Simon Harris – Man Behaving Dadly

I have got two other blog posts in my drafts folder, and both start with myself stating that I do not blame Simon Harris for taking £500k of taxpayers money for the ‘work’ he did for Essex County Council. He was absolutely overpaid, there is no situation where anyone could say that £500k was the correct price for what he did, that would be absurd.

I would see some of his tweets on twitter, and i’d seen some of his facebook posts in the past. I don’t disagree with his politics, and I genuinely though he was a good guy. His gofundme campaigns raised lots of money for good causes, he ticked all my boxes for me to come to the conclusion he was good people. Turns out I was wrong.

I did some research into some of the things that this so called ‘internet prankster’ has done, and I was sickened.

I found a news article, in the Daily Mail no less, in which Simon Harris had done a satirical take on women who get hassled for breastfeeding in public places. He made out that when he’s bottle feeding his son that everyone is looking at his bulging biceps. He basically put himself in place of a woman who is shamed for breastfeeding in public.

News article is here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6859643/amp/Fathers-hits-trolls-target-breastfeeding-mothers-writing-satirical-post.html

I breastfed all of my children, i’d only stop halfway through the next pregnancy when baby stopped of their own accord. My youngest was breastfed for almost 4 years, it’s not that easy to get them to stop. I have breastfed in every situation imaginable, including sitting next to a friend while they were receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer.

That said, thank god we finally have a man talking about this, because those of us with actual breasts are too stupid and fragile to stand up for ourselves. We can’t handle these things ourselves due to our brains being filled with pretty things and nonsense. We need men to tell the world about things that only us women can do.

It is never okay for men to talk about breastfeeding in a sexual way, even if they are being satirical, it’s absolutely disgusting, and when I read that, it made me feel icky and gross. Breastfeeding is a lot of things, but it is never sexual, absolutely never, and no man should ever refer to it as sexual, even satirically.

It also gives a false impression of how often a woman is likely to to be called out for breastfeeding in a public place. I have done it hundreds of times and i’ve never had an issue, not once. Most places, and people, are only too happy for breastfeeding mothers to breastfeed whenever and wherever they want.

When women are targeted it does need to be publicised, but so does the law regarding breastfeeding in public, to let women know that they can breastfeed in public and if anyone says they can’t, the law will back up the breastfeeding mother. His stupid stunt did nothing, except make women feel uncomfortable at him turning it all into a sexual thing..

Next up we have Simon Harris mansplaining how breasts work. He did a fundraiser to raise money for formula milk. I understand that there is some talk about if all the funds ended up going where they should, but I know nothing about that and will leave that to others to discuss. Here is what he said in an article about it:

Knockers? Seriously? once again he’s all about making breastfeeding into a sexual thing, If you have no knowledge of how breasts work, then sit down. You can actually start making milk again, you can even make milk if you have never been pregnant. It’s not easy, but biologically possible.

Then going in with the whole women who can’t breastfeed thing, some women can’t breastfeed for whatever reason. He did however forget to mention those women who choose not to breastfeed for reasons that are nobody elses business. It’s clearly shocking to Simon Harris but some women just don’t want to breastfeed.

Women who have given birth know all of this, Simon Harris just wades in and mansplains to us, which is nice.

I’m not knocking the money he raised, but why does he feel he need to mansplain something which really needs a woman’s input?

During my research it became clear that Simon Harris only raises money to enhance his social media presence and to get more influencer points in his role as an influencer. He had a huge platform on Twitter, why didn’t he use that for the obvious? Breastfeeding is free, I fed my babies for free, why do those who formula feed have to pay an extortionate amount of money to feed their babies? My opinion is that formula should be free. That would help so many families. At no point during the time I was breastfeeding did the fact that it was free come into my decision making. I was just lucky that I was in a position to breastfeed, and that I was able to do so.

Women have an ingrained reaction to men who give us the ick, it is something we can’t control, it’s just a primal response. Without getting too explicit, it’s as if our sexual organs and reproductive organs try and shrivel themselves up and make themselves as small as possible. It’s an inbuilt mechanism against misogynists. What I read in the two articles i’ve mentioned triggered that response. My cervix has crawled so far up inside my body that my next smear test will be interesting.

Did someone say smear test? Oh yes, that was me.

In May I will once again “use my head and spread”. I will be laying on a bed with my legs wide open, my left foot as far left as I can get it, and my right foot as far right as I can get it. This will be shortly after the doctor has instructed me to spread my legs like that because that is how smear tests are done said no woman ever.

My sexual organs have now shrivelled themselves up so much that they may never work again at this.

Simon Harris got paid £3,000 for coming up with that tag line for a Cervical Smear Campaign. What kind of piece of crap misogynist comes up with that for a woman’s health campaign? Making a simple cervical smear into something sexual.

I can guarantee that some women didn’t attend their smear tests because they saw that. Even some who have had them before, it makes me feel just thinking about that strap line. It is one of the most disgusting things i’ve ever read about. As a sexual abuse survivor it is absolutely horrendous to see that, especially given as it was from the Local Authority.

How did that ever get through? Is Essex County Council just full of misogynist men who think that every single part of a woman is just there for sex? It is absolutely vile.

Essex County Council are currently investigating all of these social media payments. Why aren’t they investigating why half the residents of Essex were told by Essex County Council that we should “Use our head and spread”? Oh wait, this only concerns women, we aren’t important.

Where is our chance for an apology for that? words can harm and that ECC used that phrase is harmful, insulting, and just plain wrong. Women could die because they now refuse to have smear tests after seeing that phrase come from the local authority. In the past 2 years i’ve had 2 smear tests, a colposcopy, a LLETZ, a cone knife biopsy of my cervix under general anaesthetic. Then I had a diagnosis of cervical adenocarcinoma stage 1B!. I then underwent an MRI and a CAT Scan to see iif the cancer had spread. I then got booked in for a hysterectomy. I then had to have a vaginal examination to see if enough of my cervix was left from the biopsy that I wouldn’t need an abdominal hysterectomy. I then had all the worry about who would look after my three autistic children. My Macmillan nurse told me to contact Essex County Council social care as they would be able to give me help as a carer. I had to explain that I was already in contact with them and had told them about the cancer and that I was going to have a hysterectomy and they just weren’t interested. Given that most carers are women, it stands to reason given their disregard for women that they don’t care if, like myself, carers are suicidal due to their caring responsibilities, they still don’t get any help.

After all of that I then got a phone call saying that there had been a bit of an oops. The sample taken from my cervix from the biopsy had been read wrong, they double check all samples and the oops had been picked up.. I was then told a hysterectomy was still advised. I’d had Cervical glandular intraepithelial neoplasia (CGIN), which lives further up the cervix and isn’t usually picked up by a smear. I was lucky that I had also had CIN, so needed a colposcopy, and the CGIN was picked up on that. I would have preferred to have a hysterectomy as i’m scared I could still end up getting cancer, and worried that they may not have gotten all of the CGIN, i’m just scared. I couldn’t though, because of my caring responsibilities and that carers in Essex are treated so poorly. Hence why i’ve got a smear test booked in May at the hospital.

Despite all of that, the amount of times i’ve had procedures done on my cervix, I now have “use your head and spread” in my head whenever I think of my upcoming smear test. It makes me feel dirty, it makes me feel that my upcoming appointment is something sexual.

I am also feeling rather sick about Simon Harris finding this and reading this and getting off on all the detailed descriptions of female reproductive anatomy. Who knows what the creator of “use your head and spread” finds sexually titillating. It’s never occurred to me that a man would find anything sexual with regards to woman’s health, but clearly I was absolutely wrong.

There will be no apology from Simon Harris, given his recent posts on Facebook he clearly does not care about what has happened, so he will not care that he has caused distress to a number of sexual abuse survivors, and countless other women who now view Simon Harris as a misogynist.

There will be no apology from ECC, they are focusing on trying to make themselves look as good as possible over the payment fiasco,. They care so little about women that they asked a man to create a women’s health campaign, and then failed to see how harmful that could be. Essex County Council will never ever acknowledge they have done anything wrong.

While we are on the subject of women type things, a shout out to all of my fellow women who are of childbearing age, on behalf of the local authority, i’d like to invite you all to LOVE YOUR PERIOD!! Simon Harris, to my knowledge, wasn’t involved in this one, but it’s along the same lines of what the LA shouldn’t say to women.

https://www.loveessex.org/news-and-ideas/love-your-period/

I’ve never had any problems with my periods, a bit of cramping occasionally, bleeding is just annoying but I can still go about my business without the risk of flooding. I have it easy, and I can feel the hate from plenty of women who read this for that.

Do I love my period? No, no I do not, it’s something I tolerate because I have no choice. I’ve hated it at times, nothing like having a positive pregnancy test and then bleeding a few days afterwards. I definitely did not love my period then.

Then you have women who suffer from infertility, every month their period is there to let them know they aren’t pregnant. I can’t see anyone in that situation bursting into tears of happiness that they get to love their period for another month.

Of course I imagine they love their period even less if they have just utilised ART in an attempt to get pregnant at a cost of thousands.

Then you have those who suffer from various gynaecological conditions which mean that every month they are in agony. Some women have to take a couple of days off work each month due to the pain and bleeding they get. I’m not seeing anything to love there. I know women who have opted to have a total hysterectomy in their 20’s as they would rather lose their their fertility than go through the agony they endure each month because of endometriosis..

I have had to pick friends kids up from school because a friend has gotten her period and therefore cannot leave the house due to pain and bleeding. Periods are really not very loveable to many many people.

I can only explain Essex County Council telling us to love our period on the fact that the concept must have been thought up by a man. No woman I know would ever have come up with such a slogan, they clearly did no research on how those words could be harmful. Google “have a happy period” for details.

So I haven’t covered the actual payments and the whole Essex is United thing and why the whole concept was a load of rubbish from the start. I will do that in my next blog post.

Simon Harris is not a good person and I hope he never acts like he knows anything about the female anatomy again.

To end on a good note, it appears that Simon Harris will never be in a position to do this type of thing again, The publicity he’s received for what happened with the payments from ECC will mean nobody will want to commission him for anything. He is currently only posting on Facebook after doing a Gavin Jones with his Twitter and leaving it too long to reactivate it and thus losing the account. Gavin Jones gibsongav account on twitter has a join date of September 2022 and 129 followers, and 31 tweets. Previous to him deactivating it, there were thousands of tweets, thousands of followers, he tweeted a lot and engaged with all the other bigwigs in the local authority game. He did try and start again but then changed it to just his music. He did deserve to have that happen though and it is still funny.

So Simon Harris has lost his twitter completely, and as someone registered the name when it was released, he’s lost the username as well. He is unlikely to ever get up to 6 figures on Twitter again if he starts afresh.

On facebook he is struggling, he has incredibly low engagement considering the amount of followers he has and the content is really terrible. He has also resorted to selling printed tea towels which aren’t actually big enough to be tea towels with allegedly amusing things on them. The Facebook page for the business currently has no likes and no followers.

He is trying to raise funds with temu links and now links to paying gift cards to supermarkets. That will not work out for reasons that are so obvious to literally everyone else.

I would like to see an apology from Essex County Council for the “use your head and spread” campaign, half of the population of Essex were insulted by that, firstly that you decided to give that contract to a man, but mostly because you were absolutely fine with paying £3000 for content that has harmed women.

I am unsure where it was used, but ECC paid for it, and commissioned it, so they are the ones who should apologise.

They won’t, even with the payments they are setting up to do the whole “lessons have been learned” thing. In the recent audit scrutiny meeting it was mentioned that they also need to do something with regards to fraud where they check where the payments are being made from. Also indicated to me that they are looking into the payments from a fraud perspective, though if they are that would probably be fraud from somewhere in ECC.

That said, and i’ll cover this in my next post, Simon Harris has the intelligence and familiarity with social media to know that when he reported the views of posts on ECAS that they were artificially inflated due to sponsored ads and spamming different pages with the same posts. I have read nothing, including in the research about the group and page, that indicates that at any point could someone conclude it was value for money. That said all I know is what i’ve read, I have no idea what ECC will find, and clearly they will also try to spin as much of it so that they look the best they can.

I have read about more misogyny by Simon Harris from those who have seen some of his now deleted social media posts. While have no reason to doubt what others have seen is the truth, that is still hearsay and only write about what i’ve seen and my own thoughts on that.

I have just gone through to spell check this, my spelling and grammar is not the best, and at the moment i’m exhausted and mentally not doing great. I decided not to go with all of the grammar suggestions I was given solely because I thought i’d help Simon Harris out with his tea towel business and he may find something in here.

Editing to add this:

This is not OK Simon, it is not normal for a grown man being obsessed with breasts. I believe he is trying to be funny but the joke doesn’t make any sense and falls flat.

Just grow up, you are raising boys who deserve a fighting chance to not grow up like their father.