A Utopia of Dystopias

utopia - 1 ( usually lowercase ) an ideal place or state.
            2 ( usually lowercase ) any visionary system of political or social perfection.

Dystopia - noun, a society characterised by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

I can't help noticing the influx on the YA (young adult) reading scene of the 'dystopian novel'. It seemed to catch fire (see what I did there?) with The Hunger Games and has continued with the Divergent series. Both sagas have been made into films.

There are so many of these novels on the shelves now. Uglies, Matched, Gone, I'm sure you could name dozens. 

Of course dystopian novels are nothing new. There was 1984 and Brave New world. The brilliant Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep (filmed as Blade Runner) and Fahrenheit 451.

But lately two things have struck me. The first is that they are very firnly aimed at young adults rather than adults and the second that they seem to also be aimed at girls. Female leads and heroines have been popular for a long time, Mina Harker in Dracula, Julia in 1984 to name a couple. But suddenly it seems the female lead is back with rather a bang!

Suddenly the 'feisty' (I hate that word!) female is the norm, the woman that notices the rot in the supposed utopia, revealing the horror beneath. The young girl  that dares to kick out against the society that controls everyone including her.


Is this only a blip? Or are our authors (male and female) seeing the important role the female lead can have in society?


Or maybe, they just realise that it's still the girls that do the most reading...


What do you think?


(and are there any great Dystopian Novels I've missed, with excellent female leads?)

 

Offensive

I have a mixture of feelings today. I'm not really in the mood to blog because of it but I am anyway because it's my blog and you can't stop me. My mood today is a mixture between sad, annoyed, and apathetic. is there a word for that? Sadanthetic? Whatever.

Image Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Everything I thought about ranting about today made me think 'someone will be offended and then they will kick off a rant and a hideous flame war will start and most of what I rant about I don't really care that much about anyway so why offend people, and who decides whose opinions are right? 

Who decides if a joke is 'OK'? is it funny? is it offensive? 

Oh it's obvious you all cry offensive is easy, a pregnant nun fancy dress costume is offensive, a picture of a dog smoking a cigarette is offensive, a dead animal is offensive.

 And then others say "oh no it's not, the nun thing is pretty funny actually" and they make up a joke about beagles and nicotine patches ... and comedians tell us nothing is beyond humour, we should be able to laugh at anything, nothing should be truly 'offensive' it's just words and you can choose how to react see I'm rambling, are you offended?

Offended that I'm not offended by what you are offended by? Or offended that I am offended by something you deem funny? Once I wrote a post about being offended by breastfeeding in public. Maybe jokes are like that? it's ok to be offended but you have to uphold the right of others to make an offensive joke? What do you think? 

"free speech has long been recognised as a common law right in Britain, it also has a statutory basis in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the "Convention"), which has been incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998."

Find Law UK

Do we need a silence?

Every year, once a year, we have silence, quiet, hush.
We say it is to remember the dead, the lost, the harmed.
Some say it glorifies war, horror, pain.
Some say it is boring, useless, unimportant.

Today the sky is filled with clouds, rain, tears
and again we will stand, sit, wait
for the two minutes, the 120 seconds, the pause;
and find a gap in our busy lives, our work, our family
a time we can remember, think, consider

but will we?

In a short 2 minutes what will you do?

Too angry and upset to type much

This story about how a women would not be able to look after her own baby made me so sad and so angry I don't even know where to begin. (social workers can now predict the future based on no evidence at all it seems?)

but I had hoped that when the baby was born all would be well, she'd be given support and the family would prove doubters wrong. Seems I'm too optimistic, she didn't even have a chance, due to MILD learning difficulties Kerry Robertson has had her baby taken away at a few days old (when she was trying to breastfeed exclusively as is recommended by WHO) and now can only see him every other day.

You can read more for yourself here. But if you are a parent (or even a teeny bit caring) I suggest you have tissues to hand and maybe a stress ball or punchbag!

Even if this does get sorted out and baby Ben is returned to his parents, he has missed out on vital feeding days, and his family have been traumatised and will be affected for life. I am ashamed, ashamed that this can happen in a country that claims to care about people. I am praying for her and her family because right now I don't know how else to help. (suggestions welcomed)

The couple have been allowed to see their son for two hours every other day.

Miss Robertson said: ‘Holding him made me upset all over again. I’ve told the social workers I don’t want him to have bottled milk or a dummy. I feel breastfeeding is so important and at least then he is still having some of me.’

If this had happened abroad say in India we'd all be saying, "oh but that's because they are not like us, not caring, not a state with money to help" etc etc

and oddly India does indeed seem different to us just look here

“Initially, we were concerned about the way the mother would react. But surprisingly, she is taking good care of her child. She has become very active, lively, mature and cheerful. Earlier, she used to be a depressed and quiet person,” Ratnam said. “Also, she very well realises the fact that Pari is her child. The name Pari was suggested by her only. She is very attached to her.”

A great debate on the rights of the FATHER in this case here