Monthly Archives: December 2017

Open your mind, there are worlds out there just waiting to be discovered

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One of the misconceptions of opting out is that it is forever. Like any career transition, the work solutions we opt in to are anchored in time and space. What feels like the right solution depends on where you are and the challenges you’re dealing with at that particular time.

Opting out and in comes with a lot of soul searching. When you go through a life change you invariably spend time thinking about what’s important to you and where you want to go in life, which is a good thing. More people should. However, this is also a continuous process, because just like your career or lifestyle solutions, it is also tied to time and space. So you have to go back and keep reminding yourself what your terms are and check that they are still valid. I think once you’ve started a habit of of self-reflection, you don’t stop. And if you’ve been through something that pushed you to make a lifestyle change, you want to make sure that you don’t end up in that same situation again.

This is true for me. I think a lot about what I want to do, where I want to go from here. What was the perfect solution for me a few years ago as I opted out and in might not be anymore, but that doesn’t worry me. I know that situations change and needs change and that is fine. As a matter of fact, change is probably the only constant we have, and in a way I find that comforting. I find comfort in the knowledge that things will inevitably evolve, not matter what the situation.

But as I reflect over my choices, and the lifestyle changes I made as I opted in to academia, there is one thing in particular that I am especially grateful for. Working on a PhD really opened my mind. And I’m not talking about the actual research now, although obviously that opened my mind too. I’m talking about the insight I got into the fact that there really are different ways of living and working, there is no one right way to make a living.

Let me explain. Before I opted out, all I knew was what I had experienced. I had always worked in an organizational setting, and I didn’t really know of any other way of making a living. I sometimes longed to but I couldn’t imagine it. That’s why opting out can be so scary, because it means taking a step into the unknown. But after I did, I started to realize just how many people there are out there who work completely differently with different routines and different ideals, and that it can be done, that I can do it too.

And I think it is thanks to this insight that I have actually realized yet another dream.

I have always loved to paint and one of my passions has been silk painting. I’ve been doing it on and off for years, and took it up more actively after I finished my PhD (all of a sudden I wasn’t finalizing a thesis every waking moment and had free time to fill). I always had this, what I thought was a frivolous and completely unrealistic, dream of being an artist but I never really thought it was something that could happen, because I just didn’t know how to. I couldn’t imagine the lifestyle. Well something magical happened a few months ago. I was asked if I was willing to sell some of my silk paintings, and I was absolutely thrilled and definitely willing. The thought of my paintings adorning someone’s wall instead of gathering dust in my study felt great. And that someone wanted to buy something I had created without the help of publishers and copyeditors etc., was simply amazing.

This inspired me to start painting more and to start an Instagram account for my silk painting (with the help of and a small push from my wonderful daughter). I’m not going to quit my day job or anything, but I guess I can sort of say that I’m an artist now too. At least I’m a ‘silk painter of Instagram’. And I honestly think I never would have done this had I not been open to different ideas of what constitutes work.

So my wish for you this holiday season is open your minds. Realize that there are worlds out there that stretch beyond your imagination, and if you just dare to venture out there they are waiting to be discovered. Just because you can’t imagine them yet, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Happy Holidays! I’ll be back in the New Year with new blog posts.

Oh, and if you’re curious, you’ll find my Instagram account under @ingrids_silk_painting.

I’ll wear whatever the hell I want

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I thought we weren’t doing that anymore; telling women over a certain age what they can and cannot wear. I thought we had already stipulated that people can and should wear whatever they please. But apparently I was wrong.

Last week I didn’t see just one but two posts (suggested to me by Facebook’s generous and thoughtful algorithms – I think someone thinks I’m getting old…) in my Facebook newsfeed on fashion mistakes women must avoid as they age. One was for women over the age of fifty and the other I don’t remember exactly but it was for women older than that. According to these posts’ expert advice, the fashion mistakes you might make will either make you look old or frumpy or both. But at the same time you must look your age and avoid garments made for much younger women, because that will just make you look ridiculous.

This isn’t the first time I see advice like this. Last time I got fashion advice in my newsfeed it was things women over 30 should wear, and I’ve also seen fashion warnings for women over 40. At the time, it was followed by an outpouring of articles, columns, and blog posts protesting this preposterous advice, assuring anyone who cared that not only should women wear “whatever the f*** they want”, they also do. Countless pictures of fabulous old ladies breaking so-called fashion rules and wearing whatever they wanted were shared on social media, and I somehow naïvely thought that was the end of that. We had proven that advice on what you can or cannot wear is not just uninteresting and from an era long past, it is also simply not wanted. But apparently I was wrong.

The thing is – and I can’t believe that I have to spell this out – everyone is different. People look different and different things are flattering on different people. But not everyone even cares about that. For some people other things go before fashion, like comfort or practicality, and besides, what is flattering and fashionable is a very subjective thing, as well as varying, depending on time and place. But either way, when people wear what makes them comfortable and what they like, it makes them feel good about themselves and confident in their skin. That is much more becoming that wearing something you don’t like and ending up spending all day feeling uncomfortable and inadequate just because it falls into the category must wear for someone your age.

And consider this, do you ever see intricate lists for men of what not to wear after certain ages?

Enough said. Stop with the ageist fashion dos and don’ts already. Besides, I’m going to wear whatever the hell I want.

The shocking truth

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I’ve experienced something important lately; something I am convinced will finally make a difference.

I belong to a minority; I am a Swedish speaking Finn. That means I am a Finnish citizen, but my mother tongue is Swedish. Of a total population of about 5.5 million Finns, there are about 300 000 people with Swedish as their native language. That is about 6%.

A couple of weeks ago five women from this minority started something big. They felt frustrated by the silence in our community after the #metoo campaign. Although countless women had participated in #metoo and shared experiences of sexual harassment and assault on social media, it didn’t really lead anywhere in our community. It kind of died out and these five women decided something had to be done. In such a small community, where a lot of people know or know of each other, it’s hard to speak out. So they decided to start a private Facebook group and invite as many women as possible to share their experiences of sexual assault and harassment within this Swedish speaking community.

I was added to the group quite early on and just within a couple of days the group grew to over 20 000 members from around the country. That is about 13% of all Swedish-speaking women (and girls) in Finland. Let that sink in for a second, 13% of the women felt this was so important they wanted to be involved. That’s a lot.

People started sharing their stories, many of which they had never breathed a word of to anyone before. For seven days my news feed was filled with almost nothing but these women’s accounts of sexual harassment and assault. It was heart warming to see how members of the group showed nothing but love and support for each other as they shared unspeakable memories and experiences for the first time. But it was also shocking and gut wrenching to read. During seven days over 800 stories were shared and so many of them were horrifying and violent accounts of sexual assault.

During this week it was difficult to even think about anything else. My head was filled with stories of little girls and women of all ages being violently raped, sometimes by complete strangers, but more often than not, by men they knew: relatives, colleagues, so-called friends… I felt sick to my stomach and my heart ached for them. I cried with them and for them when I read about the fear, the pain, and the shame, and although it was incredibly difficult to read, I couldn’t stop. I felt I needed to bear witness to what they had been through out of respect for them. We all need to. We need to acknowledge what they have gone through. We need to understand what goes on in our community and we need to make it stop.

One thing became painfully clear though. It was the fact that whether or not you become the victim of assault really just boils down to luck. Although I have had my share of sexual harassment and been in some deeply disturbing and sometimes scary situations, I have been incredibly lucky because I have never been assaulted the way many of these women and girls had. I realized when reading these stories, that I have been in so many similar situations, but luckily no one ever harmed me the way they had been harmed. What cannot be stressed enough, is that these women and girls did nothing wrong. More often than not it happened in a place they thought they were safe with a person they thought they could trust. The truth is that nothing they did – or could possibly have done – warranted the assault. The only thing that could have stopped it from happening was the assailant himself. The only thing that can stop a rape is if the rapist decides not to rape.

These stories of sexual assault still echo in my mind. Like the story of the woman who was assaulted by a man while his friends cheered him on. Or the countless little girls who were molested by grown-ups they knew and trusted. Or stories of hands and fingers painfully stuffed into underwear and inside bodies completely without warning by strange men. Or the young woman who was pinned down and violently raped by a guy she thought was her friend. Or the woman who woke up with blood all over her bottom…

Gruesome as it is, it’s important that you hear this because if you don’t, you can never appreciate what exactly it is we are dealing with, what it is that so many women go through, and the fear that is a reality for such a large part of the population.

Now imagine that you actually know the people who shared these stories. As I mentioned before, the Swedish speaking community in Finland is quite small, and many of the stories shared were by friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. When it turns out someone you know has gone through something like that, it just makes it so incredibly real.

So look around you. Look at the women and girls in your vicinity. Chances are some of them carry the burden of violent assault, which they are too ashamed to speak about, because this phenomenon is by no means just a Swedish-speaking thing. This is global. Chances are they have never told anyone because they might fear that they won’t be believed or that they will be stigmatized or lose their job. So look around you. How many of the women and girls you know might have experienced such unspeakable things?

Well, after seven days of sharing, empathizing and crying over each other’s pain, many of us – over 6000, more than 4% of all Swedish speaking females – signed a petition and the campaign was made public. Many of the stories have been anonymized and published here: http://www.astra.fi/dammenbrister/

It’s gruesome reading but go and read them anyway if you can (they are in Swedish). These women’s experiences need to be acknowledged and understood. Only if all of us – men and women – really understand what is going on, and the extent to which it is going on, will we manage to create change. Because that is one thing that is for sure, it can simply not go on this way. It has to stop.

#metoo #dammenbrister