I’m writing this on International Women’s Day, and I’m thinking about my grandmother. Born in 1902 to a homemaker and farm manager, she was a young woman at a time when women’s roles were rapidly changing in post-WWI Britain. She graduated with a PhD in botany from the University of Liverpool in 1925 and took a position at the University of Durham that year.

            My grandmother was an academic and she was also a grass hockey player. All of her academic achievements are well-documented, but about her life as an athlete, I know almost nothing. I do know that women in the 1920s were taking the field of sport by storm, and that 28 women from Great Britain participated in the 1924 Olympics in Paris, bringing home 8 medals. Gertrude Erle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926, beating the men’s record in the process. Did my grandmother cheer when she read the news?

            I know nothing about my grandparents’ courtship, but my grandfather was also an athlete scholar. He graduated with a first-class degree in classics from Cambridge and played rugby for England in the early 1920s, going on to become captain of the Rugby Club. For my grandfather, intellectual and athletic idealism was rooted in his historical moment—the rebirth of the Olympic movement, the celebration of classical traditions of masculinity, and new regimes of health and physical exercise all contributed to his success. 

            What I want to know is: were my grandparents attracted to each other as athletes or scholars? Of course, this question suggests a false distinction—both of them were a mix of both. But what I mean is: did they talk about sport on their first dates? Or did they talk about the careers they aspired to as scholars? What drew them to each other? I doubt they went for runs together before hitting the books, but I like to think they found some way to speak to each other’s passions, both athletic and intellectual.

            All of this is idle dreaming, on my part. My grandfather suffered with mental illness throughout his adult life, perhaps as a result of his time in the trenches in WWI. He never was able to follow in the footsteps of his father, a famous classics scholar, despite his early promise. My grandmother found herself a single mother during WWII, temporarily when my grandfather was posted to Egypt, and then permanently, when he divorced her at the war’s end. She went on to achieve success as an academic, despite the obstacles placed in front of university women. But it must have been hard, for my gran, to be a professor and a single mother of three at a time when divorce was rare and conservative domesticity was on the rise. Did she ever dream of her grass hockey days and the promise of the 1920s, in those challenging years?

Today, I honour my gran and the rugby player she loved when running up and down a field meant so much to both of them, in the days before the world went to hell in a handbasket, again.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-10212 / Unknown / CC-BY-SA 3.0

I’ve already thanked my new knees for all the work they’re doing here in New Zealand. As I organize my efforts, I think of all the climbing we’ve done here. A lot of the walking here is getting to the top of very high things for the view. I love it and am so happy I can do it again. The views are pretty spectacular.

Here’s our three big climbs, from lowest to tallest:

⛰ ️Baldwin Street

It’s the worlds steepest street and it’s here in Dunedin.  Sarah and I walked up it with Jo and Greg, family visiting from Australia.  Here we all are!

⛰ ️St Clair cliffs

It was an after dinner walk to end all after dinner walks. Sarah and I walked up  to St.  Clair Heights and beyond, via Jacobs Ladder which is 285 steps. The whole walk was 12K steps and Garmin says the equivalent of 43 flights of stairs.  Beautiful views!

⛰ Leith Saddle

Our last climb, Leith Saddle, was also the biggest.  Wow.  My Garmin watch says the equivalent of 86 flights of stairs through the “cloud forest” to the top. Again,  fabulous views of the city,  the harbor,  Blue Skin Bay and beyond. I was so happy I could do it with my new knees!

“A well surfaced track climbs, steeply at first, through thick, native cloud forest. The gradient eases before coming out onto open tussock on Swampy Spur. From here the track climbs to a trig for panoramic views of the city and beyond. After that the track is rougher – more typical of a tramping track – and it’s another steady climb to the vehicle track that traverses Swampy Summit.”

Two think pieces about the return of thin as a body ideal for women are in the media this week and I thought I’d share them with you.

Of course,  thin has never been out,  but the writers feel this is different.  I do too. The new aspirational bodies aren’t just thin,  they’re competitively thin.  They’re definitely not muscular.  They’re the kind of bodies that I think look frail.

Kate Manne asks,  over on her Substack More to Hate,  why women’s bodies are shrinking again.

She writes,  “It’s also fair to feel worried. Thin is more in than ever now for another reason too: the rise of authoritarianism, and the way women can signal their deference to the powers-that-be by conforming to a certain ideal of conventional femininity. The ideal woman today is very thin, white, highly feminine, and projects a certain frailty without actually being ill or disabled. She is Melania Trump; she is Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farms; she is a tradwife. She is a woman who the men in power will happily date and marry, partly because her appearance telegraphs wealth and health and effort. And her frail body suggests someone in need of a strong man’s protection.”

I’m not sure if it’s a “subscribers only” post or not but you can read more of it on her Instagram here,

https://www.instagram.com/p/DGvbFPJuBJE/?igsh=ZWs4NGJ2amh3bDhi

Lisa Armstrong’s piece is here.

What do you think?