sian and crooked rib

Challenging rape myths: an interview with Law and Order lead writer and co-producer Emilia di Girolamo

2012-01-29T12:47:00.001Z

This article was written for The F Word website and can be read here: http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2012/01/challenging_rape

A grainy, unfocused film shows a girl (Anna) lying on the floor, as a group of boys take it in turns to rape her. The ringleader pulls out what looks like a gun, covers the girl’s head and pulls the trigger. A few days later, the film starts doing the rounds on a DIY porn site.

So starts the fifth episode in the third series of Law and Order UK. It’s called Line Up and is written by Lead Writer and Co-Producer of the show, Emilia di Girolamo. A survivor of group rape herself, di Girolamo wanted to bring the complex and feminist issues of rape myths, victim blaming, gang rape and coercion to an ITV audience, challenging them to ask questions about their own pre-conceptions around violence against women and girls.

‘I wanted to write about this because it was something that happened to me when I was a teenager,’ di Girolamo explained to me. ‘I was group raped when I was 14, and I just find it incredibly shocking that this is still happening now, all these years on and with such frequency. And I’ve been shocked most of all by those recent cases where judges and newspapers have seemed to conspire together to suggest that girls of 12, 13, 14 are responsible for being raped.’

The case di Girolamo is referring to was reported in March and July in the Daily Mail, and was given as an example in a statement made to the Leveson Inquiry about sexism and victim blaming in the media. It involved the gang rape of a 12-year old girl by a group of adult men, and the rape of her friend by one man. The men were found guilty but were later released on appeal, with the judge ruling that the girls ‘wanted sex’ and had lied to the men about their age. The Mail reported the gang rape as an ‘orgy’ and the girls as ‘Lolitas’, whilst reader comments called the 12-year old girl a ‘slut’ who was ‘more at fault than the lads’.

One of di Girolamo’s motivations for writing Line Up was the concern that little has changed for teen girls since her own rape in 1985. ‘I think at the time when it happened to me I certainly felt if I told anybody I wouldn’t be believed, and more than anything that I would have been held responsible for what had happened to me,’ di Girolamo says thoughtfully. ‘There was certainly a feeling that a 13, 14, year old girl was perfectly capable of consenting and of “enticing” adult men to rape her and it wouldn’t be seen as rape. It wouldn’t be seen as rape at all. And I would have hoped that that would have changed by 2012 but I really don’t think it has.’

The story di Girolamo tells in Line Up involves a young girl being group raped. She reports the rape and has the courage and support to go to court, but her credibility is pulled to shreds and she is accused of consenting and then ‘crying rape’ when her parents found out. Meanwhile, the judge has a reputation for only taking stranger rape with additional physical violence seriously. This narrative – and the issues it raises – is likely to be familiar to feminists. In fact, the part of the story that might not be familiar is that the case goes to court at all – over two thirds of reported rapes are dropped before they reach court (cwasu.org), and only 15% of rapes are ever reported to the police in the first place (BCS based on findings over six years).

The challenge di Girolamo faced was how to tell this story to an audience that may not be informed on the issues around rape myths, victim blaming and the sheer prevalence of violence against women and girls, as opposed to preaching to the converted. ‘I think an episode like Line Up in a hugely popular ITV show like Law and Order: UK gives us a real chance to take those issues to the right people, to parents and teachers, and to make them look at them in a slightly different way.

‘I wanted to take this story of group rape to Daily Mail readers,’ she explains. ‘To take it to people who probably believe the rape myths, who believe a 12-year old girl can be responsible for being raped. So it was about writing something that challenged those myths and taking it to an audience where many of them would really be learning about this for the first time.’

The common narratives of rape in popular culture and from the cases that are more likely to get to court or covered in the media tend to involve a stranger as the attacker, along with additional violence or use of a weapon. Research cited by the Campaign to End Rape found that cases of stranger rape (where the attacker was identified) were more likely to make it to court than if the woman knew her rapist. This is despite the fact that only around 12% of rapes are committed by a stranger (http://www.cer.truthaboutrape.co.uk/3.html) and 97% of calls to Rape Crisis are from women and girls who know their attacker (http://www.cer.truthaboutrape.co.uk/3.html). The misconception still exists that a rape is only ‘serious’ or ‘violent’ if it is accompanied by ABH or GBH, or where a woman is threatened with a weapon. This was something di Girolamo wanted to tackle in Line Up. ‘You don’t need a knife, you don’t need a rope or handcuffs to tie a girl up. All you need is the power of numbers and the power of being a male,’ di Girolamo explains. ‘A group of older boys and a younger girl – that’s enough of a weapon.’

One of the key rape myths that di Girolamo explores in Line Up is the idea that there is a ‘correct’ way for a woman or girl to behave when she is raped; that a woman should scream, shout no and fight back. When a woman freezes and doesn’t fight back, she is often accused of having consented. In the episode, Anna is castigated in the court room for not articulating ‘no’. But, di Girolamo explains, freezing is a perfectly normal and common response to rape – a belief supported by the Child and Woman’s Abuse Studies Unit.

‘It was something that I felt had happened to me and I didn’t understand – I grew up thinking that I was in the wrong and that I should have fought and should have shouted no, and I didn’t. It was only when I started reading about freeze response that I realised that’s exactly what happened to me. That’s how I felt, I couldn’t move and I couldn’t shout or scream.’

This has huge implications on how we understand and how we talk about consent – that consent is not defined by the absence of a no. ‘Boys need to be taught that if a girl doesn’t say no it doesn’t necessarily mean she is saying yes,’ di Girolamo insists. ‘It’s about making boys understand that consent isn’t just about waiting for a girl to say no or push him off.’

Consent is a key issue in going back to the starting point and preventing rape. Di Girolamo believes that if boys are taught about consent at an early age, then they will be less likely to rape – not least because they will recognise what rape is. A survey published in 2010 by the Havens found that nearly half of young men thought that if a woman or girl was too drunk to consent, it wasn’t rape. Meanwhile, 46% believed that if a woman changed her mind during sex and he carried on it wasn’t rape; and 23% answered that even if a woman says no, it is not rape (http://bit.ly/bSnP1L). This suggests that some boys and men simply do not understand what rape means, and therefore do not recognise their own actions as rape.

‘There is an area that really interests me about whether a boy believes he is committing an act of rape or not. And going from my own experience and other cases I’ve studied, I believe that quite often there are boys who have committed an act of rape who don’t believe they have done so. They don’t fully understand what rape is. And because they haven’t got a mask or a knife or are in a dark alley they don’t think that what they are doing is rape.’ This was something di Girolamo addressed when she confronted her rapists as an adult. ‘It was one of the things I really wanted to ask my attackers. In my mind I can’t see how they could have seen what they did as anything else. They were adult men, I was 14-years old, it was arranged between them in advance, and this was something they had done before. But I think there was one of them that didn’t fully understand that it was rape. The other two knew exactly what they were doing.’

Of course, if the boys or men don’t believe that what they are doing is rape, it makes it even more difficult for the girl to define what has happened to her as rape. Equally as important as educating boys about consent is therefore the need to educate girls about their right to bodily autonomy.

Line Up takes place on a council estate in South London, where group rapes are increasingly common and increasingly accepted, both within gang culture and as a form of male bonding. When a girl is group raped in this community, di Girolamo argues, ‘where everybody knows everybody and everyone goes to the same school; the girls who have been group raped are then talked about as a ‘slag’ or a ‘sket’. Myths develop around this girl and then the girl is very open to being raped or abused again. If you’re a 13, 14-year old girl living on an estate in South London, as happens in Line Up, and you’ve been group raped by three boys and are being talked about on that estate, then everyone is going to think they own a piece of you. I think quite often the girls just continue to do it for a quiet life and they don’t realise they are being raped time and time again.’

Not being able to articulate their rape is in part due to how often girls are coerced into sex or sexual contact they don’t want to have – either by a man or boy, or through peer pressure. This creates a real blurring of boundaries, and, di Girolamo says, we all too frequently have, ‘that kind of coercion into sex, that is really bordering on rape and in my opinion probably is rape’. Research from the NSPCC and Bristol University states that young women are increasingly ‘subject to emotional pressure and manipulation to consent to sex and experience high levels of sexual violence’; and ‘that women's experience and understanding of coercive sex means that the issue isn't just about rape vs. consent, but others such as coercive sex, pressurised sex, fair game (surrender the right to consent)’. This rings true with di Girolamo’s experience of talking to young women. ‘A huge amount of teen girls are sexually assaulted by teenage boys and by men. And they often don’t even view it themselves as sexual assault or as rape – certainly that’s the case of teenage girls that I’ve met who have been in that situation. They think that’s what everybody does and that that’s ok’.

This lack of understanding of consent, the lack of voice given to teen girls, and a fear of how parents might react or what peers might say, increasingly leaves teenagers vulnerable to rape and sexual assault.

The video of the rape initially comes to the attention of the police when it is sent to a teen boy’s mobile phone and then ends up on a DIY porn site. Di Girolamo wanted to explore the relationship between porn and teen sexual assault and rape, with the video supporting the argument that when we watch free internet porn that depicts rape, we have no idea if the rape is real or not.

‘One of the problems we have today is very open access to violent and degrading pornography via the internet. And this is on mainstream porn sites. At the click of the button saying “I am 18”, any child with access to the internet can access incredibly violent and degrading pornography. When I researched some of these sites for this episode I was just completely shocked by all these categories, so many of them violent, and by the level of violence towards women demonstrated in these films. Even what’s considered to be tame, standard pornography nowadays is just incredibly degrading. It’s out there for very young boys with an innocent curiosity about sex to discover.’
‘Isn’t it then inevitable he will think it is ok to treat women like that? A lot of these are group sex videos and so if you see that and you see the woman supposedly enjoying it, and you have no other experience of sex, then why wouldn’t you think that’s how sex is supposed to be and that’s what the girls at school, the girls in the park, want sexually?’

As the interview draws to a close, I say to di Girolamo that I hope we won’t be writing these stories in fifty years. 25 years after she was group raped, we find we are still confronted with the same issues. It’s the same blame culture that influence low reporting rates, low conviction rates and a media that repeats and re-enforces rape myths. However, episodes like Line Up play a vital role in bringing these issues to a popular audience. Di Girolamo hopes that Anna’s story will encourage young women watching to step forward and report their own rapes. ‘I believe that girls and women need to learn that rape isn’t just a stranger breaking into your house or a stranger in an alleyway. In my own case, I didn’t think it was going to happen going out to a pop concert with friends. I didn’t think it was going to be some guys in a local band. The portrayal of the cops in the story is really important because I didn’t want to scare anyone off from reporting. But most of all I wanted Line Up to be a really truthful portrayal of how a girl feels in that situation. If it makes one girl step forward or one parent re-evaluate how they discuss sex and consent with their son, I’ll be happy’.

Line Up is screened on ITV1 at 9pm on Friday 3rd Feb.
If you have been affected by these issues, you can find your local rape crisis centre here: http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/
Please make a donation to Rape Crisis and support the victims and survivors of sexual violence: http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/makeadonation1.php
Image of Emilia di Girolamo by Don Chapman

It is never her fault

2012-01-21T13:31:00.001Z

It hasn't been widely reported on the news, but by last Saturday (14th Jan) ten women and girls had been murdered since 2012 began as a result of domestic abuse. That's one for every working day, and higher than the average 2 women a week. Of course this isn't particularly surprising when recently published stats have found that 47% of women homicide victims are murdered as a result of domestic abuse (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb0212/hosb0212?view=Binar y).

What did surprise me though was an article on the BBC News website that Coventry Rape Crisis directed me to, reporting that Jon-Jacques Clinton, who murdered his wife in 2010 after she left him and began a new relationship, is to have his conviction quashed on the grounds that his actions were provoked by her infidelity. He is now facing a re-trial.

Clinton used a 'loss of control' defence when he was tried for murdering his wife who died from head injuries and asphyxia. Previously, sexual infidelity was not allowed under the 'loss of control' defence, however the Court of Appeal who have examined the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009 has now decided that it can now can be, when used alongside other factors. This has led to the quashing of Clinton's murder conviction, and may result in him being found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-16595756).

This sets a very worrying precedent.

The judge who has allowed the appeal is quoted as saying:

"Experience over many generations has shown that sexual infidelity has the capacity to create a highly emotional situation or to exacerbate a fraught situation, and to produce a completely unpredictable, and sometimes violent response". (http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:620ad9dd-5e08-47c7-b36b-5d77fccf836d)

One understands that discovering partner infidelity causes emotional upset. But there is a big leap from feeling upset, to then having a violent response, to then beating your wife to death.

An aspect of this case that I find interesting is that Clinton discovered his wife's affair by hacking into her Facebook account. Having had experiences of friends' partners who have behaved this way, I believe serious questions need to be asked about controlling behaviour and emotional violence, even stalking, in relation to this case. In my experience, men who break into social media and email accounts of their current or ex partners are usually perpetrators of emotional, if not also physical, abuse. Of course, I don't know enough about this individual case to say whether violence existed in the relationship before the murder, but I do believe that hacking into a partner's account (especially after she has left you) needs to be examined and questioned more in regards to potential controlling and violent behaviour.

Anyway, back to the main issue at hand. I believe that we absolutely cannot allow sexual infidelity to serve as a mitigator for murder. Why? Well for many reasons. But the first is because it unconditionally and dangerously shifts the blame for the murder from the perpetrator, and on to the victim. It places the blame for the murder firmly on the woman. It says that if she had stayed with her husband or boyfriend, if she had not gone and left him and had sex with another man, then she would be alive today. It refuses to acknowledge the role that the perpetrator has played in the murder, and explicitly places responsibility for the violence on the women's head. It also risks ignoreing other causes of the murder, such as a history of violence, threats, stalking and controlling behaviour.

Unfortunately, culturally this attitude and decision fits. We already have a huge issue with victim blaming in our society when it comes to murdered women and violence against women. From the Ipswich murders when Richard Littlejohn blamed the women for being killed because they worked as prostitutes; to women being blamed for violence if they are drunk or walking home alone; women being blamed for 'staying' with a violent partner; women being blamed for leaving a violent partner; women being blamed for burning the dinner (http://www.theweek.co.uk/12725/18-months-tv-man-who-killed-wife-over-burnt-roast - he got 18 months); women being blamed for 'nagging' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/491083.stm - he got 6 years); women being blamed for leaving their partners or for infidelity. Even the way we talk about domestic abuse murders gives away how often and fully we attempt to absolve the perpetrators - from the examples above to that famous phrase 'crime of passion'. This phrase immediately evokes sympathy for the killer, suggesting that the murderer is some kind of tragic hero (Othello? Heathcliffe*?), broken hearted and howling in the wind, a man who 'loves' his wife so much he can't bear to see anyone else have her.

As opposed to a violent, controlling man who murders a woman.

And it is this victim blaming, coupled with its absolving of the perpetrator, that results in ridiculous sentencing where a man who murders his wife "because she burns his dinner" gets 18 months for manslaughter. Where a man who murders his wife "because she's a nag" gets six years. And where a man who murders his wife "because she had sex with someone else" is facing a retrial for manslaughter, because, after all, if she hadn't had sex with someone else, why then, as the Judge suggests, he wouldn't have been forced into a fraught emotional situation and 'lost control', committing the crime.

The reason I have put those excuses in speech marks is because they are just that, excuses, and excuses that don't stand up to scrutiny. None of those actions justifies the loss of a woman's (anyone's) life. None of it justifies her family and friends losing a sister, mother, daughter, friend. And none of them should be used to mitigate the actions of a perpetrator so that their victims are denied justice.

If the Court of Appeal allow sexual infidelity to be used as a provocation for loss of control in this case, then it has huge implications for domestic murder cases in the future, as well as historically. It may well have implications for the 10 murders that happened in the first two weeks of this year. It will sanction victim blaming in the courtroom. It will be a step backwards, arguing that women are at fault for the violence committed against them, that men are the 'victims' of women's 'bad' behaviour. And that's even before you get on to issues around shaming women's sexuality and how it's pretty insulting to men to argue that violence leading to murder is a 'normal' response to sexual infidelity.

The Court of Appeal disallowed another man's case where he murdered his wife "over a row about a cup of tea". That is still not seen as provocation. But when we take this first step backwards, where will it eventually lead?

Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, has spoken out against the ruling, saying:

"A partner’s affair can no longer be treated by the courts as provocation, nor can it be a defensible reason to lose control and commit a terrible violent act.
“The Clinton judgement therefore raises a number of significant concerns and the Home Secretary needs to urgently review the details of the ruling to consider whether it changes the intention of Parliament or undermines justice for victims. If so, she needs to report back swiftly to Parliament so we can determine whether the legislation needs to be strengthened instead." (http://womensgrid.freecharity.org.uk/?p=8967)

I hope that Theresa May heeds this warning, and holds true to her 'promise' that justice for victims of male violence is a government priority. Otherwise we will see the clock begin to turn back on justice for victims of domestic abuse murder, when already the situation as it stands is pretty damn poor. We must fight back against laws that seek to enshrine victim blaming, whilst absolving the deliberate violent actions of some men.

*I know Heathcliffe didn't murder anyone FYI (except Isabella's dog) but the example still fits as a violent man defended by 'passion' and 'heartache'.

Book Diary

2012-01-21T13:28:00.002Z

I love nothing more than reading. I read all the time. But I forget which books I have read and which ones I haven't. I also can never remember books to recommend people. So am going to use this post to list all the books I read during the year, along with Amazon links, and note if it is a new read, or a re-read. I re-read books a lot.

If it is a new read I will say whether I like it or not. Re-reads are obviously recommendations as otherwise I wouldn't re-read them would I!

Enjoy!

The Glass Blowers: Daphne du Maurier (re-read) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glass-Blowers-Daphne-Du-Maurier/dp/184408065X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327152192&sr=8-1

City of Darkness, City of Light: Marge Piercy (technically a re-read but from over 10 years ago) http://www.amazon.co.uk/City-Darkness-Light-Marge-Piercy/dp/0140266062/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327152257&sr=1-1

Freaky: Emilia di Girolamo (technically a re-read but from a long time ago - and because I read it on the train home from meeting her!) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freaky-Emilia-Girolamo/dp/1901072150/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327152332&sr=1-1

A Place of Greater Safety: Hilary Mantel (new) - amazing amazing book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-Greater-Safety-Hilary-Mantel/dp/000725055X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327152369&sr=1-1

Love in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford (re-read) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Climate-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141181494/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327152417&sr=1-1

State of Happiness: Stella Duffy (new) - v moving and evocative http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Happiness-Stella-Duffy/dp/1844080234/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327152460&sr=1-1

Bossypants: Tina Fey (new) - funny, feminist and a read-in-one-day kind of book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bossypants-Tina-Fey/dp/0751547832/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327240893&sr=1-1

Styx and Stones (A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery): Carola Dunn - I've been re-reading the books I have in this series for research purposes (ssh!) but this is a new one to me and is as excellent as all the others. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Styx-Stones-Daisy-Dalrymple-Mystery/dp/1849014922/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327852777&sr=8-1-spell

Very rushed post saying NO to Dorries

2012-01-19T18:19:00.001Z

Say no to Nadine Dorries

As usual, this post comes with the disclaimer that I loathe to give Dorries the oxygen of publicity that she clearly craves. So instead, take this post as a plug for tomorrow’s demo against the second reading of her abstinence education for girls only:

http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/962

So, what is this bill and why should we be opposing it?

Nadine Dorries is proposing that girls, and only girls, should have compulsory abstinence education. Considering that sex education across the UK is so patchy, this would result in some girls only receiving abstinence based sex education.

There are multiple problems with this proposal.

Let’s start with the problem of offering abstinence education to only girls. This positions girls as the ‘gatekeepers of sex’ and teaches girls that their responsibility is to not have sex (until they’re married of course). This creates a culture of shame around sex, as well as shame and confusion about their very natural developing sexuality. It teaches girls that sex (outside of marriage) is wrong, and that therefore their own sexual feelings (if they have them) are wrong too. It’s also incredibly heteronormative, teaching that sex is wrong and must not happen, unless it is sanctioned by hetero marriage.

Dorries and her crew seem to think that the opposite of abstinence education is telling girls to go and have lots of sex and damn the consequences. This is a dangerous and nasty untruth. Opponents to Dorries’ bill (like me) believe that boys and girls need to have comprehensive and unbiased sex education that teaches about respect, consent, desire and equality in relationships – as well as info about contraception, safe sex and biology. This gives young people the tools and understanding they need to decide to have sex if and when they want to, or to not have sex if they don’t want to.

Dorries plays on the very real issue of young girls being coerced into sex they don’t want to have. But her plan for abstinence education, in my view, actually leaves girls more vulnerable. Because it isn’t as simple as telling girls to always say no. You need to teach girls and boys about consent and respect. Telling a girl to say no doesn’t solve anything. We already do it and it’s not really working. As we all know, it isn’t always as simple as ‘no’. If for example a girl is raped or coerced into sex, she might not be able to say ‘no’. She might freeze, or be frightened, or understand that saying ‘no’ out loud might put her in more danger. The impact of abstinence education in this instance is that the girl may then go on to blame herself for the attack, perhaps not reporting it in case she is judged for not having said ‘no’. If we teach about consent and respect, then we tell our young people what is and isn’t ok or consensual in sexual relationships, that they have bodily autonomy that needs to be respected.

The decision to exclude boys from her sex education programme is based on her belief that ‘boys will be boys’. This belief argues that there’s nothing you can do to stop boys from wanting sex so it’s better to leave it up to the girls to draw a line in the sand that boys must not cross. Again, not only does this strategy leave girls incredibly vulnerable to coercion; it lets boys off the hook massively. If they’re not getting a comprehensive sex education, then they don’t learn to take responsibility or to respect boundaries. They won’t be learning about consent, and respect. This lack of education for boys could leave girls more vulnerable to coercion and violence.

Of course, one of the key issues is that we all know that abstinence education doesn’t work. Teenagers have been having sex since we were living in caves, and they will continue to have sex. Telling girls that they shouldn’t be having sex will, as I say, leave them with feelings of shame and confusion over their sexuality, and if they then go on to have sex, will leave them woefully unprepared to know about contraception, safe sex and consent. There are enough studies out there to show that countries with abstinence only sex education have high rates of teen pregnancy and STDs precisely because at no point is safe sex discussed. It isn’t the other way round.

Abstinence only education builds a culture of shame around sex and sexuality. It dis-empowers girls and robs them of their voice. It ignores and shames their very natural and real sexuality and sexual curiosity. It doesn’t allow for girls and boys to learn about consent and respect and this lack of education is having a real impact already on coercion and violence in teen relationships. If this bill passes, then this crisis can only get worse.

We owe it to our young people to give them the knowledge and tools they need so that when they are ready and want to have sex, they have it safely without coercion and violence. And we owe it to them to give them the tools to be able to say no to sex or sexual contact they don’t want to have. You don’t get that by creating a culture of shame and silence around sex, that positions girls as ‘gatekeepers’. You get it by educating about consent and respect. We need to teach our young people about consent and respect, otherwise we will continue to live in a society where 1 in 3 teens have experienced violence and coercion in a relationship (NSPCC, Bristol Uni).

I don’t want that for my future children.

Fight this bill.

Rape, false accusations and The Daily Mail

2012-01-14T11:48:00.001Z

*Trigger warning* This post talks about rape, sexual violence and the lasting impact of those crimes on women's mental and physical health.

There's always been a lot of 'what about the men-ery' when we talk about feminism, particularly when we talk about the issue of violence against women and girls. This conversation has mainly had two angles - the first focusing on how men are victims of rape, sexual assault and intimate partner violence too (from both male and female partners) and the second focuses on false accusations of rape and domestic abuse. And I have a sense that since I started engaging with feminist debate, particularly online, it has been towards the latter that the conversation has become more heavily weighted.

Because I am talking about false accusations, I will be talking in terms of male violence against women and girls. This is not to deny that there are male survivors (or female perpetrators), but because when we talk about false accusations, the conversation is, as far as I can tell, always about women falsely accusing men. I will also mainly be focusing on rape and sexual violence.

It seems to me that now whenever I write about rape and sexual violence, or speak about it, or see or hear any other conversation about it, we are almost immediately confronted with a comment that goes something like this:

'Of course, rape is awful. But let's not forget - a false accusation of rape can ruin a man's life'.

I believe that this response to conversations around rape is not only unhelpful, but completely skews our perceptions about rape and sexual violence. Firstly, because it suggests that false accusations are as common as rape (they're not. Reports differ but on average there are 90,000 rapes in the UK each year according to the Home Office. Only 15% of those rapes will be reported based on 6 year average from the BCS, and between 1-5% of accusations are false.) (http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/). And it suggests that the impact of a false accusation is worse than rape. This response argues that the rape is something that happens once, on one occasion and then is over. Meanwhile, according to our common commenter, the impact of a false accusation goes on, and on, and on. Whilst I'm not denying that the impact is there and must be awful, I will explore more later about why this summing up of the impact of both crimes is problematic.

This response to conversations about violence against women and girls is now so common that it is having a profound impact on the way our media and politicians talk about and approach issues of sexual violence. In 2010, the coalition government tried to pass a law that would give anonymity to those accused of rape, and only those accused of rape. This proposal was completely based on the idea that false accusations could ruin a man's life and was influenced by the perception that false accusations are common and the 'norm' - an assertion based on a belief that more often than not, women lie about rape. The proposal was defeated, but it showed starkly how the belief that women lie is so prevalent and accepted. It was used to suggest a law that would have likely dissuaded women from reporting rape, and could reduce the conviction rate even further from the paltry 6.5% it already is (from incident to conviction). I base this assertion on the fact that by naming an accused rapist such as John Worboys, his other victims are more likely or able to come forward. I also base it on the fact that if you are working from a base line that women are likely to be lying, then you are hardly empowering women to come forward and talk to you about what has happened to them.

Another incident involved a lawyer I heard on Radio 4 discussing the cuts to legal aid and the exemption given to domstic abuse survivors (an exemption that isn't really working in practise). He expressed concern that this exemption would encourage 'more false accusations of domestic abuse'. This suggests that there's an engrained belief in our culture that fale accusations against violent men happen off the cuff, 'willy nilly', by irresponsible women looking to save a buck. The actual important debate about how the cuts are impacting women trying to flee violent homes is then forgotten, in favour of another debate around false accusations.

The media plays a big role in the assertion that false accusations are as common (if not more) than rape and in implanting the belief that the majority of rape accusations are false. This appears to be a twist of logic around what being convicted of a crime means. It goes thus - the rape conviction rate is 6.5%. Therefore, the argument opines, every rape that is not convicted must be a false accusation. However, this ignores the fact that a false accusation of rape is also a crime.

Of course I am going to pick on the Daily Mail as they really are the worst offenders when it comes to deliberately misleading their readers over what a false accusation of rape is. When you search for 'falsely accused of rape' on their site, you are greeted with a list of headlines where the word rape is always presented in inverted commas ('rape'; 'sex attack' 'rape victim'), a punctuation device that implies disbelief. Stories where the man has been acquitted are presented as 'cry rape' stories and deemed to be false accusations - even when no-one has been found guilty of that crime ("Cry rape victim's hell: Mr X was found not guilty of raping the woman last year after she claimed he had taken advantage of her while she was too drunk to consent to sex."). When someone has been found guilty of false accusations then this story is likely to be printed, despite the fact that the 2,000 rapes that happen each week in the UK rarely make the headlines. This means that there is an over-representation of stories on a rare crime, and a real lack of representation of a far commoner crime. The women who make false accusations are vilified and "face public shaming" (as one headline put it) far more than the men who rape (I don't agree with vilification BTW, I think it 'monsters' people and prevents us from examining and challenging what causes rape - i.e. patriarchy). Meanwhile, editorial from Melanie Phillips, Richard Littlejohn and Peter Hitchens repeat and perpetuate the myth that most claims of rape are false, stating that unless a rape is by a stranger, and accompanied with additional physical violence or weapon, then they are incidents where the woman regrets consensual sex the next day.

'a woman is encouraged to claim she has been raped when, for example, with the benefit of hindsight, she may become aggrieved about what she voluntarily allowed to happen, particularly when she was rather the worse for wear.' - Melanie Phillips http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1280752/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Instead-giving-anonymity-men-charged-rape-accusers.html#ixzz1jQbr3AB6

'[if the] women had met a man in a Tiki Bar on St Lucia, got off her head on rum punch and invited him back to her hotel room for a drunken tumble. The following morning, through her hungover haze, she was consumed by self-loathing. Would she be entitled to cry ‘rape’? There's a world of difference between a violent sexual assault at the hands of a complete stranger, or gang of strangers, and a subsequently regretted, alcohol-induced one-night stand...That’s not how the self-appointed Boadiceas of feminism see it.' Richard Littlejohn (proving that once again, he doesn't understand anything or use correct grammar!)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1388963/Ken-Clarkes-rape-gaffe-Its-rape-victims-betrayed-system.html#ixzz1jQcS33J4

'Of course all rapes are bad. But some rapes are worse than others. The extension of rape, to cover any situation where a woman says she has been raped, is a huge difficulty for a fair legal system that relies on actual evidence before deciding guilt.' Peter Hitchens
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/05/some-rapes-are-worse-than-others-there-ive-said-it.html

So what we have here is a constant drip feed of two narratives. One, that rape isn't very common because most rapes are consensual sex where the woman regrets it in the morning (there's also a lot of slut shaming in this narrative around women who have consensual sex). And two, false accusations of rape are very common and they ruin men's lives.

Because these two narratives are now so much a part of our cultural conversation around rape, I find increasingly as a feminist I have to caveat every conversation around sexual violence with a 'and of course, false accusations happen and are awful too'. But it's time to reframe the conversation. Yes, let's talk about false accusations but let's not conflate the crime with rape.

As I said earlier, the dialogue we usually get around false accusations and rape is that being falsely accused ruins lives. As Melanie P puts it:

'the fact [is] that men who are cleared of rape still leave court with their reputations trashed, even though the evidence against them may have been tenuous in the extreme.'

I'm not denying that the impact of a false accusation must be awful, although let's not forget that some men who are accused of rape or assualt (or even found guilty!) still manage to carry on with their lives, careers, stardom reputation intact (and enhanced). Chris Brown, Tyson, Polanski, DSK, Assange anyone? I am not here to mitigate the horrible impact of being falsely accused of a crime though, the impact it would have on career, family, relationships, mental health - all of this is of course awful and those falsely accused require support and justice.

However, I find that when people comment on the impact of a false accusation, I always hear this eery silence around the impact of rape, domestic abuse and sexual assault. As I said earlier, it seems that there's an idea that rape happens, one night, one day, and that's the end of it. It's horrible when it happens, but then it's over. Meanwhile, a false accusation goes through the courts and drags on and on. And it's because this idea is so offensive and so palpably untrue that I feel we need to shift the dialogue. So that when we talk about rape, the impact of that crime is not silenced by a discussion about the impact of another, unrelated crime.

Rape doesn't just happen and that's it. A woman may be raped many times. She may be left with post traumatic stress disorder, an STD or infection, physical injury, nightmares, depression, an unwanted pregnancy. She may be judged by her community, or left infertile by infection. In a country where abortion is illegal (which includes Northern Ireland) she may have a child. A quick search on Google of 'suicide rates of rape victims' produces a South Carolina study on mental health of rape survivors that found:

31% of rape survivors developed PTSD
Rape survivors were 6.2 times more likely to develop PTSD than women who hadn't been raped
30% of rape survivors had experienced at least one major depressive episode (compared to 10% of women who hadn't been raped)
33% of rape survivors said they had suicidal thoughts (compared to 8% of women who hadn't been raped). According to suicide.org, 13% of rape survivors attempt suicide.

http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/mentalimpact.shtml

The counselling directory (http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/men2stats.html) believe that the emotional cost of domestic abuse costs employers and the state £23 billion per year.

What I am trying to illustrate with these statistics and studies is that when we talk about rape and false accusations, we're not talking about a crime that happens and then is over, against a crime that has a lasting impact. Both crimes have lasting impact and, I would argue, the physical and mental health impact of rape on survivors is likely to be far greater than that of false accusations. And because rape is far more common, this impact is happening to women you know, right now. These crimes are not the same, they are not analogous and let's stop talking about them as if they are.

Let's talk about rape. And let's talk about false accusations. But let's stop prioritising one narrative so that survivors seeking support and justice are confronted with proposed laws that harm their case, and jurors and judges and politicians fed on a diet of Daily Mail articles refuse to believe rape happens that often in the first place.

BTW, this is worth reading: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/06/02153519/5

Chris Langham to speak Bristol's Cube

2012-01-12T19:52:00.001Z

An overview of the arguments I've heard for and against Chris Langham taking part in a Q&A at Bristol's Cube.

Some might feel this post is a bit of a cop out as I don’t really talk about my opinion on the Chris Langham invite. That is because I wanted it to be more of a space to illustrate the various arguments I have heard for and against his invite, and my own reactions to those arguments. My blog, my rules etc.!

When I heard via a member of Bristol Fawcett that Chris Langham is to speak at a Q&A in the Cube as part of the screening of his new film, my first reaction was shock, then anger. I admit I didn't know a lot about his case, but I knew that Langham had been convicted of and found guilty of downloading images of child abuse and rape, and had gone to prison for three and a half months. Was this another case of a known abuser returning to an open armed society, his crimes forgotten and brushed under the (red) carpet whilst those who have survived abuse are not privileged a voice? Or was it the case of a survivor of abuse acknowledging his crimes and trying to move forward with his life and career? Perhaps it was even something in between?

On Facebook, I expressed my shock about the invite which led to an interesting debate. Questions were raised about whether once time has been served, should and could a line be drawn under the crime. Whether there can be separation between the personal lives and crimes of people, and their work in films/TV etc. Whether my shock was akin to those who want to 'lynch' paedophiles and motivated by nimby-ism (it was neither). Then links were shared, regarding Chris Langham's own history as a survivor of child abuse, his admission of guilt and apology, and the ruling from the judge that there was no evidence to suggest he was a paedophile or sexually interested in children. His given reason for downloading the films (many of which his computer showed he hadn't watched) was, he stated, for research. He told Decca Aitkenhead that he believed he would get away with it, wouldn't get caught, that his 'art' would serve as an excuse ("It was just hubristic and arrogant of me to think I'm above the law because I'm an artist.").

I then spoke online to various volunteers from the Cube to try and understand their reasoning for the invite. I learnt that they had had lengthy discussions about whether to agree with the filmmakers' request to be accompanied by Langham. The Cube is run co-operatively in a non-hierarchical way so any decision is met by a group that then discusses and democratically proceeds by consensus. I haven't been able to define whether or not they expected the (albeit small) controversy that the invite has generated and I think they would have been naive not to expect it. Inviting any convicted criminal to speak would have sparked some controversy, not least when that someone has been convicted of downloading images of child sex abuse.

The debate continued via the BFN and Bristol Fawcett email lists. And it quickly became clear that for most the argument was not about my anger over how so often celebrity male abusers return to their careers, their crimes forgotten, whilst survivors of their crimes are all too often left behind, silenced. The argument became about how we rehabilitate, and how we decide whether or not someone has 'served their time'.

I have read messages from people who have worked with abusers and survivors who have expressed concern that by vilifying abusers we then deny them the chance to be defined by anything other than their abuse/crime. This then leaves no space or chance for that person to become anything else other than an abuser. This can lead to re-offending. I’ve heard that the chance of the abuser seeking support to stop offending is also reduced if they fear they are always going to be vilified and defined by their crime - something which again leads to re-offending. We then are led to ask about what sentencing means - once time is served is the period of punishment then over? This raises questions about whether our justice system is punitive or based on rehabilitation, and about what support is or should be available to offenders after prison time. The argument put forward to me by those who have worked in this field suggests that by vilifying offenders we then risk the abuser re-offending, as they are never allowed to see themselves as anything other than an abuser. However everyone I have heard from emphasises rightly that we mustn’t risk forgetting the survivor when we talk about offenders. The long lasting traumatic and health impact of abuse on the survivor may well be far longer than the sentence served by the perpetrator (I say 'may' as I do not wish to talk for survivors).

I appreciate and agree that vilification is not the answer. I believe this for many reasons - not least because when we see those who abuse and rape (children and adults) as 'monsters' and 'animals' and 'evil' then we rarely look at what causes the abuse and violence, and how our society allows/excuses this behaviour (particularly in relation to violence against women IMO). I also understand and agree that vilification (which so often leads to more violence and calls for the death penalty - something I am obviously against!) does not provide or allow for change and for rehabilitation.

However, one of the issues we have in our society is that sentencing for 'sex crimes', particularly rape and sexual assault of adults and teens, is so poor. We know that the rape conviction rate is 6.5% and we know that so many men get away with rape. Two thirds of reported rapes don't even get to court (www.cwasu.org) and even the conviction of group rape of a 12 year old girl can result in the men getting less than 12 months in jail. When we have a justice system that does not seem to consider, listen to, or even believe the voices of survivors, then it is understandable why there is a lot of anger when we see someone who is guilty of downloading images of child rape welcomed at our local arts cinema. We know that it isn't always as simple as 'served the time' because so many don't. And this 'don't' means that even when someone does serve time, we are always remembering that so many walk free.

My initial anger was that it seemed to me that Langham joined the footballers, Polanski, Chris Brown, Mike Tyson, R Kelly, Norman Mailer etc. – the list of men who have abused women and children and yet are culturally lauded, have cameos in cult movies, win Oscars and awards, are heroes. Because when this happens, when you sit there and listen to Rihanna being forced in interviews to praise the man who abused her, when you have to boycott yet another director because they are praising Polanski...when this happens over and over again you are left furious that these men who abuse women and children are repeatedly privileged over the survivors of their crimes.

I think my anger was based less specifically on the Langham invite, and far more on the crisis we have when it comes to sentencing rapists and abusers, convicting rapists and abusers, and ensuring justice for victims and survivors. It was also based on how often men who abuse are excused of their violence and misogyny and become cult heroes (or cultural heroes), defended and lauded in equal measure. When this happens, as it does so often, the voices of the abusers are privileged over the voices of survivors. The survivors of their crimes are forgotten, treated as an embarrassment, or as a liar, or as to blame etc. And this is simply not fair. In fact, it's plain wrong.

So, this post has been meandering and tentative. I have tried to explain why I was angry with the invite, and why I think my anger was based less on the specific invite and more about a rape culture that excuses abusers. I think this holds true to a lot of abusers in the public eye (although I understand and appreciate the arguments about why this may not apply to Langham). I have tried to present the arguments I have heard about why rehabilitation is important and can prevent re-offending and how these arguments have raised important questions. And I hope I have explained why I disagree with vilification, seeing as it refuses to acknowledge the causes of violence and abuse. As I say, I have asked myself a lot of questions about this and I won't be attending the event, I don't support the event. But one good thing is that it has raised these questions and arguments, as well as allowed me to start considering ways we can have events that give voice to survivors of abuse, when so often those voices are silenced.

Femicide

2012-01-04T13:03:00.001Z

Since 1st Jan 2012, Channel 4 News has reported the deaths of 4 women as a result of intimate partner violence, otherwise known as domestic violence. Another woman's body has also been found although it is believed she was murdered last year.

That's more than one woman a day since 2011.

The news seems to be preoccupied with the fact that one of the women's bodies was found on the Queen's land. The BBC had the Countryside Alliance on to talk about why people should be allowed guns.

The news has yet to report on how these murders are all part of the huge problem of violence against women and girls and misogyny.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.2

The Sian and Crooked Rib Feminist Review of 2011

2012-01-02T13:07:00.000Z

Review of 2011

2011 was a big year for news and a big year for the so-called resurgence of feminist activism in the UK (I say so-called as feminist activism never went away, we've just been doing it behind the media's backs since 1985 apparently!). It was also a big year for me - the year I published two books, Greta and Boris and The Lightbulb Moment, spoke at a number of academic conferences, won awards for my professional work and went on a lovely holiday to the Caribbean.

So, like many bloggers and writers out there, I present to you my review of the year from the feminist perspective, as we look back on 12 months that, despite many fantastic achievements, showed us how clearly the battle for women's rights is not over, how we still live in a rape culture, and how both the left and the right are willing to trade away women's rights when it suits them. I'll link to other posts I've written this year in case any of the stories tickle your fancy.

Jan 2011:
The tragic murder of Jo Yeates in December 2010 sent shockwaves through my home city of Bristol. Our thoughts and love was with her family and friends. Her murder resulted in the police sending out safety warnings to women living in the city to avoid walking home after dark and to avoid being on their own in the streets, leading to frightened young women taking cabs everywhere, and avoiding taking part in volunteer activities. Even I was given a talking to from a colleague when I said I was walking up to Clifton to see a friend. This was despite the fact that the evidence suggested the attack took place in her home. BFN responded by having a meeting with Avon and Somerset police and issuing a statement, resulting in the police changing their safety advice so that a woman's right to freedom of movement was not compromised by the deliberate actions of one man.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/01/bfn-response-to-polices-warnings-re.html

Sky Sports pundits Andy Grey and Richard Keys showed sexism in sport is alive and well when they discussed in anger the fact that there was a 'woman linesman' refereeing a match, followed by a frankly disturbing conversation about 'smashing' women. Resignations and firings happened, followed by the usual backlash that women lack a sense of humour and that women are sexist too. After all, Giles Coren, we have Loose Women, don't we!
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/01/sky-sports-loose-women-sexism-and.html

I didn't really write anything this year about the Arab Spring, which began at the start of 2011 in Tunisia. I don't know why I didn't (it has been such a busy year). The uprisings in the Middle East came to define this year. Women played an active and leading role in protesting the oppression they experience in their countries - and are still playing that role today as new governments are formed, or as the violence continues. So, to make up for my failings, here's a piece in Ms magazine by Robin Morgan: http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2011/womenofthearabspring.asp

Feb 2011:
Assange continued to be in the media spotlight as he appealed his extradition to Sweden on the grounds, it seemed, that he would be smuggled in to the USA. At the height of Assange fever we observed an ugly tendancy by some on the left (including former heroes of mine - looking at you John Pilger) to sell women's rights down the river in support of man who had done good work in exposing international corruption but who, despite that, was accused of rape. Unfortunately the idea that someone is capable of doing good work and still be a misogynistic shit was hard to grasp by many. Left commentators (men and women) accused the women of being a CIA honey trap, postulated conspiracy theories, tied themselves up in rhetorical knots trying to 'prove' that penetrating someone when they are asleep was not rape, and mocked the idea that penetrating someone without a condom, when consent relied on the presence of a condom, was some kind of hilarious Swedish law. Whilst Assange was treated as a hero by the left (and even, when they saw a way to blame women, by the Daily Mail!) the women were mocked, derided, accused of lying and much more. Their actions were critcised as they 'didn't behave how victims are supposed to behave' (apparently there's a guide book?) and because 'he stayed at their house and they went to a party' (because unless it's stranger rape it ain't real rape - more on this later). As I said at the time, and as I still say now, conspiracy theories to do away with powerful white middle class men via CIA honey pots are far, far less common than a man sexually assualting or raping two women. Assange is still appealing the extradition decision.

March 2011:
March saw me share a panel with the wonderful Bidisha and Dr Sue Tate at the Watershed as we talked about the invisibility of women in our culture. It also saw me get called a 'hysterical ranter' and lots of other names on Liberal Conspiracy, for daring to suggest on International Woman's Day that, you know, prehaps maybe there's an international crisis when it comes to VAWG. I also started writing for the Fresh Outlook, and my first piece dealt with the change in regulations for dealing with rape cases, after a woman was imprisoned for 'falsely retracting a rape claim'. The woman had suffered years of violence at the hands of her husband and when she reported it, he pressured her to withdraw her accusation. She then found herself guilty of perverting the course of justice, in jail and having lost custody of her children. This horrific case showed us what happens when women aren't supported in making accusations against violent partners, what happens when the media narrative on rape focuses on alleged false accusations and why the guidelines certainly needed to change. http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-guidelines-for-dealing-with-rape.html

One of my most popular posts of the year was about a Daily Mail article (recently cited by women's groups at the Leveson Inquiry) about the gang rape of a 12 year old girl and the rape of her 13 year old friend. The article called the girls Lolitas and pretty much blamed them for the violence committed against them. The men were found guilty, but were eventually released on appeal. This is the first time I have seen child rape blamed on the victim, both by the newspaper, the judge and the commenters below the fold. http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/03/daily-mail-fail.html and http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-mail-justice-and-child-protection.html

March also saw dire warnings from Women's Aid about the impact the government's austerity measures would have on women, particularly women survivors and victims of male violence. The cuts are resulting in the closure of refuges, in support services losing all their funding and being forced to close and will, ultimately, result in the murders of more women. The government are playing with women's lives and their answer is to tell councils not to see it as an easy cut. In response to the Women's Aid statement I wrote to the coalition leaders to find out what they were doing to make this stop. I collected nearly 400 signatures in a week. Theresa May sent a disappointing response and the party I voted for, the Lib Dems, well, they didn't even bother to reply.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/03/governments-war-on-women-continues.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/03/rape-crisis-in-crisis.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/04/open-letter-to-cameron-clegg-may-and.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/06/response-from-theresa-may-to-my-letter.html

April 2011:
In April we all got excited about fetishizing brides, the area I have lived in most my adult life caught fire and got smashed by rioters who were angry about Tesco (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/04/musings-on-what-happened-on-stokes.html) and I got embroiled in an online row across twitter and the New Statesman despite not knowing half of what had happened. Meanwhile, a serious scientific report postulated that feminism is bad for women's sex lives because women are naturally submissive (like rats!) (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-feminism-bad-for-your-sex-life.html) and the Poppy Project lost funding as the government once again played roulette with women's lives and well-being (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/04/funding-cuts-sex-trafficking-and-ashton.html). France banned the burqa via a logical leap that telling women what they can and can't wear is somehow more liberating than letting women wear whatever the hell they like (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/04/liberation-via-oppression.html).

May 2011:
I went to ATP! And then came down with a horrific bout of flu that left me so delirious I cried at the Fleetwood Mac episode of Glee...

Meanwhile Ken Clarke showed his ignorance around rape when he tried to split it into two categories 'violent rape' and 'you know, that other kind of rape that isn't violent'. His comments exposed what feminists have known for years; there is a huge issue when rape is only considered to be violent or 'real' if it is committed by a stranger, outside (or an intruder) with additional physical violence, and that issue is that rape is rarely taken seriously. All of this works together to create a culture where women aren't believed, where women are blamed for the violence committed against them and we end up with 90,000 rapes a year and a conviction rate of 6.5% (see this post for stat sources: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-its-diallo-not-strauss-kahn-who-has.html). His suggestion that low rape sentences (5 years or less) were the result of teen boys having consensual sex with their 15 year old girlfriends showed not just a very troubling ignorance about rape law, but also a very troubling ignorance about how messed up sentencing for rape is (the men mentioned in the March Daily Mail article were out within a year) and how comments like his encourage a rape culture where women aren't listend to, believed or taken seriously.Clarke's comments were exacerbated by Roger Helmer MEP, who wrote a blogpost about how if a woman gets into bed with her boyfriend, she should expect that he will have sex with her (whether she wants to or not), followed by distressing editorials from Littlejohn and Hitchens full of lies and nonsense about false accusation rates, and women lying about rape because they 'regret sex' the next day. For the record, there are an estimated 90,000 rapes in the UK every year. The majority will be committed by someone the victim knows. (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/05/ken-clarke-roger-helmer-daily-mail.html)

And those two weren't the only Tories pissing feminists off in May 2011. Oh no. David Cameron's sexism was showing when he told Angela Eagles to 'calm down dear' (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/05/calm-down-dear.html) and Nadine Dorries proposed a bill for abstinence only education for girls (and only girls) in her continuing war against women's bodily autonomy and reproductive rights (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/05/nadine-dorries-just-say-no.html).

May also saw the start of the Slutwalk movement, as a Toronto police officer warned a group of young women that if they wanted to avoid being raped, they shouldn't dress like sluts. As well as getting lots of press attention the Slutwalk debate caused a lot of conversation across the feminist movement, as people asked whether it was possible to reclaim the word slut, discussed the actual aims of the movement, asked questions about privilege and why, in Canada and the US, so many slutwalkers seemed so anti-feminist. I think the Slutwalks in the UK seemed really positive and succeeded because they got the message out there about victim blaming and VAWG. I still do have questions though. A lot of them.

Also, DSK was arrested - more of that later.

June 2011:
Halfway there! In June I decided to write about street harassment again (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-am-hollaback-grrl.html) and I loved Caitlin Moran's book (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/06/book-review-how-to-be-woman-by-caitlin.html). After BFN got attacked - again - I wrote about why the work we do is so great (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/06/lets-celebrate-bfn.html) and I put on an event about VAWG in the DRC (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/06/where-are-women-speech-for-drc-event-at.html). In other news, the Playboy Club opened with a fabulous feminist protest shouting eff off Hef! (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/may/31/playboy-hugh-hefner-sexism).

July 2011:
If the accusations against Assange highlighted how the left will still defend a man accused of rape, then the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn showed how society closes ranks to protect the powerful against rape accusations. When he was arrested in May, I saw the footage of him being bundled into the car. And I said, he'll never go to jail. He'll get away with it. His story changed many times, from him saying he wasn't even in the building, to him saying he was there and whatever happened was consensual. Yet, this changing his story did not seem to destroy his credibility. Meanwhile, his alleged victim Diallo was called a prostitute. A liar. She was told she wasn't credible because she hadn't disclosed her 'FGM status' to immigration. She was accused of trying to extort money, and when this accusation proved untrue, well let's just say that that story didn't get the coverage the false one did. The very normal traumatic symptoms that many rape victims demonstrate were used to discredit her - she lacked 'perfect recollection of the night's events' and her narrative structure kept changing (this is perfectly normal). She wasn't the 'perfect victim'. She was poor, black, an immigrant. He was rich, white, a world leader. Diallo's bravery in waiving her right to anonymity opened her up to more and more personal attacks. This woman did a brave brave thing. She has had her life ruined, because she dared to stand up and say that (if he did it) it wasn't acceptable for a man to allegedly assault her. That she wasn't going to stay silent because he was more powerful than her.
Because the case collapsed we will never know if DSK was guilty of rape or sexual assault. Because he has dropped the case against her we will never know if she was guilty of false accusation. Currently neither are guilty of any crime. But we learnt from this that even now the alleged victims are the ones on trial, not the alleged perpetrator.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/07/media-reporting-on-rape-daily-mail-and.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-its-diallo-not-strauss-kahn-who-has.html

Meanwhile, the accusations against Assange rumbled on. During his extradition hearing, his own lawyer, his DEFENSE explained that he had penetrated a sleeping woman. That, whichever way you slice it, is rape. A woman can not give consent if she is not awake.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-mail-justice-and-child-protection.html

August 2011:
In August, the Scientific American published a ridiculous article positing that porn reduced incidents of rape. This was based on research that showed that rape was less common in areas of the USA where there were lots of internet users. Seeing as porn is not the sole cause of rape, and seeing as porn is not the sole content of the internet, this research was Bullshit (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/porn-sexual-violence-and-scientific.html).

Meanwhile, Britain caught fire as riots raged across London and beyond. The rhetoric in the aftermath spent a lot of time blaming 'broken families' and therefore single mums, so I wrote this in a rage: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/single-mums-are-alright.html.

And Dorries made a comeback as she tried to push through a law restricting women's rights to abortion. She proposed that charities that provide abortion services - such as Marie Stopes and the BPAS - should be prevented from offering pre abortion counselling, as they had a 'financial incentive' to 'encourage' the woman to have an abortion. This is of course nonsense, and such a proposed change would prevent charities with a proven record in great care for women offering an expert and needed service. They would then of course be replaced by anti abortion groups with a bias and interest in preventing a woman from having an abortion she may want or need. The proposal was debated but defeated in parliament. However this year has seen a very real attack on the right to abortion. Life replaced the BPAS on the government's sexual health advisory board - FTR, Life don't believe condoms prevent STDs. In the states, the personhood amendment came close to being a reality. This year showed us that we can't rest on our laurels if we want to maintain our right to bodily autonomy.

Debates about 'fun feminism' seemed to take hold across the feminist blogosphere - here were my takes on it:
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/some-musings-on-fun-feminism.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/bristol-feminist-network-and-what-we.html

September 2011:
I go on holiday! I turn 27!

I get involved in an online row with a really, really sexist, white male privileged and deeply unfunny TV comedy panel show!
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/09/mock-week-mock-women.html

Some numpty sues LSE because he found gender studies sexist!
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/09/gender-studies-sexism-male-bias-and.html

October 2011:
Three women won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, making them the 13th, 14th and 15th women to do so in 111 years. Yet despite this, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman failed to make it in the BBC's 2011 Women of the Year list - that honour went to brides, bridesmaid-with-nice-ass, victims and, erm, a panda. http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/three-women-win-nobel-peace-prize.html

David Cameron announces he is in favour of gay marriage (or, as I like to call it, marriage) but that doesn't stop the right wing press being homophobic, whilst ignoring that the problem is their homophobia: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/daily-mail-and-sunday-telegraph-and.html (this is one of my least read posts, but one I am most proud of)

Meanwhile, the much-derided-by-feminists Bailey Review into the sexualisation of children continues its mission to suggest that it is only bad to degrade women if someone under 18 sees it by suggesting that blocking porn sites would be a good idea. Rather like putting a band aid on a broken leg in my opinion. You can't just block young people from seeing porn when the issue is the acceptance of violence against women, women's degradation and the harm done by the porn industry. http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/blocking-porn-is-not-answer.html

Meanwhile, rape culture shows it is alive and kicking as two big victim blaming stories make the feminist headlines. The first involved a school attempting to ban girls wearing skirts 'for their own protection'. By refusing to deal with the causes of sexual bullying, harassment and violence, the school is letting down its female students, who are instead told that any violence committed against them is their fault for wearing a skirt. http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/rape-culture-and-victim-blaming-starts.html Meanwhile, as department stores start playing Christmas songs, the annual Christmas anti-rape campaigns appear. This year we saw some welcome posters that targeted men. But that didn't stop some men bemoaning them as offensive, whilst the usual fare that tell women to avoid becoming victims were still there (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/anti-rape-campaigns-men-and-offence.html).

The Occupy movement swept the world, as groups came together to protest a capitalism that benefited 1% of society at the expense of the 99%. Unfortunately, disillusionment set in quickly to me. London invited Assange to come and speak, a man accused of rape yet still loved by some of the left. Considering women are disproportionately affected by poverty and bad capitalism, I don't know why they couldn't find a woman who wasn't accused of rape to come and speak. Meanwhile, rapes and sexual assaults were reported in the camps - along with victim blaming from men in the camps, and stories that the women were told not to go to the police in case it 'harmed the movement'. In Bristol, Occupy members have been rude to BFN and Fawcett on mumerous occasions, demonstrating an unwilligness to see that women make up more of the 99%, and men more of the 1%. A revolution that maintains male privilege is not a revolution at all. We canont have change if we don't challenge the power structures that maintain the oppression of women. To me, Occupy is behaving as though it is for the 49%. As a woman, I am not made to feel welcome. http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/im-woman-im-excluded-from-99.html

Our campaign to raise awareness of women's rights in Afghanistan culminated in a vigil on Pero's Bridge, where we demanded that women have a voice at the peace negotiation table, and that women's rights aren't traded away for peace.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/10/no-women-no-peace-vigil-tonight.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/09/womens-rights-in-afghanistan.html

November 2011:
November saw the publication of Bristol Fawcett's report into the impact of the cuts on the women of Bristol. Shocking stats revealed that the changes to the tax and benefits system would cost the city's women £44 million, double the cost to men. The impact of the austerity measures on women is one of the great under-reported stories of 2011, and I was proud to be ever-so-slightly involved with this project to reveal just how bad things are.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/fawcett-protest-coalition-has-cost.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/bristol-fawcett-report-reveals-impact.html

Helen Lewis-Hastely's report in the New Statesman on online abuse experienced by women bloggers catapulted an issue we had all experienced and known about for years anyway into the mainstream. Conversations about the very specific type of sexist abuse women experience online suddenly dominated the blogosphere. This is not a new issue, but it was great to have it being talked about and debated, even if the inevitable backlash decided that rather than challenge male abuse, women should just get off the internet. This was the most read blogpost ever on my blog!
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-guide-to-online-abuse-and-excuses.html

I went to Fem 11 and was totally inspired by the wonderful Natasha Walter:
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/fem-11-series-women-for-refugee-women.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/fem-11-series-evaw-coalition-and-media.html
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/fem-11-series-feminist-question-time.html

Bristol Reclaim the Night was one of the best we have ever had. A fantastic turnout, amazing speeches and a fab after party helped us raise awareness of why violence against women and girls persists to be a problem in our city and internationally. Speakers talked about rape, intimate partner violence, the impact of the cuts on VAWG, FGM and violence against women and girls in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the revelation in the Bristol Fawcett report that there are 130 rapes in Bristol every month (20 reported on average pcm) clearly showed why we are still fighting this fight.
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/11/130-rapes-per-month-operation-bluestone.html

December 2011:
Exhaustion set in. So many issues to write about and campaign on this year meant that by December, I had no energy left to write.

So I published a book instead: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/12/crooked-rib-publishes-light-bulb-moment.html

Meanwhile, the Leveson Inquiry is asked to look at sexism in the media, particularly how media reporting on rape, and the objectfication of women in the media, encourages violence against women and girls: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/29/leveson-inquiry-sexist-offensive-reporting

And, that's it! My very very long review of the year! Jan 2012 marks the 5th birthday of my blog. Thanks for all sticking with me. You all rock!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Winter Takes It All

2011-12-15T08:59:00.000Z

Me, Griggz, Mr Scruff Scruff and Nanna d Knits made a song for Christmas!

We are the band 'The Winter Takes it All' and the song is called 'A Christmas Without You'

It's for the Choke advent calendar and you can hear it if you click on number 15

http://www.p4ft.co.uk/madventchokalandar2011.htm

Or you can hear it on Soundcloud

http://soundcloud.com/bobby-ciccone/the-winter-takes-it-all-a-xmas

There's even a remix! By Jo

http://soundcloud.com/bobby-ciccone/the-winter-takes-it-all-a

Book review: feminism in the news

2011-12-10T17:28:00.002Z

It must have been at some point between 2009 and June 2010 when Kaitlynn Mendes, a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at De Montfort uni called me for my views on feminism and the media. I talked a lot about how it can be tricky to get press attention for non London events, the way the press either ignored, mocked or silenced feminism (with some notable exceptions) and the struggle of getting noticed when the press was always telling you you didn't exist (unless they were telling you you were sour-faced harridans). We had a great chat and then I promptly forgot all about it until a month or so ago, when Cath Redfern sent me a twitpic of my name in the index of the book 'Feminism in the News'. I was in a book! Wahey!

Kaitlynn then very kindly arranged for me to be sent a free copy to review and I devoured it in a matter of a weekend.

This is an academic textbook that can be read by the non-academic (me!) and understood and loved by those who aren't using it as a source text for essay writing. The book is easy to read, thorough and fascinating, taking the reader on a journey through feminist history between 1968-1982 as seen by the news. The language is readable and not filled with academic jargon, whilst never compromising on meticulous research, sharp analysis and interesting conclusions.

The book is split into three sections - although there are two additional introductory chapters. The first deals with how The Times, The Daily Mirror, The Chicago Tribune and the New York Times reported The Women's Movement. The second analyses how these papers reported equal rights and the final section looks at how feminism was reported in 2008, across those four papers and The Washington Post, the Washington Times, The Guardian and the Daily Mail.

Mendes found that reporting of the women's movement and equal rights could be split into supportive, critical, and seeing feminism as contradictory. Some of her findings surprised me. For example, The Daily Mirror had a very anti-feminist tone throughout the period that loosley defined the second wave - something perhaps based in its appeal to white working class men audience. Rather than embracing feminism as a movement for positive social change, the Mirror saw it as harmful and dangerous, and gleefully reported backlash style stories to show how feminism had 'failed'. Contrary to my belief, the backlash against feminism as we understand it began a lot earlier than it's 1980s hey-day, with a 1970 Mirror article introducing 12 year old Linda Greally who believes it's 'wrong to be equal', and the 1976 article 'Why Adrienne doesn't want to be man'. This latter piece blames feminism for family breakdown and demonises women's libbers as mums who 'dump' their kids. Familiar tropes that seek to blame feminism for all social ills therefore appeared as early as the 1970s, with feminism blamed for shoplifting, bullying, crime etc. - something we still see today in Daily Mail headlines.

Negative reporting tended to focus on presenting feminists as 'deviant' - the usual man-hating, bra-burning steretypes, or else they focused on how feminism was irrelevant or out of touch from women's lives. Little has changed! Other criticisms offered a paternal view that the goals of feminism were legitimate (of course women *should* have equal rights) whilst the movement itself is illegitimate (we just don't think they're doing feminism right). Other critcism (again, plus ca change!) denied that there was a problem with inequality all together, suggesting that the problem wasn't with society, but with the feminists themselves. After all, says Mrs DMM from Kettering in 1970, don't these women enjoy being feminine?

The Times was more supportive of feminism and the fight for equality and women's rights - again quite surprising in some ways, known as it is for its conservative slant. Articles recognised the need for change and, along with the NYT, sought to legitimise feminism. This can be problematic in itself - the journalism that sought to make feminism palatable and 'nice' risked de-politicizing a movement, again an issue we still see today. For example, when the Daily Mail reviewed Natasha Walter's book 'Living Dolls', they wrote how lovely it was that she wasn't angry. She told a packed audience at FIL 2010 how much this annoyed her - she is and was, after all, very angry. Journalism that sought to legitimise, as well as support, feminism found itself reporting that the movement was full of 'normal' (i.e. white, middle class and straight) women. Again, whilst there was perhaps a well meaning positivity in this reporting, it not only resulted in selling feminism as just a movement for white, middle class straight women; it also toned down the angry, political and radical demands the women's liberation movement was fighting for. It was complex, as feminists were also willing to comply with this 'normalising' portrayal in an effort to not be seen as elitist or out of touch or 'fringe'.

Mendes found that out of her four publications between 1968-82, the Chicago Tribune was the one most likely to report on black women's issues and feminisms. These articles acknowledged the intersectionality between the oppressions of race and gender. Articles focused both on the tensions and the benefits of collective activism.

The second section of analysis explores the equal rights movement, particularly on reporting of the fight to pass the ERA in the states, and other legal rights to equality in the UK. Similar patterns were found - with some articles legitimising the movement, others focusing on the backlash, with papers using women who were against feminism (e.g. Phyllis Schafly) to 'prove' how unpopular the movement was.

Mendes focuses on the key issue of who was writing about feminism and where these articles appeared in the papers. Just like today, all too often women's issues weren't treated as 'news' but instead found themselves sidelined into features or comment. Even in 2011, if you're reading about VAWG in the DRC, or the pornification of culture, or lack of women's political representation on the Guardian website, you'll find you're in 'Life and Style'. News about women is still seen as special interest, for ladies only. Just as it was 40 years ago.

The final section was about reporting feminism in 2008 and included four additional papers, The Washington Post, the Washington Times, The Guardian and the Daily Mail. In some ways this was the section that was most relevant to me (and I'm in it!) although that does not mean that the journey to 2008 wasn't equally as fascinating and extraordinary in how some things were better than I imagined, and some things were exactly as I expected.

Mendes' research found that in 2008, popular culture was the most common 'news peg' to talk about feminism - i.e. it was used as the stepping stone to open up a feminist conversation. This results in articles such as 'Is SATC feminist?'. This can be seen as a way of trying to legitmise feminism - making it relevant to the 'normal' woman's life, but, as before, it can also de-politicize and trivialise feminism, as well as making it all feel very conceptual and not very 'real life' in itself. I mean, although as a feminist I care about how popular culture creates and shapes our attitudes towards women, winsome musings about how Bond Girls are feminist icons are not really getting to grips with what feminism means as a social movement for change. Politics was the second most popular news peg - from the Mail attacking the 'ultra feminist lobby' of Harriet Harman, to papers exploring Palin's self-declared grizzly mama style of feminism and her role in US politics - gender or otherwise. The final news peg was activism, with actual feminist events getting news coverage. My bit!

The book analyses how the papers explored 'issues associated with feminism' such as sexual objectification, equal pay and the glass ceiling. Mendes found that a higher-than-expected number of articles sought to legitimise feminism as a movement for good. However, were these articles always political? Some focusesd on how women can wear lipstick and still be a feminist - this way of making feminism pretty and non-scary could again be seen as legitimising feminism whilst ignoring its political anger and need for change. Few articles looked at radical discourse - identifying patriarchy as an oppressive force.

Just as in the first two sections of analysis, the anti-feminist articles followed a predictable pattern. Feminists are deviant - and crucially 'unattractive to men'. So, whilst some articles were gleefully informing women they can still wear pink and fight patriarchy, others continued to warn that if you're a feminist, then no-one will fancy you. Feminism is still portrayed as anti-family - bringing back to life the idea that feminism is not only bad for children, but bad for women as well. These articles promote the belief that 'having it all' is making women depressed and their children delinquent - whilst of course never questioning the fact that 'having it all' never meant 'doing it all'.

The good news is though that thanks to a lot of explicitly and unapologetic feminist journalists, women's stories and feminist issues are being reported positively. The movement is being legitmised by these writers who manage to do so without compromising the politics and radical demands. In my own personal observations this has continued to get better and better, as more and more women and men get involved in feminist activism. I would love for Kaitlynn to analyse 2011. Slutwalks? Playboy protest? Muff march? Anti cuts activism? The Arab Spring? These haven't been fringe stories confined to the blogosphere and one newspaper. Feminism is making headlines again - and it won't be long before we're out of the life and style pages forever.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feminism-News-Representations-Womens-Movement/dp/0230274455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323538087&sr=8-1

Book review: the musings of a monkey

2011-12-10T16:25:00.000Z

I started reading the blog 'The Enemies of Reason' when it was still written by Anton Vowl, in 2009. I think I found it the day the Jan Moir/Stephen Gately scandal broke, and the world of media blogs opened up to me, including Tabloid Watch, No Sleep til Brooklands, Five Chinese Crackers and Angry Mob. Enemies of Reason quickly became one of my favourite blogs - funny, perceptive, honest and articulating everything about the lies in the press that I had always suspected, but had hitherto been unable to concretely prove.

Via Twitter and the blogosphere, Anton (as he was then known) and I became online friends (I hope!) and when I had my first brush with the press telling lies about me, he was one of the people I turned to for advice on how to tackle it. Eventually Anton revealed his true identity as Steve Baxter in a column on Comment is Free, and was quickly snapped up to write for the New Statesman, commenting on media behaviour.

In 'Musings of a Monkey', Steve has brought together some of his favourite blogposts from Enemies of Reason, Farewell Prozac and Warm Cherryade. I had only read Enemies of Reason online, so not only was I happy to re-visit old favourite and un-remembered gems, but I was also pleased to have the chance to read Steve's writing on other subjects, particularly on mental illness, depression and anti-depressants.

The book opens with blogs taken from Enemies of Reason. From insightful comment on news stories of the day (B&B couple banning gay people, and Daily Mail reaction), to how the media works and what it reports (sports personalities' sexual proclivities) and political questions (why we shouldn't wish Thatcher dead); this section meanders into delightful ponderings on what biscuits are best (Viscounts) to the best animals beginning with 'o' (otters. obviously). The joy in revisiting these blogposts is in Steve's writing. His style is very honest, and witty, sometimes sarcastic but never nasty or aggressive, sincere and clear. Sometimes the posts are written in an analytical way, as he takes us through a breakdown of a news story or item. Sometimes he writes very amusing satires of articles. And other times they're just musings of his own, that thanks to his fantastic writing ability and clear voice, never fail to entertain.

Truly in my mind Steve is one of the best writers composing blogs on the internet at the moment, and has been for as long as I have been reading his words.

It is hard to pick a favourite post in the opening of the book, but I do love and always have loved his 'What about the men' piece. Whilst I wrote four sides of A4 trying to explain just how angry I was with Giles Coren and the like, his short and criticial piece on what-about-ery summed it all up neatly and with humour. He manages to pinpoint exactly what it is about the argument that makes it so ludicrious - whether it's what about the men or Daily Mail hate - and quickly and clearly shows off the ridiculousness of it all, without falling into traps of being rude, aggressive or snide. Other favourites include his Lefty baiting: an idiots guide and The A-Z of Internet Commenting. The post on why we shouldn't wish Thatcher dead is also a stand out moment to me. Again, this post expresses the anger at Thatcher's legacy in a way that is clear sighted and meaningful without descending into cliche.

Warm Cherryade is rather a move away from the politics and media commentary and lists of Enemies of Reason. This was a side to Steve's writing that I hadn't really encountered before; observations, memories, short and delicate pieces of prose that capture every day moments, such as giving a spider a lift to work. Odes to cultural icons like Teletext. And reflections on blogging, fear and hope. It's hard to capture the section because there is this diversity there, but it all felt quite personal and quiet - in good ways. I love the idea of giving the spider a lift to work. It is such a lovely observation of something that is otherwise quite inconsequential.

Moving on to Farewell Prozac. In some ways I found this the hardest, but also the most inspiring, section of the book. It is very honest. Like Steve's writing on other subjects, the honesty is what makes it so absorbing and refreshing to read. We learn about triggers and making peace with those moments, those places that threaten to kick off episodes. The physical feeling of depression as well as the emotional feelings. The difficulties of coming off anti-depressants, and the sometimes need to go back on them is conveyed simply and carefully. The importance of recognising that going back on to medication is not a 'fail', but just something that needs to continue for a while, is dealt with in a clear sighted and accepting way. It made me think a lot about my own period of depression and mental unwell-ness (as I call it). It made me wonder how I would feel about writing about it. I don't know if I can. I talk a little bit about it in my book, in my chapter of The Light Bulb Moment. But I don't know if I can write more about it yet. Still, reading the Farewell Prozac posts, especially the one (that actually appears on Enemies of Reason) about how it does get better, reading these makes me think that maybe one day I will try and write about my own fairly minor experiences. I'm just not sure if I'm quite ready to yet. It's kind of all in the fiction posts on this blog anyway. It is helpful and also deeply moving to read about depression written in such a matter of fact and open way. Mental illness is still so hidden often, and so lonely. To have a space online where these experiences are shared in an honest fashion is really important and I hope other readers find Steve's words as valuable as I did.

The book moves on to reflect on journalism as a career, the state of the UK's newspapers, and, in the 'hastily cobbled together chapter on phone hacking', on whether the public can or will trust newspapers again. He writes about reading When Fleet Street Calls by JC Cannell as a teen and being inspired to be a hack, the changing world of journalism since then, and its potential future. His writing on 'prolls' (professional trolls) and how the ways in which the mainstream media whips up outrage and hate isn't without consequence is insightful, intelligent and spot-on. When you read Steve's writing, it feels like everything becomes clear. He has a way of communicating that makes sense of the lies and information overload of the MSM, cutting through the nonsense to bring to his readers an honest perspective that is often very amusing to boot.

On the back of the book, Steve describes himself as having been a 'mediocre journalist'. There is nothing mediocre about his writing. One of the best writers online today, no arguments. I would definitely recommend his book and I look forward to the next one.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/musings-of-a-monkey/16347565

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Musings-of-a-Monkey-ebook/dp/B005EXCGVY

Crooked Rib publishes The Light Bulb Moment

2011-12-07T10:58:00.001Z

Independent publisher Crooked Rib has spent the past year collecting the stories of why we are feminists from women and men across the UK.

Inspired by the Seal Press published ‘Click’, edited by Courtney Martin and J Courtney Sullivan; this anthology brings together writers, academics, grass-roots activists and professional feminists, as they share that moment of inspiration that brought them to feminism.

Some of the names you may recognise. Laurie Penny writing about Germaine Greer. Finn Mackay telling the story of how she went to peace camp. Jo Swinson campaigning for girls to wear trousers in her school. And then there are the women and men whose names you might not recognise, but who are working every day in the fight for gender equality and a better world for all.

Many of these stories are funny. Some are moving. Some tell of pain and trauma. Some are about family members or friends. All of them are inspiring and exciting.

Editor of The Light Bulb Moment, Sian Norris says:

‘After reading ‘Click’ I felt very strongly that we needed this book for the UK. We have such a rich feminist scene here. I thought it would be fascinating to hear how the women and men involved in UK feminist activism ‘found’ feminism. And I was right! These stories are so diverse and unique – I hope that people will enjoy reading them as much as I have.’

By bringing together the stories from women and men from a range of communities and generations, The Light Bulb Moment hopes to offer a snapshot of feminist activism in the UK today, and share the stories of the women and men involved.

The eye-catching cover was designed by illustrator Susie Hogarth.

Crooked Rib Publishing is a self-publishing, print on demand imprint set up by writer and feminist activist Sian Norris. Its aim is to publish feminist fiction and non-fiction work.

You can buy the book here: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-light-bulb-moment-the-stories-of-why-we-are-feminists/12145912

More on Crooked Rib Publishing (with Buy links) www.crookedribpublishing.wordpress.com

Sorry...

2011-12-07T08:50:00.002Z

Hey all

At the risk of sounding like I have '3,000 follower syndrome' I wanted to apologise for lack of blog management lately and taking ages to publish comments. I have five blogposts I want to write but been so busy with work and BFN and book publishing and Christmas shopping that it has taken a bit of a back seat.

All comments now published and new posts coming soon!

How the representation of women is a form of violence against women: Part 2

2011-11-25T09:51:00.001Z

Part 2: Sexual objectification, self-objectification and silent bodies

Back in 2008, ROW took a quick survey of magazine covers in WhSmiths and
Borders. We found that the women on magazine covers were almost universally
white, long haired, slim, smiling, young and conforming to our current beauty ideal.
Whereas men were allowed to deviate from this young, sparkling model, with
wrinkles, grey hair and not universally slim, women were homogenized until we were
overwhelmed with a virtual tsunami of idealised, blank women. The only older woman
we saw was on the cover of a caravan magazine.

Women were also portrayed as being highly sexualised, but never in a way that
hinted at women's pleasure and women's own sexual desire. Instead, women's
sexuality was portrayed on our magazine covers as a performance for a male gaze
or audience. Lesbian sexuality was also overwhelmingly shown as a performance
for men, rather than as an authentic female desire. And whilst some men were
sexualised also, on the covers of gay magazines or men's health magazines, men
were never the object of the female gaze.

So, what does this mean? Well, all our research has shown us so far that whilst
women are marginalised in the creative, powerful, political or sporting sphere, women
are encouraged to appear as objects who embody a very narrow definition of what it
means to be beautiful. Women continue to be there as something to look at, rather
than as active citizens of the world. Whilst there is of course nothing wrong with
being young, slim and beautiful, there is something very wrong with the message
that women should only and always conform to a certain standard of beauty. There
is something wrong with never seeing our reality reflected back to us. And there is a
problem when women's successes are not recognised, because they do not meet the
beauty standard. Women in the public eye are all too often expected to conform to an
unattainable and often narrowly sexualised version of femininity, to look a certain way
whilst their own professional achievements, be it winning an Oscar, an Olympic gold
medal or a role in the cabinet are seen as subordinate to the ultimate achievement of
looking “hot”.

But awful as this situation is, is it violence? I believe that the impact of the
objectification of women and girls, particularly on young women and teen girls,
means that this culture is violent in itself, as well as upholding a rape culture that
excuses and allows violence against women and girls to happen.

Research from the American Psychological Association has found that:

• Pressure on women and girls to look and behave in certain ways negatively
affects their self-esteem and their mental health.
• Gender inequality is reinforced, and hopes for a level playing field are dashed,
when women are valued for their supposed sex appeal at the expense of their
other attributes and qualities.
• After being exposed to images that sexually objectify women, men are
significantly more accepting of sexual harassment, interpersonal violence,
rape myths, and sex role stereotypes.

What this means in real terms is that a culture that reduces women’s roles to that of
sex object, to be consumed by a default male audience, is allowing and encouraging
sexist attitudes, and ultimately violence against women and girls.

The widespread sexual objectification of women in the media has resulted in a
narrowing of young women’s ambition. It leads to a belief that a woman’s ultimate
achievement is to be in a permanent state of ‘hotness’ and failure to live up to the
mainstream cultural definition of hotness negatively affects women’s self-esteem and
belief in their other skills and attributes. It also creates a confusion around a woman’s
sexuality and issues around embodying her own sexuality.

Sexual objectification teaches women that sex and sexuality is something they need
to perform to a presumed male audience, rather than something to enjoy, own and
take pleasure in. This disassociation from their feelings and their bodies can cause
real trauma. Young girls are growing up with a muddled message about their bodies
and their sexuality, as illustrated by Deborah Tolman in her research on schoolgirls in
the USA8. She found that teen girls were experiencing what she called ‘silent bodies’,
as a result of:

‘how confusing it is to develop a sexual identity that leaves their sexuality out’.

Her research found that increasingly girls experience their sexuality through the
prism of being ‘wanted’ rather than ‘wanting’, and they were unable to express or
experience or embody their own sexual feelings or desire. Growing up and seeing
women only as objects to gratify male want and desire, as opposed to seeing women
as fully human with their own sexuality, is having a traumatic impact on girls who see
their bodies only in relation to being a spectacle or something that they want men o
boys to want.

Tolman’s 2004 book Dilemmas of Desire explains how silent bodies are often
accompanied by silent mouths. The inability to feel or voice or embody sexual desire,
whilst still feeling under pressure to perform a display of sexual availability, puts girls
at risk of violence. Not being able to express what you want, but seeing yourself
as a sexual object means that the word ‘no’ is hard to form, leading in some cases
to young girls feeling pressured into having sex that they don’t want to have, and
being victims of coercive sex and rape. Ariel Levy describes this in her book Female
Chauvinist Pigs:

‘Though these girls didn’t experience or had trouble recognizing sexual desire, some
of them had experienced sex – it was something that “just happened” to many of
them. Like Anne, some didn’t really want to, but told their partners they did. Others
had silent mouths to match their silent bodies and said nothing.’

What we are seeing here is how the sexual objectification of women, which teaches
girls that they are objects to be used, rather than as active agents with a voice,
desire and sexuality, is allowing and excusing violence against women and girls. The
example I have given is from an American book, but this is a universal problem.

This year in the UK we saw a horrific case where a 12 and 13 year old girls were
gang raped by a group of men, aged 18-21. It was not widely covered in the press,
except in the Daily Mail who reported that the defence called the girls ‘Lolitas’ who
tempted the men by lying about their age and offering them sex10. Although the men
were initially sentenced to two years incarceration, on appeal they were released
from jail with the judge saying that the ‘girls wanted to have sex’ and ‘were more
sexually experienced than the men’

I mention this case because I think it is a horrible example of the links between a
culture that encourages girls to see themselves as sex objects, and violence against
women and girls. That the men were guilty of gang rape is not disputed. The girls
were 12 and 13, so at least one of them was legally unable to give meaningful
consent. The case reported that one of the girls sent the men a text message and
invited them to a park to have sex. But rather than focusing on the responsibilities of
the men not to gang rape two children, this became enough evidence for the judge
to condemn the girls and blame them for the violence committed against them. The
defence called the girls ‘Lolitas’ who had tempted the men, placing the blame fully
and squarely on the girls. The older girl was reportedly reluctant and became upset
and distressed. She was then raped by one of the men. So whilst admitting that the
men had raped the girls: the judge in this appeal, the defence in their name-calling of
the girls, and the press in their sympathetic reporting towards the rapists, all colluded
to blame the victims. They all worked together to defend the men, and condemn the
children they raped.

When we see women as only and always sex objects, we take away their humanity.
We take away their voices and we take away their minds and we take away their
right to express their desires or say no. This is what happened in this case of gang
rape and the aftermath of the trial and appeal. The belief, enforced by our culture,
that women and girls are objects for men’s desire and sexuality to be acted out on,
as opposed to women acting on their own desire or even mutual desire, means that
women and girls can and will always be blamed for the violence committed against
them. Even when that girl is 12 years old.

Feminist activists call this rape culture. Rape culture is the idea that our culture
excuses and allows violence against women and girls. And with nearly 100,000 rapes
a year and a conviction rate of 6.5%, make no mistake: we do allow this violence to
happen. Rape culture is about blaming women and girls for the violence committed
against them, and telling them that the violence committed against them is something
they should feel ashamed of. But as a feminist and as an activist, I believe it is not
our shame. It is society’s shame.

The sexual objectification of women dehumanises us, and reduces us to objects.
It is far easier to commit violence against someone who has been dehumanised.
Our media landscape, and in particular the proliferation of violent pornography,
increasingly link violence with women’s bodies. A study in 2007 by Wosnitzer and
Bridges found that 89% of scenes in the most popular rented and bought porn videos
and DVDs in the USA portrayed violent acts against women and girls13. Considering
we know that internet porn is often more gonzo, we can assume that the numbers
are representative of online pornography too. Research has shown that boys first
watch porn when they are eleven years old.

This means that young men and women are growing up learning via objectification
and rape culture that sex is something that is done to women for men’s sexual
gratification, not something that women mutually engage in because they actually
want to. They are growing up learning that violence and non-consensual sex acts
are the norm. Coventry Rape Crisis Centre explained to me that more and more
often they are seeing very young women who have been raped by their partners
and their partners’ friends, but don’t have the language to call it rape. Instead, they
are learning from the images that surround them that being forced and coerced into
sex is something they have to do to have a boyfriend. As the rape crisis counsellor
put it to me, they see it as something they have to do ‘to be loved’. The result of this
education that boys and girls are receiving from the images they see every day is
that teenage girls are now the most at risk group of experiencing intimate partner
violence. 1 in 3 girls will experience inter personal violence.

I am sure that everyone in this room will agree with me that this cannot be allowed to
continue. We cannot risk the next generation having an even higher rate of domestic
violence and rape than our own.

So, what can we do? As an activist, I believe that we need to counteract the
objectification of women and girls by also ending the invisibility of women who
aren’t treated as objects. Let’s flood our media and culture with positive and exciting
images and voices of women. Let’s get more women in positions of inspiration. Let’s
end the cultural femicide of women and see our young women and men grow up
surrounded by role models that show them that women are not objects to be used,
and abused. Let’s end the silencing of women on our cultural stage, and the impact
will reach out and end the silencing of women everywhere. Rape culture is informed
and upheld by the objectification of women and the cultural femicide of women. This is how representation is violence. But we can, and we must, stop it. We owe it to
women and girls everywhere to stop it now.

Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs, 2005, pg 165
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367377/Six-footballers-jailed-gang-rape-12-year-old-girls- midnight-park-orgy.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2014278/Jailed-footballers-freed-judges-rape-appeal-say- girls-12-wanted-sex.html
http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/
R Wosnitzer and AJ Bridges, Aggression and Sexual Behaviour in Best-selling Pornography: A
Content Analysis Update’ paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication
Association, San Francisco, CA, 2007.
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2009/03/review_the_sex
Bristol University Centre of Gender Based Violence Research and NSPCC

How the representation of women is a form of violence against women: Part 1

2011-11-25T09:46:00.001Z

This is part of a paper I delivered in the 'Representation as Violence' panel at the Gendered Violence conference organised by UWE. I haven't included the first part of the paper that discussed rise of feminist activism and the reps project results as they have been written about elsewhere on the blog, here:
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/bristol-feminist-network-and-what-we.html
and here:http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-are-women-speech.html

Part 1: Cultural Femicide

So what? So, most of the films in the cinema are directed by men. Most of the books
in awards shortlists are written by men. So what if most the winners of the Mercury
prize are men, outnumbering women by more than 2 to 1, or that the majority of
artists performing at Glastonbury in 2010 are men (71% in fact). So what if only 7%
of BAFTA winning screenwriters are women. So what?

Well, what these numbers tell us is that men's culture, men's stories and men's lives
are being told, they are the default. They are the norm and any alternative version,
such as women's stories or women's culture, is considered 'other' or 'specialist'.
Women, despite being 51% of the population, are not mainstream.

And I believe that this sidelining of women, this invisibility of women is a form
of violence. Because it is cultural femicide. It sends the message that women’s
experiences and women’s lives do not count, that we do not deserve to be seen or
heard. It tells us that we are ‘other’ and as a result the voices and lives of women
become othered.

The impact of this othering can be seen all around us. An interesting example that
I came across last month was the release in the UK of the iPhone 4S, and Siri.
For those of you who don’t know, Siri is the PA function on the iPhone, which talks
and responds to the phone owner via voice recognition. In the USA, Siri has a
woman’s voice, because market researchers found that consumers in the US like
the supportive and nurturing sound of a woman’s voice. But in the UK, Siri is a
man. Why? Because research found that in the UK, consumers respond best to an
authoritative voice. In the UK, authority is male. And why is this? Well, just look
around us. The current cabinet has more millionaires in it than women. The number
of women in board positions on the FTSE 100 list still remains pitifully low, barely
above 13%. The result of this lack of women in authority, this lack of women in
decision-making positions, has big implications. It means women’s voices are not
heard and that the impact of decisions on women is not considered. We just have to
look at the devastating effect of the coalition’s emergency budget on women to see
how true this is.

This silencing, this ignoring, this cultural femicide is a form of violence. It tells us that
women don’t matter. And, of course, the result of this silencing of women can result
in actual physical and sexual violence. One of the issues of the coalition cuts has
been the decimation of domestic violence support services, at a time when in 2010
rates of domestic violence increased by 25%. 90% of the victims and survivors of
intimate partner violence are women. The lack of women in decision making roles,
caused by the invisibility and dismissal of women as citizens of the world, is creating
a situation where decisions can be made that cause great harm to women, whilst
those decision makers avoid being held to account. We know that the vast majority
of domestic violence incidents are unreported. In a culture that silences women’s
voices, can we still be surprised at this?

The lack of representation of women in the media also leads to the furthering of
negative stereotypes about women and men. A recent online row between numerous
feminists and the comedy show Mock the Week revealed the scarcity of women
comics on TV panel shows. In its 5 year history, 18 out of 637 guests have been
women, and it is the comedy TV panel show that is least likely to feature women.
The invisibility of women on this show and shows like it perpetuates negative
stereotypes about women not being funny, and re-enforces a cycle that excludes
women from an industry. Now think about how often you hear or see women on other
TV shows – from University Challenge to Newsnight to CBeebies. Glastonbury. The
Oscars. Where are the women? Why are we not being seen or heard? And how
is this cultural silence preventing the next generation from taking their place in the
industries that currently unofficially exclude them? This exclusion, this refusal to
welcome women on equal terms in our cultural landscape maintains a status quo
that others and silences women. It upholds negative stereotypes that deny women
equality of opportunity. This is cultural femicide and this is violence.

I hope that has explained why as a feminist activist, I believe that the invisibility of
women in our cultural landscape is a form of violence against women and girls. I will
now try to explore how the ways in which women are represented as objects for male
consumption is also a form of violence, as well as a cause of violence against women
and girls.

http://ukfeminista.org.uk/news/press-releases/men-still-on-top-in-the-arts/
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-voices/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/oct/21/siri-apple- prejudice-behind-digital-voices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/12/new-coalition-politics-diversity-women
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/01/women-board-executive-davies-female
http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/10/domestic-violence-soars-25-in-first.html
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime- research/hosb1011/
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/09/mock_the_tweet

Violence against women is not inevitable

2011-11-21T13:14:00.000Z

Here's the speech I gave at Bristol Reclaim the Night on Friday.

Thank you so much for all being here tonight. Standing here, together in solidarity, you are showing your commitment to ending the international crisis of violence against women and girls.

Today is a day of celebration. For it is the 4th birthday of the Bristol Feminist Network. I know that I am so proud to stand here with you all today, part of a network that is buzzing and vibrant and making such a difference to gender inequality in the city and beyond. I have been with the network since it began in November 2007, in fact I was one of the organisers of Ladyfest Bristol 2007, from which BFN was born. I am so proud of the achievements of our network, and so happy to stand with you all tonight, as we say no more to violence against women and girls.

So, why are we here? What are we fighting against? The recent Bristol Fawcett report, Cutting Women Out, estimated that 130 women will be raped in Bristol each month. That means that since we began planning this year's Reclaim the Night in August, there will have been approximately 500 rapes in our city. This week in the UK, two women will have been murdered by her partner or ex partner and many, many more will have been abused. In fact, across the world, 1 in 3 women will experience sexual violence in her lifetimes. In the UK, 1 in 4 adult women will experience intimate partner violence in her lifetime, a figure that goes up to 1 in 3 teen girls.

Surely then, these figures should be on the front page of the newspapers every day. Surely this should be a national scandal. Surely, with these numbers, our government should be investing serious money in funding support services, tackling rape myths and improving a justice system that so often lets rapists go free. And yet, instead of action to end violence against women and girls, we see cuts. Cuts to legal aid, preventing victims and survivors of domestic abuse from accessing affordable legal representation. Cuts to vital local support services for victims and survivors. Cuts to social housing, making it hard for victims and survivors to escape violent homes. When I wrote to Theresa May in April, she assured me that ending violence against women and girls was a priority for this government. But, as she said to the Women's Aid conference in 2010, it's actions that count, not words. And I've counted this government's actions. It isn't looking good.

It is very rare that cases of violence against women and girls get reported in our media. However, there have been three cases this year that have stood out in my mind and that have revealed so much about how rape and sexual violence is discussed in the mainstream. They were the accusations against Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and the gang rape of 12 and 13 year old girls in Reading, where a group of men were found guilty and sentenced.

Whatever people here tonight think about the accusations against Assange and DSK, because of course we do not know what happened, one thing has been clear. The reaction to the cases was a checklist of how pervasive rape myths and victim blaming is in our society. All three alleged victims have been portrayed as liars, and have had their sex lives, politics, poverty, nationality and friendships used to discredit them. They have found themselves at the centre of conspiracy theories, and in some cases we have seen the legal definition of rape mocked and disregarded by lawyers, and by left and right wing commentators. We do not know what happened in either of those cases. But we do know that the immediate and continued reaction was to discredit and disbelieve the women. Because, in a rape culture that is almost always our reaction.

In the third case a 12 year old girl was gang raped, and her 13 year old friend was raped by one man. The men were convicted in March, but by July they were free after winning their appeal. One of the reasons given by the judge for their release was that the 12 year old girl was more sexually experienced than the men, and the convicted rapists had shown remorse. Yes, you heard that right. Our judicial system basically said that if someone rapes a child, but can then find a way that makes it look like the child was to blame, then they have nothing to worry about. Just admit it frankly, show a bit of remorse and easy. You'll be out of jail in less than a year.

In a rape culture, victim blaming, lack of justice and silence around the levels of violence against women and girls is the norm.

But what I want to say to you all here tonight is that rape culture does not have to be the norm. Violence against women and girls is not a fact of life. It is not inevitable. It is something that can change, something that can and will end. By standing here tonight, by marching through our city streets, you have shown your commitment to ending it. The aims of Reclaim the Night, education on consent and respect, support for victim and survivor services and improving the justice system - these are all steps on the road to end violence against women and girls. Things are better than they were when the first Reclaim the Night was held in the 70s, and together, standing in solidarity together, we can make a difference and we will make a difference. I believe that. That belief gets me out of bed every day. A world without violence is possible, and by being here tonight, you are part of the movement to make that world a daily reality for everyone.

Thank you.

130 rapes per month, Operation Bluestone and big stats

2011-11-18T11:34:00.001Z

This post was written in collaboration with Dr Helen Mott and Anna Mapson of Bristol Fawcett, who yesterday evening collated stats and sources for me to back up the claim in the Cutting Women Out of Bristol report that there are 130 rapes in Bristol each month. You can download the report here: http://www.bristolfawcett.org.uk/Economy.html

So, when I started sending out press releases for Bristol Reclaim the Night, I used the stat from the report that there are, on average, 130 rapes in Bristol each month. The BBC received the press release, and we arranged an interview for this morning. I was surprised then to get a call from the police yesterday, disputing the stats and saying that their figures showed that the number was closer to twenty. I explained that the 130 was based on unreported rapes, and that the 20 were just reported rapes. We had a good chat, and I think we found common ground and left on good terms.

However, the BBC then phoned me to warn me that in the interview this morning, the presenter was going to ask me about these stats and why our numbers were different to the police's.

So here's what I explained on the radio, from Helen's and Anna's fantastic and interview saving research!

Every month in Bristol more than 50 sexual assaults and other sexual offences are reported, 19 of which are rapes.

Where is this statistic from? http://womensgrid.freecharity.org.uk/?p=4513

This figure is reported in 2010 on WomensGrid in an article on Bristol Rape Crisis (we must assume that either Rape Crisis press released the figure or that it was obtained from the police). This in turn comes from an Evening Post article here, January 2010: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Bristol-s-Rape-Crisis-Centre-supported-200-women-months/story-11260986-detail/story.html

When we look at the Home Office site (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/historical-crime-data/rec-crime-1990-2011) and look up the latest available figures for 2007-8 for the Avon and Somerset area (this is not just Bristol) then we see the total (reported) rapes (men, women and children) is 429, or 35.7 a month! Which then on a reporting rate of 15% means 238 a month for the whole Avon and Somerset area.

That gives us an overview of the varying numbers of reported rape in Bristol and in the wider Avon and Somerset area. If we return to that first number though, which supports the stats the police quoted, we have an average of 19 reported rapes per month in Bristol.

But this is reported rapes. When we look at the British Crime Survey over 6 years, we find that on average, only 15% of rapes are reported. In fact, when we include repeat victimisation in the figures, the annual reporting rate actually drops to 9%, or fewer than one in ten. We need to balance this against a reporting rate that is more like 41% for victims under 16 years old.

So, when we know that we have 19 reported rapes per month in Bristol, but that only represents 15% of rapes overall, we can estimate that each month in Bristol there are 127 rapes.

However, we really need to emphasise that this isn't us trying to trip up the police or make them look bad. In Bristol we can be really proud of the work that Operation Bluestone (the part of the force dedicated to looking at sexual violence) have made, including big strides in tackling sexual violence. Their work has won awards, and as well as working with survivors and victims, they are also running educational programmes to tackle the causes of violence against women and girls. They collaborate with the Bridge Sexual Assault Referral Centre and have always stood in solidarity with BFN and RTN. Of course it isn't perfect, there is a long way to go, but steps are being made in the right direction to ensure that women and girls in Bristol have a police force they can feel confident reporting rape and sexual violence to.

You can listen to me on the iPlayer explaining the stats, explaining rape culture and talking about the great work of Operation Bluestone here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00lh7kp/Breakfast_With_Steve_Le_Fevre_18_11_2011/

Chief Supt Sara Crewe from Bluestone is talking at 2 hours 19 min 39 sec
I start talking at 2 hours 21 minutes 18 seconds

Credit goes to Ministry of Truth for their interrogation of the national stats:
http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/

Bristol Reclaim the Night - this Friday!

2011-11-15T12:33:00.000Z

Bristol Feminists march to Reclaim the Night and end violence against women and girls

On Friday 18th November, hundreds will take to the streets of Bristol to demand the right to walk through the city, free from the fear of sexual harassment, abuse and violence. Not only this, but they will be marching to call for an end to all sexual violence, whether committed on the street, in the workplace, in schools and in the home.

Bristol Feminist Network believe that:

“In 2011, we still live in a rape culture. This means that we live in a world where rape myths that seek to blame women for the violence committed against them are widely believed. It means that women are held responsible for preventing rape and preventing violence, by being instructed to modify their own behaviour to ‘avoid’ rape. But rape is not a natural hazard that women can ‘carefully avoid’. It is a deliberate, vicious and violent crime.

When there are attacks on women that make the news, the response remains the same. Stay indoors, don’t drink, use the buddy system. Posters all over the country warn women about the dangers of rape by telling them to restrict their freedoms. ‘Let your hair down, not your guard’, we’re told. The fact that rapists, not victims, are responsible for rape remains unspoken.

Every month in Bristol 130 women will be raped. And yet the conviction rate from reporting to trial stays pitifully low, at 6.5%. Women who are brave enough to report rape find that it is they, not the rapist, who is put on trial. Reclaim the Night demands an end to this injustice.”

The aims of Reclaim the Night are to:

•    educate about consent and violence against women.
•    To bring justice to victims, by improving the conviction rate.
•    To support the services in Bristol that are helping victims and survivors of sexual assault every day.

One25 fully supports the aims of Reclaim the Night and are proud to be participating in the event again this year. We too believe that everyone deserves to be safe from violence on our streets and that everyone deserves the same high level of support if they are attacked, regardless of their personal background. It is of vital importance that the Bristol community get together this November to raise awareness of the plight of those who live in daily fear of our streets at night and campaign for safer streets for all of us.
                                Josie Hill, One25

On the 18th November, women and men will be marching in solidarity with women across the world. They will be fighting to end violence against women and girls. Ban-Ki Moon called violence against women and girls the ‘greatest human rights violation of our time’. They demand an end to the violence.

When? Friday 18th November 2011
What time? 6pm vigil (good for press photos)
Where? Meet in College Green for a vigil to remember the victims of violence, before marching through the city to Portland Square, for speakers and rally.
Who can march? We welcome people of all genders and ages, but the march will be led by a woman-only section (for all self identifying women).

Fem 11 series: Feminist Question Time, politics, porn and men

2011-11-13T13:54:00.001Z

I would like to say early on that I wish I had taken notes in this session as by now I was very tired and I can't remember lots of amazing things that were said. But I cheered a lot!

After the workshops, we all returned to the main hall for Feminist Question Time. The panel was made up of more feminist heroes, Shami Chakrabati, Zoe Williams and Bea Campbell, as well as founder of Anti Porn Men Project Matt McCormack-Evans and Carlene Firmin, a writer and the youngest black woman to be awarded an MBE (and now a new feminist hero of mine). The event was chaired by Cllr Rania Khan, who had spoken in the opening session.

The event was split into three sections to give direction to the questions. The first part was on the attitudes towards gender equality in the government; the second on the sexism industry and the final on 'what is feminism'. The first question to be asked was by BFN member and friend Jo! Who asked the panel whether the government's failure to improve or even consider gender inequality was a result of there not being many women in parliament.

The question went to Shami Chakrabati, who repeated the question and then paused, before saying 'YES!'. We all whooped and cheered and stamped our feet in response and I felt so elated to be surrounded by feminist women who all care so much about ending the mess that is gender inequality. Wahey! She expanded on her point to explain that without women in key decision-making roles we couldn't see improvements to gender inequality. The question moved in to discussing the disapproval of all-women shortlists in the judiciary. Zoe Williams quipped that the problem with this government wasn't just the lack of women in parliament, but the fact that most the people in government were tories. She went on to explain how no-one cared about impartiality in the judicial system when it sends in all male shortlists, something that we can all agree on I think. As I always point out to people who connect all women shortlists with a lack of 'merit'; George Osbourne did not become the second most powerful politician in the country on the merit of his vast intelligence and politicial know-how. As Matt went on to point out, all-women shortlists are a must if we want to see an improvement in women's representation. Bea Campbell talked more about how the government is entrenching inequality in amazing, articulate ways. I really wish I could remember what Carlene Firmin said because I remember cheering really, really loudly.

From political representation we moved to a discussion about the 'sexism industry' and its impact on gender inequality. As ever, this proved a divisive topic even in a UK Feminista ran conference with it's very firm policy on the sex industry. The first question was directed to Shami Chakrabati as her role on the Leveson Enquiry into media ethics. The woman asked whether the Leveson Enquiry would investigate the ways in which the tabloid media objectifies and harms women. Shami responded that it would be impossible to look at media ethics without looking at sexism and misogyny, and that she wouldn't be on the enquiry if she didn't think it could and would affect real change. I hope it does, but of course I have my doubts. Zoe Williams believes that the tabloids will eventually all shut down, promising to pose naked in the Guardian if page 3 is ever banned. This was an important question, as 'newspaper porn' is now so established, so insitutionalised in our culture, it's hard to know how to tackle it, or even consider it as actual porn. But it is, and it needs to be stopped.

The next question resulted in perhaps the moment that made me most angry at the conference. A woman in the audience asked why feminists were against 'strippers, lap dancers and prostitutes' and why she couldn't be a feminist because she enjoys 'lap dancing and watching porn with her boyfriend'. This made me angry because it seemed to me to be wilful ignorance about the feminist argument on the sex industry. That it isn't about being against women in the industry, it is about questioning why we have a sex industry at all and fighting its corruption, its normalisation of violence against women and girls and the exploitation of women and girls within the industry; as well as campaigning against the harmful effects the industry has on women and men everywhere. It really troubles me that people can't see or refuse to see the difference between challenging an industry that causes huge harm to women; and not liking or 'being against' women who work in the industry. The two things are very different and to me, the latter is not and never has been and never should be the feminist argument. The final question in that segment was on whether prostitution should be illegal.

Matt talked at length and articulately about the harm the sex industry does to women and how it results in a narrowing of women - women's sexuality and women's amibtions. Then Bea Campbell was just amazing. She talked about exploitation in the sex industry and asked some difficult questions about how we have to question our own choices. She says that she doesn't think prostitution should be illegal (I agree, although I believe in criminalising the exploiters - the johns) and then put forward what (according to Twitter) was the most challenging proposition of the day. She asked us to consider the abuse of children in pornography, the filmed and photographed child abuse, and then to consider the parallels between that abuse and the abuse of women in the sex industry. Unlike the impression given by some tweeters, she did not compare women to children or say that women didn't have agency. She just asked us to consider how people (women and children) are exploited and harmed by the 3rd biggest industry in the world and to ask ourselves some serious questions about how we value women.

Twice in the day the point about the sex industry being the 3rd biggest industry in the world was brought up. It is a really interesting point, especially if like me you believe that patriarchy and capitalism are intrinsically linked and both need to be tackled. As I have said before, I have often found the socialist and liberal support of the sex industry, which makes more money than the film, music, publishing and TV industry put together at the expense of exploiting women, very confusing. I also think it is important to say over and over again that when you watch a video of a woman being raped on youporn or whatever, you have no way of knowing if that is consensual. No way at all. You don't know where that woman has come from, what 'choices' she has, whether she was trafficked, whether she is in pain (probably). You don't know. Same if you go to a brothel, or buy a woman on the street, or go to a strip club. You don't know if that woman is being exploited and if, for example, you choose to pay for 'sex' with a woman without knowing she is being exploited then you are breaking the law. So turn it off. Put your wallet away. Stop. Exploiting. Women. For. The. Benefit. Of. A. Rich. Man's. Bank. Account. No-one died from not having an orgasm. Lots of women die in the sex industry.

I think this was what Bea Campbell was aiming at, to ask us to consider where and how exploitation happens, and to make us stop and think about whether our choices are encouraging exploitation. This of course applies to all capitalist ventures outside the sex industry as well, and I think boycotting the sex industry is the same as boycotting any other industry that makes its money from harming women - be that drugs, retail etc etc.

The final questions were about feminism and what it means, and led to a discussion about how we need to speak to men and engage men with feminism. I've been meaning to blog about this issue for ages so will use this space to do so instead. I believe it is important for men to be involved in feminism. This is because I think it is important for everyone to be involved in feminism. I don't think we should be pouring special, additional energy into getting men involved and I certainly don't think we should de-politicise certain issues or sugarcoat some of the more challenging aspects of feminism in order to make it palatable to men or to make men want to like us. Men should be allies, men should be feminists because everyone should want to make the world a better place through the fight for gender equality and liberation from patriarchy. But they need to listen to women, respect women and we should be able to talk freely about the more challenging things, we should be able to critique male privilege, we should be able to talk about women's issues and have women only space without being criticised for 'excluding men'.

But, to be honest with you, involving men in feminism isn't my priority. Because I think we also need to do more to reach out to other women, before we even start on reaching out to men. And I am a bit concerned about how often feminist discussion becomes a discussion about men, when there are lots of women and communities of women who see feminism as irrelevant and not part of their lives. Which was why I think my loudest cheer went out to Carlene Firmin, who talked about how we need to be make feminism relevant to young women, living on South London estates, trapped in a cycle of violence and gang rape culture, without even the language to describe what is happening to them. She talked about how we discuss the media pressure on women to be thin, but how the young women she works with care less about thinness and more about getting big bums through implants. This is exactly what I believe we need to do more of as feminists. My priority has to be reaching out to women, young women, who are experiencing sexism and misogyny every day as their norm. Rather than making sure that men like feminism, I want to make sure that feminism is relevant to young women across class, across communities, so that together we can fight against the sexism that places such serious restrictions on women's lives and denies them justice, a voice, to condemn the violence that is committed against them.

Carlene's speech led to huge cheers from an inspired audience and as the closing answer in the Question Time it left me with lots to think about. I'm not sure how I am going to be relevant to young women and I'm not sure how I am going to do more to help and support refugee women, but hopefully I will find a way to take what was discussed yesterday and do something about it.

And that is my last post on Fem 11. Thanks to the organiser and speakers for a fantastic, inspiring and thought-provoking day!

Fem 11 series: EVAW Coalition and the media

2011-11-13T12:30:00.000Z

This was the first workshop I attended on the day. It was an obvious choice, seeing as the gender studies conference scene is preparing to be dazzled on November 24th with my impressive paper on 'representation of women as violence' at the forthcoming VAWG conference here in Bristol. This workshop, organised by the End Violence against Women (EVAW) Coalition (http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/) promised to explore how violence against women and girls (VAWG) is linked to media representation, and ask questions about how we can use the media to tackle vawg. It was therefore a bit surprising then that at the end of the session a woman complained that we had spent the whole workshop talking about the media!

The workshop was led by Holly Dustin, Sarah Green - both from EVAW, and Marie - an academic on gender based violence (I'm so sorry I can't remember her surname or if that was even her name!). The room was absolutely packed, I was sat on the floor and women were stood and sat in the hallway. I was really pleased to see how busy it is, as to me fighting violence against women and girls (and I have a very broad definition of that term) is a key and vital issue in the fight for liberation and equality.

The paper that I am delivering next week focuses on the ways in which the representation of women in the media is a form of violence against women and girls. This was perhaps a jump from one of the themes presented by Marie, who made the point that we can see how media representation of women and sexualisation culture is a cause of VAWG. However she nodded along with my comment that I see it as a form of violence in itself, particularly as we see young girls expected to perform sexuality but not emobdy or own their sexuality, which leaves them at a real risk of experiencing sexual violence in their relationships.

The workshop started with us all shouting into the room what made us angry. The conviction rate, Eammon Holmes still being on TV, victim blaming, labiaplasty, Nadine Dorries - there were lots and lots of points raised about how we were angry about the violence being committed against women and girls. It was really refreshing to hear so many women's voices talking about their anger and also their own experiences of violence and blame in a supportive and feminist space.

Marie then talked a little bit about her research and the recent shift in the conversation about sexualisation of girls and its impact on VAWG. Under the Labour government, she explained, a review on sexualisation conducted by Dr. Papadopoulous was published; followed in 2011 by the Bailey Review, commissioned by the Coalition govt. She explained that the Papadopoulous review looked at sexualisation as a gendered issue, and how it related to young girls' well being, self esteem and issues around violence. The Bailey Review however stripped out any context around gender and became a very moralistic report about hiding sex and sexuality from children. This is really important as it shows that in the case of the Bailey Review, feminist arguments around sexualisation were co-opted and twisted to become a 'pearl-clutching prudery' issue and not an issue about gender equality and the impact of sexualisation on VAWG and in teen relationships etc. I remember a friend telling me that the the Bailey Review suggested banning black bras for teen girls. Who is sexualising children here? Who is saying that black bras are sexual and not just practical to wear under black clothes? As feminists fighting against a culture that seeks to demean and degrade women as sex objects we need to be careful that our feminist arguments are not co-opted and mutated by a right wing argument that thinks it's fine to harm women, so long as no-one over 18 sees you doing it.

Marie went on to talk about how it is difficult to get these issues discussed in the 'academy'. This is something I have heard before - the reluctance in academia to investigate and research the links between sexualisation and sexual violence and gender inequality. Marie - if you read this post please get in touch as I would love to find out more about your research!

This part of the discussion encouraged the women in the room to talk about their own experiences of sexualisation and its impact on young women. We talked about how things have got worse in this area even in the last ten years, particularly with the rise of the internet and easy access to violent pornography. Debate was raised however about whether we are judging young women who buy into this industry and who want to present themselves in a highly (mainstream) sexualised way. Again, this is a key question to feminists campaigning on this issue and relates to the hegemonic ideas of choice (ooh long word!). We talk a lot about choice, but what does choice mean when young women (and men) are only offered a very narrow and male defined view of what it means to be sexy and sexual, often in a way that completely disregards women's desire or pleasure or sexuality. An interviewee in Natasha Walter's book 'Living Dolls' explained how as a teen girl in our culture she feels she has no choice but to embody this one narrow version of sexual presentation. She has no choice. And this 'choice' to perform a narrow version of sexiness or sexuality, that is divorced from women's bodies or sexual pleasure, often leaves young girls with 'silent bodies' and at risk of coercive sex and sexual violence.

These questions also relate to the sex industry. What is a free choice in a culture that values women's ability to fit a narrow view of male defined sexuality over their ability to be leaders, thinkers, scientists, writers, politicians, etc etc. One woman in the discussion rightly brought up class, and although I disagreed with her that the 'only' problem with the sex industry is capitalism, it is vital we look at class. To refer to Natasha Walter's book again, there were some very revealing comments from successful middle class men who financially support the sex industry about their attitudes to the women with working class backgrounds who bring in their profits (but see so little of that money themselves).

One particularly challenging part of the discussion was when a woman in the group brought up the huge issues women face on a global scale, particularly in Saudi Arabia and South Africa. She called the issues that western women face as small, and I have to admit this troubled me. Because the issues facing women across the world are all big and all vital and all need to be tackled. Sexual violence, for example, is an issue women face in every corner of the globe. She asked why we weren't raising money for rape crisis centres in South Africa. Of course we need to do this, but we also need to raise money for rape crisis centres in the UK. It isn't a competition of who is worse off in my view, it is about working together in sisterhood to tackle gender inequality wherever we find it across the world. I absolutely believe as feminists we need to have a global outlook, but we must not fall into the trap of ignoring the sexism we find at our own front door, just as we must not fall into the trap of ignoring the sexism in other countries.

The workshop then moved to look at how we can tackle VAWG through engaging with the media, and EVAW showed their We are Man film, a viral aimed at men to tackle rape culture. The video caused some division in the group. A few women questioned whether the Jackass style stunts in the video perpetuated stereotypical ideas of manhood and masculinity, stereotypes that as feminists we should challenge. On the one hand, I agree. Tackling gender norms and stereotypes are a big part of the feminist battle, after all, men are trapped by restrictive gender norms too. However, we don't live in a post patriarchal world and sometimes we have to step back and think about who we are trying to talk to. This video aimed to reach out to young men who want to watch something funny and silly on YouTube and who will hopefully be shocked by the twist and led to consider the issues it raises. During that first engagement, they aren't necessarily interested about deconstructing notions of masculinity. Sometimes we have to work within that patriarchal framework to reach an audience. We don't want to be in danger of losing the message, but we also don't want to lose the opportunity to engage men with that message at all, by talking at a level that is meaningless to them. Feminism is sometimes seen as irrelevant to young men and women, or to anyone outside an academic background or framework. So whilst we must talk about deconstructing gender stereotypes, we also need to make sure we are talking to young people in a way that they can respond to and engage with. We need to be relevant without being patronising and I think the video achieves this well.

The three men in the room loved the video, by the way.

You can watch the video here: http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/

Fem 11 series: Women for Refugee Women 'From Rape to Refusal'

2011-11-13T10:57:00.002Z

(Nb. I won't use names of the women who spoke at the workshop in this post or go into a lot of detail about the stories told - this was a safe space and I respect the confidentiality of the women who spoke out)

I first came into contact with the workings of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) earlier this year, when me and two activist friends, Chitra and Ray, hastily set up a grass roots campaign to prevent the deportation of a young Ugandan woman who had experienced severe homophobic persecution and was at serious risk of harm if she returned. The woman, who I'll call 'T', had been horrifically assaulted and branded in a homophobic attack and since her arrival in the UK, had been outed as a lesbian in a notoriously homophobic newspaper. This outing meant it was not safe for her to return to Uganda. Her family had abandoned her and she sought asylum in the UK. Despite her medical report confirming her injuries and the obvious dangers she faced if she returned; asylum was initially refused because the UKBA didn't believe she was really gay, and therefore refused to believe she was really in danger.

I think before the morning when I sat reading the reports and the judgements on her case, I had had faith in the system. I felt that despite the pressures from a rabidly right wing press that is filled with lies about asylum seekers, and the resultant pressure on government to keep people out; I believed that deep down, in my wealthy, liberal country, we would help people who came to us looking for help. Not turn them away to face rape, violence and murder on the flimsiest of excuses.

I don't have that faith anymore. As far as I can tell, the UKBA's chief concern is not to help people find a new life; it is to send people back as quickly as possible to keep the Daily Mail readers happy.

Thanks in part to our campaign that raised some noise about her case and led to her getting better legal representation, T was released from Yarl's Wood and is now waiting for her case to come up. She is in limbo but she is not detained in what is basically a prison for women who have committed no crime.

Campaigning on T's case opened my eyes to what our asylum system actually does to women and men, but I had only seen a small slice of one case. So I was thrilled to see one of my ultimate feminist heroes, Natasha Walter, was leading a workshop about her charity Women for Refugee Women and the difficulties that women seeking asylum in the UK face. It was called 'From rape to refusal'.

Unfortunately, rather than being really cool and saying hello, when Natasha stood near me I went all weirdly star struck and looked at the floor. So shameful!

The workshop opened with a song from a group of women from WAST - women asylum seekers together. It was a welcome song about les modes preferees (favourite things?) with lots of clapping and joyful singing. Natasha then introduced why she had set up Women for Refugee Women. People mainly know Natasha for her books which concentrate a lot on UK feminism and the issues that are of particular concern to western feminists, so although I knew about her work with her charity, it was great to hear more about the work she does beyond the books.

Like me, Natasha's eyes were opened to the horrors women face when they arrive in the UK when she met a woman who had sought asylum from the DRC. She realised that she needed to do something to end the deafening silence around this issue, as well as find a way to provide support for women going through the system. Natasha explained the reasons why people seek asylum, such as persecution on religious, political grounds, or because they are a member of a persecuted ethnic group. Both women and men seek asylum under these terms. But she explained that women often have to seek asylum because of so-called honour based violence, the threat of FGM, intimate partner violence and rape (which can overlap with the other cited reasons). This is gender based persecution and it is a reason to seek asylum, but, just like in the UK justice system, it is often not taken seriously and women are not believed. Because we don't consider gender hate to be a hate crime or form of persecution, it is difficult for women to get asylum. To make matters worse, I found out from my friend that last week the:

'UK Government has decided to opt out of the EU directive which will give women seeking refuge from gender-related persecution, such as FGM, forced abortion or rape in situations of conflict or war greater protection in other European countries.'

Natasha didn't talk for long, this was a workshop, she explained, where we would hear and listen to the voices of the women going through the system.

The stories began with a woman talking about her arrival in the UK, and the first time she went to the home office to request asylum. In a room packed with people, the officer asked her to explain what happened to her and why she needed asylum. Because of the lack of privacy, she found it very difficult to took about the violence she had suffered, she couldn't go into details. Think about this carefully. A woman arrives in the home office centre. She is expected to tell a stranger about incredibly traumatic and violent experiences in a room full of people who can hear what she is saying. How can we expect women to do this? How can we expect women to talk about this in public, with no privacy, no support, no understanding?

The official's response?

'I don't believe you. You are lying. You have to leave.'

With no-where to go, she spent the night sleeping rough, and returned the next day. It was then decided she could go on the 'fast track' (where cases are decided in two weeks) and was put in detention whilst her case was processed.

In response to a question about whether women were entitled to speak to a woman official and see a woman doctor, Natasha explained that the right is there, but that we have to understand that women arriving at the asylum office often don't know what rights they have. They don't know the system and no-one is going to explain it to them. And the fear is always there that if they 'cause trouble' they will be seen as a problem, and put themselves at risk. Particularly against the context of what many of these women have experienced at home, you can see why it might be hard to speak out and ask for what they are entitled to have. So whilst the right is there on paper, it is rarely put into practise.

The women talked more about the horrors of detention in Yarls Wood. The family wing in Yarls Wood was recently closed down, and children and families are now kept in a different centre (not without its problems) but there are still over 400 women held at Yarls Wood. It is important to remember that despite these women being the victims and survivors of horrific crimes, in Yarls Wood they are treated like criminals, detained in a centre where they have no freedom. Is this how we treat women who come to the UK to escape horrors across the world? The women on the panel spoke about how detention triggered traumatic memories from the persecution they had suffered in their home countries. Is this how we help people?

From arrival and detention the talks moved to explain and discuss destitution. When an asylum seeker is refused asylum and has exhausted their right to appeal, they become destitute. This means that the (tiny) benefits and housing provision they had when they were in the system (£30 a week on a card that they can only spend in certain shops, no right to work) are no longer given to them and they have nothing. Nothing. Many destitute asylum seekers end up sleeping rough where they are at serious risk of sexual assault. One recent report found that a third of asylum seeking women sleeping rough had experienced rape and sexual assault - none of which was reported to the police. Because asylum seeking women are refused recourse to public funds, they often cannot go to refuges or shelters who might be able to support them as victims and survivors of violence. One woman on the panel had been destitute since 2004. Others had spent near to ten years in 'limbo', waiting for their cases to be heard, waiting for their decisions to come through. Limbo often goes hand in hand with destitution.

The lack of proper legal representation is one of the issues women seeking asylum face, leaving them in limbo and struggling to have their cases heard. The cuts to legal aid will of course exacerbate this.

One woman on the panel described how the scars of the physical torture she had experienced in her home country would heal. But that with the UK's asylum system she had experienced long term, systematic mental torture.

That is what our asylum system does. It tortures women who have already been tortured in horrific ways. It dehumanises women. It robs women of their dignity. It opens them up to shame and abuse and puts them at risk of assault and trauma. And it refuses to believe women. The opt-out of this directive will mean the government can continue to allow the UKBA to refuse to believe women.

The workshop finished with a message of hope, however. Because we have to remember that change is possible. Natasha talked about the progress we have made in the UK in getting rape and sexual assault taken seriously (yes we have a long way to go but progress has been made) and how we can use this to try and change the disbelieving attitude towards women in the asylum system. The women spoke about the importance of the support networks such as WAST. And, movingly, one woman spoke passionately about how the support of British women had given her hope. That support, a phone call, seeing women at the workshop, a hug, these gave her hope (by this point I had started crying).

Tomorrow no doubt the Mail and the Express will be wilfully confusing economic migrants, illiegal immigrants and asylum seekers with a pack of lies about the benefits they get, the jobs they 'steal' and the 'too full get out' message they so love. Their shit stirring leads to government decisions like the one to opt out of a directive that will save the lives of women across the world who need our support.

We need to listen to the stories of these women and we need to make the change so that no-one will ever be robbed of their dignity when arriving in this country ever again. We need to make the change. And after hearing the women talk yesterday, I believe we can. I hope we can. It will take a long time and a lot of fighting. But we have to do it.

Because I am ashamed to live in a country that looks at the scars of a woman like T's and says she's lying. I am ashamed to live in a country that puts women into a virtual prison when they are survivors of crimes against humanity. I am ashamed to live in a country where women are left destitute and at risk of sexual violence when they have been forced to flee a life of sexual violence. This is not a country that I want to see. I want a system that believes women, that supports women and that doesn't tell lies about women.

http://www.refugeewomen.com/

My guide to online abuse and the excuses given to pretend it doesn't happen

2011-11-06T13:44:00.003Z

Trigger warning - because i quote some of the insults I've received.

Ooh i hear you say. A 'jumping on the bandwagon' style post about online misogynistic abuse, the latest thing being talked about on the feminist blogosphere and even in broadsheet left-leaning newspapers!

Well yes, in some ways you would be correct in making this assumption but also this is something i have written about before (here: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/03/despair.html here: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2010/08/stop-calling-me-ugly.html and here: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2009/11/sick-of-bloke-osphere.html) and is something many, many feminist bloggers have written about many, many times before. Now that the issue is getting a bit more attention, well, seems time to join that campaign and write about it again. I make this point because I feel like the papers have suddenly 'discovered' it when actually the debate is as old as the blogosphere.

So, here you have it. The Sian and Crooked Rib guide to sexist online abuse, and the excuses that are made to silence it and pretend it doesn't exist.

Part One: Types of sexist online abuse.

1. Mansplaining

Have you ever seen that episode of QI, when Reginald D Hunter tells the story about how he likes to tell white people that he doesn't know what corduroy is, to see them explain to him painstakingly and carefully what it is? Mansplaining is a bit like that. It's when a man reads something by a woman, often relating to her personal experience of a feminist issue, and carefully explains why they are wrong. Never mind the fact that they might be talking about a personal experience. Never mind the fact that they might be talking about their doctoral thesis. Never mind the fact that they actually do know what they are talking about, or are making sensible suggestions or don't really care whether you think they are right or not. It's that very specific gendered patronizing that aims to silence or undermine a woman's opinion with no real cause, back-up or strong argument.

Mansplaining is not the same as disagreeing with a woman writer. People disagree with each other on the internet and can do so politely, carefully, in an informed way and have a great debate. Mansplaining is different because it involves being patronized and silenced. No-one has a problem with lively online debate (even if sometimes in a perfect world we would all like everyone to agree with us and write comments going 'yeah! great! well said!') - mansplaining is when a woman's opinion or experience is undermined, ignored and said to be 'wrong' because it contradicts the mansplainer's own idea or comfort zone.

As my friend Marina S says, mansplaining is the result of some men being so wedded to the idea that women are stupid, they simply cannot understand a woman being able to form their own opinions without a little help from the guys. See here: http://notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/2011/10/portable-safe-spaces-and-occupying.html

2. U.G.L.Y you ain't got no alibi!

Calling a woman ugly is the misogynist's go-to card when it comes to online abuse. A misogynist thinks calling a woman ugly or fat or old or hairy or hairless-on-their-head is the nadir of insults. I like to imagine them, typing away and puffed up with rage, desperately trying to put their finger on the best ever put down and then going 'hah! i'll tell the bitch she's ugly! that'll shut her up!'.

My absolute all time favourite online insult was on the Evening Post website, when I was quoted criticising Hooters in one of the many 'EP loves Hooters' articles. It went something like this:

'I imagine that you're so fat you could jumpstart a jumbo jet. I imagine you sitting in your house on your own with a shaved head eating lentils out of a bowl.'

(not that it matters, but none of these things are actually accurate although i do quite like lentils)

The reason men who don't like women much think that calling a woman ugly is the perfect insult is because of the cultural value we place on female beauty. We equate being able to conform to the current culturally defined beauty standard as THE measure of success for a woman. So calling a woman ugly is the misogynist's way to call a woman a failure. It is a way to undermine, and to point out that nothing a woman says has any worth because she has failed in the most important aspect of being a woman - being attractive to men.

I mean, I have been quite flippant above but in all seriousness being told you're ugly over and over again does hurt. Because no matter how far our "consciousness is raised" as feminists, we still live in this patriarchal capitalist system and therefore the values of that system are still within us. During the Hooters debacle someone posted a horrible photo of what they imagined I looked like, along with some unfriendly remarks, and I cried. It is why it is even more important that we fight and act against a society that tells us that being beautiful is a woman's ultimate achievement, that we support each other and fight against negative messages about women's bodies, and that we constantly challenge the idea that fat, old, hairy etc. are insults. They're not and they shouldn't be.

3. Huh. Women. Hysterical! Emotional!

On International Woman's Day, I wrote an article on Liberal Conspiracy about international violence against women and girls. It was pretty much a list of stats from various sources, including WHO, the UN, the Home Office and British Crime Statistics. I deliberately chose the statistical route so as not to be called emotional. But that didn't stop one of the first commenters deciding to accuse me of writing a 'hysterical rant'. When Sunny, the editor, pulled him up on his use of sexist language, he went on and on and on about how hysterical isn't sexist.

Well, it is.

Hysterical is a word used to silence women. Again, it is a word that undermines a woman's argument. It says don't pay attention to her, she's hysterical, over the top, over emotional. It's historic meaning is sexist and gendered. And frankly, have you ever heard anyone call a man hysterical? No, me neither.

Emotional is the other one. It gets forgotten on the bloke-osphere that the opposite of 'emotional' is not 'rational'. You can write something that is emotional and still be rational, fair, factual and evidenced. But again, saying a woman's writing is emotional is silencing. Oh don't listen to her, she's being all over emotional again, letting her feelings get in the way.

Emotional is seen as something feminine, and in an unequal society, feminine is seen as lesser, as petty, as not important. The fact that there is nothing wrong with being emotional about a subject like violence against women and girls is lost in the effort to shut up and undermine the facts and figures of the issue.

Men are passionate. Women are hysterical. Men are assertive. Women are emotional. Men are rational. Women are letting their feelings get in the way.

These sexist double-standards infiltrate all aspects of life but online they are used to dismiss, undermine and mock a woman writer's argument.

4. Sex

Online misogynists love calling women writing online 'lesbians'. Just like saying we're ugly, they think that calling someone a lesbian is the worst insult of all. Of course, lesbian is not an insult. The only people who think calling someone a lesbian is an insult is the kind of dumb-ass teenage boy minded misogynist who delights in bullying women online. There are a lot of parallels between trying to insult a woman by calling her a lesbian as there are to calling her ugly. The idea that 'lesbian' is an insult is based on the idea that a woman's success in our society is based on her being in a straight relationship.

One of the most upsetting insults I had online was during the Hooters Evening Post nightmare. One man had obviously googled my name, seen the Guardian article where I wrote about growing up in a gay household and proceeded to use this information to abuse me and my family. I am never sure what I found more horrible; the fact that he wrote nasty things about my family, or that he felt the need to google me to discover more info to use against me as childish but hurtful insults.

The other form of abuse that I am categorising under Number 4 is the childish, spiteful and frankly pathetic 'speculation' about the woman writer's sex life. This can be speculating about whether the woman is a lesbian or not, but in my case it has involved taking my anti-porn stance to make suggestions about how they imagine my sex life to be. This is really unpleasant. It's really really fucking rude for a start. And also, it's trying to undermine an argument by making out that you think I must be 'uncool' and 'uptight' and 'prudish' and 'no good in bed' because I think there are perhaps other ways to enjoy myself that don't involve taking part in the commercial sexual exploitation of women and men. I know, I'm the freak here.

This has also taken the form of asking me inappropriate and intimate questions about my sex life, my sexual history and suggesting I try out different things sexually (even though the bully has no knowledge of my sex life). Mocking someone for their perceived (or known) sexuality and sexual preference is again a great way to silence women writers by trying to suggest that they aren't as 'cool' or as 'liberated' as the online bully, whilst again using patriarchal society's measure of success (women being sexually attractive/available to men) to make out that the woman writing is a failure.

5. Violence, rape threats and hate language

Of course, this is the most extreme form of online abuse. It is also the scariest and the one that most succeeds in silencing women, leading as it does and has done to women shutting down their blogs, turning down writing work and worse besides. Although I haven't had this happen to me as badly as some writers (see Cath Elliott's blog here for how extreme this can be: http://toomuchtosayformyself.com/2011/04/20/an-occupational-hazard) when it did happen it made me want to turn off my blog, refuse any more writing offers and hide away, silenced and thoroughly 'shut up'.

The rape threats, the threats of physical violence, online stalking - these things have become the reality for women feminist bloggers and women bloggers in general. They're so commonplace as to almost seem normal. But it is not normal and it is not acceptable. No-one should have to feel that fear that we all get as we check the unmoderated comments tab, to breathe that sigh of relief as we avoid the abuse...for now.

These threats are real, they are scary, they leave you shaken and they leave you feeling threatened. They need to stop and the culture that excuses it, brushes it off or reduces it needs to be stopped too. Which leads me to part two...

Part two: Excuses given to brush off sexist online abuse

1. Women! Women are mean too!

Yes, I know! Imagine. Women. Being mean.

I do take big umbrage with feminists being sexist and abusive to one another. We have enough to deal with with anti-feminists treating us like shit without starting on one another. Sisterhood is an important tenet of feminism and although we can and should disagree or challenge one another, lets not do that in abusive and sexist ways. Or, for that matter, in 'one-up woman ship' ways.

And yes, women can be abusive too. To other women and to other men. This isn't right. Sexism, whoever is saying it, needs to stop. In my experience however, and it is important to point this out, I have never been sexually or physically threatened by a woman, or a feminist. Although at least two of the examples I gave in Number 4 were from an anti-feminist woman.

2. If you're on the internet, you need to deal with people disagreeing with you

This one is sexist in itself! As it implies that we women bloggers are delicate flowers who can't cope with people disagreeing with us, or who aren't able to manage the manly nature of debate. This argument is BS. Look at any of my blogposts with more than 5 comments and you'll see people disagreeing with me and arguing with me until the cows have gone home, been milked and fallen asleep. Debate and disagreement will happen and we can deal with that.

The difference is explaining why you disagree with my argument that, for example, I believe we need to end the commercial sexual exploitation of women and men in our society; and physically threatening me in order to show me why I shouldn't even be daring to make the argument in the first place.

If you can't understand that difference, then I will give you another example. There's a difference between disagreeing with my stance on abortion; and calling me a 'fucking baby killer' for making an argument that supports a woman's right to bodily autonomy.

It's fine to disagree (even if I think you are wrong). It isn't fine to use misogynistic abuse to try and make me stop writing.

3. Ungh. You are making out that women are victims! Stop victimising yourself!

Speaking out against violence is not victimising yourself. Breaking the silence around the abuse women regularly receive is not taking a victim stance. It's being honest about a serious issue and trying to challenge why it happens to ensure it doesn't happen any more.

I think that people who try and say that women being honest about their experiences are behaving like victims feel uncomfortable with hearing the reality of misogyny. That's their problem. I don't see myself as a victim. I see myself as trying to write honestly about my experience of sexist online bullying, in order to join in a wider conversation with other women, who together are speaking out against something that is ignored and brushed under the carpet.

Trying to silence us by saying we are behaving like victims is pretty pathetic reaction IMO. It's like a desperate last resort to make out that we're the ones behaving badly.

4. But men get online abuse too!

I'm going to leave it to a male blogger who gets abuse on his blog to explain this one:

'never seen any of my male blogger acquaintances get similar kinds of abuse. Certainly not anything like as frequently.'

Just like street harassment, men get abuse too. But the nature of the abuse and the types of threats and the reasons behind it are different.

5. It's freedom of speech man!

Expecting people to not partake in any of the abuse example mentioned above is not about restricting people's freedom of speech. It is about recognising that no-one should use that right to freedom of speech to harm other people and threaten them with violence.

Using vile misogynistic insults and threatening women to intimidate them in to leaving an online space? Who's denying people freedom of speech in that scenario ey?

But I won't shut up on my blog. I won't have my freedom of speech, my freedom to write and my freedom to express my views taken from me because some people think they have a right to abuse me online. I won't be silenced.

And that, my friends, is the very special Sian and Crooked Rib Guide to Online Abuse and the excuses given to pretend it isn't a problem and doesn't exist!

Comment on the New Statesman

2011-11-04T09:17:00.000Z

I tried to leave this comment on the New Statesman blog about abuse women bloggers receive.

But damn it! Something is wrong with the commenting! And it isn't appearing.

Here's the article: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2011/11/comments-rape-abuse-women

So, will write it here instead:

I think sadly a lot of the comments on this blog prove the blog's point.

It reminds me of discussions on street harassment. Every woman i know has been harassed on the street, yet when it is discussed we are told it isn't that bad, it isn't a gender thing, men get harassed too...but do men regularly have women scream in their faces sexual threats and hate language?

Similarly on blogs. All the male bloggers i know who do get abusive comments say it is nothing compared to the systematic, endless sexually violent abuse that their women peers get.

It IS a gender thing. It simply is. It isn't 'it happens to men too' and it isn't 'it's not THAT bad'. It is about using sexual threats to silence and intimidate women.

I don't have too bad a time of it on my blog although it does happen. i've had threats and sexually aggressive language used against me, but for me the worst are the 'persistents' - the ones who know they're banned but come back over and over again to write nasty abusive messages, apparently taking glee in the fact that i will have to read at least part of it before i realise who it is and hit delete.

The worst i've experienced though is when i have written for unmoderated sites or been quoted in my local paper. In the latter, the abuse ranged from the usual - fat, hairy etc to men saying what they wanted to see happen to me, to eventually people writing abusive things about my family.

In fact, there are names on this comment thread who i have seen engaging in this sexist and abusive behaviour - writing sexually aggressive insults about women bloggers, writing posts abusing other bloggers and, in my own case, speculating about my sexuality and my sex life in a sneering and mocking (and uninformed!!) way, and suggesting i engage in certain sexual practices to 'prove' something.

It is silencing. After the worst bout of very sexualised aggressive comments on my blog i nearly shut it down.

But i didn't and i won't because i have a right to a voice, and they have no right to use their freedom of speech to threaten me with rape.

Hopefully this won't appear 4 times on the NS site and will try and post it there if it starts working...

Bristol Fawcett report reveals the impact of the cuts on domestic abuse support services

2011-11-02T19:21:00.000Z

“Fair” has been the buzzword from the start. Since the emergency budget announced by the Shadow Chancellor in the summer of 2010, to the last budget plans of April this year, we have been assured over and over again that these cuts will be fair. ‘We’re all in it together’, we were assured. ‘The most vulnerable will be protected’, the line went.
But it didn’t take long for the National Fawcett Society, as well as some Labour MPs, to uncover who would be shouldering the real burden of these cuts. Women. Yvette Cooper’s and Fawcett’s investigation into the emergency budget discovered that the 70% of the money raised from the cuts would come from women’s purses.
Considering the assurances given that the most vulnerable would be protected from the cuts, it has been shocking to learn that a sector that works hardest to protect the vulnerable are in the firing line for budget cuts and centre closures. I am talking of course about the domestic violence sector. From Devon initially facing 100% funding cuts to their support services (eventually reduced to 42% cut) to Women’s Aid’s announcement in March that 60% of refuge services will receive no council funding in the coming year, it seems that it is exactly the most vulnerable, and the most silent, groups of people who are having their lifelines cut.

So what does this mean for the city I live in, Bristol. Partly as a response to Fawcett’s national challenge, the local Bristol Fawcett group have created a report to explore how the cuts are impacting women living in the city. Amongst the shocking statistics, there is plenty of evidence to see how cuts to health and social care, legal aid, housing and benefits system will make the lives of those fleeing violence harder.

And there have been direct cuts to support services too. The city council were faced with the difficult decision of how to allocate money to domestic violence support services, and the commissioning process led to funding being given to one central organisation, Nextlink. This has left a range of local community charities and support services without funding. Whilst it is important and necessary that funding has been provided to tackle domestic violence, there have been some questions raised over this decision, with concern that centralising services will reduce choice for women seeking to leave violent relationships. The commissioning process has meant that Bristol now only has one council-funded organisation that specialises in domestic violence. Nextlink will be running support services for women and men, as well as providing dedicated support for BME women and men.
As the cuts start to bite, domestic violence continues to be a big issue for the city. Bristol Fawcett’s anti-cuts report found that between 15,400 and 22,000 Bristol women will experience intimate partner violence each year, and around 130 women are raped in the city each month. These women are from all the different communities and areas of Bristol, and there is a real concern within the sector that the cuts to support services will reduce women’s choices and accessibility to the services they need to leave a life of violence.

One of the organisations that lost their council funding in the commissioning process was WISH, a domestic violence support service and charity based in South Bristol who offered support to both women and men victims and survivors. Facing closure, WISH received funding from BBC Children in Need to run a project working withyoung perpetrators of violence.

I spoke to Sian Taylor, an independent domestic violence advisor working with the charity about the impact of the cuts on WISH and the victims and survivors of violence who they support.

Taylor explained that ‘the funding cuts mean we will have lost our core work of supporting victims and survivors.’

Both the Bristol Fawcett report and Sian Taylor recognise that the problem with the cuts isn’t just an issue of lack of funding for support services. It goes a lot deeper than that. In the socially deprived areas of Hartcliffe and Withywood where WISH is based, issues such as housing provision and cuts to other benefits make it harder for women to leave violent relationships.

‘The cuts to housing benefit have a massive effect on those who want to leave and don’t feel able to,’ Taylor explains. ‘Not having access to housing makes it harder for them to be independent. The perpetrator of domestic violence often feeds on making their partner feel that they are completely dependent on them, and they will make their partner feel like they can’t leave. Many women end up staying with a violent partner because he controls the finances, so she fears that she can’t cope without him or that she is tied to him because she doesn’t have the money to get away. As a result, a lot of people who leave end up going back. We often find that someone leaving a violent relationship will return a couple of times before leaving for good.’

High private rental costs, cuts to housing benefit and depleted council house provision work together to make leaving a violent relationship difficult financially, as well as the obvious emotional trauma. This lack of support, encouraged by the cuts, leaves those trying to escape with limited options. Currently, if someone has a mortgage and tries to leave a violent relationship, they will find it difficult to get the financial support they need, be that from council housing or benefits – a situation that completely ignores how domestic abuse works and how perpetrators often control and withhold money. ‘Victims of domestic violence shouldn’t be penalised for owning a house’, argues Taylor. ‘People fleeing a violent relationship don’t always have access to money and that needs to be better understood’.

Although ostensibly legal aid has been protected for victims and survivors of domestic violence, in reality it is becoming increasingly difficult for it to be accessed. In order to claim in a domestic violence case the claimant needs to provide “evidence” of the violence. This of course sounds reasonable, but in practicality it can be hard to define what evidence of domestic violence is. Taylor explains to me that on average there are 35 incidences of violence before a victim goes to the police – 35 incidents that aren’t recorded and therefore aren’t evidenced. Evidence also immediately suggests physical violence, which ignores the nature of how domestic violence works. ‘The definition mustn’t be just about physical violence but about coercive control, emotional abuse – these are difficult to prove and difficult to evidence, but they are still violent acts. By not taking this into account, it makes it very hard for those leaving to get the help they need’.

When I wrote to Theresa May earlier this year to find out more about how the cuts were impacting on the domestic violence sector, she responded that ‘the Government has made it a key priority to take a strong lead on tackling violence against women and girls to help ensure this issue remains a priority at local level…local authorities must not see this sector as an “easy cut” when making difficult decisions.’ She assured me that the government ‘have also provided ring-fenced Home Office funding for local specialist services to tackle VAWG with over £28 million allocated until 2015 for Independent Domestic Violence Advisors, Independent Sexual Violence Advisors and Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference co-ordinators.’

But in a country where two women a week are murdered by their current or ex-partner, 100,000 UK women are raped each year and 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence in their lifetimes (rising to 1 in 3 teenage girls), this simply isn’t enough money or support. If it were, vital organisations such as WISH would not have had to cut their support services. Women and men in violent relationships are among the most vulnerable in society, and this is an issue that affects people across the country, and across class.

‘I'd like to see more refuge provision’, Taylor says when I ask her about what we could be doing more of in our city. ‘I'd also like the sentencing for offenders to match the crime - offenders are often released having had short custodial sentences (if sent to prison at all) - what kind of message is that delivering to our society? And why would women want to go through the ordeal of giving evidence in court if sentencing is so minimal anyway? I’d like women to have a choice of services. I’d like to see women supported, regardless of age, history, and whether they have a criminal record. I’d like to see those fleeing violence given priority for social housing. And I want to see more protection from harassment.’

The future of WISH, in a rather more limited role, is safe, for now. With funding from Children in Need for two years for the 11 to 24 Project, the team are moving further into prevention, working with young people and young perpetrators of violence. Taylor hopes that the project means that rather than ‘mopping up’ the aftermath of violence, it will tackle the root causes of violence with an aim to educate around consent and respect. But after those funded two years, Taylor isn’t sure what the future holds.

‘Wish have two years worth of funding, after this the future is uncertain. So many good projects are set up but then plugged because of funding constraints - I dont want this to happen to Wish.'

To learn more:
http://www.thewishcentre.org.uk/index.php?page=234
http://www.bristolfawcett.org.uk/

Stats on VAWG in Bristol: ( Based on a rate of between 7 and 10%. Domestic Violence is often under-reported. The British Crime Survey 2009/10 records a rate of domestic violence of 7% http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb1210.pdf

Women’s Rape Crisis, [online] Available at http://womensgrid.freecharity.org.uk/?p=4513

British Crime Survey shows a lifetime rate of sexual abuse or rape of 19.7%: Home Office., 2010.
Crime in England and Wales 2009/10 findings from the British crime survey and police recorded crime (Third Edition) at p.72 [online] Based on Female population of 220000. Available at:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1210/hosb1210?view=Binary

National VAWG stats: Home Office and BCS as above

Cuts to Devon services: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2011/jan/25/domestic-violence-charities-face-100-cuts

Women’s Aid announcement: http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic-violence-press-information.asp?itemid=2599&itemTitle=Women%92s+Aid%92s+survey+reveals+fear+that+over+half+of+refuge+and+outreach+services+could+face+closure&section=0001000100150001&sectionTitle=Press+releases

Women's representation in sport

2011-11-02T18:35:00.000Z

I was asked to write an opinion piece for the Fresh Outlook on the news story about women boxers wearing skirts. I actually felt a bit conflicted about it, as was concerned that it was fuelling a story that perpetuated the idea that women are othered in sport, rather than seeing women and men as equal in the sporting world. But I wrote it anyway.

The news that Polish boxers are expected to wear skirts, and the debate as to whether boxers from other countries should therefore do the same, will come as little surprise to observers of the way women are perceived when they take part in the male-dominated sporting world. It is a perfect example of how discussion of women in sport, if and when it happens, often seeks to strip away the sport and athleticism of the competitors and turn it into a conversation about clothes, or women’s bodies.

When a volunteer from Bristol Fawcett looked at the representation of women in the Guardian Sports pages over the month of November 2009, she found that 1048 of the images were of men, whilst only 28 were of women. And, unlike the in the photos of men, none of these women were pictured passionately, energetically and powerfully engaged in their sport. We weren’t shown their strength, their determination or their triumph. The women were either completely divorced from their sport, glammed up to show that ‘athleticism and sexiness can go together!’ or else they were shown crying. Whilst of course there is nothing wrong with looking glam, it says something quite stark about how we see women in sport that out of over 1070 images of sporting stars, we couldn’t find one that showed women being athletic.

This is symptomatic of a wider invisibility of women in sport. The BBC only agreed to show the Women’s Football World Cup after immense pressure was put on the broadcaster. Despite the fact that, as in cricket, the women’s team was far more successful than the men’s team. In areas where we are familiar with seeing women in sport, such as in tennis, a new issue arises. The All England Club (who host Wimbledon – perhaps the most famous tennis tournament in the world) was criticised in 2009 for putting matches between conventionally attractive women players on high profile courts (that get a lot of TV coverage) whilst former champions and top seeds were shifted on to courts 2 and 3. In 2002, Martina Navratilova also accused the BBC of sexism over its coverage of the matches, citing the same reason.

And of course we all remember how earlier this year, comments by high-profile Sky pundits about a woman who works as a lines person exposed the sexism women face in this male-dominated world.

Let alone the disbelief that shook the athletics world that a woman could run as fast as Caster Semenya can.

Even the way we talk about women in sport shows an accepted and unconscious level of sexism. Women boxers. Women tennis players. Women footballers. Women’s cricket. Women athletes. Can you imagine someone saying the ‘men’s football world cup’? Because when it comes to sport, our default is male. Women are almost consistently ‘othered’.

Arguably, the two most widespread news stories in women’s sport recently have involved beach volley ball players’ bottoms and Polish boxers’ skirts. I say widespread, as they are stories that I have been exposed to as someone who doesn’t follow sport, suggesting that they have been mainstream news items. Indeed, it is this that I have been asked to write about. We haven’t heard about the incredible athleticism of the volley ball players. Or the determination and strength of women who box. We’ve learnt a lot about what they’re expected to wear, or what they’re planning on wearing.

The achievements of women in sport are many and they are impressive. They are equal to and even surpass the achievements of their male counterparts.The women who box are athletic, strong, ambitious and passionate about their sport. They are not clothes horses. They are not women boxers. They are boxers. They are athletes.

Fawcett Protest: the coalition has cost Bristol's women £45 million

2011-11-01T09:06:00.003Z

Bristol Fawcett offer a stark warning as coalition cuts cost Bristol’s women nearly £45 million -
double the cost to the city’s men.

A report compiled by the local gender equality activist group Bristol Fawcett has found that the coalition spending cuts are costing the city’s women nearly £45 million – twice as much as the cost to men. The group fear that the impact of the spending cuts on women will entrench and increase gender inequality in the city.

Bristol Fawcett and their supporters will be gathering on College Green between 12.30 – 1.30pm on 3rd November to protest the impact of the cuts on women, ahead of the council’s budget announcement.

But where is this huge cost coming from? The report explains how the cuts are impacting on Bristol’s women. Key findings include:

The changes to the benefits and tax system will cost Bristol’s women a shocking £44,825,450 .
This includes cuts to tax credits, benefits to pregnant women, family and care benefits and unemployment benefits.
Cuts to housing benefit leave Bristol women up to £15 a week worse off.
The cuts to the EMA will leave around 3,000 Bristol students without the support they need to continue their education.
The council are cutting the health and social care budget by £7.3 million and the PCT by £19 million. The number of women needing these services outnumber men by several thousand.
Women make up 63% of council workers in Bristol. The council are planning 240 job cuts in 2011/12 alone.

Bristol Fawcett believe that “these cuts are unfair and unnecessary. The impact on women’s lives will further entrench economic and social inequalities between men and women living in Bristol.” The report was produced with the aim of illustrating just how dramatic the impact of the cuts has been, and continues to be, on Bristol’s women. The results are clear – women are bearing the brunt of the Government’s deficit reduction plan, and it’s costing them dear.

The National Fawcett Society, an organisation dedicated to fighting gender inequality, has praised the report and the reasons for writing it:

“ Drastic reductions in public spending have left women facing a triple jeopardy of cuts to jobs, benefits and services that have over recent years helped to narrow the gap between women and men. This report spells out the real impact of cuts on the ground in Bristol, and shows clearly how many will have a disproportionate impact on women. It’s reports like this that help us make sense of what’s actually happening to people around the country.”
Anna Bird, Acting Chief Exec, Fawcett Society

Bristol Fawcett have worked closely with a number of local organisations to collect their data and develop the report, including Shelter, Child Poverty Action Group, Unison, Bristol Citizens Advice Bureau, Voscur (a voluntary services organisation), Bristol Violence and Abuse against Women and Girls Strategic Group, Bristol Partnership Equalities Action Group, Bristol Rape Crisis. NextLink (support housing for domestic violence survivors and victims) and Platform51 (formerly the YWCA).

In response to the report, Bristol City Council have told Bristol Fawcett:

“We are consciously thinking about the three aims of the Equality Duty as part of the process of our own decision-making on our Medium Term Financial Plan. The Equality Duty will be one of a number of factors that we need to consider. We will therefore be looking closely at this report which will assist us in making our recommendations.”
Barbara Janke, Leader of Bristol City Council

Bristol Fawcett hope that their report will be a wake-up call to decision-makers, and bring an end to budget policies that deepen gender inequality in the city. There are fears for the city’s most vulnerable, as domestic violence charities lose funding A local domestic violence support service, Wish for a Better Future, lost all its local council funding as a result of cuts to local government spending. One independent domestic violence advisor told Bristol Fawcett, “the funding cuts mean we will have lost our core work of supporting victims and survivors.”

Women are facing a choice of pay-cuts, redundancy and reduced pensions in the public sector. Said one worker,

"I'm a local government employee and over the last eighteen months there have been reductions in staff numbers through the ending of temporary contracts. This has meant huge gaps have appeared in the work of the organisation with either no one to do them at all, staff covering for absent posts and areas of important work simply not being done. We are constantly being presented with schemes to "encourage" us to leave with varying incentives like voluntary redundancy, part-time working and early retirement, yet no forward planning to direct who is eligible to leave nor information about who will cover the work if people do leave. All colleagues are concerned about their jobs and futures and management just don't seem to understand the level of fear and worry people have. Now we are told the government are introducing a pension tax on public sector workers to help pay off the debt. I'm in line to lose an extra £1000 per year along with having my pay frozen for the last three years, inflation and the VAT rise, I'm experiencing about a 20% pay cut in real terms and now they want to punish us even more for something that was nothing to do with us. The public sector has been successfully demonised by the government but we are the people providing services for those most in need - you can't privatise everything. This country is going back 30 years and no one seems to be standing up to try to stop it."

Event details:

Location: College Green
3rd November
12.30 – 1.30pm (press call for photos at 1pm)
Who’ll be there? Bristol Fawcett, the report authors, supporters and the women affected by the cuts

Notes:

Bristol Fawcett is a local branch of the National Fawcett Society. They campaign and lobby to improve policy and services for women and girls and bring an informed gender equality perspective to local decision making bodies.
Last year, the National Fawcett Society challenged the coalition government’s emergency budget. They believed that the budget would disproportionately have a negative impact on women, and estimated that 70% of the cuts would hit women’s purses directly. A judicial review of the budget was called, and the Government admitted they had not conducted a gender equality impact when creating the budget. In response to this, Coventry produced a report on the impact of the budget cuts on women which motivated Bristol Fawcett to create their own report.

No Women No Peace vigil TONIGHT!

2011-10-31T10:05:00.002Z

Ten years on from the invasion, Bristol feminists stand in solidarity with Afghan women. Their demands are simple. Include Afghan women in peace negotiations.

In 2001, the protection of women’s rights from the Taliban was used as a justification to invade Afghanistan.

10 years on, women’s rights are being compromised, as women’s demands are ignored and their presence is excluded from peace negotiations. The very negotiations that aim to decide their futures.

On Monday 31st October, women and men across the country will gather to hold vigils as they stand in solidarity with the women’s rights activists of Afghanistan. They ask the Foreign Secretary to remember and consider that without women involved, there will be no peace.

Why the 31st October? The 31st October is the anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 that:

Affirms the importance of women in peace making initiatives
Urges member states to keep women fully involved in conflict resolutions and the peace making process

What is the Bristol Feminist Network asking?

"Later this year, William Hague will attend an international conference that will decide what happens next for peace in Afghanistan. We ask him to respect the UN Resolution. We ask him to urge his colleagues to proactively ensure that Afghan women are involved and have a voice in the negotiations that will decide the future of their country. The 31st October will see women and men gathering across the country to tell William Hague: DON’T TRADE AWAY WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN AFGHANISTAN."

Event details:

Location: Pero’s Bridge, Bristol City Centre
Demo gathers at 5.30pm, press photo call at 6pm
Monday 31st October
Wear green scarves, in solidarity with Afghan women’s rights activists.
More info: http://www.bristolfeministnetwork.com/

Crooked Rib publishes 'Greta and Boris'

2011-10-30T20:18:00.000Z

For those of you who don't know, this blog is just one part of the Crooked Rib world. First we had the zine. Then we had the blog. And now we also have a self-publishing venture.

And today is the day of the first publication from Crooked Rib Publishing.

Greta and Boris.

Greta's best friend is her cat Boris. However, little does she realise that her bewhiskered best mate is actually Prince of the Kingdom of Cats. So when he is kidnapped by the Rat King, a young cat named Kyrie Mi-ke is sent to find Greta, and together they face a mystical and magical adventure to bring Boris home again.

You can buy the print edition of the book here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/greta-and-boris/18497380

E-book edition and other sales outlets coming soon!

To find out more about Crooked Rib Publishing, go to the website:

http://crookedribpublishing.wordpress.com/

Big thank you extended to Mr Scruff Scruff for patiently reading, designing the cover layout and helping me in all i do.

Anti-rape campaigns, men and offence

2011-10-25T12:10:00.004+01:00

*trigger warning*

Note: this post is about victim blaming. I tend to talk about male rapists and women victims and survivors. This is not to silence or ignore that men are victims and survivors of rape and sexual violence too. It is just because that the safety campaigns are focused on women and issues around victim blaming are generally focused on women's behaviour.

Don’t drink. Don’t walk by yourself. Use the buddy system. Carry a whistle or an alarm.

Every woman reading this post will know what I’m talking about. This is the standard advice issued to women every Christmas, every time certain crimes are committed near to where we live.

How refreshing then, that Scotland has decided to direct this advise to someone else. To men.

The latest rape prevention campaign from Scotland has done what feminists have been campaigning for and arguing for, for a long, long time. They have decided to focus their attention on the cause of rape rather than the victims. And the cause is, of course, men who choose to rape.

Compare the Scottish poster to this one from Wales. South Wales Police say this is an old poster (2 years I think?) but it is still being used in venues across the area.

This is the more familiar message. Women, we’re told. Watch your step. You could be a victim, especially if you drink alcohol. It’s up to you to make sure you’re not vulnerable to rape. It’s up to you to make sure you don’t ‘put yourself in the position’ where you might be raped. The message is ‘don’t be a victim’. But the message really should be ‘don’t be a rapist’.

There are so many reasons why campaigns like this Welsh poster cause harm to women. Here are just a few.

One, by telling women that they are responsible for preventing rape by changing their own behaviour, we are creating a culture of blame. If we are ‘warned’ that we’re more likely to be raped when drunk, surely we’re more likely to blame ourselves for the violence committed against us if it has happened when drunk. The same goes for wearing a short skirt, knowing the attacker, having a relationship or friendship with the rapist, taking drugs etc etc. Of course there are reasons not to get drunk or take drugs, such as your liver and your brain, but this is not one of them.

Two, when you create this idea that a woman is responsible for not being raped, and is therefore blamed because her behaviour is seen as ‘causing’ the rape, you end up with women reluctant to report violence to the police. If we can’t trust that we will be believed and listened to, that we won’t be blamed, then how can we have the confidence to go to the police and tell them what happened to us? How can we trust that the court, the jury, the CPS won’t look at the victim-blaming advice dished out to women, and think that we should have taken steps to prevent rape?

Three, the advice is utter BS anyway. Women are raped when they are sober, when they are drunk, when they are wearing trousers, when they are wearing skirts, when they are young, when they are old, when they are walking home on their own at night, when they are in their homes, when they are in their workplace, by strangers and by people they know. Because of this, there is no preventative advice that is given to women on earth that will actually stop someone who has chosen to rape from raping.

This culture of blame is part of rape culture. It is the belief that women are responsible for the violence committed against them, and that they should feel shame for the violence committed against them. Rape culture means that women and girls can and will be held responsible for their rape, if they break a set of invisible rules that serve to exonerate the rapist and blame the victim.

Even if that child is 12 years old: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-mail-justice-and-child-protection.html

When Jo Yeates was murdered in December last year, Avon and Somerset police issued safety advice for women urging them to not walk home alone in the dark. BFN quickly got on the case, getting in touch with the force regarding how the safety advice was inappropriate (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/01/bfn-response-to-polices-warnings-re.html) and met with the police to discuss how they could amend the advice. My colleague asked them whether they would consider changing their anti-rape campaigns so that they addressed men rather than women. The police explained that they couldn’t, because men would find that campaign offensive.

Because men would find that campaign offensive.

Never mind that women find it offensive to be told to police their own behaviour because some men choose to rape. Never mind the fact that victim blaming campaigns have a serious impact on women’s confidence in the judicial system, add to women’s trauma and prevent justice for victims of rape and sexual violence. Never mind any of that.

Because men find being told not to rape offensive.

The reason, of course, why men find campaigns that refuse to victim blame, and instead focus on the perpetrators of crime, offensive is because they believe that they are somehow being told that they are likely to be rapists when they’re not.

But this argument just doesn’t stand up for so many reasons. Firstly, there are plenty of campaigns that target the perpetrators of crime. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t steal. Don’t assault our staff. Don’t speed in residential areas. I don’t do any of those things and I don’t find a campaign that tells people not to do those things offensive. I find being told to ‘let your hair down, not your guard’ pretty offensive though. I find being told that it is up to me to not be a victim of crime very offensive.

Secondly, campaigns that tell men not to rape are not saying that all men are rapists. It’s not saying that all men are potential rapists. It’s telling men who choose to rape that if they make that choice, then they will be brought to justice. That the system won’t be blaming the victim for any longer, they’ll be blaming the rapist. It’s telling the person who chooses to rape that they are responsible for committing a violent crime – not the alcohol, not the skirt, not the victim.

If you find a campaign that targets the perpetrators of a violent and destructive crime offensive, then guess what? The problem is with you. Why are you so defensive? Why do you ignore the vital message (don’t rape and if you do, you will go to prison) and instead twist it into a ‘I’ve never raped anyone and never would how DARE you!’. I would advise taking a look at yourself and asking yourself why you find that offensive, and then ask yourself whether you would find it more offensive to be told:

‘don’t go outside. And if you do go outside, it is your fault if something bad happens to you’.

Don’t you think an effective curfew against women is a bit more offensive than a campaign to tackle the causes of a violent crime?

The final part of this blogpost will try and deal with some of the inevitable comments and excuses that this kind of discussion attracts.

1. But campaigns that talk to men ‘tar all men with the same brush’

No they don’t. They say to some men that choose to rape that if they do so, they will be held responsible for the violence they have committed, not the victim. Just like a ‘don’t drink and drive’ campaign doesn’t offend me as a non-driver, an anti rape campaign should have no cause to offend men who don’t choose to rape people.

2. It’s right to warn women to take precautions. If I left my car door open and was burgled…

A popular one this. So remember, women are not cars. We’re not houses. We’re not mobile phones or wallets or any other fancy goods. We are human beings. You cannot compare rape with stealing a car. Women do not leave ourselves ‘unlocked’ and vulnerable by living our lives – walking home from work, having a partner, living in a house, going to work or school or uni, having a drink, wearing clothes, knowing people. Unfortunately, there are not any precautions women can take to not be raped, because rapes are caused by rapists, not by women’s actions.

3. Well, if women go out and get drunk and wear short skirts, they are vulnerable.

If women go out and get drunk and wear short skirts, then they are vulnerable to hangovers and cold knees. They are not vulnerable to being raped because the only cause of rape is a rapist.

4. If I went out and got drunk and my wallet was stolen…

As per above, women are not wallets. And if you went out and got drunk, the police wouldn’t refuse to take your case forward because your drunken-ness meant you caused your wallet to be stolen. A jury wouldn’t tut at you and say that it was your own fault, and refuse to convict the thief. And women aren’t wallets.

So, in conclusion. Well done Scotland to running a campaign that says victim blaming is not acceptable. Ever. If you think a campaign that targets men is offensive, then ask yourself a few questions. And don’t compare women to wallets.

Useful info

2011-10-22T11:56:00.000+01:00

Just discovered these useful links on rates of intimate partner violence in the UK, as well as a fascinating article on how incidents of domestic violence have gone up 25% since the Coalition Govt came into power (at a time of reduced resources for victims and survivors too - score Mr Cameron!)

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1011/

http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/10/domestic-violence-soars-25-in-first.html

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/articles/domestic_violence_-_the_facts_the_issues_the_future/

I'm a woman. I'm excluded from the 99%

2011-10-17T13:50:00.001+01:00

Trigger warning: this post contains some of the transcript from the Assange appeal hearing

I thought I was part of the 99%. I’m on an average income, and even though I own my flat, this is thanks to a first time buyer initiative from Labour. I’ve been on the dole and I’m from a (legally) single parent family. I have a lot of privilege – I’m white, able-bodied, cis-gendered and middle class (with a good degree) but I still fit that 99% model. I believed in a movement that was saying it wasn’t acceptable that so few controlled so much of the wealth, and used it so irresponsibly. I believed in a movement that was about collective action.

But then I heard about members of the movement calling women c**ts and b***es and denying that there is a problem with hate language (http://fortyshadesofgrey.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupations-safe-spaces-and-privilege.html - read this post if you read nothing else).

And I heard that accessibility was not really considered or noted (http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/10/we_are_the_49).

And that 99%-ers on Wall Street had set up a Tumblr showcasing all the ‘hot’ women involved in the movement to try and encourage more men to take part (http://me.lt/3AFhd).

And, in the straw that broke the camel’s back moment, I learnt Assange was invited to speak by the organisers of the London Stock Exchange occupation. Never being one to eschew the spotlight, speak he did.

And I realised that as a woman, I felt excluded from the 99%.

Assange is currently waiting to hear the results of his appeal against extradition to Sweden on two charges of sexual assault. Now, there has been a lot of debate in the lefty liberal media about whether what he allegedly did was actually sexual assault. So here’s a reminder of what the defence said at his appeal hearing:

 ‘AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom … She did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration … AA tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.’  

The defence also tried to explain how, despite being asleep, and therefore unable to consent, AA actually did consent to sex with Assange:  

'They fell asleep and she woke up by his penetrating her. She immediately asked if he was wearing anything. He answered: "You." She said: "You better not have HIV." He said: "Of course not." She may have been upset, but she clearly consented to its [the sexual encounter's] continuation and that is a central consideration.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2011/jul/13/julian-assange-extradition-appeal-hearing-day-two-live-coverage
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/julian-assange-extradition-live-coverage

Now, if you don’t believe that someone penetrating another person when they’re asleep isn’t sexual assault, isn’t rape, then you have a pretty poor understanding of what constitutes a violation of someone’s bodily autonomy. The same goes for the first description. Remember, this isn’t the prosecution talking. This is his defence. His defence is trying to redefine rape.

The prosecution said:

“they did not freely consent without coercion" but agreed to sex because of physical force, or consented "already having been trapped into a position where they had no choice, and they submitted to Mr Assange's attentions".”

Now, Assange is innocent until proven guilty. But I find it distinctly troubling that the people who booked the speakers thought it was appropriate to invite someone who is facing rape and sexual assault charges. Because by doing so, they isolated a lot of the women who supported the movement. This decision said to women, and to survivors and victims of sexual assault, that they didn’t matter. The movement no longer feels welcoming. It no longer feels inclusive.

Inviting Assange is part of the continued history of left-wing politics where women are expected to ‘put up’ with sexism and misogyny for the “greater good”. In Nat’s blogpost above, she was expected to put up with being called a c**t for the “greater good”. The women who are being objectified and shared on Tumblr are being expected to give up their image to encourage more male members – for the “greater good”. And women are expected to listen to an accused rapist for the “greater good” because after all, he’s a left wing hero who Bianca Jagger and Jemimia Khan like.

And yet, all these actions exclude women. All these actions entrench sexism. One of these actions stinks of rape apologism.

What’s the point of a greater good that excludes women? Why are women being sold out by the left? Again?

A movement that doesn’t challenge sexism; that actively invites the presence of an accused rapist; that excuses hate language; that treats women as objects – that movement is not fighting for a better world. It is upholding and entrenching the same old patriarchal world. You cannot fight capitalism and not fight patriarchy. Otherwise you will only change things for some, not for all.

And the same applies for a movement that is not questioning its own privilege by not considering accessibility and intersectionality.

If we want to fight for a better world, then that fight has to include ending sexism. That fight has to include holding misogyny and violence against women and girls to account. That fight has to condemn sexism and misogyny. That fight has to include women.

We shouldn’t have to put up and shut up. We should be included. Listened to. We shouldn’t have to put up with being called c**ts, or have our bodies used, or have to listen to an accused rapist tell us how to create a better world.

As @incurablehippie tweeted yesterday:

I mean it. Where's the revolution that doesn't invite people awaiting trial for rape to speak? That has an access plan? #wheresmyrevolution

Women make up most of the world’s (and UK’s) poor. Women are being hardest hit by the government’s spending plans. Women do 2/3 of the world’s work, earn only 5% of its income and own 1% of its property (http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/women_poverty_economics/facts_figures.php). Any movement to redistribute wealth, any movement that aims to highlight the inequalities of wealth, this movement cannot risk isolating women.

Inviting an accused rapist to your event has made this woman feel that she is not part of the 99%.

And I'm not the only one.

Rape culture and victim blaming starts in the classroom

2011-10-15T19:16:00.000+01:00

The BBC reported earlier this week that a school in Kent is thinking of bringing in uniform rules to make girls wear trousers as a 'safeguard'.

In my day (!) the debate used to be about whether girls should be allowed to wear trousers to school at all, but this school in Kent has woken up to the idea that girls are being sexually bullied, harassed and assaulted in schools. And they reckon the way to solve this is not to encourage better sex education about consent and respect; not to deal with the bullies; not to encourage boys to not bully, harass and assault girls. No. The answer according to Head Teacher Claire Owen is to make the girls cover up their legs to stop them 'putting themselves at risk'.

The BBC story can be read here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-15287760

Lets take a look at what Dr Owen says in the article. She worries that the girls are 'putting themselves at risk'. That wearing short skirts 'give out the wrong message' and and that short skirts are causing 'serious safeguarding issues'. Dr Owen seems to believe that it is the girls, and their skirts, that are causing the problems about safety in the classroom and the playground. She seems to believe that sexual bullying, assault and harassment are caused by short skirts and that all of these things can be prevented if the girls wear trousers.

The phrase 'putting themselves at risk' is the one that stood out for me. Girls are putting themselves at risk by wearing short skirts. What happens when you look at that sentence from another angle? Owen is saying that girls are taking a risk when they wear a short skirt, and that risk is sexual bullying, harassment or assault. If those things happen, then they happen because the girl took the risk that they might.

Parents have praised the suggestion by Clare Owen that girls are prevented from putting themselves at risk with a ban on skirts. Parents of daughters, parents of sons.

You of course won't be surprised when I say that this move, this suggested move, is completely unacceptable and will do absolutely nothing to protect girls from sexual bullying, harassment and assault, and will do everything to place the blame on the victim in the school's eyes, and the girl's own eyes, rather than the perpetrator.

Research published in 2009 by Bristol University and the NSPCC found that:

1 in 3 girls and 16% of boys reported some form of sexual partner violence, that was found to overwhelmingly impact on girls' wellbeing more
Young women are subject to emotional pressure/manipulation to consent to sex and experience high levels of sexual violence
The 'continuum of sexual violence' as developed by Kelly in 1987 reflects that women's experience and understanding of coercive sex means that the issue isn't just about rape vs consent, but others such as coercive sex, pressurised sex, fair game (surrender the right to consent).

None of this is caused by short skirts.

Sexual bullying in schools is a big problem. In her book 'The Equality Illusion', Kat Banyard explores how despite girls being subjected to verbal and physical sexual abuse, teachers often don't know how to deal with it. They excuse the behaviour as 'boys will be boys' and refuse to challenge it. Girls shared with Kat their experiences of being groped, taunted, forced to look at pornographc images of women, and sexually assaulted, whilst the teachers turned away. And the impact of sexual bullying on girls is huge. An American 2008 study found that of the 34% of middle school and high school students who had been sexually harassed during the school year, girls suffered significantly more trauma symptoms and a greater toll on their self-esteem and health (J.E Gruber and S Fineran, 'comparing the impact of sexual bullying and harassment victimisation on the mental and physical health of adolsecents). Kat's interviewees report low self-esteem, reduced academic performance and disordered eating as a result of sexual bullying. But when they try to report the behaviour to their teachers, their experiences are written off, with harassment being attributed to boys' 'natural' behaviour.

But there is nothing natural or normal or inherently 'boy-ish' about sexual bullying, harassment and assault (and to claim there is is rather offensive to both girls and boys). It can be stopped, it can be challenged and, more importantly, it MUST be.

Of course, it would be easier to blame a short skirt. It would be easier to ban skirts and ensure girls wear trousers. Blame the girls' behaviour, and it is easily rectified. Ban skirts - there, the school has taken action and if it's the wrong group of people who are being punished, well, at least we've done something about it now. It's so much easier to ban skirts then it is to actually take a long hard look at why boys are growing up learning that it is ok for them to sexually bully, harass and assault their female colleagues. It's so much easier to ban skirts than challenge the idea that it isn't normal or natural for boys to sexually threaten their fellow pupils. It's so much easier to ban skirts than it is to ask why sexual bullying is not being challenged by teachers, why it is accepted, and why you are blaming the girls for the violence committed against them.

Just ban the skirts. And then, if a girl is sexually bullied, harassed or assaulted and happens to be wearing a skirt, well the school took pre-emptive action to warn her about the risk she was taking. And if a girl is sexually bullied, harassed or assaulted, the school can point to their no short skirts policy and say they have put measures in place to prevent it.

I would like to meet Dr Owen and have a long chat with her. I would like to explain to her that short skirts do not cause sexual assault. I would like to explain to her that no-one has ever been sexually bullied, harassed or assualted because they were wearing a short skirt. I would like to explain to her that a woman or girl is never 'taking a risk' of being raped by what she wears, drinks, who she's in a relationship with, who she's friends with, who she works with etc etc, because rape is not something that women can take precautions to avoid. A cliff edge, you can take precautions to avoid. Sexual bullying, harassment and assault is not a natural hazard. They are deliberate and cruel and violent acts that a person chooses to do to another. It isn't natural, it isn't inevitable and it isn't caused by anything except the perpetrator's decision.

But there are things that her school can do to prevent sexual bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault without blaming the girl and upholding rape culture that blames the victim.

They can encourage education around consent and respect. They can teach about rape culture, and send the message that women are never to blame for the violence committed against them. They could challenge and condemn sexual bullying. They can challenge the behaviour and the privilege and the culture that allows sexual assualt, that excuses sexual violence. They can hold the perpetrators to account and they can listen to and support the girls.

Because this is a crisis. In a rape culture, boys are growing up with a sense of entitlement to women's bodies that allows sexual bullying, assault and harassment to happen, unchecked and unpunished. A survey last year (http://bit.ly/bSnP1L) found that nearly half of boys think if the woman is too drunk to know what's going on, it isn't rape, and 23% believed that even if a woman says no, it isn't rape. 16-19 year old girls are now the most at-risk group of experiencing intimate partner violence (Home Office stats). This isn't caused because girls are putting themselves at risk wearing short skirts to school. This is because rape culture excuses, allows and promotes sexual violence.

This planned ban will have serious repurcussions and none of them involve protecting the girls from sexual violence. Banning short skirts will uphold rape culture that excuses the perpetrators and blames the victims. It shames the girls who wear short skirts. It excuses and writes off the violent behaviour of the perpetrators. And it prevents girls reporting, and getting justice for, the violence that is committed against them because they fear they will be blamed. And under this rule, the girls are being blamed. Because it's so much easier to blame the women, than it is to challenge the perpetrator, and the culture that allows him his violence.

Blocking porn is not the answer - ending patriarchy is

2011-10-12T12:11:00.006+01:00

Eating my breakfast yesterday, I heard the headline on BBC6 Music that Internet service providers were going to start blocking pornography. Tentatively I wondered whether this was good news – seeing as I am a pro-sex anti-pornography (and wider sex industry) feminist. I decided to reserve my judgement however until I had read a bit more on the subject, and, surprise surprise, my initial sense of good news was quickly wiped away.

For those of you who don’t know the story or the background, the government recently commissioned a report by the Mother’s Union – which by the way, is headed by a man – to look into the early sexualisation of children. One of the upshots of this report then has been to ask ISPs to give parents a service they can opt-in to, blocking ‘offensive material’ from their home computers and protecting their children from stumbling across porn.

Anyway, this kind of covers that side of the story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/11/pornography-internet-service-providers?intcmp=239

There are a number of issues I have with this proposal. Unlike some commentators (who perhaps don’t really understand the feminist argument against porn) who believe that this is feminism condoning censorship, or feminism getting into bed with the right, I believe that this is not a feminist move at all, and should be questioned and perhaps even condemned by feminists (although that is my view, don't expect people to do as I tell them!).

Lets start with the practical issue. How is this going to work? Will the block happen on a key word basis? I’m not sure how else it can be implemented. If so, will this have implications for young people looking for information about sex education, for LGBTQ teens looking for information, or even for young people doing projects on a certain sea bird? The Internet is a great resource for young people to educate themselves about their sexuality and again, for LGBTQ teens to search out online and real life communities and support. How will the opt-in block impact on teens seeking these services?

But my biggest concern is that this move (along with most of the Bailey Report) basically says that there is nothing wrong with the commercial sexual exploitation of women and men, there is nothing wrong with the violence and coercion that runs through the industry, nothing wrong with the racism, homophobia and transphobia that runs through porn, there is nothing wrong with the impact porn has on violence against women and girls (please see American Psych Association research), the only thing that is wrong with any of this is if you happen to see it before you hit your 18th birthday.

And this is not acceptable.

The average boy first sees Internet porn when he is 11. Of course I think that something needs to be done to ensure that young people aren’t getting the bulk of their sex education from porn that more often than not is violent, degrading and brutal towards women. And lets get this straight – that is most of it. A survey quoted in Banyard’s The Equality Illusion (which I don’t have to hand) found that nearly 90% of rented porn DVDs in the USA depicted violent acts or used violent language against women. Internet porn is no different.

But just shutting our eyes and pretending it doesn’t exist until children hit 18 is not the answer. Because that does nothing to tackle the actual issues and problems with porn, violence and ingrained sexism, or the wider world where sexism and violence against women and girls is endemic.

There is plenty of existing research from the APA, and research being done from the UK to New Zealand on the impact porn has on violence against women and girls. Of course there are issues with the ‘sexualisation’ of children, but hiding our heads in the sand and refusing to take a stand against the violence, coercion, trafficking and portrayal of unsafe sex that runs through the sex industry does nothing to protect children and refuses to engage with one of the many causes of rape culture.

Because, as I have written before, we are at a crisis point when it comes to violence against women and girls. 2 women a week are still being killed by their partners and ex partners, there are 94,000 rapes every year (http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/) and the conviction rate is still 6.5% (not 13.5% Guardian reader’s editor). Young women aged 16-19 are now at the greatest risk of being victims of intimate partner violence and 1 in 3 teen girls experience intimate partner violence, 1 in 4 for adult women (Home Office, Bristol Uni, NSPCC, BCS for all stats).

Hiding violence against women and girls, hiding the commercial sexual exploitation of women and hiding the degrading images of women from children does not stop these images, this violence from existing. 18 isn’t an age when it is ok to buy into an industry that harms women, because no age is. The Bailey Review is not focusing on tackling violence against girls, but in many cases is about a squeamishness about young people’s very real and very natural sexuality.

It’s not ok to say violence, degradation and sexism is fine once you’re an adult.

I believe that the problem isn’t the sexualisation of children (although this IS an issue), because the problem is with patriarchy. It’s patriarchy that allows the commercial sexual exploitation of women. It is patriarchy that makes profit out of violence against women. It is patriarchy that means women can never have equality whilst our bodies are for sale.

So long as patriarchy means violence against women and girls is allowed to happen (and with a conviction rate of 6.5% for rape and men murdering their wives and getting an 18-month sentence then don’t be deceived, this is allowed to happen) then blocking porn sites in family homes is not going to have any impact. So long as we say that commercial sexual exploitation is ok so long as you see it when you’re an adult, then we’re not moving forward.

I’m not stupid. I know that we can’t ban pornography or ban the sex industry. I know that we can’t just make it disappear. But I do believe this. When we no longer live under a patriarchy, we will no longer have violent and degrading pornography or an industry that treats women (and men) as objects to be used and abused for profit. Such a thing would seem utterly ridiculous to a society where all genders, all people, were held in equal esteem, and where people were not seen as disposable objects to be wanked over (or in to) for profit.

This is how we end the sexualisation of children. This is how we end violence against women and girls. This is how we end inequality in a society where women’s bodies are for sale, or judged against an impossible ideal of ‘hot’. Not through banning web keywords to under-18s. But by ending patriarchy.

And that’s why as a feminist I do not agree with this proposal.

For more info on the research looking at links between porn and sexual violence, please see this post:
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/08/porn-sexual-violence-and-scientific.html

I've written it so many times it gets a bit wearing repeating it over and over!

Rape conviction and reporting rates: http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/latest-crime-statistics
False accusation stats: Fawcett Society report on 'Rape: The Facts' 
Rape rate stats: Fawcett Society report on 'Rape: The Facts' and the BCS figures cited here: http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/

Review of The Painted Lady by Maeve Haran

2011-10-11T16:10:00.000+01:00

This post originally appeared on the F Word: http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2011/09/the_painted_lad

As a big fan of historical fiction, I was looking forward to reading Maeve Haran's The Painted Lady, which tells of the life of Frances Stuart, famous for refusing to be the mistress of Charles II.
I first came across Frances in the original bodice-ripper, Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor, where she appears as a rather simpering and silly woman who refuses Charles' advances, not out of virtue and honour, but out of her distaste for sex. Next to the fiery and fierce Amber, Frances unfortunately comes across as a little boring, so I was really interested to see how different Haran's take on this character would be.

The book begins in Paris, where many cavalier families had ended up after the Civil War, Charles II included. It is here that Frances experiences her coup de foudre with the Duke of Richmond, who she cannot marry since - as in so many historical novels - he needs to marry for money and she simply doesn't have enough.

It is in Paris that Frances' great beauty also catches the eye of the King, and soon enough she is on her way to London and court, where she is the centre of attention and the object of the King's attraction. Will she resist his advances? Why does she resist his advances? Will she and the Duke of Richmond ever find happiness? The big questions posed by the novel seem limited to these; but if you love historical fiction like I do, you will probably want to follow Frances' journey to find out the answers.

Along the way, we meet the nasty and scheming Duke of Buckingham, who seems to spend all his time plotting others' downfall for his own amusement. His cousin, the wickedly fascinating rival for the King's attention, Barbara Palmer, is also a central character, and is forever trying to get rid of Frances either by complaining about her or trying to trick her into having sex with the King. Queen Catherine, Minette, Rochester - the whole cast of Restoration favourites - play across the page, whilst Frances Stuart stands grand and beautiful at the centre, a player but also a canny observer, and hero of her own battle to resist the King and find true love.

Her story spans the period of war with Holland, the plague, the great fire, and the comet that spelled doom for the Stuarts across the sky. Just like Forever Amber, the episodes of the plague and the fire are some of the most exciting in the book, as they are in history.

As a feminist, it is always interesting to see how women are portrayed in historical fiction. While some writers, notably Philippa Gregory, have strong feminist messages in their books, others like Jean Plaidy are bound by sexist conventions that don't allow women in the stories much self determination at all. Luckily, Haran is closer to Gregory when it comes to writing strong female characters. However, Frances is a tricky character to write for a contemporary woman to understand, and it is here that Haran is most impressive.

Frances refuses to have sex with a man she doesn't love (the King) for social gain and, as readers, we respect her for standing up for her bodily autonomy. The whole concept of royal mistresses is an interesting one for readers of historical fiction, or history in general, when we consider what it means for consent. Can a woman truly consent when her entire social standing, family fortune and 'prospects' are dependent on her saying yes to a king? This is the issue that Philippa Gregory so beautifully delineates in The Other Boleyn Girl. In her much loved novel, Mary imagines herself in love with the King, but as their relationship palls, she cannot refuse to have sex with him and must continue working as his mistress in order to secure a future for her children, as well as to keep wealth and status being awarded to her family. In this scenario, where she can't say no, consent is meaningless.

Historical fiction has a tendency to romanticise mistress culture and paint it as desirable and sexy, as opposed to recognising it for what it is: a financial contract for sex where consent, as we understand it, can never really be given. In this context, women are reduced to sexual commodities; if they refuse to enter this economy, they remain destitute, and if they give in to it, they risk being discarded and finding themselves 'tainted' and therefore unmarriageable. As Frances' story shows, a woman is given little choice in the matter as Charles threatens to rape her if she doesn't consent. So when we question what the role of mistress really means, had she given her consent under this social pressure, she would not really have been consenting at all.

Whilst Forever Amber portrays Frances' celibacy as part of what she sees as her honour and disgust for sex, Haran's Frances is much more subtle. She is a sexual woman, who feels intense physical and sexual desire. She just doesn't feel it for Charles, and she refuses to be his mistress because to do so would be to betray the way she feels about herself and her sexuality. Unlike Barbara, who is very sexual but sees sex as a means to get what she wants, Frances wants to own her desire and her body; guarding her virginity isn't about preserving honour and eligibility, but about desire and love. This subtle difference lifts Haran's Frances from being the one dimensional and asexual beauty, famed in history for refusing the King, to being a woman of intense intelligence, emotion and feeling who is selective and empowered in her sexuality. It's hard not to like her and it does give the book a feminist angle in its portrayal of a self-determined young woman surviving in a world pitted against her.

Haran is brilliant at writing dialogue and vividly brings the female world of the Queen's Court to life. The scenes between Barbara and Frances are superb, and capture the rivalry between the two women perfectly, and Haran is fantastic at portraying women's friendships, loyalties and conversation. Frances' friend Mall is also a well-imagined character whose own personal journey is as interesting as the main plot. One misgiving perhaps is that Haran doesn't quite capture the atmosphere and world of Restoration London as well as she does the lives of the women. However the chatter, fashions, passions and laughter, as well as the rivalry, gossiping and rumour of the court are vividly portrayed through Frances' keen observation and witty humour.

Fans of historical fiction with a feminist angle will enjoy this book - a great romp through a fascinating period of history, with a strong woman at its heart and a fulfilling end.

Daily Mail and the Sunday Telegraph and homophobia

2011-10-10T22:35:00.001+01:00

Mini note: I agree with Stella Duffy that if we believe in equality we shouldn't talk about 'gay marriage' and 'gay families' but marriage and families. I hope that that day comes soon. But because we aren't there yet, and because I am talking about homophobia around gay people marrying and having children, I am using the terms gay marriage and gay families.

Look - it's got a sub head and everything:

The biggest harm to children of gay parents is your homophobia

What with David Cameron declaring he is pro gay marriage because he is a Conservative, and the passport people swapping 'mother and father' with 'parent 1 and parent 2' on their forms, there's been a little flurry of overt homophobia in sections of the right wing press at the moment. And it has made me rather cross.

Two articles in particular caught my eye, an editorial piece in the Daily Mail by Rev Peter Mullan, and an editorial piece in the Telegraph by Charles Moore, both of which you can read here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8813461/Gay-marriage-is-not-as-simple-as-David-Cameron-believes.html

http://mullenblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/10/what-is-normal-when-mother-and-father-become-parent-1-and-parent-2.html

Both blogposts rely heavily on homophobic stereotypes and try to define what is normal and what is not normal in particularly hateful ways.

Lets take the Mullan piece first. The Reverand writes:

'That “mother” and “father” should be replaced on our passports by “parent one” and “parent two” is a social atrocity approaching blasphemy'

A social atrocity? You will guess I am going to disagree. Lets get this straight. Writing parent 1 and parent 2 is not just to the benefit of children raised by gay parents. It also is better for single parent families, families where children have legal guardians who are not their mum and dad, families where one parent has been widowed and married again, and the step parent has taken on the role of legal guardian, and gay families too. The issue may have been raised by the so-called 'gay lobby', scourge of the Mail and apparently running the show according to their paranoia, but it is to the benefit to many, many more children from many, many different kinds of families as well as gay ones.

This man full of Christian charity goes on to say:

'I am against prejudice of all sorts. But there has to be some sort of normality according to which minorities can be tolerated. I was in favour – still am – of the reform of the law on homosexuality in the 1960s. It cannot be right that a person be criminalized for his sexual orientation. But the point is that the law was eased out of a sense of magnanimity and natural tolerance...Now, however, the vicious activist tail is wagging the docile tolerant dog'

Anyone who says i am against prejudice of all sorts, but...is clearly not against prejudice. This paragraph tells us something very clear about what Mullan and those who agree with him feel about gay people and their families. The idea that we have to have a 'normality' against which minority groups should be tolerated suggests not that gay and straight and poly and bi and asexual people should be treated equally, but that they are somehow second class citizens that the 'normals' graciously allow space to. Mullan's statement patronises gay people by saying that homosexuality was legalised not because everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, but because some magnanimious individuals allowed a form of equality - and they get to decide how that equality is defined. He argues that so-called normal people (and Mullan doesn't care to specify by what he means by normal) should put up with minority groups, but that is it. They should be 'tolerated' but not afforded equal rights. They should be put up with, so long as they stay quiet and keep themselves to themselves and - for God's sake - don't try and pretend to be 'normal' or be recognised in public forms.

The idea that gay people, straight people, bi people, poly people, asexual people, all people of all different sexualities should be treated equally with respect is, to Mullan, some symbol of social blasphemy. This man does not believe in equality. He believes in state approved homophobia. He believes that gay people should be grateful and that the day-to-day, little discriminations and formalised other-ing of gay people and their families is ok because it is 'normal'.

The article closes with what is perhaps the most offensive thing in an offensive article:

'It is a blasphemous scandal and the sort of thing which is destroying our society and whole way of life. No society can last very long when it redefines normal to mean abnormal'

Just in case we've forgotten, Mullan believes that having 'parent 1' and 'parent 2' on passport forms is going to destroy society. Where do we even begin? What Mullan is saying here, without embarrassment, without even seeming to realise that he is showing his prejudice, is that homosexuality is abnormal, and that mother and father is what's normal. He claims that the state recognising that not all families look the same, that not all families are made up of a mother and father, is a blasphemy, that it is sending the UK towards destruction.

What upsets me so much is that actually the change to the forms is a great idea. Asking people to write mother and father when they don't have a mother and father is a form of discrimination. And it's this kind of quotidien boring discrimination that invisible-ises gay families that can cause upset, harm and confusion. Of course it isn't on the big scale of violent homophobia, but it is one of those small snubs that serve to remind gay people and their children (and all the family types I mentioned above) that their families are 'other', that they are not the 'norm' as prescribed by the Mullans of the world, that they are invisible. And in 2011, this institutionalised level of homophobia is simply not acceptable. The passport office should be praised for recognising that its previous prescription of what a family looks like is out of date. They should be celebrated for pro-actively looking to be inclusive and family friendly.

I was once told on a feminist discussion board about polyamory and children that 'we all know what normal is' when talking in a family context. This is Mullan's argument too. That 'normal' is a married mum and dad, with children, and anything outside of this is abnormal. But this was not normal to me, as a 7 year old, 10 year old, 15 year old, 27 year old. My normal was two mums who I lived with, and a dad and stepmum who I didn't live with. My parents were divorced and this was my normal. For my friend's little girl, her normal is two mums. For my friend's little boy, his normal is a mum and dad who aren't married but live together. For more of my friends, their normal is a mum and dad who are married and live together. None of these normals are the 'right' or 'real' ones. None of these normals negate the other. For children their family is their normal, and if that environment is happy and healthy and nurturing and loving, then that is what counts.

On to the second article, titled 'Gay marriage is a step too far'.

Like Mullan, Moore crams his article with straw men arguments and homophobic stereotpyes as if they are going out of fashion. He begins:

'For the entire history of civilisation, marriage has been defined as being between a man and a woman. Throughout that history, almost all civilisations have regarded marriage as central to their survival.'

A lot of things have been said throughout the whole of civilisation. Just because something is old, doesn't mean it is right. Like homophobia.

He goes on to make homophobic stereotype statement number one:

'The homosexual lifestyle, they may reason, is often even more chaotic and lonely than the heterosexual one.'

Jan Moir klaxon anyone? The idea that the gay lifestyle is chaotic and lonely is nothing more than a homophobic stereotype. Some straight people are lonely and chaotic, some gay people are. Lots aren't. People are chaotic and lonely, and people aren't. There isn't any evidence to back up the idea that gay people are more chaotic and lonely than anyone else. All relationships have ups and downs and most people nowadays have more than one sexual partner in their lives and go through a period of being single. Neither of these things means chaotic or lonely by the way, but I think this is what Moore means by the words.

The article then makes some stupid fag hag aside and goes on a detour into cat-flap, before arguing that human rights that seek to protect people from prejudice are in fact preventing people from behaving in homophobic and prejudiced ways:

'The word “tolerance” is used, but it is not what is actually being proposed. Anything that the authorities call “homophobic” will be treated – is already being treated – with the same intolerance that was directed, half a century ago, at anything that was called homosexual.'

Of course, a Christian couple being 'discriminated' against because they broke equality law in refusing their B&B to a gay couple is EXACTLY the same as a gay people being denied equal rights to stay in a B&B that welcomed straight couples. It makes me so cross that the very vital laws that protect people from discrimination and homophobia are criticised when they hold intolerance and homophobia to account. Because it is simply not the same. It is simply not the same to tell would-be gay parents that you will refuse to let them adopt a child because you have made a uninformed 'moral' decision about their sexuality and family life. It is simply not the same to tell a gay couple that you won't let them into your business because you are homophobic. There is a history and a present of homophobia and vicious persecution of gay people and there is simply not this discrimination against straight people. To claim otherwise is to blatantly ignore and trivialise the institutionalised and violent homophobia that has existed and still does exists.

Anyway, the article goes on and on in this vein for a while before saying that we're all too obsessed with defining people by their sexual desires (irony much?) and that we really need to be concentrating on:

'The need for men and women to have children, bring them up and look after one another'

And so we're back to families again, which brings me nicely to tonight's Channel 4 news where a Catholic commentator made some terrible points about marriage being the biological link between men and women and how marriage is all about having children (sorry child free married folks).

It's a lot of public and proudly spouted homophobia to take in a week. It's a lot of people pontificating about what is 'normal' and what is 'abnormal and who gets to define it.

And it's a lot of people speaking nonsense about how a marriage between a man and a woman is the right and only and best way to raise children.

But I believe this simply is not true.

The best family to raise children, in my view, is a family of love, respect, care and encouragement. A stable environment where the child grows up knowing that he or she is loved. That is the normal way. It isn't about being a man and a woman, being married, being single, being gay or straight. It can be any kind of family set-up you can think of so long as the child is loved and cared for.

As a child, I think the hardest thing about growing up in a gay family set up was other people's homophobia. And that is what has made me so angry about these news commentators. Because they are the ones causing the harm, they are the ones creating a situation where a child may feel othered. They are the ones trying to normalise homophobia and therefore homophobic bullying, and they are the ones who are acting as if their right to be homophobic is more important than a person's right to live without fear of homophobia. They are the ones who want to encourage and maintain a world where a child's reality is made invisible, where a child's reality is not respected or validated. Not the gay parents. Them and just them.

I have heard people express concern that children of gay parents may be bullied at school because they have gay parents. Well, guess what. That is not the fault of the gay parents. That is the fault of the parents of the bullies, and often of the school. Gay people shouldn't be made responsible for other people's hate, for other people's homophobia. If you're not challenging homophobia, if you're allowing homophobic bullying to happen, then the problem is with you.

In my experience, the biggest harm to children of gay families is other people's homophobia. Because you know what? Homosexuality is normal. Pairs of mums and pairs of dads is normal. Single mums and step parents and single dads and mums and dads and married mums and dads - all of these are normal. What isn't normal is homophobia. Your homophobia is the abnormal thing here Peter Mullan, your homophobia is the chaotic thing here Charles Moore. You are the odd ones, not my family.

'What's your number' and promiscuity

2011-10-10T12:37:00.000+01:00

This is something I wrote for fellow feminist Jess ages ago, after a brief chat on Twitter about promiscuity.

In light of the release of Anna Faris film 'What's your Number' which is based around the 'magic number' of sexual partners, I re-visited the brief para that I wrote and thought I would share it with you, readers.

So here it is:

Promiscuity is a posh or professional way of saying 'he's a stud and she's a slut'. Because when we talk about someone being promiscuous, we're talking about women. The idea of promiscuity is predicated on the idea that there is a 'magic number' of people a woman can have sex with, but if she crosses that number then she becomes a 'bad girl'. This number is not fixed, it is ever changing and no-one knows exactly what the 'correct' number of sexual partners is. When i was younger i read in the Guardian 'sex survey' a quote from a man who said he wouldn't go out with a woman if she had had sex with more than five men. So for him, six (male) sexual partners meant a woman was promiscuous. Another women's magazine put the number higher, at around 10.

It's all nonsense of course. There isn't a 'good' or 'bad' number of sexual partners. But I believe that categorising women's sexuality and women's desire as something that can 'cross a line' or become 'bad' is a way of controlling women's sexuality.

Promiscuity was historically a symptom of women's mental disorder, from 19th century hysteria to the more modern 'borderline personality disorder'. It was seen as a destructive trait, for women to go out and have sex that they wanted to have, that they desired and consented to.

This tells us a lot about how women's desire has been seen historically, and, as promiscuity is still a widely used term, is still seen today.

In modern Britain, young women and girls are faced with multiple pressures. They are expected to perform a narrow version of sexuality and sexual desirability at all times. However, they still know that they must not cross an invisible line, and 'fall' into being promiscuous or 'slutty'.

Promiscuity is nonsense because there is no good or bad number of sexual partners. The bad thing is if you are feeling pressured into having sex with people you don't want to have sex with. But that is a different issue to 'promiscuity'.

Whether you are having consensual, pleasurable sex with people you are attracted to because you want to, or whether you are choosing to wait, it doesn't matter. One is not a better choice than the other. The important thing is having your bodily autonomy, making your own choices and expressing your sexuality in a way that makes you and your partner happy – and not being judged for it.

Three women win the Nobel Peace Prize

2011-10-07T10:55:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to celebrate the great news that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three women who have passionately campaigned for women's rights and representation.

These women know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved in a society that excludes women from decision making and the infrastructure of a country.

In the face of violence, exclusion, exile and repression, these women have bravely fought for the right for women everywhere to be recognised as full citizens of the world.

They are the 13th, 14th and 15th women in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded the prize in its long history.

Their names?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Leymah Gbowee
Tawakul Karman

More here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/oct/07/nobel-peace-prize-2011-live

Angels, whores and witches: the media and Amanda Knox

2011-10-04T13:40:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer: this post is not about whether Knox is guilty or innocent, but about the media reporting and portrayal of a woman accused of murder. If in the comments you speculate whether or not the verdict in the appeal was correct or fair I probably won’t publish it, in case it falls into the libel end of the scale. So please keep any comments to the subject of the post, not wider ponderings.

So…I shall begin…

Witch. Enchanting witch. Motivated by lust. Demonic she-devil. Diabolical, satanic. You would be forgiven for thinking I was quoting something from Anne Boleyn’s trial. But no, these are all epithets used to describe Amanda Knox, who this week was acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy. And then, of course, there’s the tabloid favourite nickname that we can’t seem to escape from: ‘foxy Knoxy’.

Whatever you think of the fairness of the trial, and its outcome, there are two things that I am very certain of. One – that with the sensationalist reporting around Amanda Knox, the victim in all of this, Meredith Kercher, has been all but forgotten. And two, the mainstream media have shown that sexism is alive and well in their portrayal of Knox.

I don’t know what happened the night Meredith Kercher was killed and I am not using this post to talk about it. I don’t want this post to express any opinions about Knox’s guilt or innocence or to say that she is this, that or the other. This post is expressly about the language used to describe Knox in the media and how it has reflected some very real problems with how we talk about women, and the roles our mainstream culture still allows women. It is about how the focus has been on Knox, and not the men accused alongside her. It is not about my opinions on the case.

I really need to make that clear!

It would be easy to forget that alongside Knox, two men were also found guilty of murder, one of who has been acquitted with her. But unlike ‘foxy Knoxy’ their names have found themselves bereft of sexy nicknames, and barely register on the public consciousness. They aren’t witches and demons. The man who was acquitted last night has not seen his face on any newspapers today. There’s no public poll on a mainstream TV show today asking women whether they want to have sex with him! The attention today, and throughout the case, has been on Knox.

At the time of her initial conviction, the F Word published an interesting post about the media’s treatment of Knox: http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2009/12/amanda_knox
They pointed out how her sexuality and the fact that she was ‘sexually active’ had been gleefully raked over by the media, including reports about the number of men she had slept with and the ‘revelation’ that she had had sex on a train. Similar questions about the sexuality of the men involved were never asked or brought up, and it would be surprising if they had been. Although there are some cases where a man’s sexuality are brought up in media covering of a murder trial, it’s rarely the fact that he has had consensual sex with a fairly average number of women (although there are of course cases when a man’s sexuality is judged in other ways). Alongside all the witchy and demonic language, it feels like we are back in the Middle Ages, where women’s sexuality was associated with evil, destruction and lack of control.

I know that some people are going to respond that her sexuality was brought up because of the accusations of sexual violence. But with the very particularly historic sexist language, and everything we know about the angel-whore dichotomy and the media thrall of ‘evil’ women, I think something beyond that was happening here. In my opinion, the discussion of the number of men Knox had slept with had less to do with accusations of sexual violence and more to do with the way women’s active (as opposed to performed) sexuality is discussed in the media.

As if expressly designed to prove my point, whilst writing this post Twitter started talking about the episode of Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff on 4th October (day after appeal verdict future readers). A segment of the show was titled:

‘Foxy Knoxy – would ya?’
http://yfrog.com/meypgqj

This led to a discussion about whether (men) on the panel, in the audience and on the phones would have sex with Knox now that she wasn’t a convicted murderer. The discussion was led from the proposal that:

"She’s also undeniably fit and loves wild sex. So if you were a guy who’d met her in a bar and she invited you back to hers, would you go?"

http://www.channel5.com/shows/the-wright-stuff/episodes/episode-187-18

It seems to me that this episode shows us something very clearly about how women appear in the mainstream media. It’s Angel and Whore again, with Witch thrown in. Knox has been taken her out of the ‘witch’ role and placed firmly in her new role of sex object for men to voice their approval or disapproval of. It completely takes Knox as a person out of the equation and treats her as an object to be judged as worthy or unworthy of male attention, as an object that they might or might not want to have sex with.

Throughout the media reporting of the trial, we have seen the media version of Knox inhabit all of the prescribed roles for women that are allowed to us. She has been the Angel – an innocent victim of a corrupt judiciary. She has been a Witch – an evil demon motivated by lust who is out of control. She has been a Whore – sleeping with men in trains, a woman who ‘loves wild sex’. And now she is an object who is judged by male spectators.

I would add one more thing. In all of this, in the trivialising nickname of ‘Foxy Knoxy’, in the post-verdict discussion about whether men want to shag her, in the flurry of sexist terms and the general prioritising of Knox’s role over those of the men accused with her, one very important thing has had a haunting silence about it. And that is that a young woman was murdered. As Kercher’s sister said, Meredith Kercher has been forgotten. I know I haven’t really helped matters by writing about Knox here, which is why I want to finish on that note.

Good piece on 'witch' language on CIF http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/27/amanda-knox-witch-hunts-italian-court

An amazing article by Kira Cochrane

2011-09-28T15:55:00.001+01:00

Someone tweeted this and although it is a few year's old now, it certainly still needs to be read and re-read.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/01/gender.women?cat=world&type=article

Mock the Week Mock the Women

2011-09-27T11:56:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, a disgruntled BBC viewer tweeted that popular comedy panel show, Mock the Week, once again featured only white, male guests. Since then, the Mock the Week twitter feed has been embroiled in a debate about how male dominated its line-up is, with one statistically driven tweeter (@princesstoffee) discovering that in the last series, only 13% of the comedy guests on the show were women.

Throughout the social media row, the Mock the Week twitter feed has insisted that it features proportionally more women than there are in the comedy world, and that they don’t select guest based on gender because that would be ‘sexist’. They have argued that women watch the show, and that – in spite of the BBC’s diversity duty – they have no responsibility to put on a show that reflects their audience. Mock the Week have pointed out that in their history, 18 out of their 63 guests have been women, arguing that this made their representation ‘higher’ than the number of women working the comedy circuit, (although I am not sure what stats they were using to back up this assertion, beyond the 20% number about Edinburgh comedy award in Guardian articel i pointed them to http://m.guardian.co.uk/culture/theatreblog/2010/aug/12/edinburghfestival-comedy?cat=culture&type=article). However when you consider the number of appearances over the six years the show has been on, the percentage drops to 8.3% women. Whichever way you cut it, that’s pretty poor.

When one tweeter suggested that seeing as Mock the Week are happy to have all-male line ups (over and over and over again) they could have an all-female line up, they reacted with predictable horror. But that’s not representative of the comedy world! they spluttered. The fact that the comedy world is not all white and all male seemed to pass them by.

Excited by something I read about the women in comedy competition, I sent them a link to a news article about women comedians, quipping that they clearly had plenty to choose from. Their response was as follows:

“thanks, but we'll keep booking female comedians relative to how many there actually are, or else it'd be positive discrimination”

This rather spectacularly misunderstands how sexism, the silencing of women’s voices and the invisibility of women on our cultural stage actually works…

It was perhaps unfair to single out Mock the Week when criticising the lack of women’s voices on TV, particularly on comedy panel shows. As examples of what Bidisha calls ‘cultural femicide’, comedy panel shows are leading the way. Never will you turn on Mock the Week, QI or Have I Got News For You to see more women than men behind the desk. @princesstoffee continued her diversity audit to find that an overall chance of seeing a woman on the latest series of comedy panel shows was 27.25%, with Mock the Week being the least likely show to feature women. She found that Never Mind the Buzzcocks featured women 18/64 (28%) of the time; Shooting Stars 8/24 (33%); Just a Minute 6/28 (21%); 8 out of 10 Cats (S11) 14/27 (34%), Would I Lie to You 10/22 (31%); QI 10/48 (21%); Have I Got News For You 7/28 (25%) and The News Quiz 12/36 (33%).

The issue isn’t just about representation. It’s also about the acceptability of misogyny and sexism in the Mock the Week show (and other comedy). I stopped watching the programme after one of the male regulars informed a woman guest (the only woman on the show) that he would be picturing her when masturbated back home. Another incident (from a woman comedian) involved saying women would make bad world leaders because they would spend the whole time talking about shoes. Incidences of rape jokes, and mocking of women’s bodies and physical appearance also had me reaching for the off button. I don’t want to be seeking out sexism to entertain me on a Thursday night after all.

Two and a quarter years ago, Jo Brand wrote in the Guardian about why women don’t appear on panel shows:

‘Women don't want to go on panel shows for six reasons. 1) They won't get a word in edgeways. 2) They may be edited to look stupid. 3) They may get the piss taken out of them. 4) They may not be funny. 5) They don't like competing for airtime. 6) They may be patronised, marginalised or dismissed.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jun/10/television-panel-shows-jo-brand

Three years on, this still stands. Particularly point one, and point six, as the Mock the Week masturbating comment shows.

Mock the Week’s twitterfeed has now stated:

‘We're done w/ this topic now. We've listened, we've stated our position, we've responded fairly, and we've bored the hell out of most of you’

But us feminists – we’re not done. Because contrary to Mock the Week’s dismissal, this issue matters. It touches on big issues of cultural silencing of women’s voices, sexism and misogynistic assumptions about women and men.

When Bristol Feminist Network and Bristol Fawcett ran the Where are the Women project (www.rowitm.org), we found a shocking absence of women’s voices in our popular culture. TV, radio, music, books, film, comedy – all these industries proved to be incredibly male dominated. And the continued male domination of these areas further entrench sexist assumptions and misogynistic ideas about whose funny, whose talent matters, who creates ‘art’. Earlier this year, novelist V.S Naipaul claimed that he was better at writing than every woman writer who has ever put pen to paper, because women aren’t as good at writing as men (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/02/vs-naipaul-jane-austen-women-writers). He’s a Nobel Laureate. People listen to him. And he, like Mock the Week, perpetuates the idea that women are somehow culturally ‘lesser’, that our voices, are stories, are less valid of being heard, and that we can’t compete with the male norm.

It is a tired and old stereotype that women aren’t as funny as men. We know that this isn’t true. Find any group of women friends and you’ll find laughter and giggles and more laughter. Victoria Wood is consistently found to be one of the nation’s favourite comics. But the perception is continually there that women simply aren’t as funny as men – or that when women do make jokes it’s about ‘womany’ things like periods and boyfriends (never mind the fact that male comedians regularly jokes about dicks and tits). And it is this sexist perception that prevents women from having equal representation on comedy line-ups, comedy panel shows and at the Edinburgh Festival. It isn’t that women can’t do stand-up or won’t do stand-up – although this argument is often put forward just as the argument that ‘women simply don’t want well paid high status jobs’ is commonly presented when discussing the glass ceiling. The reason women are not represented is that so long as the belief exists that women aren’t as funny as men, comedy clubs won’t ‘take a risk’ on booking a woman. And this leads to less women higher up the food chain, meaning they don’t have the same opportunity to be picked to appear on panel shows.

What has been so frustrating about the Mock the Week twitter debate is the acceptance that a lack of women’s voices in comedy is somehow inevitable and that nothing will change. They repeatedly defended the sexism in comedy with the assertion that they already have women on there, and that there are no more women to pick from. There was no recognition that they could play a role in changing this.

Only by challenging sexism in the industry, by recognising that women’s voices and jokes and performances are as good as men’s, and by giving women performers equal chances to be heard and perform as men, can we tackle the sexism in comedy. This is how women’s representation improves. If we continue to accept sexist assumptions about where women ‘belong’ on our cultural landscape, then things simply won’t change. But I really believe that they can.

Anyway – here’s the amazing Stewart Lee talking Mock the Week to make us all chuckle…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft2TXXuQrTo

Update = princesstoffee has written a great post on the f word about her stats: http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/09/mock_the_tweet

Gender studies, sexism, male bias and privilege

2011-09-09T12:06:00.000+01:00

This week the London Evening Standard reported that ex gender studies student Tom Martin is suing the London School of Economics because he believed his course to have an anti men bias and was expected to read books that positioned women as always victims and men as always perpetrators, and never dealt with men’s issues. LSE have responded:

‘The university's legal team has asked for the case to be struck out, claiming the core texts were not compulsory, merely recommended readings, and that the texts were equally available for both men and women to read, so therefore did not directly discriminate against men. The team also argues that "any discriminatory effect [against men] was plainly justifiable".’

(http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23983895-former-student-sues-lse-over-its-gender-bias-against-men.do)

I personally believe that Mr Martin took the course with the express intent of calling out what he saw as an anti-male bias, because for the life of me I can’t understand why someone studying gender studies would object to exploring how layers of patriarchal privilege overlap to create inequality between women and men. Gender studies, as far as I can tell, is about looking at intersectionality and how women’s ‘issues’ (and other groups) or lives or stories or history or social status had traditionally taken a back seat to the overwhelming white male narrative that forms the canon and backbone of academia.

This piece on CIF is very good on why gender studies isn’t about women good men bad: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/07/gender-studies-anti-discrimination-case

In this piece, Jonathan Dean makes this very pertinent point:

‘In my own discipline – politics – the key undergraduate texts are overwhelmingly by and about men. And yet this is seen by most as unproblematic, as natural or inevitable. Gender studies is an attempt to critique this entrenched male bias.’

As I say, to take a gender studies course and then accuse it of critiquing academic and social male bias makes me pretty suspicious about why he took the course in the first place. Fame? Notoriety? Apparently this guy runs an anti sexism website. I wonder if it includes information about rape culture and the impact of conflict and war on women, as an example…(or would that be SEXIST? Talking about WOMEN!)

But anyway, I digress…

What this story has got me thinking about is that entrenched male bias and how this impacted on my own university career (which ended, with a First Class Honours in English Literature, in 2006). I went to UCL in Bloomsbury, right next to Virginia Woolf’s old house. And what I learnt there was that (with some exceptions, i.e. the aforementioned Woolf) male authors were named, and women authors were ‘women in literary period or movement’.

The male bias on my course was overwhelming. In my second and third year we would have four set texts per module, and on every single module 3 of the texts would be by men and one by women. I had lectures on Wordsworth, Manley Hopkins, Dickens and ‘women in Victorians’ (George Eliot was the exception). Lectures on Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald with no mention of Gertrude Stein. Over and over again on my courses the message was sent out that whilst men were individuals, greats; who formed movements and spoke out from the canon, women were a group, an interest, a sub-section.

Of course, a lot of my feminist lecturers recognised this and goodness knows things were better than when, as one lecture informed me, the Norton Anthology of Poetry had something like 30 women in it (for non lit grads, this is the bible of the English literature under-grad). But whereas the very idea of a lecture titled ‘Men in Modernism’ would be ridiculous, talking ‘Women in Modernism’ was perfectly acceptable, even though if we look at those women modernist writers, the difference and range between them and their books is as different and diverse as those men writers. Djuna Barnes and Dorothy Richardson? Hardly the same are they?

In my second and third years I had feminist tutors who let me run wild with my gender angle on literature (writing on Woolf, Mansfield, Rhys, Plath, Brontes, Djuna Barnes - women everywhere!) which unfortunately left me floundering a bit when it actually came to studying the set texts. But their supportive and feminist ideas helped me become the activist and writer I am today. Not so good was my first year, where my tutor asked me not to write any more gender essays after doing one on Paradise Lost (come to think of it, I don’t think there were any women writers on that ‘key text’ course).

I also attended all the gender seminars. Male and female sexuality in modernist literature, gender in Shakespeare – courses almost always run by women with all women classes. The idea that gender was a subject for men too didn’t register where men were canon and women were specialist.

Of course, women weren’t the least represented group on my course. BME writers and colonialist theory did get a brief look in (Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi as examples) but despite a disappointingly un-robust post-colonialism course; just as the syllabus was mainly men, it was also mainly white.

In fact, the one ‘minority group’ that was well represented on my course was gay and queer literature – thanks in part to the famous ‘History and literary representation of homosexuality’ module. And of course, a lot of canonical authors were likely to be, or definitely were, gay or bi. After all, even Shakespeare had Mr. W.H ;-)

What I am trying to show here is that even on a course that I loved every minute of (except Chaucer. And Old English) there was an exceptionally male bias. Embarrassingly so. So there is a good reason that a course that seeks to challenge the unquestioned male bias, like gender studies, is allowed to do exactly that.

What Tom Martin has a problem with, in my mind, is his privilege. He has never experienced that othering that comes from your status in society as a woman. He has not experienced that exclusion, that sense that you are not part of the ‘greats’, that feeling that you are not half the population, but a minority, a specialism. He has lived with male privilege all his life (I don’t know what other privileges he may or may not have as an FYI, so sticking with male) and when that’s challenged, when that is not the priority in his academic world, he panics and lashes out and calls sexism.

Last night I had a conversation on Twitter with Mock the Week about their lack of female representation. They informed me that in their six-year history, ‘18 out of 63 of our regulars & guests have been female, which is... 28.6%, so we're doing alright? :-)’.

No, that is not doing ‘alright’. It is not alright that women are so marginalised in our culture, that women’s voices are silenced and not heard, that women’s stories are seen as ‘other’ or homogeneous.

And it is certainly not right that when this is challenged, that there are accusations of sexism or female bias.

Throughout academia, throughout pretty much every damn point of life, male privilege is entrenched. Gender studies is a place where that inherent, unchallenged privilege is questioned and where an alternative view and criticism of power structures is offered. Where different voices and stories are given weight and attention. Where women are considered.

That’s not too much to ask. To be considered. To be recognised. To be seen and heard.

Check your privilege. You never know, you might learn something.

http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Knapsack

Women's Rights in Afghanistan

2011-09-06T15:30:00.001+01:00

As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it is perhaps pertinent to reflect on the Afghan women’s rights movement, and the position of women in the country since the invasion on 7th October, 2001.

As part of the justification for a war against a country that was believed to be sheltering a Saudi man who (as we now know) was eventually found sheltering across the border, the language of feminism was co-opted by the American right. This war was about ‘liberating women’ from the Taliban, ‘empowering’ women who were oppressed. But ten years later, as peace talks loom on the horizon and mutterings about negotiating with the Taliban abound, what is the position of women living in Afghanistan, the women whom the invasion was supposed to ‘save’?

A recent report found that Afghanistan is the worst place to be born if you are a woman. This was put down to lack of maternal healthcare, resulting in a between 1-8 to 1-11 women dying in childbirth; widespread violence against women and girls including forced marriage and trafficking; poverty, conflict violence and lack of access to healthcare. 87% of women in Afghanistan have experienced some form of violence and between 70-80% of marriages are forced. Girls are also often used to settle community disputes via ‘baad’ (this practice is not unique to Afghanistan).

It is important to recognise that some improvements to women’s lives in Afghanistan have been made since 2001. 27% of MPs are now women (more than in the UK), and more girls now have access to schools and education, although 1.2 million girls are still not in school. There is also a vibrant women’s rights movement who are currently campaigning to have women’s voices heard at the negotiating table when it comes to bringing peace to Afghanistan.

Before the Taliban took over in 1996, women – particularly in the cities – enjoyed relative equality. After all, Afghanistan gave women the vote in 1919, before UK women, and long before Swiss women who couldn’t vote until 1971. Women had access to education, were doctors, teachers, civil servants. They enjoyed freedom of movement and were not required to wear the burkha. It is important to note this, as all too often when we talk about women’s rights in Afghanistan, the conversation treats women’s inequality as inevitable, as ‘cultural’, with the implication that the fight for women’s rights is hopeless and therefore not worth fighting for. The fact that the widespread oppression of women is relatively new in Afghanistan proves the opposite; that women’s equality can be achieved.

Both men and women are affected by conflict. However No Women No Peace believe that in many ways it is more dangerous to be a woman in war than it is to be a soldier (whilst recognising of course that women are soldiers too). The impact of war is different on women than men. They are threatened with abduction, abduction of their children, rape and sexual violence, widowhood, increased maternal mortality, starvation and an increased risk of the spread of HIV/Aids. The different impact of conflict on women is just one reason why it is essential that women have a voice at the peace negotiations that will decide their futures.

Take the issue of widowhood. In many parts of Afghan society – as a result of women’s oppression under the Taliban – women are not allowed to leave the house without a male relative. If a woman’s husband is killed, how can she then leave the house to earn a living? To seek medical care? To take her children to school?

Women’s rights activists in Afghanistan live and work under the threat of violence, and a number of prominent women activists have been assassinated. The bravery and determination of these women cannot be underestimated. But all too often, these women’s voices are not heard. Their bravery and their work is not counted. In 2010, a peace conference in Kabul attended by a range of world leaders invited only one Afghan woman to speak. Considering the men around the table are deciding the futures of these women, this simply isn’t good enough.

With the peace conference in Bonn scheduled for 5th December, and the increasing concern that peace negotiators are going to start talking to the Taliban (a move that will be disastrous for women and women’s rights), women activists in Afghanistan have a simple demand. They want 25% of the seats at the negotiating table to be for women. They want to be counted, to be included and to be listened to. They want to be part of the decision process that will shape and define their futures.

This isn’t too much to ask. With so much at stake for gender equality, women should have a voice when it comes to finding peace in Afghanistan. Women’s views and stories must be represented.

This autumn, No Women No Peace and GAPS are asking women across the UK to stand in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan. They are asking for us to write to MPs to ensure that women’s voices are represented. They are hoping for a series of solidarity events across the country to show that in the UK, we take women’s rights in Afghanistan seriously and will not put up with our leaders silencing women’s voices. In Bristol we will be organising letter writing and a big public event. Watch this space for more details.

Stats and resources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/15/worst-place-women-afghanistan-india

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/afghan-women-human-rights-defenders-tell-intimidation-and-attacks-2010-03-08

Many of the stats in this article come from a workshop ran by GAPS and NWNP and are taken from the Powerpoint they presented. You can learn more about them here:

http://www.gaps-uk.org/Countries_Afghanistan.php

http://www.nowomennopeace.org/

Some musings on 'fun feminism'

2011-08-30T12:48:00.001+01:00

There’s been a lot of debate lately about so-called ‘fun feminism’. From Julie Bindel’s post on the New Statesman (FTR, i agreed with some but not all of her points in that article) to conversations in comments sections on blogs and on Twitter, fun feminism seems to be everywhere this summer, lauded and derided in equal measure.

And, judging from the comments and the conversations, I don’t think I’m the only one who is confused about what ‘fun feminism’ actually is. Is it having fun whilst being a feminist? Is it cupcake feminism? Is it Slutwalk? Can it be found in glossy magazines? Is it good or is it bad? Is it powerful or is it frivolous? What on earth is it?

So, I am writing this blogpost as a plea to my feminist fellows across the world. Lets stop talking about fun feminism. It is a meaningless term that just seems to be used to disagree with one another. Instead, I would ask that we use the term ‘Feminism TM’ as trademarked (aha! A pun!) by Nina Power in her fantastic book, One Dimensional Woman.

Feminism TM, in brief, is about feminism that has been co-opted by patriarchal capitalism. It’s about treating feminism as something designed to make the individual ‘feel good’, that puts individual happiness or fulfilment above a collective goal. With Feminism TM, buying a pair of designer shoes or a Primark handbag is as ‘empowering’ as marching for your right to choose or volunteering at a rape crisis centre. Feminism TM means that Sarah Palin can call herself a feminist because she is a powerful woman, a ‘grizzly mama’, even though her anti-woman policies are an anathema to feminist ideals. Power writes that, with Feminism TM:

‘the political and historical dimensions of feminism are subsumed under the imperative to feel better about oneself, to become a more robust individual. As a response to the ‘I’m not a feminist but…’ pose it’s very successful. Almost everything turns out to be feminist - shopping, pole dancing, even chocolate.’

The problems with this are clear. Feminism isn’t a lifestyle choice that we can define for ourselves. It isn’t a matter of saying ‘this is my choice as a woman and therefore it’s a feminist choice’. ‘Liberalising’ feminism ignores the impact our individual choices have on others, on other women, in favour of telling you ‘if it feels good – just do it! Go on, that’s empowerment!’. And this isn’t good enough. Feminism has to mean something, or it risks meaning nothing at all. Feminism is a social revolution dedicated to making the world a better place for women and men. It isn’t a 12-step guide to making you feel not guilty about shopping for clothes made in sweat shops, and eating chocolate bought from Nestle.

If feminism becomes something you define for yourself, then what stops feminism becoming defined as being anti-choice, pro-war, anti-sex education and gun-toting, like Sarah Palin? What stops feminism being used as a rhetorical term to justify harm to women?

Fundamentally, I think this is what a lot of people were driving at when they talked about ‘fun feminism’. And I think that there is a big problem with individualist feminism or me-me feminism as defined by Power’s Feminism TM. So, if that’s what I think fun feminism is, why do I want to change the term?

Well, first of all because I think Feminism TM says a LOT more and it says it more clearly about capitalism and patriarchy and how feminism can be co-opted by a liberatarian idea, and how this is problematic. I don’t think ‘fun feminism’ says or explains this.

But I am also really concerned that by framing Feminism TM as ‘fun feminism’, and the ‘fun’ bit as being something bad, then it supposes that feminism can’t be fun, and if you are having fun as a feminist then it’s because you’re doing it wrong. It suggests that there is ‘proper’ feminism which is hard work and difficult and not fun, and then there is ‘fun feminism’ which isn’t serious and isn’t the ‘real work’ of destroying patriarchy.

And that’s bullshit. It’s also destructive and divisive. And, finally, it plays into dull, dull stereotypes that feminists are humourless and boring. And we know that’s not true. Angry, yes. Strident, always. But humourless? No.

A lot of the work of feminism isn’t fun of course. I hate it when people accuse feminists of not having a sense of humour about women’s rights, when we are often dealing with issues such as the fallout of the horror of male violence against women. There’s nothing funny about that and I don’t recall any other movements for social change being criticised for not being funny enough. But many things we do as feminists are fun. I stand by the fact that one of the most enjoyable (and hilarious) days of my life was when Jenny, Sue, Angel, Mark and I ran through Bristol in hoodies and dark glasses, flyering lad’s mags about their effect on violence against women and girls. Leading the Reclaim the Night march last year was one of the most empowering and exciting experiences. Sharing stories of street harassment in a room full of laughter and tears with other women is both fun and painful.

There’s been a lot of debate around whether Slutwalk is ‘fun feminism’ or not. Although I have written elsewhere about my concerns about some aspects of Slutwalk (and mainly the Canadian and USA ones) I think by calling it ‘fun feminism’ there was a suggestion that it wasn’t ‘proper’ feminism, not ‘real’ activism and that the women involved weren’t ‘real feminists’. I don’t feel this is fair and it certainly isn’t true. Marching on the streets to say that violence against women and rape culture must end? This isn’t drinking a glass of Chardonnay whilst going to a lap-dancing club (it’s my choice as a woman so it’s a feminist choice and so the impact on other women is irrelevant). Of course one of the problems with Slutwalk has been the individualist element that has not addressed the impact of the word ‘slut’ on survivors of violence but I think the Bristol and London events have gone some way towards remedying this. To write off everyone who is involved in the Slutwalk movement as ‘fun feminists’ really does a huge disservice to many of the women involved who do so much feminist activism.

The issue I have with the term ‘fun feminism’ is that it tries to define what is and what isn’t feminist activism in a very negative way. It also tries to define the ‘proper’ way to discover feminism. We all approach activism in different ways. We all become feminists for different reasons. Some feminists are activist by volunteering, some by guerrilla actions, some by signing a petition, some by reading or teaching or attending consciousness raising groups. It’s important that we support one another and listen to one another and encourage one another in our actions. And, of course, we should question each other’s actions and activism when it’s needed.

Take one example. I do lots of feminist activism. I write, I organise meetings, I fundraise, I organise awareness raising events, I speak at conferences, I advocate for charities, I do guerrilla stuff, I lobby the government. I don’t however, volunteer at a rape crisis or helpline. I don’t do this because I know I wouldn’t be very good at it, that my skills are more suited to other work and because I can’t commit to the regularity of it. It doesn’t mean that I am not as ‘proper’ as the women who do amazing and vital work in this area and who I have endless respect for. It’s that I recognise my skills and my abilities as a feminist activist lie elsewhere.

Feminism TM is a clearer way of saying that a meaningless self-defined feminism is a problem. It doesn’t create a false division between what is ‘fun’ and what is ‘proper’ and instead reminds us that feminism isn’t and mustn’t be just about me, but about a collective social movement to end patriarchy.

So, that’s my muddled rallying cry to say no more using ‘fun feminism’ and lets call it by its proper name ‘feminism TM’. Feminism to me isn’t about hierarchies. It’s collective. It has meaning. And it’s changing the world.

The government's war on women's wombs

2011-08-29T14:06:00.000+01:00

I try to avoid writing about Nadine Dorries. I am loathe to give her the oxygen of publicity she so clearly craves, and that helps thrust her into the spotlight so that her marginal and ill-informed views are given a platform that allows them to be taken seriously.

But clearly, today, we need to be writing about what the Telegraph called on its Sunday front page the ‘biggest shake-up’ in abortion regulations for a generation.

I don’t think any of us really believed that the government would take Dorries’ and (Labour) Frank Field’s ridiculous proposal to prevent abortion and pregnancy experts offering women counselling when they’re seeking a termination seriously. But then, this is the government who thought it could be a smart move to offer Life a space on their pregnancy and sexual health advisory board, instead of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. You know, Life. The charity that thinks condoms don’t prevent the spread of STDs.

A bit of background. Ultimately, Dorries is an anti-choice campaigner who, despite couching her rhetoric in anti-sexualisation and ‘caring’ terminology, wants to eventually restrict a woman’s right to bodily autonomy when it comes to ending or continuing a pregnancy. Over the years, she has taken many different approaches. She campaigned to reduce the upper time-limit of abortion from 24 to 20 weeks, a vote that was defeated in parliament in 2008. She has put forward a motion asking for girls (and only girls) to receive abstinence education in schools. She calls this ‘empowering girls to say no’. We call it, ‘removing vital sex education that informs girls about contraception and safety’. And now she has proposed that ‘abortion providers’ such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service be prevented from offering women counselling when seeking an abortion. Instead, ‘independent’ counselling will be offered – which of course allows anti choice charities and campaigners the chance to step in and offer biased (and often unscientific) advice.

And it is this latter policy that the government are considering adopting.

Dorries defends this idea on the basis that Marie Stopes and the BPAS offer ‘biased’ counselling, encouraging women to have an abortion because, as the abortion providers, they gain (financially) from providing as many abortions as possible. This is such a stupid and ludicrous thing to insinuate that it is mind boggling that the government are even taking it seriously (especially considering the Tory dedication to privatising health care). The idea that either group actively encourage women to have an abortion in order to get money is so offensive and so far off the mark as to feel almost libellous (I’m not a lawyer and am not actually accusing Dorries of libel – figure of speech). By that logic, all healthcare (especially private) could be accused of the same thing.

And, of course, the groups that Dorries wants to see take on the role of counselling have a vested interest in persuading the woman they speak to not to have an abortion. Their interest may not be financial but it is ideological. They want to see an end to abortion, and so it is likely that they will take a counselling angle that seeks to persuade the woman to not have a termination. If you don’t believe this, then take a look at this little number. Anti-choice campaigners believe that the proposed changes to counselling provision will reduce the number of abortions in the UK by 60,000. This change is not about offering independent, unbiased advice that will give women a choice between having a termination or continuing with her pregnancy. This is about silencing the voice that offers women that choice.

Dorries’ approach to abortion is wholly unscientific. She is a firm believer in the completely made-up condition ‘post-abortion syndrome’. This so-called syndrome is based on the idea that after an abortion, a woman is traumatised and depressed. Of course, some women are. Some women do feel pain and sorrow after an abortion and they need support and to be listened to. But what those women don’t need is people telling them that they feel depressed because they were wrong to terminate their pregnancy. What those women don’t need is unscientific rhetoric from the film ‘The Silent Scream’. It’s so illogical, and indeed harmful, to punish and demonise the women you are supposed to be helping.

Just as there are women who feel depressed after an abortion, there are women who feel relieved. And this needs to be spoken about more. I have so much respect for writers such as Caitlin Moran and Zoe Williams who have written honestly about this side of abortion. According to the way our culture talks about pregnancy and abortion, women are ‘supposed’ to feel traumatised and sorrow after a termination. And so the relief, the feeling of getting your life back on track, the feeling that you made the right decision is silenced and hidden. But this silence allows anti-choicers the space to fill the debate with nonsense about post-abortion syndrome and how women always and only regret the decision to end a pregnancy.

I have never had an abortion. I put this in because I want you to understand that I do not know how I would feel after a termination – whether I would feel relief or sadness or something completely different. But if I ever find myself pregnant and not wanting to be, I want to know that I can speak to people who will listen to me, unbiased, and give me the medical advice I need. I want to know that I won’t have to listen to a twisted morality-based rhetoric about how a woman is supposed to feel. I want to know that I will be listened to, and that my choice over my body would be respected.

Dorries and her gang are trying to take that away from women, to replace it with counselling that does not respect a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.

Despite her earlier efforts to reduce the upper time limit, Dorries’ proposals to offer counselling, and her plans to create a ‘cooling-off’ period for women making the decision actually creates a delay for women having an abortion. To me, this clearly shows that she doesn’t really care about reducing the time limit, but instead wants to stop abortion all together. It also shows that she doesn't respect or acknowledge a woman's ability to make a decision about her body. It's infantilizing and it creates more problems by pushing back the date of the termination.

Finally, it is important to remember that when anti-choicers talk about reducing the number of abortions by 60,000, that they don’t care about what happens to those 60,000 babies. Dorries isn’t campaigning for an increase in child benefits. She isn’t campaigning for more support for single parents, or for better childcare for working families. Anti-choicers aren’t demanding the re-instatement of the health in pregnancy grant, or for greater flexibility of parental leave. They aren’t calling for more maternity wards to be opened with better facilities, and despite their obsession with post-abortion syndrome, they’re not researching how to tackle post-natal depression. They don’t care about women and they don’t care about children. They care about restricting women’s freedoms and denying women one of our key human rights – the right to bodily autonomy.

What can you do?

Email your MP to ask that they don't restrict a woman's right to choose: http://www.abortionrights.org.uk/content/view/422/110/ - it takes two minutes with the template letter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8727514/Abortion-rules-to-be-tightened-in-biggest-shake-up-for-a-generation.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/24/abortion-sexual-health-coalition
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jul/05/comment.gender
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/myths/post_abortion_syndrome.html

Why it's Diallo, not Strauss-Kahn, who has been on trial

2011-08-22T18:58:00.000+01:00

At time of writing, it looks like the sexual assault case against former head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is about to collapse. He is set to return to French politics (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/22/dominique-strauss-kahn-return-politics) whilst his alleged victim, Nafissatou Diallo, will join the long, long line of women who have reported rape or sexual assault, and never seen their case tried in court.

Since his arrest three months ago in May, we have been treated to a series of bizarre articles about whether the French are more relaxed about 'adultery' (as opposed to sexual assault). We've heard plenty of conspiracy theories about whether Diallo was a honey trap, a plot by his political enemies to destroy him. But most of all we have seen lengthy articles that have set out to discredit and destroy Diallo's version of events.

Now the case against Strauss-Kahn is collapsing, with Diallo accused of being an unreliable witness who lacks credibility. The official reason? She lied on her asylum application to enter America. However, this is just the official version of the many, many suggestions that have been put forward by the press and DSK apologisers in an effort to discredit her. These include that she didn't inform immigration that she had gone through female genital mutilation, that she knows 'dodgy people' including some people who are in prison, and that she was trying to extort money from DSK.

Meanwhile, according to the law, DSK's history of 'sexual misconduct' cannot be discussed. Whilst Diallo's history is raked through the mud, previous accusations against DSK cannot be spoken of. I don't necessarily think that previous accusations should be brought up in court, but I think if we have that rule for the defendant, then we need that rule for the accuser too. Because the question to me now is, who is really on trial here?

The cornerstone of the justice system is innocent until proven guilty. This means that neither me, you nor the editor of the Daily Mail knows or can judge if DSK is guilty. But it also means that we cannot know or judge whether Diallo was lying about sexual assault. And it is this that has been forgotten, both in the reporting on this case, the Assange case and almost every single incident of sexual assault and rape that I have ever heard of. The emphasis is never on the alleged perpetrator. Instead, the woman is on trial. The woman is accused. The woman is assumed to be guilty, before proven innocent.

Forensic evidence tells us that sexual contact occurred on the night of the alleged assault. Diallo was reported to be distressed and upset in the aftermath of the alleged assault. She took the brave step of reporting to the police. The speculation that she had made up the assault in order to extort money from DSK was later proven untrue, when an accurate translation of the phone call was released. In the phone call she explained to her friend that DSK was rich and powerful (which he is), and later on in the conversation she assured her friend that she knew what she was doing in terms of going to the police and finding a lawyer. There was evidence enough to charge him. So surely, for real justice to be served, this case should go to trial. DSK should answer those charges in court. He should defend himself from charges of sexual assault. Diallo should not have to defend herself from accusations that she lied.

Diallo's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, has this weekend criticised the prosecutor's office, saying:

“[this] is consistent with the unfair way the Manhattan district attorney's office has treated Ms Diallo throughout this process. It's as if she is the defendant and Strauss-Kahn is the victim."

This is not surprising in the rape culture we live in. After all, we're used to this. We're used to reading articles that paint the alleged perpetrators of sexual assault as the victims of 'lying' women. We're used to the cry that a rape accusation can ruin lives, whilst the life-ruining impact of rape is silenced. I'm sure being falsely accused of rape is awful. But, unlike the mainstream media coverage, it is a lot rarer than rape. And lets not forget that even men found guilty of rape do not necessarily find their lives ruined. After all, Mike Tyson is a movie star. Polanski is a hero. DSK is likely to be welcomed home to French politics by Francois Hollande, his wife at his side, two pending accusations and all.

Diallo is said to have lied about rape on her asylum application. Although I don't condone lying about rape, I think perhaps we can attempt to try and understand the desperate circumstances she was in, trying to flee her home country to forge a life away from the horrors of a war that has ravaged her home. And although I don't condone this lie, we need to remember one very, very important thing. A woman who has lied in the past can still be raped. A woman who has dodgy friends can still be raped. A man can still rape a woman who has lied. A man can still rape a woman who has dodgy friends. And if a man is accused of, and charged with, sexually assaulting a woman, and there is evidence to suggest sexual contact took place, and the accusation that she was trying to extort money has been shown to be untrue, then that man should face trial and he should be found guilty or innocent in court. And that woman should not be found guilty in the 'court of popular opinion'. That woman should not be treated as a criminal by the justice system and the media. Because, just like DSK, she is innocent until proven guilty. And unless DSK takes her to court over a false accusation, I doubt very much she will be proven guilty.

When I last wrote about this issue, I was accused by a commenter on my blog of 'not understanding how the world works'. He said that I didn't understand that this was likely to be about 'greater forces' trying to destroy DSK's career and reputation.

So let me lay it on the line. This is how the world works. One in three women will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes. Most of the men who commit that crime will get away with it.

*update*

I would really really recommend reading Hadley Freeman's post on this case on Comment is Free http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/23/dsk-trial-accuser-not-accused

*update*

As a result of the lengthy discussion in the comments section, here are some sources on stats.

1.
Fact #32: Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. (UN Commission on the Status of Women, 2/28/00)

From: http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html

See also:

http://oneinthreewomen.com/

http://www.rape.co.za/index2.php?do_pdf=1&id=875&option=com_content

http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/Resources/violence_against_women

http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/violence_against_women/facts_figures.php

2. Rape conviction and reporting rates: http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/latest-crime-statistics
False accusation stats: Fawcett Society report on 'Rape: The Facts'
Rape rate stats: Fawcett Society report on 'Rape: The Facts' and the BCS figures cited here: http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/

More on DSK by me: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/07/media-reporting-on-rape-daily-mail-and.html

Sources for news and quotes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/21/dominique-strauss-kahn-charges

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/01/dominique-strauss-kahn-case-close-collapse-new-york-times?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/01/timeline-strauss-kahn-case?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

The single mums are alright

2011-08-19T12:20:00.001+01:00

My parents split up when I was four, and little bro was three. In 1988-89. It was fairly amicable, and we have always maintained contact with my dad and would see him in the holidays. No divorced family escapes having some issues, just as no moody teenager escapes having moodswings. But all in all it was a happy story. Splitting up was the best decision for my parents, both of whom had their own issues. My mum met her partner and we moved in with her and, 22 years later, both my parents are in happy, loving and stable relationships.

So that’s my story anyway. The reason I am going more personal than usual is because I want to write about the demonization of single mums and the ‘breakdown’ of families that seem to be on the agenda lately as riots swept the UK.

My family is both a single parent family in that my mum and dad were divorced, but also a two-parent family in that my mum was in a stable and loving relationship throughout my childhood and adulthood (as was my dad). So, I guess, technically, ‘legally’ I was in a single parent family, but in reality, I was in a two-parent family. In some ways perhaps I am not qualified in my personal experience to talk about this. But hey, that’s never stopped me before! There’s also the second ‘prejudice’ as it were in that my mum is in a gay relationship.

Right, I think that covers all you need to know about my background. Personal blogging! Scary stuff!

There are two tabloid ideas of the single mum. The first is the girl who gets pregnant to get a council house and just sees a man as a piece of equipment she can use to get the house. The second is a golddigga who when her hubby leaves her, goes on a mission to wring him dry and get all his cash to help her raise her child. Often both these things are painted as feminism’s fault.

You don’t need me to tell you why these stereotypes are phenomenally stupid.

Parents split up for a multitude of reasons, across a range of classes. A recent report (that I can’t find a link for – damn!) shows that most single mums are in their 30s. Which makes sense really, seeing as the majority of women have children in their mid to late 20s and single parent families make up about a quarter of the families in the UK (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/single-parents-now-head-a-quarter-of-all-british-families-643849.html).

When politicians, when the tabloids, blame single mums for the breakdown of society and ‘feral youth’ they are generally talking about single mums on low incomes. It’s classist and sexist. And they need to stop, think and then probably shut the hell up. Single mums are blamed for everything, when what we should be doing is supporting them. After a break-up, single mums are often left a lot poorer than their male partner. I remember reading in The Whole Woman a report stating that when parents break up, the mother’s income almost always goes down, whilst the father’s goes up. This makes sense. The one with the kids is going to need a house with enough rooms, buy food for herself and her kids, and if she works, maybe go part time or pay for childcare. The father may pay child support but he has more options, more freedom with an income that is now almost solely his. Single mums are often stretched. They may be working part time or full time, they may have to take lower status, lower paid jobs so that they can work more flexible hours to juggle childcare. With the coalition cuts, single mums needing financial support are seeing their benefits disappear, and reports now show that single mums are the worst hit groups by these ridiculous measures (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2011/jun/23/single-mums-biggest-losers-from-benefit-cuts). On top of this, single mums are blamed for everything wrong with today’s young people via stereotypes that don’t reflect reality. The impression by the tabloids and often by politicians is that single mums are feckless; popping out babies all over the place, they don’t really care about their kids, their kids run wild, and then they have more babies they don’t care about in order to get more benefits. Sometimes they don’t put the father’s name on the birth certificate! Gasp! Sometimes they put another man’s name on the birth certificate, even if he isn’t the biological father! Clutch your pearls!

And never mind the fact that their benefits are vanishing. Never mind the fact that they are demonised. Never mind the fact that they STAYED.

Because the other side of the single mums is the dads. Now, I know that a lot of dads stick around. They see their kids and phone them up every day and pay child support and help out and care and love their kids. The good dads. I also know that I will get F4J types shouting at me that the court system benefits mothers, that some mums don’t let the dads see their kids. Yes, most of the time mums get custody of the kids. This is because, in the main, mums are the primary caregivers. Why this happens is a whole other feminist question that starts with gender stereotyping about how we look at family structures; that asks why are dads effectively excluded from the family unit with our stupidly unequal parental leave; why are ‘caring’ and ‘nurturing’ seen as feminine, and what does this mean for men who are fathers…it is generally feminists that are leading the way on this debate despite the fact that we are accused by MRA types of TRYING TO DESTROY FATHERS!! EEK!! I hope soon we will get a more level playing field when it comes to caring responsibilities in families. This is what will cause a change in favouring the mother in custody battles. But until that happens, whilst mothers are seen as the primary caregivers, they will tend to get custody.

If a man is refused access by the courts then I think there must be a good reason for that. The judicial system is designed by men and more often than not, it supports male privilege. The judicial system is not generally great with women’s issues – just look at the way rape is handled by the CJS for proof of that. I find it very hard to believe that if a court refuses to let a man see his kid, they don’t have a reason.

Of course, there are mums who refuse access even when it is legally granted and this can be problematic. That is very difficult.

So anyway, yes, some dads stick around and are lovely. But a lot of dads don’t. A lot of dads just go away. They disappear and they take their love, and care and their money with them. This happens across class, across ethnicity, across the UK, across the world. It happens all the time. And the women who stay, the women who stay to raise their kids; they’re portrayed as bad single mums who don’t care. Who are doing a bad job. Who are just trying to get more benefits. Who are to blame for all social ills. But the invisible man standing next to her, he’s not in the tabloid picture.

One of the most vindictive and nasty cuts that the government has made is its decision to make single parents pay a fee to track down their absent ex-partner to get them to pay towards the upkeep of their child (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12174121). It is nasty because it refuses to recognise that people who need to ask their ex for money to help them raise their children probably don’t have that much cash floating around in the first place. And it is vindictive because it is saying to the single mum that it is her problem to sort out, it is snidely saying that she got herself into this situation and she needs to get herself out. It completely lets the parent who has run off and refused to pay child support off the hook. It puts the blame and the emphasis on the parent who is left holding the baby.

1.5 million children are left without financial support because one of the parents doesn’t pay maintenance. Seeing as the vast majority of single parents are mums, and seeing as the vast majority of these children are born from heterosexual relationships, that’s a lot of dads who have left their kids in the lurch. That’s £4 billion of unpaid maintenance (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12174121).

And we’re blaming single mums for this? The tabloids and the politicians have achieved something remarkable in the way that they manage to blame single mums for the ‘breakdown of society’ and any ‘youth’ issues, whilst also blaming them for disenfranchising fathers; whilst also blaming evil feminists and Labour for diminishing the role of the father. That’s a hell of a lot of things to blame on one group of people. Years ago I spoke to Iain Duncan-Smith on the phone to ask him about the Tory view on gay parenting. He said that that wasn’t an issue, but that there was a conspiracy in the corridors of power to destroy the role of the father. Yet, cutting benefits so that it is cheaper for mums and dads who claim support to actually live apart? Not the Tories fault. Cutting benefits so that mums already struggling to make ends meet are even worse off, thereby making the kids worse off? Not the Tories fault. Creating an idea of marriage as the Holy Grail, even though some families (like my own) are better off with divorce or separation? Not the Tories fault. Blame the single mums! It’s their fault if they haven’t got any money. It’s their fault the dads left. It’s their fault if dads don’t feel part of the family unit. It’s their fault it’s their fault!

So, you can guess that my conclusion is that we should stop blaming single mums. We should make sure lone parents raising kids get the support they need, be that childcare, financial support or, you know, not getting a bashing every day in the press. We need to end the idea that parents breaking up is always a disaster for the children. We need to recognise that not all single mums are poor (although obviously I have mainly focused this post on the demonization of single mums living in relative poverty or financial difficulty, these are not the only single mums) or golddiggas. We should value the great parenting that most single mums do. Raising a child, children, on your own is hard. The way we heap praise on single dads recognises this. Lets recognise that it’s still hard when you’re a mum!

Of course, this post has been pretty harsh on dads who leave. That’s because I think if you bugger off and never have any contact with your kids and contribute nothing to their lives, then you deserve a dose of harshness. But just being angry about it is not going to improve the situation. We need to empower dads too. We need to show them why their kids need them, why it’s important to maintain contact with their kids and why being a dad is great and rewarding. We need to make sure dads are supported. We need to ensure that when the break-up is painful, and awful, and heart wrenching, that dads aren’t then left out of the picture. I fully support the great work done by dads charities like Dads House etc who want to encourage men to be good, loving, involved fathers. I want this to happen. I like dads. I think they should like being dads too.

Single mums as a group aren’t to blame. Dads as a group aren’t to blame. Individuals who do terrible, nasty things in relationships can often be to blame. Cuts to services that help and empower mums and dads, so they are no longer supported, these are to blame. But lets not play the blame game any more. 1.5 million children are not getting support from one of their parents. That’s a lot of children. Blaming people isn’t going to make that change.

Bristol Feminist Network and what we mean by activism

2011-08-18T14:03:00.000+01:00

this is a conference paper annifrangipani and I wrote together and presented together at the UWE Trans Disciplinary conference "Reporting from the gender frontline'.

It's a useful and interesting paper because it talks about our history, what BFN do, but also what activism can be and what activism can mean, as well as the intersections between academic and activist feminism. It's something that's come up a bit lately on online and offline conversations (what is activism? what counts as activism?) so thought I would take this opportunity to share this piece of writing which helped us define what activism means for BFN.

The conference took place on the 9th June

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/groups/gender-studies/front-line-conference.shtml

Who we are?

Sian Norris and Anna Brown, we are the co-ordinators of Bristol Feminist Network which was set up in 2007 after Ladyfest Bristol.

What do we stand for?

A community group of women and men from the Bristol and area who are interested in discussing feminist ideas, who believe in the importance of women's liberation, and who actively campaign on issues of gender inequality and oppression.   We believe that challenging gender stereotypes, resisting sexist oppression and fighting for the rights of women can positively change the world for ALL who inhabit it.

For BFN, activism means many things. It can mean attending a Reclaim the Night march or picketing an anti-choice rally. It can mean signing a petition or writing to your MP. Attending a discussion group, reading and sharing a feminist book, writing an article or blog post or paper – all of these are feminist acts.

For us, attending a discussion group is activism. What is so important about discussion groups is that the agenda is set by our members. They decide what they want to talk about, and the process of listening, sharing our stories and learning from one another.

Our activism is very tied up in social media. Twitter, Facebook and blogs allow us to connect with women and men across the world, discover more about wider campaigns and share our own campaigns with a wide audience. Social media is a fundamental tool for feminist activists today. This is not unique to Bristol. All feminist groups now use Twitter and Facebook, and many young feminists when searching for women who share their views turn to the blogosphere. Research conducted by Cath Redfern and Kristin Aune support this, showing that many of the women they surveyed cited the internet as their introduction to feminism.

What have we done?

We want to get people talking about feminism and working together to overthrow the patriarchy in world of equality for all.
We organise monthly discussion groups about all areas of feminism, from feminism and men, violence against women, women and the internet, feminism and relationships, FGM, forced marriage and much more.
We have a book group where people read feminist books – fiction and non fiction, academic and populist.
We work with other community groups such as Bristol Indymedia, the PCT and local charities to put on talks, fim nights and panel discussions.
Every year we have a Reclaim the Night march to raise awareness of violence against women and girls and to tackle rape culture, and over the past few years we have worked closely with the Bristol Fawcett Society on a project called ‘Representations of women in the media’.

Our experience of activism

Because BFN has a very diverse membership we have been lucky to get a very wide view of what issues matter to feminists in the city today. A lot of these issues reflect the aims of the second wave. Women are still fighting for bodily autonomy, their reproductive rights, their rights to:

•    live without the fear of violence
•    equal pay
•    be seen as fully human rather than as merely sex objects.

Despite the many wonderful changes for women in the UK since the start of the second wave, including better access to abortion, the legal right to equal pay and the criminalisation of rape within marriage as examples, women in the UK today still face gross inequalities and prejudices that prevent them from taking their place as full citizens of the world stage. Globally, women bear the brunt of poverty, are victims and survivors of rape as a weapon of war, oppression and global sex trafficking. The recent book by Nicholas D Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn told us that due to violence against women and gender inequality, there are 100 million missing women in the world. Feminism is still as vital a movement and as necessary a social revolution as it has ever been.

Although we have made many exciting leaps and bounds towards equality since the start of the second wave, this past year has seen what many consider to be steps backwards. The coalition government only has 4 women in its cabinet. The emergency budget last year disproportionately affected women and vulnerable people, and when the government admitted not conducting a gender equality assessment, no action was taken by the judicial system. 100,000 women are raped every year in the UK and recent comments from MPs Ken Clarke and Roger Helmer show that victim blaming and rape culture is still very real. Rape culture means that the conviction rates for rape stay low at 6.5%, whilst false accusation stories, which make up only 3-5% of rape cases dominate the media narrative. The government recently removed the ministerial post to tackle female genital mutilation and budget cuts have hit domestic violence services so severely that Women’s Aid predict that 60% of refuge services will receive no council funding by next year. Meanwhile, the proliferation of violent porn, the normalisation of women as sex objects performing for the male gaze, the normalisation of the sex industry and the opening of retro-sexist establishments such as Hooters and the Playboy Club are perpetuating the view that women’s worth lies in their ability to conform to a narrow view of beauty and sexuality. If women do not fit this narrow mould, then they are expected to re-shape their body, face and style to do so. Procedures from breast enlargement to labiaplasty, Brazilian waxes to vajazzling are part of this pattern that expects women to conform to a commodified view of women’s bodies.

The result has been a real resurgence in young people taking an interest in feminism, claiming themselves as feminists and demanding an end to gender inequality. Last year alone saw at least 18 new feminist networks spring up across the UK, the publication of four non academic feminist books, as well as far more press attention to feminist causes – some good and some not so good.

In our experience as activists, we have found that young women and men coming fresh to feminism are mainly focused on fighting the sexual objectification of culture, and violence against women. We believe this may be because all women, regardless of class, ethnicity, age etc, experience the effects of the normalisation of the sex industry in our every day lives. We all walk into supermarkets to be confronted with wave after wave of lad’s mags. We have all seen Page 3 – now considered to be a British institution. We all experience the invisibility of women who do not fit into the accepted mould, and we all live through the effects of a society that normalises the treatment of women as commodities. We now know that there is compelling evidence that links violence against women and girls, and an increased tolerance of sexism, with the increased sexual objectification of women. The view of women as only and always objects for consumption underpins a lot of the inequalities we now face. We believe that this begins to explain why these issues are so key to attracting young women to feminism in the first place.

A general surge of activism has taken place in the last year, from the student marches to the anti-cuts protests. Although not always explicitly feminist, the cuts to student funding and the public sector will disproportionately impact on women, and so have brought issues such as gender-based poverty, the pay gap and wider inequalities in the workplace to the forefront of many people’s minds. Wider activism around the peace movement and global poverty, international sex trafficking and conflict have also started to bring many newly politically aware young women and men to feminism, as we learn that without gender equality, aims for a fairer world can never be achieved. For example, economists have shown over and over again that educating women in the developing world will lift whole families out of poverty – bringing economic benefits to all. Equality cannot exist for all when it does not exist for women.

BFN and academia

As mentioned before, two of our main activist activities have been focused on Reclaim the Night, tackling rape culture and violence against women; and looking at how women are represented in the media. The latter has taken many forms, from exploring the sexual objectification of women, to seeing how women are absent in our cultural landscape, to asking questions about the absence of news stories that tell us about the extent of local and global violence against women.

In all these campaigns, we have been lucky to work with academic feminists, whose depth of knowledge and research has enabled us to build exciting and informed campaigns.

For example, research conducted by the Bristol University Centre for Gender Based Violence on violence in teen relationships, and the American Psychological Association’s work on the links between intimate partner violence and sexual objectification of women has allowed us to build convincing and intelligent arguments for our activist campaigns. We believe that academic work is activist work and we are lucky to be able to bring the two tenets of feminist activity together to build a more equal society.

Obviously, like all social movements for change, feminism is not always popular. It is often attacked by those afraid of losing their privilege. Therefore, for all our feminist campaigns, we have found it vital to work closely with academics and their research when making sure that our campaigns are evidenced and informed.

As we have seen with the opening of Hooters, the Playboy Club and arguments around lad’s mags and the wider sex industry, the media is often keen to publicise and discuss stories that have a perceived “sexy” angle. Although it is fantastic to have media coverage, we also need to ensure that the media portrays feminist campaigns on other issues, such as global feminism, violence against women and girls, and poverty. These issues may seem less exciting to the newspapers, they can’t be illustrated with pictures of scantily clad women, but just like the sexual objectification of women, these issues underpin the inequality between the genders and need to be tackled. We believe that by working with academic research and researchers, we can bring these issues to the forefront of the public’s consciousness with robust evidence for why gender inequality impacts on everyone’s lives, and bringing about equality for all benefits everyone.

So, that is our experience. Now we want to hear from you.
•    As academics, do you think our own activist campaigns and issues reflect the work that you are doing?
•    Do you consider academia to be activist in itself?
•    Is the research in feminist academia reflecting the work of non academic activists?
•    Are there any disconnects between the issues we see, and the issues that form the bulk of today’s academic research?
•    What issues are dominating the academic sphere when it comes to feminism?

Response to BBC Bristol's volleyball article, featuring ME!!

2011-08-17T14:51:00.000+01:00

this is kind of an open letter. i haven't actually sent it. i just wanted to let my feelings out about the latest article on the BBC website featuring me. The end of the article said that Betfair had declined to respond to my comments. I felt that I actually wanted to respond to my comments, as I felt my comments didn't actually reflect what I said. So that's what I've done.

Dear BBC Bristol

Last week, I had a call from the your local radio station. Despite once telling me to ‘make sure you are available for when we need to speak to you’, I’ve never been adept at guessing which vital feminist news story you are going to pick up on, and want a feminist angle on. When you rang me last week, I racked my brains. Would it be the impact of the riots on women? The blaming of single mums maybe? Or an international issue? Something about our forthcoming workshop on the women in Afghanistan (4th September) or our forthcoming film night on female genital mutilation (5th September)? What could it be?

What it was, in fact, was about some beach volleyball players working with Betfair to have QR codes put on the backs of their bikini bottoms, which, when snapped on a smartphone would take the phone user to the Betfair website.

In all honesty, I couldn’t think of much to say about this issue. So I had a little think, and thought, well if I am going to say anything, I might as well make it about Bristol Feminist Network’s wider exploration of women’s representation in the media, including some excellent research done by one Fawcett member on the representation of women in sport.

I’m not stupid. I anticipated that the stance you were hoping I would take would be one of outrage. Outrage about bums, and bikini bottoms, and sexiness. Because that’s what us boring anti-sex anti-fun feminists get het up about, isn’t it. I know that I was phoned to give an angle of criticising the women, something I clearly was not going to do. Something I did not do. In fact, for the pre-recorded slot, I was asked the extraordinary question of whether I ‘blamed’ the women. Blamed them for what, I wondered? Living in a patriarchy that values their physical appearance more than their impressive sporting ability? I’m a feminist, I’m not in the habit of blaming and condemning women (or men for that matter). I’m more interested in tackling and exploring how patriarchy works, with the ultimate end to making it stop.

With my representation of women in the media angle firmly in my mind, I spoke about the bigger questions at stake. The ones about how we value women. The ones about whether women’s sport is taken seriously. Are these women seen as athletes, I mused, or are they seen as objects? In the live phone in, I asked whether we want to see sportswomen as advertising billboards. I said that we all know that athletes wear logos and sponsorship from all sorts of companies, and so it begged the question why were the QR codes on the womens’ bums. I talked about the lack of coverage of women’s sport in general, and how the BBC got a slapped wrist over its Wimbledon coverage which favoured matches played by conventionally attractive women players than those played by former champs. I did not criticise the women. I didn’t feel like I had criticised anything. I hoped I had raised some interesting points. Some ‘food for thought’. The interviewer told me at the end that I had been diplomatic. I thought I had been honest.

Later that day, I discovered that the story had gone on your website, with the headline ‘Volleyballers' bikini bottom ads criticised by feminist’. This understandably annoyed me. I felt it implied that I had got in touch with you, raising this issue, making a noise about this issue, standing at Horse Guards with placards to criticise the women’s team!! It also suggested that I had a problem with bikini bottoms and what women wear when they play sport. When, as described above, it was YOU who got in touch with me to ask my opinion on a story that your news team thought was worth making a fuss off. I hadn’t really ‘criticised’ anything so much as discussed how women are represented in sport.
My comment about how the women were being seen as advertising billboards was removed from the context of how advertising in sport works, making me sound like I was pretty ignorant. As it happens, I work in advertising. I know how it works. Although you mention that I raised concerns about whether women’s sport is taken seriously, by stripping this statement of its context, a reader of the article would be left with the impression that I was pro-actively criticising women volleyball players for creating a situation where women’s sport was disrespected, rather than asking whether we live in a culture that means women’s sport and athleticism is devalued.

Your actions have not been without repercussions. Since the story went online (which, by the way, I was not told it would be) I have received two nasty and rude emails having a go at me for being ‘out of touch’ and, to paraphrase, denying men the chance to ogle women in their bikinis.

If this was the first time we’d encountered issues with the way you represent the Bristol Feminist Network, then I’d probably let it go. Except it isn’t. In May 2010, you said that BFN and Bristol Fawcett were protesting the ‘sexiness’ of a Dita Von Teese performance (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2010/05/bbc-radio-bristols-reporting-of-dita.html) when we were arguing about the normalisation of sexual objectification. Earlier this year, my phone was cut off when I was talking on your breakfast show about the police safety warnings in the wake of Jo Yeates’ murder, followed by the snide comment that ‘perhaps she just didn’t want to answer the question’. This was not true, and as far as I know it was never clarified on the show that this wasn’t true. In fact, that whole live interview (the pre-recorded one was better) set us up as encouraging other women to take irresponsible risks with their safety. Rather than engaging with the idea that to stop male violence against women, we had to stop men being violent towards women, I ended up having to counter the ridiculous suggestion that we were telling women to take risks. Walking home in the dark after work should not be a risk. Earlier this month, I took part in a phone-in where I wasn’t made aware that I would be expected to respond to calls from the public. About housework. At a time when we only have four women in the cabinet.

Don’t get me wrong, we have had some wonderful experiences with you. Your TV coverage of the 2009 Reclaim the Night march was great (even if you did ask us to pretend to march!). A phone-in where I discussed the Andy Gray and Richard Keys incident was lively and interesting. A discussion on International Women’s Day about whether women could have it all was fun and respectful, even if the subject felt a tad outdated on a day when we recognise the global impact of gender inequality.

I want to work with you. I LOVE the BBC. Our positive experience of working with you shows how good it can be. I want to see you covering feminist stories that really matter. I want you to cover them with passion, interest and enthusiasm. I want to see you devote time to the work done in Bristol to tackle violence against women and girls. I want to hear debates about trafficking and the work done in Bristol to combat this. I want to hear discussion about how the objectification in the media impacts on gender discrimination – I want lively debate, I want to talk to you, I want to share with you the wonderful work happening in this city and I want to share with you the huge challenges we face.
But I don’t want to be set up as a bogeywoman who is against bikini bottoms. Because that isn’t who I am. And it isn’t what feminism is about.

It makes me sad that lately you have chosen to portray feminists and feminism in this negative way.
I hope we can continue to work together to raise the profile of the great feminism activism happening in this city. I hope that next time you call me (if you call me after this!) we can make a positive, exciting statement about what feminism in Bristol is today.

Loathe as i am to link to it, here it is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-14502888

I'm in Venue

2011-08-17T09:20:00.000+01:00

Amazingly, despite being owned by the Northcliffe group, who's papers have called me numerous names in the past, Venue have written an absolutely lovely and positive and exciting article about the Bristol Feminist Network.

http://www.venue.co.uk/features/13358-reclaim-feminism

Enjoy!

The Enduring Power of The Women's Room

2011-08-13T16:06:00.000+01:00

I first read Marilyn French's feminist classic The Women's Room when I was 17, a burgeoning schoolgirl feminist, proudly carrying my copy of The Whole Woman around with me and struggling to get to grips with Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, as well as de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (a book, I am ashamed to say, I never finished). My favourite feminist novel at the time, discovered when I was 16, was Small Changes by Marge Piercy. My 16-year old self thrilled at the naughtiness and sexiness of Lisa Alther's feminist romp Kinflicks. I knew the next feminist novel I had to read was The Women's Room, a book I had grown up with on my parents' bookshelf. And so, like the good academic feminist I was, I took it off the shelf and into my room.

I didn't understand it. I didn't get it. I may not have experienced the sexist atmosphere of the sexual revolution, as described by Piercy in Small Changes, but I did understand Beth's shyness and her trials to find out who she wanted to be. I despaired at Miriam's irrevocable slide into conformity, and cheered on Dorine's growing passion for her own life. I certainly hadn't 'done it' with boys in bomb shelters or with girls in showers, like Alther's irrepressible Ginny, but like her I was desperately searching for an identity with a fairly gung-ho attitude towards it all. But The Women's Room? I didn't understand it. I didn't understand the trapped lives of the suburban women. I was bored by the horrific parties where the husbands and wives danced with one another. I didn't engage with Mira's life-after-divorce. I finished it, and went back to Marge Piercy.

Years later, friends on Twitter started to share their experiences of reading The Women's Room. They talked about it with passion, with excitement, with sadness and with joy. 'The Women's Room?' I thought. 'The book with the ghastly parties?'. I watched Eagles' documentary on feminist activism and listened to Marilyn French talk about the impact her book had had. I read her obituaries and followed the Twitter tag 'thewomensroom'. So when on my 26th birthday I was given a book voucher I decided to give it another go. Perhaps there was something in this book other than boring parties.

Which, of course, there was.

The novel falls roughly into two parts, Mira's marriage to Norm, where she lives in a suburban nightmare, trapped by the feminist mystique; and her life post-divorce, studying at Harvard and slowly learning how to live as her own person.

With often brutal honesty, French shows us how her generation of women became imprisoned in unhappy marriages, living their lives attached to scrubbing brushes and polish; where ambition becomes moving to a nicer house 'further out' and where sexuality becomes a game to be played out with meaningless flirting in lounges at parties. We meet women who are found disgusting by their husbands for being sexual and feeling desire. We meet women (Mira included) who are deemed frigid because they do not find pleasure in sex that ignores and silences their bodies. We follow the lives of women who's friendship groups are splintered by petty jealousies, affairs and lies, but that equally offer the only respite from the loneliness of the isolated suburban housewife. As the post-war American dream of the smiling housewife in a pinny, greeting her successful husband with her smiling, rosy-cheeked children is exposed and broken apart, we watch women go mad with the strain of being un-loved, unfulfilled and of having to repress their sexuality and desire. And finally, the women who have given up their lives, who have given up their selves, who have hidden their passions and desires and wants in order to be the 'wife', find their husbands are leaving them.

In an era that has seen an increasing fetishization of 'the wife', from make-and-do fashion, cupcake culture and Royal Weddings, reading The Women's Room is a vital wake-up call. When journalists like Amanda Cable (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1375913/50s-housewife-Amanda-Cable-loses-weight-finds-inner-peace.html) wax lyrical about their time re-creating the fifties housewife life, they forget that this was a culture that disenfranchised and isolated women. A world that excused male violence and allowed rape in marriage. A world where women were driven mad and into hospital by a lack of hope, a lack of a voice. Women had no rights over their reproduction, where contraception was patchy and abortion was illegal. Where women without a husband were seen as 'fair game' and 'sluts'. Where women who embodied their sexuality were seen as perverted and sick, whilst women who lay back and thought of (New) England were seen as 'good' but frigid. I will address later how this world as portrayed by The Women's Room does not just exist in the past. One of my favourite moments in the first part of The Women's Room is when Mira explains her cleaning schedule. Cleaning filled up almost every minute of her day, as she strove to create the perfect house for Norm. The tendency to romanticise the past, to see this period as a golden age of the family, of the wife, ignores and silences the very real issues of inequality that women faced.

Unlike her friends Lily and Theresa, who end up in a psychiatric ward, unlike Martha who finds herself left by her lover, unlike Samantha and Bliss and Natalie; Mira escapes to the big city. She escapes to a world of education and conversation and thought. We join her in Boston with the excited and wise Val, with gay and artistic Iso, with neurotic Kyla and her self-obsessed husband, with Clarissa and Ava, and with Val's daughter, Chris. She discovers her intellect, she tries to find the words to describe what has happened to her, the language to explain her previous life, and she often succeeds. She discovers sex with the gorgeous Ben, and she learns how to live her life as the woman she wanted to be. It is slow, it is painful, it is like being born again. But it is hopeful.

However, even in the seemingly perfect world of friends and women, good food, tasty wine and inspiring conversation that Mira finds in the city is not insulated from the pervading sexism that women on the cusp of the second wave were faced with. Kyla's marriage is heartbreakingly dysfunctional, as her husband refuses to respect her intellect, her femininity, her independence. Iso becomes an emotional sponge for Ava, for Kyla, for Clarissa – all seeking solace from a male world that has hurt them. Val's young lover Tad punishes her for her sexuality and desire. Ben refuses to recognise Mira's ambitions as being as valid and equal as his own. Women in political groups are silenced as the men talk. College Professors dismiss women's intellectual capability. And ultimately, Chris is raped by a stranger, before she is metaphorically raped by the police, lawyers and courts who refuse to believe her.

This book is historical. It is set in a very specific time of history, where second wave feminism was beginning to rise and where the feminine mystique was at its height, but about to be challenged and partially destroyed. But in a country where 100,000 are raped each year, whilst 90% of rapes are unreported, and the conviction rate stays at 6.5%, where 1 in 4 women will be a victim or survivor of domestic violence, where 2 women a week are murdered by their partners and ex-partners and where justice is so rarely seen, this book is still vital. In a world where abortion is still illegal, or endlessly under attack, this book is still vital. In a world where women working full time do 23 hours of domestic work a week compared to men's eight, this book is still vital. In a world where we see the new feminine mystique embodied by the need for women to present as only and always sexual, and are required to match up to an impossibly idealised level of beauty, this book is vital. Reading Chris' experience of her rape, you aren't reading something historic, embarrassing and long gone. You are reading what happens to women all across the world, right now, every day.

As a result of Chris' rape, Val declares that all men are rapists. This seems to be one of the things that the book became most famous for, as anti-feminists castigated French for claiming that all men are rapists. These critics ignore that Mira rejects Val's assessment and that Val is one character in the book who's life is ruined by rape.

The book has been rightly criticised by some for being racist. Many of the characters in the first part of the book express racist sentiments, and Mira struggles to come to terms with her own, unexpected prejudice towards black men when she meets Chris' friend Bart. It has been rightly criticised for not portraying any black women, and critics argue that Bart is just a plot device for white women to 'test' their liberal values on. This issue really reflects one of the big problems of the lack of intersectionality in broad swathes of the feminist movement. I am glad to see that intersectionality is increasingly becoming a priority for UK feminists.

So, when I was 17, I didn't really get it. At 26, the book meant a lot more to me. I know that when I am 36, 46, 56, 66, 76 etc, it will mean something new to me as well. And I hope that when I am 76, we won't still be living in a world where so many of the book's issues and sadnesses still exist today.

Porn, sexual violence and The Scientific American

2011-08-06T13:13:00.000+01:00

(hides behind hands as traffic sources prob will contain unpleasant search terms...)

links and sources at end of post

Porn, and the links to violence against women and girls

Research reported last week in The Scientific American claimed that using porn can actually reduce levels of violence against women and girls. The article explains that the research has found ‘associations’ between porn and sexual violence, arguing that in states where there is low internet access (something which, they suggest, makes it harder to access online porn) there was “a 53 percent increase in rape incidence, whereas the states with the most [internet] access experienced a 27 percent drop in the number of reported rapes, according to a paper published in 2006 by Anthony D’Amato, a law professor at Northwestern University.”

The piece is clear to point out that these are ‘associations’ and there is nothing to prove that access to the web is actually linked to a decrease in sexual assault levels. However, the article cites a number of views that argue that pornography allows men* to act out their “deviant” sexual fantasies in their own space, thereby making it less likely that they will go out and rape.

The article says:

‘the trends [cited above re internet access] “just don’t fit with the theory that rape and sexual assault are in part influenced by pornography,” Ferguson explains. “At this point I think we can say the evidence just isn’t there, and it is time to retire this belief.”’

Unsurprisingly, I don’t think it is as simple as that.

First of all, this article doesn’t cite or explain ANY of the research and evidence that has found associative links between exposure to pornography and sexist imagery, and an increased tolerance for sexism and sexual violence. The American Psychological Association conducted vigorous research in this area and found:

• Gender inequality is reinforced when women are valued for their supposed sex appeal at the expense of their other attributes and qualities.
• After being exposed to images that sexually objectify women, men are significantly more accepting of sexual harassment, interpersonal violence, rape myths, and sex role stereotypes.

This research is backed up by the work of a number of feminist academics, including Gail Dines, who, in a recent interview with Julie Bindel said ‘"We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn, and given what we know about how images affect people, this is going to have a profound influence on their sexuality, behaviour and attitudes towards women."’ She believes that pornography can have a driving effect on men to commit acts of violence against women. She is clear that this does NOT mean (as her critics sometimes suggest) that all men who look at porn will go on to rape, but instead suggests that “‘porn gives permission to its consumers to treat women as they are treated in porn."’. With so much free, online pornography that portrays acts of degradation and violence against women, she therefore does see a link between violence against women and girls, and exposure to porn. Her research has also looked at men who have raped and abused children, all of whom had watched child pornography in the search for something more ‘extreme’ than the porn they were used to. She explains that ‘“What they said to me was they got bored with 'regular' porn and wanted something fresh. They were horrified at the idea of sex with a prepubescent child initially but within six months they had all raped a child."’

Dines is not alone. I recently spoke at a conference with Dr. Nicola Gavey of the University of Auckland, who has spent much of her academic career looking at violence against women and girls. She is now conducting research into the effect mainstream internet pornography has on levels and acceptance of violence against women and girls. In their books, ‘Living Dolls’ and ‘The Equality Illusion’, Natasha Walter and Kat Banyard cite both academic research and women’s personal stories to explore associations between porn and violence.

There are two more points I would like to make about the initial report. It seems to me that this research completely ignores the violence committed against women (and men) who work in the sex industry. It ignores the fact that women are being raped within the industry (on camera and off). One example of this is Linda Lovelace, the star of Deep Throat. During production she was virtually imprisoned and repeatedly raped both on film and when the cameras stopped rolling. Outside of porn, women who have been prostituted are raped daily. So the suggestion that porn prevents rape completely silences and devalues the voices of those within the industry who are victims and survivors of violence – those who may be raped themselves to supposedly “prevent” the rape of others. I find this very revealing in terms of how women and men who work in the sex industry are seen by some of those studying/running it.

My final point is that this report is fundamentally making a sexist statement against men. It suggests that if it wasn’t for the ‘release’ that porn offers men to ‘act out’ these “deviant” fantasies, then men wouldn’t be able to help themselves. The age-old criticism that anti-porn feminists believe all men to be rapists is actually being suggested by those who seem to criticise the anti-porn feminist position! The idea that men can’t help themselves, that they need to ‘release’ their pent up sexual desire to prevent them going out and raping someone is an idea often mooted by sex industry advocates. And yet we know on every level that this is a nonsensical suggestion. It also, once more, completely ignores the fact that women who work in the sex industry are raped too. Douglas Fox, of the International Union of Sex Workers, says his industry provides a “much-needed” service that should be available on the NHS. But surely, rather than making the argument that some women should be treated as objects to be used (and often abused) to prevent some men from raping, we should in fact be arguing that rapists shouldn’t rape.

As a feminist, I believe that rape can and will be prevented by education about consent and respect, better justice for victims and an end to rape culture. Pornography that more often than not portrays women as objects to be hurt and degraded; that portrays women as objects of violence; and that encourages men and boys to associate sexual pleasure with violence and degradation is not a solution to sexual violence.

*I am referring to men in this article as men are overwhelmingly the consumers of pornography. TOPTenReviews.com reported that in 2006, 96% of those using search terms including the word ‘porn’ were men; these are the most recent stats I could find

Sources:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/02/gail-dines-pornography
TopTenReviews.com page, page 152 The Equality Illusion (1st edition)
Douglas Fox quote ‘We don’t sell sex for a living’, Northern Echo, 7 August 2006
Linda Lovelace – Gloria Steinem essay in ‘Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions’

Airbrushed ads are banned! And a chat with Jo Swinson

2011-08-02T12:09:00.001+01:00

this originally appeared on the Fresh Outlook at http://www.thefreshoutlook.com/index.php?action=newspaper&subaction=article&toDo=show&postID=6479

Last week Jo Swinson MP’s campaign against airbrushing in advertising gained success as L’Oreal and Maybelline ads were banned for not offering a true representation of the product’s results. I spoke to Ms Swinson and psychologists from the Centre of Appearance Research in 2009, around the time of the launch of Ms Swinson’s campaign for a more realistic portrayal of women’s bodies in advertising. Here’s what she had to say.

Ms Swinson is aiming to work with the advertising industry to develop some limits when it comes to re-touching. Her argument is simple: by exposing young men and women to airbrushed images we are presenting them with an unrealistic representation of the human body. She hopes that by raising the public profile of the effects of airbrushing, the media will be encouraged to “portray women as they are, images of women looking good but without this ideal narrow fixation on thinness and particular shapes that we have at the moment”.

The evidence does suggest that unrealistic representations of women’s bodies can have damaging effects on body image and self esteem. Psychologist Dr Emma Halliwell has conducted extensive research into the ways body image and self esteem are affected by media imagery. She believes that: “Ultra thin models can lead to body dissatisfaction, low mood and low self esteem in women who are vulnerable and who have internalised the idea of being thin as being ideal. Increasingly we are growing up in a culture where we see being beautiful as being thin.”

Airbrushing is everywhere in the media. Women’s shoulders are made smaller and narrower by the magic of photo manipulation; arm hair is carefully erased; cheeks and eyes are made brighter and hair gets an added lustre. The result? An ad or fashion shoot is created featuring unreal woman. And because we use “enhancing” technology to change the image, the implicit suggestion is that the altered body and face is also the perfect or ideal body and face.

“Throughout time we have looked at pictures of beautiful women,” explains Ms Swinson. “But this idealisation of extreme thinness is something new, and the current media ideal of a woman’s body is a shape most women can’t achieve. This is then made so much worse by airbrushing to extreme levels.”

The problem with airbrushing, both Jo Swinson and psychologist and Co-director of the Centre of Appearance Research, Professor Nichola Rumsey have argued, is the way that digitally altered images perpetuate the beauty myth. They, quite simply, contribute to the pressures on all women, and increasingly men, to achieve the “perfect” body.

“We are increasingly under pressure to conform to these ‘perfect’ faces and bodies we see in the media. This discrepancy between what we actually look like and what we feel we should look like has been identified as one factor in why young people, especially young girls but increasingly young men, feel dissatisfied with the way the look,” argues Professor Rumsey.

The perfection airbrushed images demand is impossible. Women can’t match the software’s paintbrush. Yet we are allowing airbrushed images to dictate what women should look like even though we know that the images themselves are not even real. As Cindy Crawford famously quipped, even Cindy Crawford doesn’t look like Cindy Crawford. So how is anyone else going to?

“I want to make people think twice about these images as an interpretation of reality,” Ms Swinson explains. “A public debate around this issue is so important, as it allows us to really ask: what is ideal? Is it health, is it a body shape, is it confidence and inner beauty? We want to say that airbrushing no longer has to be the norm, celebrating a more natural beauty.”

The issues are beginning to reveal themselves at younger and younger ages. Research conducted by the Girl Guides has found that girls under 10 equate beauty with happiness. According to Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, 90% of women and girls were dissatisfied with their body. Although it would be fatuous to just blame airbrushing for women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies, it would be as equally disingenuous to say it plays no part at all.

So where can we find solutions? The first, Ms Swinson argues, is through working with the advertising industry to put sensible limits on manipulating images. But airbrushed images are only part of the problem in a culture where, if we’re not looking at Charlize Theron’s perfected torso, we are looking at a red ‘circle of shame’ highlighting Julia Roberts’ body hair.

One solution lies in encouraging greater discussion on body image and self esteem issues through media literacy as part of social and health education.

“With proper training available to teachers we would encourage classes to look at the media, maybe use before and after photos to learn about airbrushing, engage with journalists and have more discussion about this issue with young people,” explains Ms Swinson. “Many young women and men feel insecure about their bodies; these lessons would help young people to gain the skills to deal with these pressures, to teach them that people in the media aren’t ‘perfect’.”

The re-touching of these ads tell us that being two of the most beautiful women in the world is not enough to match the industry’s exacting and exaggerated idea of beauty. Their banning is the first step towards saying that we have had enough of this damaging portrayal of women.