I am not surprised that it's been suggested single people wear a wristband. I am surprised it has taken so long. I suppose people figured we'd identify each other by the wild, searching look in our eyes. 

Of course the slant on this press release has been negative. Because in spite of mysingleworld.com insisting that "identifiable singles are more attractive" your first thought is 'no self respecting single person is going to want to advertise the fact they are single' (only in typing that sentence out did I realise the nonsensicalness of that) and the, not whiff, but jangling of desperation via accessories is not attractive. I'm not much of a wristband person anyway.

On Monday we maintained our silence about the Sunday Twitter silence. We did not take part in the Twitter silence and our reasons were best summed up by Bonnie Greer's tweet regarding the importance of never being silent: "Occupy this space. For those who can't. For yourself. Speak truth to Power wherever you find it. Be raucous. Enjoy. #nosilence #Voltaire."

Silence is a rubbish weapon. In real life the silent treatment usually causes you to end up in the wrong because eurgh, it's just annoying. But also it implies your argument might not be very good. Online it smacks of what is called 'flouncing'. The notion of a dignified silence is, on the whole, bollocks.

Recently, I've been having extended dialogue with dedicated feminists. Or rather, I've been having lengthy coffees with women who considered themselves career feminists before they had an accident with their Pill. They were going to change the world; we chained ourselves to courthouses together while at university to protest the horrendous violence perpetrated against women in South Africa (where we went to university). And then they found themselves pregnant, and away from the great academic role models we used to grill about the meaning of life.

It's not that their pregnancies were the result of violent assault; most were the result of a loving, long-term relationship. It's not that they don't love their kids. But the feminist theory we devoured as students never mentioned motherhood, certainly not in a positive light. Come to think of it, they never mentioned marriage without scorn and derision either, despite the health benefits associated with the institution.

Yesterday due to scheduling (yes we have a schedule, what?) and general fatigue from Thatcher coverage, we didn't write about the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. However yesterday in amongst the coverage of Thatcher's death, her funeral, her legacy was the news that teen czar, or Youth Police and Crime Commissioner, Paris Brown had stepped down from her czaring.

It was always going to be a tough job. Defending giving a teenager a 15,000 salary to generally teen about and update the police on teen stuff. Any job with czar in the title is traditionally difficult to defend or define. Unless you're heading up Russia in a past century.

Words are important. That goes (ironically) without saying, surely? The labels that we put on things and the ways in which we discuss them affect our views of them. Discussions of language are not uncommon in feminism - part of wanting to change things is thinking about how current power structures are created by and propped up by the ways we talk about them.

When I was at primary school, we talked about firemen, policemen, postmen. Now the general terms for these jobs are firefighter, police officer, postie. At work our meetings have a chair, not a chairman. Yes, these are small things, but they remove a linguistic signal that says these jobs are only for men to do, or that male is the default, female an afterthought, an add-on. A lot of language is male-dominated, because for so long men were seen as the default. Changing that helps us to realise it's no longer the case. Or rather, it shouldn't be.

Whether we are worrying about their exam grades, looking for people the blame over their visible fertility (it's not boys apparently) or counting down the days until they are legal (it's what we defend press freedom for) teenage girls, or young women are a great concern of the media.

It's easy to see why. They've turned jumping up and down waving a sheet of paper with exam results on into an art. They continue to cope so well and, frankly, bravely with the inevitable over plucked eyebrows episode. They have proudly upheld the tradition of using plum or red hint-of-a-tint hair dye (though I fear the hardcore days of 'my mate done it with Toilet Duck, the burning's nearly stopped now' are over) come year 9. With a mere sneer – which they can now do in person, online or via Blackberry messaging – they can bring down entire nations/celebrities/fashion trends.

One of the things we talk a lot about here at Squeamish – both in our writing and when we're in the pub, sorry, editorial meetings – is what feminism means to us now and what it has meant. How we've evolved, changed, what we've learned.

I've called myself a feminist pretty much as long as I can remember – it was certainly one of the labels I applied to myself by the time I started secondary school at 11, and was a central part of my identity as a teen. My A-level English teacher (probably, I realise now, as much out of boredom as anything) would even make slightly provocative statements about gender and then look at me, knowing I would always take the bait and argue back.

So it's not surprising that, while I've continued to call myself a feminist, some of my views have changed. And those that have changed the most are connected to sex work.

A while ago, after much unexpected publicity and celebrity endorsement from Jennifer Saunders, Lauren Laverne and Graham Lineham among others, the campaign urging Dominic Mohan and Rupert Murdoch to Take the Bare Boobs Out of The Sun seems to be reaching a conclusion.

Tweeting as @Kazipooh, No More Page 3 supporter Karen Mason sent an @ message to Rupert Murdoch. “Seriously, we are all so over page 3 – it is so last century! #nomorepage3.” To which Murdoch tweeted back: “You maybe [sic] right, don't know but considering. Perhaps halfway house with glamorous fashionistas.”

Would this be a halfway house, a compromise? Were the people campaigning to be literal then yes, it would be. Their aim is to get bare boobs out of The Sun and I suspect glamorous fashionistas would not have their bosom entirely exposed.

Last week I spent some time talking about the more obvious forms of heroism, but don’t think that I’m going to stop there. I think this myth and obsession with being heroes, with being the stars of our own little novel, is seriously fucked up.

This week I’m drifting a little closer to home and going to talk about activists and privilege. This is, hopefully, going to be harder to read then my initial rant against the military and the oppressions of capitalism, I’m pretty sure that you’ve heard that argument before.

Now it’s your turn. And my turn, incidentally, because I am as guilty of this as anyone else, and it is fucking damaging to both me and the work that I might be trying to do.

“A hero would die for his country, but he'd much rather live for it”  President Bartlett, West Wing S2 ep1 ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ 2001 

“Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain”  Japanese proverb used in The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan 

Our definition of heroism is fucked up. Putting yourself in immediate physical danger is hard. I get that. And I am not indifferent to the fact that there are times when we might be required to fight for the things we value; for our families, our friends, and our freedoms. Or even for other people; defending one another even if doing so put ourselves in danger. These things are occasionally necessary. 

But to only value that? To lionise and praise that as the pinnacle of what we might hope to achieve?