Determinism

I'm not a huge fan of determinism. I like to think that people can achieve whatever they decide to despite their name, sex, social background or where they come from.  Determinism is, however, a really attractive narrative and in a world that is increasingly subject to words (through social media) the story is often more important than the truth. 

We believe that girls like pink and can't enjoy science, boys are tough, the poor will never be good at school, Northerners like flat caps and whippets, and Batman will save Gotham City. 

It's rubbish though. Batman didn't save Gotham City. Everyone thought she would. She believed in the narrative that the poor in London were doomed to failure within the school system and persuaded governments to give her lots of money. Even though I know her charity did good things I can't help wondering how far that £3 million would have gone in a Social Services department.

I have really enjoyed Radio 4's broadcast of Helen Scales' book Spirals in Time and although I was initially excited by the nominative determinism of a person called Scales being a Marine Biologist she could have had any name and it would have been just as brilliant.

And while we're on the subject the only thing your sex defines is which body parts you have and whether you can carry a baby in your body. My friend tried to buy a pink birthday balloon yesterday for her son and had to have a very strange conversation with the Sales Assistant, who clearly thought she was a very bad mother. I'm going to stop writing now before I have to change my name to Mrs Rant.