'Selfish' time?!

[AliceWorld]

Does anyone else have a radox advert appearing on here something to do with claiming a book so you can have some 'selfish' time?

Seriously?! We're being told here that having some time to yourself is selfish? I can't imagine what else they are suggesting we should be doing rather than 'selfishly' reading a book

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

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?

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.

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

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?!""

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

She can be very funny at times

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.

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.

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.

Radox can sod off, of course.

MI, yes: I like the idea of reading as hungry and primal and pleasurable. But none of that needs to imply selfish. Can't think why they chose that word, except for the obvious reason that they were embarrassed by the cliche of 'Me time' and couldn't be bothered to think hard enough to find a better alternative to replace it.

So the word 'selfish' is going the way of the word 'naughty' then? Cake is 'naughty', reading is 'selfish'. Good Lord.

Hmmm, without giving any credibility whatsoever to this wretched Radox wossname (and which book/s, pray, are on offer? I bet it's nothing too stretching for our pretty little brains) I think most mothers aren't selfish enough, frankly. We are expected to be selfless Pelicans, reiterating those tired cliches of how we haven't oh dear finished a book since little Archie was born six years ago.

I am a pretty terrible mother but I have at least managed quite a few books during my time in the parental slammer.

But it isn't selfish to do stuff you want to do, any more than it is naughty to eat a cake. All that the word selfish does is add the idea that you ought to feel guilty about doing it.

And god knows, it would take something a bloody lot nicer and more expensive than Radox to make me feel guilty about reading a book in the bath.

Reading while eating cake, now, that is quite toe-curlingly blissful.

...especially in the bath.

But guilty in a nice way though perhaps? And I use the word nice in full knowledge of its blandness. A frisson of guilt, rather than breast beating? Tame.

And now I am torn because I would like to talk about selfishness without guilt, except that ends up justifying all sorts of horrid things and voting Tory .

I think it is the required selflessness that is expected of Good Mothers that needs to be repudiated. Good Mothers don't finish a book because they don't have time. (They do, however, finish book after book with their children.) They have No Time For Themselves. If they do, this is Suspect.

I don't like reading in the bath. I do like reading in bed, though. For hours.

But I see selfishness and selflessness as opposite ends of a dimension really. Both are too extreme to be really desirable. I think if we downplay 'selfish' to mean stealing an hour with a book, then we are changing its meaning. I do agree about the selfless thing though. MN appears to be riddled with it ATM.

How many ways are there to define women as selfish?

Women are selfish if they go out to work (neglecting their children) and selfish if they stay at home (neglecting their financial responsibilities). They are selfish for going out with their friends (neglecting their children and their financial responsibilities). They are selfish in bed (wanting the occasional orgasm). Now, I find, they are selfish for reading a book.

Fortunately I've never ever bought any product by Radox. Because in a world where I find I cannot avoid being selfish, that appears to be my one act of selflessness, no?