'Selfish' time?!

Radox can sod off, of course.

I quite like - and believe in - the idea of reading as a selfish, primal pleasure. The written word is quite probably the most pleasurable thing I know. It's why things like Reading Journals and the like make my blood run cold - I want my daughters to be reading for selfish, shiveringly pleasurable enjoyment, not as a joyless Literacy Exercise.

She can be very funny HerBea - I disagree with at least 50% of what she says, but her collected articles book was like my feminist primer as a teenager.

Reading is also selfish according to an email that I have just received from MNHQ about November book club:

'IT'S TIME TO BE SELFISH
Did you know a little bit of concentrating on yourself (for a change) can be good for you? Radox is sponsoring the Mumsnet book club, so put the kettle on and settle down for an hour of selfish reading time.'

I think I should stop selfishly reading MN and definately never again read a book in front of my children. I am so grateful for Radox and MN for highlighting how I damage my children with my selfishness.

I liked "...nail technicians are part of a global patriarchal plot to render women powerless"

She can be very funny at times

Julie Burchill wrote a really good article a while ago about "pampering" - luckily she always writes the same articles in rotation and this popped into her mind again in 2008 here.

This seemed particularly apt:

" It's a weasel word that, while pretending to celebrate women, in fact expresses disdain and distaste for them, implying their bodies are so revolting that even their so-called Me Time must be dedicated to beautification if suitors are to be prevented from running for the hills. The promise of "pampering" implies that a caravan of elephants painted pink and carrying fine sherbets and shimmering amethysts is wending its way towards you, when it really means, "Have a wash, love! Get that fur off your minge! Ew, what man would ever have sex with you?!""

LOLOL the advert on my screen now says 'Try our new lunch menu at Brown's with a complimentary glass of wine.' That's more like it MN Towers

Oh lord I so agree.

The whole culture of "me-time" and "pampering" and all that crap gives me the heebie-jeebies. And as for a bath being "selfish time" - - how incredibly patronising.

having a bath is selfish apparently.
bloody ridiculous.

it's like that whole 'pampering' concept where women have been convinced that there's nothing they like better than being exfoliated etc. When I was at uni one of my flatmates was getting married and went off to a salon to be 'pampered', as she called it, a few days before the wedding. It turned out she was getting her bikini line waxed! I mean, on what planet is that pleasurable?

the free books are, unsurprisingly, mostly crappy chick lit, natch