Pride Rage

TW: sexual assault, rape, trans issues, transphobia, homophobia

So, JK Rowling, a woman who regularly pretends to be a man in her working life for financial gain, has been on the TERF wagon this week.

Some of you won't know what TERF means: it means trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Radical feminism rejects male supremacy, which is good. Trans-exclusionary radical feminism rejects male supremacy while also rejecting trans-women as women. The weird thing about TERFs is that all their arguments for excluding transwomen from radical feminism rely on traditional gender roles for women. TRANSWOMEN DON'T MENSTRUATE THEREFORE THEY DO NOT KNOW A WOMAN'S PAIN. Well, I hate to tell you ladies, but there are a lot of cis women who don't menstruate, through choice or not.
Some of you won't know what cis means. Some of you will think it's a bad word. It's not. It is just the opposite of trans: I am a ciswoman. It says nothing about sexuality, just about whether or not your sex (your bits) match your gender (your sense of you being male/female). Gender expression is much wider for women than men, which may be part of the reason there are more transwomen than transmen, but that's another discussion entirely.

So, JK Rowling is against changes to the Gender Recognition Act. A lot of people are, to be honest with you. The current Gender Recognition Act requires trans individuals to live as their preferred gender for two years, and then go to a panel and prove that they are living as the opposite gender in order to recieve a new birth certificate that says they are male or female. The panel bit is horribly invasive: you have to have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, you have to have your spouse's permission if you are married, and you must prove you are living as trans. There are only about five thousand people who have changed their gender in this manner in the UK, of a trans population of up to 500,000. This means you have probably shared facilities with a trans person, without a GRC, and you had no idea.

The revision to the Gender Recognition Act proposes to do away with the panel, so if you want to change your gender legally, you can much faster and with much less fanfare.
That's it.

Anyway, JK Rowling and COUNTLESS OTHERS are against this change, and they're probably against it (if they're deeply honest with themselves) because they see being transgender as an aberration. Nevermind the fact that nobody knows what their sex chromosome makeup is unless there's a problem, nor their sex hormone levels; nevermind the fact that other people's genitals are absolutely none of your business, there is a sizeable chunk of people who think that being trans is just wrong. They cannot concieve of it. The same as people used to think being gay was just wrong. So much so, that they'd execute you for it.

But naturally, you can't just SAY you think it's wrong, that would be terrible for business. Especially when you're a beloved children's writer. So, a lot of concerns about the new Gender Recognition Act are dressed up as concern for the children. As it was ever so. Remember Section 28?

JK Rowling and friends are terribly concerned that men will simply say they are women in order to access sex segregated spaces. Changing rooms and toilets are the two most commonly cited examples. "Would you want your daughter in a changing room with a PENIS???" they ask. They don't say "Would you want your daughter in a changing room with a transwoman desperately trying to get changed without flashing anyone, terrified in case she does?" because that would actually humanise transwomen. No, A PENISSSSSS.

And it's ALWAYS transwomen getting demonised. Nevermind transmen, who will either be using the male changing rooms and risk being sexually assaulted by angry men (they do that, unfortunately) or using the female changing rooms while being coded as male and therefore also enraging the women. No, it's always the PERVERTED MASSIVE SCHLONGS IN SKIRTS that get pulled out for this particular argument.

Now. Let's consider what we know of rape and sexual assault against women in general. All stats are from Rape Crisis UK. About 20% of all adult women have experienced sexual violence in the UK. Most victims know their attacker (about 90%). Rapists overwhelmingly get away with it - about 5.7% of REPORTED rapes end in conviction; most rapes are unreported.

So, about 10% of rapes are committed by strangers. I can't find any statistics for what percentage are carried out by transwomen, which strongly suggests that it's such a rare crime that statistics do not exist. But stranger rapes still happen, largely committed by cismen.
Raped in the bathroom at McDonalds. Raped in the loo at Heathrow. Raped in the public toilets. Raped in the leisure centre changing room. Raped at school. Raped at the bus station. Raped in the pub. Raped in a shopping centre.

And these are just the ones that are reported.

Men do not need to pretend to be women to rape women.

Men just need to look like they're supposed to be there.

No rapist has ever walked up to a women's toilet, looked at the sign, sighed "foiled again", and walked away.

Because signs do not protect you from rapists.

If I am being really charitable, I suppose I can see this argument as a desperate hope that sex-segregated spaces ARE safe from rapists. That putting a sign on the door saying "women only" WILL protect them.

But it's Pride month, and I'm sick of this shit.

My little brother is trans. It is not a fucking ten minute thought experiment for him. It's a constant cycle of fear, self-doubt, coming out to new people, coping with being misgendered and deadnamed, arguing with the barber over whether or not he's allowed to have his fucking HAIR CUT, self-loathing, choosing the 'right' toilet, dysphoria, having to deal with other people's shitty whataboutery and "but the CHILDREN" all over his social media 24/7. He's been on the waiting list for the Gender Identity Clinic for more than a year, after having to argue with his psychiatrist to get a referral. He'll probably be waiting another year or more because of COVID, and the lack of clinics.

I am not here for people treating transgender people as a Problem To Be Solved rather than people trying to live true to themselves.
I am not here for people trying to make their lives harder when they are so hard already.
I am not here for people merrily demonising the entire trans community over a hypothetical situation.
And I am not here for these coded messages that trans people are sexual predators.
Statistically, you know rapists.
You're friends with rapists.
You have no idea they're rapists.

Do you know any trans people? Even one?

Tax Credits

So, I signed the petition to repeal the 'rape clause' that forms part of the tax credit policy now. And today, I received a government response which amounted to "you should have complained about this eighteen months ago, tough shit". But one paragraph absolutely INCENSED me:

LET US PARSE THIS STATEMENT

"Families supporting themselves solely through work" are either not claiming the tax credits they are entitled to, or earning more than the income threshold (£25000 for one child, £35000 for two). Look at those thresholds: they are Quite High particularly as the average annual income is £27000. The vast majority of working class families qualify for tax credits. Remember the 'hardworking families" trope? That's them.

"do not see their incomes rise automatically when they have more children". No, but by earning more than the income thresholds for tax credits, they already have a considerable scope for a much higher income. Two children on £35000 a year is very different to two children on £45000 a year. There are always people who fall into the cracks of being just over the threshold, but frankly if you struggle on £36k p.a. with two children (as one who has been doing so on much less for years) learn to budget better. A great deal of necessary public sector jobs have low and locked in salaries - an MAU staff nurse in Peterborough can expect a starting salary of between £22 and £24k; a newly qualified teacher's income is capped at £22k in their first year - which automatically classifies them as both poor and according to this government, an idiot with no idea how to control their fertility unless you threaten them financially.

"The policy encourages families who receive benefits or tax credits to make the same financial decisions about the number of children they can afford to support as those families who support themselves solely through work"

WHERE TO FUCKING BEGIN? The fucking PATRONISING language - "we ENCOURAGE the IDIOT POOR PEOPLE to STOP BREEDING". The whole idea that Only Rich People are sensible enough and rich enough to have more than two children. The idea that people have children for tax credits - yes, the difficult pregnancy, birth and eternity of care I invested in my third child is definitely worth the £50 extra a week. And separating those who claim tax credits - 4.43 million households out of approximately 18 million in the UK at the last ONS count - from those who don't need to as though that is a fair and just way of dividing the nation's fertility choice. Previously, those who were on income support or JSA were the Undeserving Poor of the nation. Now, apparently, it's to be extended to anyone on a low income regardless of how much they work or what classification of job they have.

"while protecting the vulnerable by retaining extra support for families with disabled children." DON'T MAKE ME FUCKING LAUGH. I have a disabled child, and believe me, I had to TAKE THE DEPARTMENT OF WORK AND PENSIONS TO COURT AND THEN THREATEN TO DO IT AGAIN to get them to pay the money rightfully owed to my disabled child. They don't give a single solitary fuck about disabled children.

None of this stops me or anyone else from having thirty two children if I want to, but the fact is that most low income households have included tax credits as part of their forecast income when deciding to have more children, and now they will have to stop doing that. There is an uncomfortable element of eugenics inherent in this policy that reminds me of the Victorian era when it was widely believed that poverty and poor moral behaviour were genetically linked. Stop the poor people having loads of kids and maybe there won't be any more poor people to worry about! Never mind fixing the causes of poverty and social inequality, just financially sterilise them!

But for a whole host of women, this family cap is going to be a real fucking issue. You see, it is applied to children born after 7th April 2017 and to "any new claims". So, if your circumstances change in the near future, and you suddenly find yourself applying for tax credits for the first time, little Imogen the Third Child won't be counted. If your partner moves in, or out, that counts as a new claim, so you may be absolutely fine now as a single parent of four, but if your boyfriend moves in, you will suddenly find two of your children are apparently not eating all your food, requiring clothes, using energy etc.

My situation six years ago was nothing uncommon - boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy impregnates girl, boy fucks off without a backward glance. I only had two children when I was dumped, but had it been another two years down the line, it could have been three. We could have easily afforded three children - indeed, we both now have three children - but I cannot stress enough how terrifying it was to suddenly lose 4/5s of my household income. My monthly wage didn't cover the mortgage, nevermind anything else. I relied on tax credits. Nobody should have children they cannot afford, but having children when you can afford them does not act as insurance against any financial or personal misfortune in the future. Women with more than two children in abusive relationships will have to think long and hard over whether they can afford to leave their partner.The Tories have also cut bereavement benefits, so if your husband or wife dies leaving you with more than two children, you are doubly fucked.

It will be women who suffer the most through this tax credit amendment. Two million lone parent households exist in the UK - that's just under half of all tax credit claims - and 91% of them are headed by women. Not only do women suffer the brunt of single parenting, they also have this fucking rape clause bullshit to overcome, where their third child only gets benefit if they are a product of rape. Never mind marital rape, never mind the ethics of being obliged to report your rape just to secure a little extra money, what sort of fucking government decides the only reason a poor woman might have more than two children is because she was raped?

It is a toxic, classist, eugenic and misogynist amendment and I loathe it and the party that instituted it with all my heart and soul.

WHAT? AGAIN?

So, there's to be a general election in less than two months. This is...unusual, but perhaps not unexpected.

The last general election was almost two years ago, and one of the myriad electoral promises made was that there would be a referendum on EU membership if the Conservatives won. This was a promise made partly to appeal to some Tory (and other party) MPs who were threatening to defect to UKIP, and to appeal more generally to UKIP voters. Despite a lot of hand-wringing about the possibility of a hung parliament and another coalition government, David Cameron won, Nick Clegg was told to sling his hook, and the possibility of a referendum loomed large.

David Cameron announced the EU referendum in February 2016, and it was held in May 2016. It was a dirty fucking scrum of a campaign, with the remain side not really bothering until it was too late, assuming that nobody would want to leave, and the leave side using racism, xenophobia and outright lies (often painted on the side of a bus), shrieking about democracy and sovereignty when challenged. We voted to leave, by 51.9% to 49.1%*.
Uproar. David Cameron resigned. The initial leadership of both the Conservative Party and Britain seemed to be Boris Johnson's for the taking, except he decided not to run (my theory: didn't want the shitty Brexit baton). His fellower Brexiteer Michael Gove ran, and came dead last. And so the race was left to Andrea Leadsom, who had little inter-party support and shot herself in the foot by suggesting women without children had no feelings, and we had a new PM with barely any fanfare. Theresa May. Former home secretary, supporter of the Remain campaign, first female PM since Thatcher. And Theresa May decided fuck it, she would go for a hard Brexit.

What is a hard Brexit? A soft Brexit? A buttery biscuit Brexit? Nobody seems to know, and considering that is what our country hopes to pursue in the next two years, it really is time someone came up with a fucking plan beyond "Brexit means Brexit". Instead, we have had Jeremy Corbyn enact a three line whip to make sure Labour agreed to trigger the Brexit process, the SNP announce another independence referendum for Scotland** and SHIT GOING DOWN in Northern Ireland, our only land border with the EU, which is worrying because we have a reasonably fraught relationship in general with Ireland and Irish independence. There have been eleven by-elections in sixteen months. Only the Lib Dems are offering any resistance to Brexit, so it's kind of a shame they only have nine parliamentary seats. UKIP have imploded, giving each other brain injuries and shouting about Douglas Carswell being a blood traitor, like they're fucking Dementors. It's been a trip.

Then there's the great fucking Wotsit over the sea trying to start a nuclear war with North Korea for shits and giggles.

The NHS continues to be underfunded, with staff at breaking point. Teachers are on the verge of striking again. Bereavement allowances are being slashed, because fuck knows the widowed need more hassle. Tax credits: don't even get me fucking started. Nobody can afford a house unless they're minted. Worker's rights are being gently eroded ready for the lifting of EU labour laws. It's a mess.

So, why call a general election now? Elections are expensive to run. They take a lot of administration. There's usually televised debates, which have normally been done by now. There was major election expenses fraud last time, which still hasn't been fully investigated. There's an act of parliament specifically to stop PMs calling a general election early. Why not just wait three more years and do it then, like everyone expects?

As it stands, the next general election should have been held in May 2020. The Article 50 protocol states that we should leave the EU by April 2019. Those two dates are quite close together, politically speaking. You, the voter, will remember quite clearly how fucking shit or amazing Brexit has made your life come 2020.

I expect that what Theresa May wants is a majority government without strong Brexit opposition to sail through the process, come out the other side and then bow out in 2022. I expect what Theresa May wants is for her government to stop bickering about the terms of Brexit, agree with whatever deal she can come up with, and crack on. I expect she wants to be elected by the people rather than just her party, so she can say she has been Chosen. I expect she doesn't want to have to fight an election the year after Brexit completes.

There was an awful lot of wailing immediately after the announcement that this will just make life easier for her. So don't. Vote. Vote for who you want to run your constituency. Brexit is happening unless the Lib Dems win by a landslide, so what we need is strong opposition to get us the best deal. Find out who your candidates are, and vote for the one who gives a shit: 90% of the time, it won't be a Conservative. There's a website here where you can see what your current MP votes for and against.

If you've recently turned 18 or will before June 9th, you need to register to vote. If you've recently moved house, you might need to register to vote. If you've recently graduated, you might need to register to vote. And since this election has been called with so little notice, you need to do that now: you can do it here. If you are a student, you are likely to be at home on June 9th - find out where you're registered to vote and apply for a postal vote if it's in your university constituency, and do it within the month. If you're going to be on holiday on June 9th, have a great time, but register for a postal vote first.

Young people, those aged 18-24, have the greatest stake in the future of the country, and they vote the least. So, boring as it can be, educate yourself and vote. Apathy changes nothing.



* Interestingly, this small victory has been quoted as a reason to pursue a 'hard' Brexit: when Erdogan won his own referendum by 51% to 49% in Turkey last week, this was described as "the smallest of margins" by the Torygraph no less. 

** When Brexiteers start complaining about this, I laugh and I laugh and I cry for their hypocrisy

Rape and Sweden

Oh Farage, leading trumpet of disinformation, has told the nation via LBC that Sweden has the highest rate of rape cases in Europe. He's said this because President Idiot told the world that Sweden had suffered a terrorist atrocity...and it hadn't. There hasn't been a terrorist attack in Sweden since 2010, unless you count the attack on school children by young, white, male Nazi in 2015. But OBVIOUSLY, that doesn't count. THAT was the work of a lone gunman...

Sweden takes in a staggering amount of refugees, because Sweden's social model is based on fairness and generosity. And, Nazi terrorist attacks and other hate crimes aside, it works out fairly well. And that RANKLES. You see, it suits the right to have a common enemy and that common enemy at the moment is refugees. From David Cameron calling them 'swarms', to Teresa May stopping unaccompanied children coming here, to Donald Trump closing his borders to some Islamic countries apparently chosen by sticking a pin in a map of Africa and the Middle East. The rise of the right across Europe is a chilling reminder that all this has happened before, and can easily happen again. But that's not why I'm RANTING AWAY TODAY.

So, Sweden hasn't had a terrorist attack. Trump looks like even more of an addled idiot. How then to make Sweden look bad? Especially as it's one of the few genuinely left-wing countries in the world? I can picture the scene, Farage on the Trump Hotline promising he will sort it out on his widely watched TV show, shown every night on the single British channel. And that very night, on LBC with its listenership of 1.7% of the market share, Farage hold forth. THEY'RE ALL RAPISTS. THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

Now, in a sane world, Farage would be ignored and us lefties would have less ulcers. But for some reason, the media hangs on to his every word, waiting to either praise him or deride him. Like a little Enoch Powell, but without the Parlimentary seat or gravitas, his words have been repeated all over Twitter, to the disgust of Sweden. He cites this graph as proof:

So, it tells us that Sweden has a very high rape record rate, or at least it did in 2012. Remember that date, it becomes important in a minute. Now, the important question is "what does Sweden count as rape?"
The definition of rape is never simple - in UK law, for example, it has to be penetration with a penis or it's *just* sexual assault. They have just about got around to agreeing that unconscious people cannot consent. In contrast, this is the Swedish definition:

A person who by assault or other violence or by threat of a criminal act forces another person to have sexual intercourse or to undertake or endure another sexual act that, in view of the seriousness of the violation, is comparable to sexual intercourse [...] This also applies if a person engages with another person in sexual intercourse or in a sexual act which under the first paragraph is comparable to sexual intercourse by improperly exploiting that the person, due to unconsciousness, sleep, serious fear, intoxication or other drug influence, illness, physical injury or mental disturbance, or otherwise in view of the circumstances, is in a particularly vulnerable situation

This is a far broader definition than most countries. In Jamaica, where the second most rapes are reported, rape law broadly corresponds to the British tradition, but they don't recognise male-on-male rape because all sodomy is illegal. So, how come Sweden has such a high rape rate?
In Britain, between 5% and 25% of all rapes are actually reported. The rest are concealed, out of fear, out of shame, out of conviction that you will not be believed. Unless you are raped at knifepoint by a stranger on CCTV, there will always be an element of his word against yours, and your past sexual activity will be used against you. It is not easy to report a rape, whether you are male or female. It is not easy to be examined immediately after such a physical trauma. It is not easy to give a statement, to go to court, to defend your honour as well as your word, when you have done nothing wrong. About 85000 women are raped each year in Britain, and about 12000 men, out of a population of 64 million. The majority are not reported. Of those that are, the conviction rate is around 5.7%. About 2500 men were convicted of rape in 2014 in Britain.
Let us compare to Sweden. About 6700 rapes (in a population of 9.5 million) were reported in 2014, with around 190 convictions. But it's not the broad definition that makes Sweden appear more rapey - it's the culture. The culture of equality, the culture of believing victims and the culture of victims believing they will be helped. This is what is lacking in British policing culture - for all the claims that the raped will be believed, the trial of Ched Evans, to name just one, has demonstrated quite the fucking opposite.


But this isn't really about the rape statistics at all, let's be honest. It is the barefaced bloody cheek of Nigel Farage and Donald "pussy grabber" Trump pretending they give one solitary fuck about raped men and women. That graph is from 2012, before Syrian refugees had begun to come to Europe in anything like the number they do now. If Sweden has a rape 'problem', it long predates the refugee crisis. Rape is a serious crime, that tears the heart of its victims for years. It's a crime of power, used by men to subjugate and humiliate, to make sure their victims know that all they are for is sexual gratification. It's a crime committed by all races, by all faiths. It is not a refugee problem now any more than it was a Jewish problem in the 1930s. The threat of rape by invading forces as propaganda is hardly a new one:

           

Polish propaganda warning about the Russian army, and Italian propaganda warning about the French. Notice how the soldiers are both black, despite coming from predominantly white countries? The first one warns you to defend your women and girls, the second about your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter. Coz fuck knows, men don't care about rape unless it's happening to someone they love. 

Rape has long been weaponised. It has long been used as an incentive to fight. But we are not at war, whatever Farage and Trump think. At least, not yet.

Two Child Rule

In the turmoil of Brexit, I had completely forgotten about the forthcoming changes to tax credits. From April 2017, only the first two children in a family will be supported by tax credits, and children born after April 2017 will not. I cannot find anything about what happens if you have more than two children and are already claiming tax credits for all of them. Perhaps the government haven't thought about that. Maybe I will have to choose a child to stop claiming for, a Sophie's Choice. Also, when my eldest ages out of payments, do I get to claim for the other two again? How is this going to work?

I mean, there are other rules that are frankly ridiculous like single parents now having to look for work when their youngest child turns three (from January 2017). It's ridiculous because you only get 15hrs free childcare per week and childcare costs literally cost all your wages - the reason I don't have a job at the moment is because I cannot get a job that would pay more than the FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY POUNDS it would cost me for 40 hours childcare in an educational setting per week. There's a reason the old rules required parents to look for work after their youngest child was in primary school - the school-age children account for a mere £60 of that.

The pension age has also gone up, which means the scope for grandparents offering free childcare to the working is much reduced. And yet the government's broad family policy takes for granted that there is a reciprocity of care in family units. The idea that Mummy and Daddy have two children, Daddy goes to work, Mummy looks after the kids until they are a set age then finds a job for 'pin money', while Granny picks up the children for her and then, later, Mummy uses the first years of her retirement to look after Granny and Grandad and Granny and Grandad in law is still very much the typical scenario visualised. If informal care was taken out of the equation, the cost to social services would be astronomical.

Take, for example, my mum. Mum has been eligible for hospice care now since approximately 1st September (probably a little longer than that). Instead, my wonderful dad has taken a sabbatical from work and is looking after her himself. If we children were older and had less tiny children, we would be doing more to help. Inpatient hospice care costs £446 per day, on average. That's almost £20000 my parents have saved the government simply by coping. The hospice care provided at home costs approximately £20 a day, a very different price indeed.
When older people go to nursing homes, they now usually have to sell their homes to fund their care (approximately £2000 a month, depending on care home). Those who have never owned homes have their care entirely funded by the government. It is much cheaper for the government to rely on familial care, and people staying in their own homes: the population of older people in nursing homes is around 295000 out of a potential population of eleven million.

The tradition of intergenerational caring is as old as humanity, but is rapidly being outpaced by modern life. Since the 1970s, the average age of childbearing has increased as women pursue careers and, indeed, are expected to pursue careers. My mother had me at 23, which was about the average at the time. I had my eldest at 23, but I am a young mother among most of my peers. I cannot care for my dying mother because I am tied to very small children, a thing that would have been less of a concern if my mum had developed this illness in ten years time. My mother, still working until her bowel exploded, has never been able to offer free childcare because of her own career.

But back to my original point. I had forgotten about tax credit changes, but was reminded last night of it by this article in the Independent. Women who have their children as a result of rape will be exempt from the two-children rule. That is the right thing to do, but it very much frames the idea that poor people have children for benefits at the feet of...women. What of men? Take, for example, my middle son. Conceived within a marriage where both parents worked and barely qualified for tax credits (NEWSFLASH: the vast majority of families claiming tax credits are working), yet born into a single parent, workless family. It's not his fault that things changed so quickly. It's not my fault things changed so quickly. It certainly wasn't something I anticipated when I got pregnant with him, although he wasn't conceived in abuse. I don't know whether I should have aborted him, as to not to cost the taxpayer money. It is women who will continue to suffer the brunt of these cuts. The woman happily married with three children until her husband leaves, or dies, and suddenly only two of her children are acknowledged by the state as actually costing money to raise. The woman whose contraception fails her, but can't bear to have a termination. The woman who loses her job.

The proposal that women who have more than two children and claim tax credits ARE EVIL unless they are RAPED is so offensive to me. I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this.

What Is Happening To This Country?

Jo Cox is dead and I am so sad, and so angry.

I am sad because she was a campaigner, she was passionate, she was one of the few women in Parliament, she was principled, she was genuine. I am sad because she was a mum of two little boys who aren't old enough to know what murder is, nevermind where their mum has gone.

And I am fucking furious, incandescently angry at the media spin on this tragic culmination of weeks of right wing propaganda and hatred.

Yesterday, just hours before she was murdered, Nigel Farage unveiled his latest campaign poster. Behold:

Does it remind you of anything? Does it, perhaps, remind you of this?

via @zcbeaton on twitter

This is a clip of a Nazi propaganda film, giving much the same message in an identical fashion.

Just a week ago, fifty men were murdered at a gay bar in Florida, by a man called Omar Mateen. Because Omar happened to be brown, the massacre was immediately hailed as a terrorist attack

and within twenty four hours, used as Leave propaganda:

Sack your subeditor, Leave. 

Alas for those who would like to blame everything on ISIS that Omar Mateen had no links to them, and wasn't religious. This was an act of terrorism, but it wasn't an act of international, Islam-extremist terrorism. 

Several years ago, Anders Breivik murdered 77 people in Sweden because he hated Islam that much. But, before any information about the terrorist was revealed, The Sun ran this as their front page:

Once it was revealed that Breivik was both white and not a Muslim, the tide quickly turned:

Now, he's just a maniac with extremist links. 

And so it seems in the case of Jo Cox, the same will happen. The murderer is widely reported to have shouted Britain First as he attacked her, while she was running her local constituency surgery. This is a lady who actively campaigned for Syrian refugees and against Islamophobia. She was everything Britain First claim, VOCIFEROUSLY, to despise. And yet...

A crazed loner! Salacious details from The Sun, as you might expect. But no reference to claims that he might have been a British right wing extremist. If she'd been murdered by someone with even the faintest of tans, the headlines would be very different. The media keep spinning us this line that immigrants are terrorists who want to kill us, and then this happens. A left wing member of parliament gets killed at work by someone likely fired up by weeks of increasingly right wing propaganda and lies.

When every time you go to the shop, you're faced with front pages like this:

Plus every single non-weather related frontpage of The Daily Express.

how can the media act shocked that this sort of thing can happen? How can they blame mental illness and look no further? You have to be at least a little bit unstable to murder someone, but normally, when someone is murdered, the papers are quick to splash details about how their upbringing, their religion, their race, their experience with school, their obsession with porn or video games was to blame. Why can they not apply that same logic to being bombarded with hysterical lies about immigrants and Muslims? Britain First, with an irony that would be hilarious in less tragic circumstances, have been quick to distance themselves from Jo Cox's murder, but how can they not see how they might be complicit in driving someone to kill? The Remain and Leave campaigns both stopped yesterday, although for how long, I don't know. But do they, particularly Leave, not see how their constant bewildering panicked lies and half-truths might drive someone to extremism?

As a nation, we cannot take this assassination as a one-off, lone-wolf, freak event. We have to look at the context, because it is a symptom of a much wider disease.

Nobody should be cut down in the street because of their political conviction.
We lost a good woman yesterday, and we should all be sad, regardless of political leaning.

pic.twitter.com/mPOaytowxN

— Brendan Cox (@MrBrendanCox) June 16, 2016

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

The EU referendum is, perhaps, the most important political event of my lifetime. You see, I'm 31. Not quite a Millennial, but not old enough to remember Thatcher. Voting in this is far more important than a general election vote, since the consequences will reverberate for many many years. I think it's vital for us to all understand why we are voting to leave or remain. After all, people are going to be disenfranchised if they feel misled into voting one way or the other.

Yesterday, I received a Vote Leave posted with "Five Positive Reasons to Leave" written on it. They are as follows:
1. Spend our money on priorities like the NHS.
OK. This would be fabulous. Except it won't happen. I'm sorry. I've spent five years studying the sociology of health in this country and there is no way, NO WAY, any right wing political party is going to invest all that money into the NHS. Consider the state of the NHS since 2010. Consider the changes made. If you work in the NHS, you've seen this first hand. Remember Big Society? We're all In It Together, as the Conservatives bellowed loudly at both the last general elections? Well, what they mean isn't that we're in it together at all. What they mean is that they want social services (the NHS, libraries, social services, children's centres, school nurses, mental health support, victim support, the police, the fire service, housing, care homes) to be run on an increasingly self funded, privatised, or voluntary basis. WE may be in it together, but THEY, the rich and elite, are most certainly not. Look at your town. Remember it ten years ago. When you could get a doctors appointment without sacrificing your first born. When you could go to the library to use the internet if yours was on the blink. When you didn't have to pay £2000+ a month for your mum to be in a nursing home. When you rang the police and they actually turned up. When the health visitors actually came to see you. When housing was affordable.
We may leave the EU, but we will still have the same government in charge, and they show no willingness at all to invest the money we do have into the NHS, let alone extra.
You'll also note that it is worded 'priorities like the NHS'. I'm sure priorities like Trident would suddenly seem important without the protection of the EU. That's not a promise. That's a similie. Ask your ten year old.

2. Take back control over our laws
I'm sorry, did I miss the abolition of Parliament and the House of Lords? Fairly sure we make our own laws. EU laws are of equal status in member countries as national law, so I had a look to see what sort of laws they have made. They are terrible! Awful things like preventing gender discrimination at work and making sure our food is safe. The absolute bastards.
This point goes on to say that we don't get to vote on who makes the laws. This is a lie. We have 73 MEPs. You elected them. Or at least you did if you bothered to go and vote. Bizarrely, a third of our MEPs are UKIP. Do they not WANT a job or something?
There's a strong idea that we can't veto any EU laws. We can. Well, *we* can't, our elected MEPs can, but not if they're in the minority - that's not democratic. For all that the Leave campaign bleat on about democracy, they seem to have a rather odd idea how it works.
And our beloved UKIP MEPs have tried to block laws on things like women's rights in work (either abstaining or voting against them) which really makes me wonder why any women want to support UKIP. Obviously, it's your choice, but why on Earth do you support a party who thinks you're best off in the kitchen?
PS: We can definitely block Turkey from joining the EU and they can't  apply to join until they've fulfilled a great litany of requests, which they are taking their sweet time over, so stop worrying that the people you're quite happy to buy holidays from are going to come over here and steal your job.

3. Regain control over our borders
This is such a load of old toss, I don't even know where to start. The truth is, we have no idea what sort of immigration deal we will have if we leave the EU. Nobody has ever left the EU, only refused to join. The most common argument is that we can have immigration laws like Australia. Australia, if you're unaware, have a complicated and expensive immigration policy, based around your ability to contribute to the economy. You can read about it here. This misses a very important point. Australia is not in Europe. Australia is a fucking great island in the middle of nowhere. Australia is two and a half THOUSAND miles from its nearest neighbour. We sit 50 miles from ours. We are tiny. We have no industry (cheers Tories!), we have insufficient agriculture to feed everyone. We need to trade to survive. We are more like Norway than Australia. Norway is not an EU member. Norway has open borders.
The other problem with leaving the EU, which is less known, is that our border isn't in the UK at all. No, our main border is in France. You know when you go to France, and you sit for a fucking year at Calais waiting for Border Control yet sail through Dover? That's why. There's a reason all those refugees are sat at Calais, and it's not for the astonishing brutalist architecture or beautiful beaches. They have been shunted along through Europe, a few thousand allowed to settle here and there, and now they have hit a sea border and can't be shunted along anymore. I have no doubt that, if our border is pushed back to  Dover, all those refugees will come and sit in Dover instead. It's not their fault. They are running from a terrible, awful, unfightable war. They would not be living in some shitty, muddy tent by the Channel if they didn't have to. But they strike terror into the hearts of the middle classes, terrified that young Adnan will come over here and I dunno, steal their daughter or something.
If we leave the EU, what happens to the EU migrant workers that live here? Do they all get shipped out wholesale? Do they have to apply for work permits? What about the ones that have married and have families? The current draconian immigration rules states that, to live here as a non-EU migrant, you have to be earning over £35k. Consider that the average salary in the UK is around £26.5k, and that a lot of EU migrant workers are working for shit all in factories and on farms, and there's going to be an enormous mass deportation. Which is, apparently, what the Leave campaign wants. But who will fill those jobs? What about EU migrants who have married English people? Do they have to go? Are a lot of kids going to suddenly be in a one parent family? This is not hyperbole. It is people's actual lives.
And what of the British in Spain? This bit of paper informs me that 250000 EU migrant workers came here last year. There are 760000 Brits in Spain. They will FLOOD US. We will be OVERRUN by hypertanned Spanglish people who insist on sleeping half the afternoon! How will we cope???

4. Take back control over security
Apparently, "the European Court controls how we fight terrorism and this is dangerous". I would actually argue the total opposite. I would much rather have the intelligence and security of the entire EU working together against terrorism than just us. Consider this. When the IRA were attacking the British every five fucking minutes, we had well over a hundred terrorist incidents in twenty five years. Since 2001, when the Islamic fundamentalist threat made itself known, we have had one definite organised incident and four lesser incidents. I feel relatively safe from terrorism here.

5. It's safer to vote Leave (see 4) and take back control (see 3) rather than keep sending our money (see 1) to an EU which is costing us more and overruling our law (see 2).
So you couldn't even think of five positive reasons to leave the EU? What child wrote this leaflet?


The thing is, I really hate David Cameron. I hate how he is invisible. George Osborne, IDS when he was in charge, Gove, they all get the blame while Cameron deflects and hides and seems to avoid the criticism he should be receiving. But the EU referendum is a happening under his premiership, and he supports staying in. I don't want to support him, but it's not about him. Leaving isn't about supporting that absolute cuntosaurus liar Johnson or melty-faced sexist racist shitbox Farage. It goes far beyond interparty politics. But it has degenerated into the two sides of the Conservative party essentially blowing raspberries at each other, and I don't trust a word any of them say. Neither should you.
When deciding how to vote, think about what's important to you.

The main reason I'm voting to remain (are you shocked?) is because the EU have done more for working rights than our government would ever do. The government keep trying to gently dismantle working rights - they've already done a fair bit, by making it financially difficult to take employers to a tribunal for example, and encourage zero hour contracts - and left unchecked, they will end up somewhere near the re-institution of serfdom. I understand why a lot of traditional Labour folks end up supporting UKIP, but they don't want to protect you. They don't actually care that you don't have any money and feel like you're surrounded by Europeans at work and that you're struggling to feel like you have a future. They want power, but they don't have social responsibility. They stand as the working man's party, but as they have demonstrated repeatedly at the very parliament they claim to despise, they don't want you to have rights. They don't even care that your rights are being debated.Why would they be any different if they were in power here?

One more thing, that I discovered yesterday. In 1996, Manchester's city centre was bombed by the IRA. The damage cost was estimated at £700 million at the time. The government gave £300000 as hardship relief and £150000 to begin the rebuild: that is less than half a million quid. When asked in parliament why the amount given was so small compared to the total damage, the Minister for the Environment said that the TWENTY ONE AND A HALF MILLION POUNDS given by the EU for rebuilding could be considered "British money" and that having to raise an equivalent sum to meet it by private or public means would be easy. So why didn't they? They are quite happy to take and acknowledge the EU's cash when it suits them. You can read the whole exchange here. Manchester is the current European city of Science.

We don't know what happens next. We don't know whether leaving the EU would be the best thing that ever happened to our country (although, considering the previous global empire, unlikely). We don't know whether it would be the worst. And whatever the Leave or Remain campaign tell you, they don't know either. This has never been done before. You have to trust your gut. And my gut tells me that Farage, Johnson et al do not have my best interests at heart.

#NotAllMen

The majority of media is very against Jeremy Corbyn at the moment. I'm not sure why - if he becomes Labour leader, they will be able to stir the right wing readership into apoplexy on a weekly basis, generating ample clickbait. Corbyn said, when discussing policies, that he was interested in reducing public sexual harassment experienced by women and it had been suggested to him that introducing women-only carriages on train might help.
WELP. UPROAR.
It's being claimed he's trying to depersonalise women, that it's inherently misogynist, that segregation is evil, and most importantly to the (white)(male)(affluent) journalists, NOT ALL MEN ARE SEXUAL PREDATORS.
Waaah, they cry. Why do women hate us? Why do sites like EverydaySexism exist? NOT ALL MEN rape. NOT ALL MEN sexually harass women. NOT ALL MEN are evil.

To which a swathe of women roll their eyes, because once again, men are making it all about them.
Guess what? Over a thousand women reported sexual assault on public transport to the BTP last year. The number of individuals assaulted is probably far higher, since women tend to be reluctant to report sex crimes. It's not unique to Britain - in fact, Japan have implemented women-only carriages to prevent groping on trains. Trains and stations are really good hunting grounds for sexual predators. Smaller stations tend to have very few, if any, staff milling around. Trains can be enormous, with only one or two staff circulating. Nobody wants to make a fuss on the train, because stopping it causes major delays and inconvenience, not to mention embarrassment. If you travel on the train reasonably frequently, it's likely you've been stuck in a carriage with someone you really don't want to be, whether through their aggressive manner, their overbearing demeanour, or just sitting far too close to you. And what you do is focus really hard on your phone or ipod or whatever, and hope they go away.

I was alone on the train to London a while ago, at 9:30am on a Saturday. Sat behind me were six pissed young men, who had reservation for a four seater table and the seat next to me and in front of me, but preferred to all lurch around the gangway around the table. They weren't being aggressive, just high spirited, but they were harassing any staff who needed to make their way past and anyone sitting by themselves. As I was sitting next to one of 'their' seats, they kept sitting down and trying to talk to me. Then one of them gave me a big, unsolicited cuddle. Yay me.
Now that's not a sexual assault. Annoying, embarrassing, inappropriate but not criminal. But it still scared me. I've been sexually assaulted a few times to varying degrees of awful, and it never ceases to amaze me how many men think that just being a woman by yourself means you DEFINITELY want their attention. Perhaps it is from some misplaced sense of chivalrous protection. I once had some men on a bin lorry leap off and 'cuddle' men in the middle of the street. I was 14 and in school uniform, I'm not sure what part of that they read as sexual availability, but there we go. I'm not sure why some men think cuddling women they don't know is acceptable behaviour. But they do.

And that's the real problem. It's not women whining and moaning and claiming all men are rapists. It's men thinking their attention, however benign, is a gift to women in their vicinity, combined with women being taught (mainly by the media) that all men are just waiting to drag them away and rape them. It's a culture where women who are raped or assaulted by strangers are then asked WHY they talked to this strange man in the first place. Women are expected to prevent themselves being raped or assaulted by PSYCHIC MEANS. The only sensible way for women to do this is to not talk to strangers.
It is time we flipped the narrative. A lot of men complain that feminism is unnecessary in the modern age, that men and women ARE equal, and the gynocracy is emasculating them. They want to be allowed to open doors for women, and carry their bags and not be called a rapist. They want to be viewed as chivalrous, not predatory.
So how about we start teaching men how to recognise and react to social cues? That when a woman is studiously staring at her phone or has earphones in, she doesn't want to talk? You certainly don't get to pull her earphones out unless the place is literally on fire.
That a woman has the right to not talk to you, if she doesn't want to, and that doesn't make her a stuck up bitch? She doesn't even have to give you a reason.
That feeling awkward and rejected doesn't give you the right to shout or hurt or do anything other than feel awkward and rejected?
That there is literally no silent social contract which makes unsolicited sexual contact OK?

Because it's not all men. It really isn't, and women know that. But it's enough men to have no idea who is safe and who isn't. It's enough men that in any given ten women, two will have experienced a sexual assault.

The women suggesting segregated carriages aren't generally man-hating lunatics: they are simply trying to find a way to protect themselves while our culture continues to do very little to stop men harassing women.

Rape

TW: Distressing, but non-explicit images.

In the last few years, lots of famous men have been accused, and convicted of rape and sexual assault, such as Dave Lee Travis, Max Clifford, Rolf Harris, Chris Denning, Ian Watkins, and Ched Evans.

Now, you'll note that although guilt was virtually assumed for the four older men listed above, nobody really believed Watkins or Evans were guilty at first. Watkins was found guilty of some truly disturbing sex crimes, and jailed accordingly. Twenty months prior to that, Evans had also been found guilty and jailed for five years.

In October, Evans popped up again, released on license. And people IN THEIR DROVES have argued that he's served his time (he hasn't, not until 2017), and he should be allowed to rebuild his career, and this is all a well-orchestrated scheme by a conniving bitch to get money from him, and ruin his career.

I didn't even know who Ched Evans was until he was convicted. Turns out he's a footballer, who thought having sex with a really drunk woman he'd never met before was an excellent idea. Seeing as she'd already agreed to have sex with his friend, naturally he assumed she was also up for it with him. Woo hoo! Sexy free for all in the hotel! The woman woke up alone in a strange bed, with very little memory of this, and went to the police. And thus, Ched Evans was convicted of rape, and his friend, Clayton McDonald was acquitted.

Alcohol's a strange thing. You are most drunk about 90 minutes after drinking it, after which it drops off in toxicity by around one unit per hour. Long have women been warned of the perils of drinking to excess, in god-awful posters like these:

This advert was issued by West Mercia Police in 2012.

This advert was issued by ControlTonight.com who are a general drinking awareness group in Pennsylvania, USA. 

You read it right. If women get drunk, they are BOUND to get raped, and it's all their fault. Silly drunken women should know their limits.

The CPS guidelines on alcohol and consent state:

"In R v Bree [2007] EWCA 256, the Court of Appeal explored the issue of capacity and consent, stating that, if, through drink, or for any other reason, a complainant had temporarily lost her capacity to choose whether to have sexual intercourse, she was not consenting, and subject to the defendant's state of mind, if intercourse took place, that would be rape. However, where a complainant had voluntarily consumed substantial quantities of alcohol, but nevertheless remained capable of choosing whether to have intercourse, and agreed to do so, that would not be rape. Further, they identified that capacity to consent may evaporate well before a complainant becomes unconscious. Whether this is so or not, however, depends on the facts of the case."

CPS Legal Guidance: Statutory Definition of Consent. Available at http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/consent/

In plain speech, a woman can be too drunk to consent, long before she loses consciousness. This was the crux of the Ched Evans case: that the victim was able to consent to McDonald, but too drunk to consent to Evans when he decided to come and have a go on the apparently available woman. But this is fine, according to Evans' numerous supporters! His ACTUAL DEFENCE was that he didn't NEED to rape anyone because he's Ched! Evans!! [paragraph 2]. This has been believed by a lot of people, including one poor woman who thinks that because she was violently raped, all other rape is entirely invalid. He is currently trying to get his case to appeal.

Recently, odious Gove-lover Sarah Vine waded into the argument, again saying that women who are drunk can't be raped. I mean, she dresses it up by saying things like "we've all invited the wrong person in for coffee" (have we? I haven't), and that having to prove consent is ridiculous, and poor men who have sex with someone they've just met are going to end up on trial for rape, but her message is simple: women can't prove they didn't give consent, and men shouldn't have to. This somewhat overlooks the fact that all rape cases rest on whether or not consent was given. Most women who are raped, are raped by someone they know in a place they've been before.

About 85000 women are raped a year in England and Wales. Of these, about a thousand people are convicted - just over 1%. Swathes of women are raped, and hardly anyone ever goes to prison for it. And now, those who DO manage to get their rapist to court and convicted can have the likes of Sarah bloody Vine speculating on whether they were REALLY raped, or just making it up to look good or ease a troubled conscience.

Guess what people!
- Being drunk doesn't give anyone the right to rape you.
- Consenting to have sex with one man doesn't mean you've consented to have sex with ALL the men.
- Not all rapists are ugly.
- Sometimes, rich and famous men rape too!
- You're far more likely to be raped by someone you know than someone you don't.
- But if you are, it's still NOT YOUR FAULT.

- And most importantly, if someone tells you they've been raped or sexually assaulted, 

BELIEVE THEM.

USEFUL LINKS
Rape Crisis
NHS Sexual assault services

Feminism Is Not A Bad Thing

Hello, I have a vagina. I identify as female. I'm heterosexual. I'm a mother of two. I gave up work to look after my children. I live with my male partner, who is the main breadwinner. I have been married. I dye my hair. I shave my legs and armpits. I wear a bra.
And I am unequivocally feminist.

Women comprise about half the population of the world. Women come in all races, all sizes, all sexualities, all manner of gender identity. Women are all different - there is no overarching definition of womanhood. However, there are certain scions of society that believe women come in two types:
THE BLAZING RADICAL FEMINISTS vs
THE OTHERS

Now, regardless of your gender, you can probably appreciate that ideologies come in many different degrees. Nobody rational would say someone whose politics fall centre left is a Maoist. Nobody rational would say someone who supports the Conservative party are neo-Nazis. Nobody rational would say all Muslims are terrorists, or all Christians are Westboro Baptists. But plenty of usually rational people think feminism means extremism.
"Feminists don't want me to wear pink." "Feminists want me to be a hairy beast." "Feminists want me to suffer in childbirth." "Feminists hate men." "Feminist are all ugly lesbians." "Feminists abhor beauty."

Erm. No. Feminists want women to be on an equal standing as men. And that's not happened yet.

Radical feminism has been responsible, among other social factors, for revolutions in women's rights. It is difficult to fathom for young women now JUST HOW MUCH has changed in relatively recent years. Fifty years ago, the contraceptive pill was only available to married women. Abortion was illegal. Women were expected to give up work on marrying in order to have children. Thirty five years ago, illegitimacy made a young mother a social pariah. Twenty five years ago, marital rape was legal. Domestic violence against women was seen as a waste of police time well into the 1990s. Equal pay, despite being legislated for since 1970, is still widely ignored - indeed, Wimbledon didn't start paying equal prize money until 2007.

Women are regularly discriminated against, due to likelihood of pregnancy, by employers. This is becoming more of a problem as jobs demand increases. Personally, I was passed over for promotion to a salaried managerial role because I was engaged. Realising that work were unlikely to give me any job opportunities while I remained a pregnancy risk, I went ahead and had my children, with the rationale that when they were older, I'd still be young enough to establish a career. Five years on, I hope that's true.
In the UK, women are fortunate to have the reproductive rights they do, although many would argue that they are still too restrictive. In the US, supposedly the most developed country in the world, states deny women abortions. The same states also deny any sort of financial support to women raising these unwanted children. The lack of women's rights in less developed countries is highlighted as an action point by the US, while they simultaneously enact misogynist policies.

Look at our government. 508 male MPs, versus 147 female MPs. This is a country that considers women to be equal with men, yet they constitute just 22% of our government. We have a country that is so concerned that female doctors will outnumber male doctors in a few years that the DoH has recommended an emergency policy. And why is this a problem? Because despite this so-called equality, women are still expected to do the bulk of childcare, and when a child is sick, the childminder/nursery/school/nanny can't help. Despite this equality, women still do more housework than men, regardless of their working status. My marriage was not the finest in the world, and not a perfect example, but it was expected of me to do the majority of the housework, even when working full time, because I worked slightly less hours than my ex husband. Once my eldest was born, I was expected to do ALL the housework, ALL the childcare AND work part time. I mean, this was a man who cited my lack of doing the washing up as a reason for adultery, but I don't think his expectation of women is uncommon.

Then there is the aspect that seems to divide feminists and anti-feminists most deeply: makeup, hair dye, pink toys, youth.
The simple truth is that this is ACTUALLY a problem. Professor Mary Beard is a stunningly intelligent woman, a professor at a major university, with a real art for presenting history programmes. And people HATE her because she has the TEMERITY to turn up on TV screens with white hair. People threatened to kill her for daring to exist in a form she was comfortable with. Women, mainly those in the public eye, are expected to maintain their youth regardless of their actual age. When was the last time you saw a female presenter over 45 on your screens, that actually LOOKED her age? Ageism is a constant row in the media, but really it's a argument of sexism. Women are simply expected to remain young. If men don't, that's fine - they're silver foxes or distinguished. But a white haired woman on TV is worthy of death threats.
In the Early Learning Centre, which is normally pretty fair on gendering of toys, the doctor's kit comes in blue, but the nurse's kit comes in red or pink. The doctor's outfit is white and blue, but you can also have a pink nurse's outfit. The idea that men = doctors, women = nurses is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness (despite evidence to the contrary) that its pervading children's toys.
Some women wear makeup. Personally, I don't, for all kinds of reasons - chiefly, I shouldn't have to create a mirage image to be socially acceptable - but I'm not against people who DO. I'm very against the media message that women MUST wear makeup; that pimples or imperfections are crimes against humanity; that only the beautiful are capable of personal relationships. THAT is worth fighting against. I dye my hair because I like it red instead of dirty blonde, not because I'm FIGHTING THE SIGNS OF AGEING. My self worth is based around more than what I look like, but due to the media pushing perfection as standard, millions of women feel very differently. Men, however, just need Lynx to get women. Nothing oozes sex appeal like smelling of teenager-on-a-date.
The ideal size for women varies vastly with the fashion. A few years ago, the trend was for stick thin women, now it's for stick thin women with big boobs. Fifty years ago, curves were sexy. The fact that this is all a media illusion, and that personality will win out over looks 70% of the time, is irrelevant. Women suffer from body dysmorphia from a ridiculously young age, and again, it's because the media push perfection from childhood. Barbie may seem innocuous enough, but when her utterly unrealistic and anatomically impossible form becomes the target size of a young girl, things are seriously wrong. Fat is seen as universally Evil: unattractive, with connotations of sloth, of greed, ill health and poverty. Again, it is mainly women who suffer from this portrayal. Men don't usually struggle to buy clothes in larger sizes. Women are faced with dress racks in size 6-12, with a small 'fat' section at the back, for those in sizes 14+. Petite clothing far exceeds tall clothing, because small is feminine, and tall is EVIL. I speak from the point of view of a tall (175cm) woman who is also a size 18 - buying clothes is an absolute nightmare. Most shops which list sizes as S M and L consider L a 12. A size 12 is not large.

All this considered, all these ways in society in which women are made to loathe themselves, in which women are given less opportunities than men, in which women are punished for a solitary chromosome, is feminism REALLY that abhorrent a concept?

I leave you with something to think about. The majority of women menstruate from the age of around 12 until they are in middle age. I spend a quarter of the year, on average, bleeding. This will work out to about nine years of my life - quite a substantial amount of time. Historically, this has been used as an excuse to call women feeble, incapable and inadequate. However, I think society has now reached a point where menstruation is no longer a vile symptom of feminine weakness.
So tell me, in our equal society, where women have no need to be feminist because everything is so wonderful, why are sanitary products taxed as a luxury?

Milk Money

British women have a poor rate of breastfeeding, one of the lowest in Europe. Breastfeeding is generally a Good Thing, providing total nutrition and some immunity to small babies. However, we now live in a culture where women of reproductive age are often working and pressured by necessity to return to work after giving birth; where breasts are largely seen as obscene sex melons; and where formula feeding is marketed as a magical solution to a happy baby.

Breastfeeding is not easy to establish. Very few women are genuinely physically incapable of breastfeeding. However feeding through the early weeks where it hurts, where your baby may be latching wrong and before milk supply is fully established is bloody hard. And there is shockingly little support available to women who struggle. My sister in law had problems latching her first baby, due to flat nipples and a tiny baby mouth. The midwives could only suggest she continued to express and bottle feed her baby. However, my sister in law didn't give up, and managed (after about five days) to successfully feed her daughter. She has had no problems since, but many women feeling awful after giving birth, with very little support and with the constant Magic Cure of formula on offer would give up.
And who can blame them? Giving birth, especially for the first time, is a huge bodyshock, leaving women feeling vulnerable, sore and disjointed. Breastfeeding publicly can be a matter of some embarrassment, even in front of family members. Facebook deletes photos of breastfeeding mothers as obscene. Women don't remember seeing their own mothers breastfeed. Some women perceive breastfeedng as physically repulsive, and don't want to do it. That is the world we live in.

So, the government has come up with a great idea(!) Why not PAY women to breastfeed? Up to £200 in vouchers are available, if you feed til 6 months, in increments. They can't be used on formula, but other than that there's absolutely no way of checking the women in receipt of it are actually breastfeeding, except trusting to the word of a midwife. Midwives stop seeing most new mothers within two weeks of birth. How many of them are actually going to have time to confirm their client is still breastfeeding?
How about, instead of bribing women to breastfeed (or pretend to breastfeed), the money be invested in better support? The most support I got when establishing feeding with my eldest was a booklet from the NCT, which is a charity. The NHS provided support amounted to having my baby shoved head first onto the boob. It's not the midwives fault - they don't have the staffing to provide the time. Sometimes, all a new mother needs is someone to sit and watch them feed, offering reassurance, for an hour.
How about the money be invested in better education? Women are led to believe that breastfeeding is one constant arc of rainbows. There's no education about how to know whether the baby's getting enough, when latching is wrong, what cluster feeding is and how to work with it, how to ease sore boobs, when how to recognise mastitis. It's currently left to trial and error, or personal research, and not knowing makes a new mother feel abandoned, confused and failing.
How about investing in making breastfeeding culturally normal? No woman should feel like they have to go and hide in a toilet to feed their baby. No woman should panic-wean as returning to work looms around the corner. We see women give birth in screaming agony in soap operas, but there's no follow up of a woman weepily feeding a child in her pajamas three days later (unless she's got postnatal depression, or some other plot device). Feeding babies is culturally invisible, even though all babies need feeding at very frequent intervals, by some means.

A breastfeeding incentive amounts to large amount of spending, for very little reward. The money could be usefully invested in so many other places, with the aim of increasing breastfeeding rates. This is an excellent example of throwing money at a problem rather than treating the root of it. The only positive point I can see is that, if a midwife needs to continue her relationship with the mother for longer than normal to ensure the money is given correctly, women might actually start getting better postnatal support.

PS: This is not an attack on formula feeding, but on the way breastfeeding has become culturally marginalised, or at the extreme, reviled, and how it will take more than a cash incentive to fix that. You feed your baby how you see fit.

"You want to do what to my ass?" When lyrics go wrong.

Blurred Lines, by Robin Thicke, Pharrel and T.I, has been getting a lot of press attention in the UK recently. This is because, a full three months after release, some media outlets have finally noticed the sexual violence implicit in the lyrics and some universities have banned it. T.I informs us that he has "something so big I'll tear your ass in two", while Robin Thicke sings that he's going to drug the woman he desires. Charming.
However, lyrics promoting violence against women, sexual or physical, are nothing new. This is particularly true in the world of hiphop and rap. Kim, by Eminem, is a particularly appalling example. However, these songs are usually wholly intended to be shocking, and rarely released and put on Radio 1's A list.

Here are a few songs that have been in the annual top 40, in the last three years. They have been widely played and bought, and they have some seriously questionable lyrics:
1. Love The Way You Lie, by Eminem ft Rihanna.
This song, charting the ups and downs of an abusive codependant relationship echoes the known abusive relationships both Eminem and Rihanna have been in. But do we really want to hear that if "she ever leaves again I'mma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire"? This charming ditty was the best selling single of 2010, by the way.

2. Frisky by Tinie Tempah
Ah, Tinie Tempah, a man who has not yet been to Scunthorpe and hogs wardrobe space at his aunt's house. However, when he's got the horn, beware women of the town. There's no outright rape mentioned in this song, but the whole vibe is one of "I will find a drunk hot woman, I will do her, and then I will forget she exists." Not dissimilar to Mr Thicke.

3. Starstrukk by 3Oh!3 ft Katy Perry
They want to know how to make love to something innocent without leaving their fingerprints. Yeah.

4.  She Said by Plan B
Oh God, where to even start with this? The great ode to date rape! She said he raped her, he said she wanted it, he got sent to prison and it's SO UNFAIR (and so unlikely because woman vs rich celeb doesn't usually win). Although this is supposed to be a concept album discussing the fall of the fictional Strickland Banks, don't women get enough crap from the media about making up rape without this tool adding to it?

5. Sweat by David Guetta ft Snoop Dogg/Lion
Snoop will make you give it up, and then not let you take it out til you can taste it. And if you can get him up, he will give it to you rough, but he's got money so presumably he can pay you off afterwards? I'm not wholly sure. I don't think he is either, the lyrics are a rambling mess.

6.  We Found Love by Rihanna and Calvin Harris
Rihanna, once more wanting an abusive relationship back because it's FUN TO HURT. Or something.

7. Black Heart by Stooshe
He is a monster, he scares her to death, he has a black heart, but he's really good at sex so it's fine. Right girls?

I feel special mention should go to Rihanna for producing so many songs implying that domestic violence is absolutely fine because LOVE HURTS and stuff.
My point is that there are so many songs out there that have suspect lyrics that have been ignored, or tutted at, or put down to artistic interpretation. Are we, as a country, going to continue to object to songs based on lyrical content? Or is Blurred Lines a one off? I hope the banning of Blurred Lines in some universities is a sign that we have finally had enough of the rape and abuse of women being an everyday, acceptable subject for a song. 

All men are rapists and all women are asking for it

Trigger warning: discussion of rape scenarios

When discussing the problem of men raping women, I frequently encounter men who are concerned that all women perceive men as potential rapists. This is described as some sort of feminist misandry, an assumption that All Men are Evil.
But actually, it's not a feminist notion at all. Quite the opposite. It is MEN who have taught women that all men should be treated as potential rapists.

One in five British women have been sexually assaulted, yet only 6% of cases result in conviction. Take the following scenarios:
A woman is walking alone down the street at night dressed in a short skirt. A man  rapes her.
A woman is drunk and talks to a man in a bar. They get along well. They go off alone, whether to her house or his house, or just into the street. He rapes her.
A woman, who has had numerous sexual partners, meets someone new. He rapes her.
A woman in a relationship tells her partner no. He rapes her.
A woman walks through a park with her children in daylight. A man rapes her.

Each of these women have been raped, however the distribution of blame varies. The first woman is likely to be blamed partly for walking alone at night, partly for her dress. The second and fourth women will be lucky if they even has enough evidence to go to court, and if they do, will be very lucky to get a guilty verdict. The third woman is likely to have her entire sexual history used against her in court.The fifth woman will probably be absolved of any blame, largely due to the factors of daylight and her children being present.

Society tells women that rape is their fault. Organisations tell women that rape is their fault, by distributing advice like this. The law tells women that rape is their fault, if they were drunk. The onus is on women to spot the rapists among us and avoid them, even in official police advice.

Women are conditioned by the world around them to assume all men are rapists or suffer the consequences and take the blame. It is not misandry, it is not feminism: it is how we are told to think in order to avoid attack.

In order for men to stop feeling beleaguered and hated, more rape education needs to follow in this vein (from here, where you can find several other excellent examples):

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The victim blaming that occurs with rape and the justice system, media and society, assumes that all women are always available for sex. It also assumes that men cannot help themselves: if they see a woman, they simply MUST rape her. This leads to a culture where these lies become the norm. It is poisonous to society, and it's time for a change.