebrity and selfishness and greed.

And the conclusion I’ve come to this week is that I’m just going to focus on my own small corner of the world and the people I love and care about.

I feel so frickin’ lucky that it took me an entire day to reach out and speak to everyone I know who feels the same as me.

This is my community now - my own small but loving micro-society.

And I feel so lucky that so many amazing men are a part of that community.

It’s really unsettling as a woman reading tweets like the ones above. A question that many women I know have been asking themselves and each other this week is: ‘Do men really hate us this much, or hold our basic human rights in such disregard?’

But when I read that tweet this morning I thought of my dad and my son. Both wonderful, caring and supportive men. Men full of warmth and integrity, who would never, ever, under any circumstances write something like that - or boast about grabbing women by the pussy either, incidentally. Or vote away their wives’ or daughters’ rights over their own bodies.

Then I thought of my ex-boyfriend, still best friend, and how he has always been such a rock of support for me over the years. Cheering all of my successes and comforting me through some of my darkest moments. Another truly good man, who I feel so blessed to have met and who would never write a tweet like that or vote for a man like Trump.

Then I thought of my Iranian ex boyfriend. Yes, shock horror, I was once in a relationship with an Iranian!!! And for almost two years too. And let me tell you, he was one of the funniest, kindest men I’ve ever met and he taught me so much about Iranian culture and food and how welcoming and warm Iranian people are. Not that I needed convincing, I hasten to add, but because I’m aware that some others might, thanks to the dehumanising mentioned earlier. 

My Iranian ex was also a martial arts expert and passionate about teaching me self defence so that, as a woman, I would be safe from harm. Before the pandemic he and his friend taught self defence classes to women in the UK who had escaped abusive relationships. (If any of you have read my spy thriller The Secret Keeper he was my consultant for the scenes in which my feisty heroine fights off Nazis in hand to hand combat).

I am actually rolling my eyes and cringing as I type this because it feels so insane to me that I should have to write this at all, but I’m doing it because right now, Iranians are one of the nationalities being dehumanised by many politicians and news organisations - just as the Jewish were by the Nazis and the Irish were by the British when I was a kid. And one of the main ways Arabs and Muslims are dehumanised here in the west is by painting them as monsters who treat women appallingly. Oh, the irony!

And I say it even though the drones Russia use to attack Ukraine are made in Iran, because I’m capable of independent, grown-up thinking and I can differentiate between innocent civilians and their self-serving leaders, high on greed and drunk on power.

And while I’m back on the subject of Russia and Ukraine, I’d love to share a story with you that I found so heartwarming I haven’t been able to forget it and I keep returning to this week.

When my son got married in Ukraine recently there were some truly fascinating and inspiring guests at his wedding who also work in the humanitarian sector.

One of whom was a woman who has spent most of her career working in the field of peacekeeping and reconciliation. As we munched our way through the 27 (or so it seemed!) courses of a traditional Ukrainian celebratory meal, she told me that even when a war is still raging there are teams of people out there working away trying to build bridges between the warring countries or factions, so that when the conflict is eventually over they’ve laid the groundwork for programmes of peace and reconciliation - just like there were in South Africa and Northern Ireland.

She then went on to tell me that there’s a Resistance network within Russia, that helps soldiers who want to desert because they don’t want to kill Ukrainians - something that is punishable by death.

One such soldier managed to escape to a country in Europe where he set up a soup kitchen for Ukrainian refugees because felt so bad about what his country had done to theirs.

I don’t know which country he escaped to but apparently there’s some Russian support there and sometimes the locals will paint pro-Russian slogans on the walls.

This man goes out at night with a pot of white paint and he paints over the slogans because he doesn’t want the Ukrainian refugees to see them and get upset. If he were to get caught painting on the walls he would be arrested and sent back to Russia where he’d face execution for desertion.

There’s something about the image of this man and his pot of paint, risking his life to try and make amends, that I can’t get out of my head.

We don’t see stories like these on mainstream media because they don’t fit the narrative of fear and division, but I refuse to be brainwashed anymore.

I’ve already curated my social media feeds so that I get my most of news from humanitarian and health-workers on the ground in wartorn places and wonderful organisations like Jewish Voices for Peace, who focus on our shared humanity instead of division and hate.

The fact is, I’m not going to hate at all because I refuse to waste my energy in that way.

Instead I’m going to focus on Love with a capital L.

On Wednesday I reached out to everyone I love who I knew would be hurting to send them Love.

On Thursday I spent all day working on a course I’m creating to help people with their writing. A project that is infused with Love. 

Which reminds me of something else I’ve kept coming back to all week - this quote from Martin Luther…

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree today.”

I wrote about this concept in more detail here, but essentially it inspires me to draw my focus right back to the precious present moment and to creating something with meaning in that moment. I hope it inspires the same in you too.

What if we were to actively turn away from anger and hate and fear and focus on meaning and joy and Love instead? And not in some wishy-washy, hippy-dippy disassociated way but as an act of defiance and Resistance.

As I wrote in my novel, The Resistance Bakery, and in a recent post about my experience in Ukraine (which you can read here) : ‘In a world ruled by hatred and fear, happiness, gratitude and love are all acts of rebellion.’

And it was in this spirit of rebellion that I wrote this poem, which I began when I was in Paris recently and was inspired to complete this week…

I want to move to Paris and take up smoking
and sit in cafes sipping coffee
spending hours people-watching.
I want to write books and drink wine
and age disgracefully.
And by that I mean
in a way that is wild and free
from all the bullshit rules of society 
telling women how they're supposed to be.

I want to move to Paris and take up smoking
and be inspired by the ghosts of women 
who blazed the trail before me:
Sand, de Beauvoir, Valadon
and add to their legacy of nonconformity.
I want to trawl dusty flea markets 
and vintage stores
and add my own unique twist 
to the treasures of history. 

I want to move to Paris and take up smoking 
and I want to look down at my laptop keys
and see the buttery flakes of a pastry
eaten in a frenzy.
I want to talk and laugh by candlelight
around tables
with friends 
who uplift and support me

I want to move to Paris and take up smoking 
And make up stories 
And adventure all night 
And sleep all day
With a man who believes in me
And is sure enough in himself 
To not need to believe in misogyny

Just to be clear, I’m not actually going to start smoking (although when I see Parisians hunched over tables outside cafes, smoking and reading or talking with friends they somehow manage to make it look so chic!) - it was more a metaphor for no longer doing the so-called ‘right thing’.

I’m no longer playing the system’s game, I’m going to create a system of my own that feels inspiring and loving and safe, with people I respect and care about and trust. And if you’ve been feeling downhearted this week, I hope this inspires you to do the same.

Thank you for reading my words every week and for being a part of this community, I really appreciate it. And I’m sorry if this week’s post comes across as a long-winded, stream of consciousness. Like you, I’m sure, I’m just trying to figure this all out in the best way possible.

Sending so much love and gratitude. 

Siobhan