The rise of Golden Dawn and Venezuela 'spying' on its Jews

Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn members looking like the cast of Les Miserables, except fascist.

As part of the long, hard, unpaid road into journalism, I am currently interning at The Jewish Chronicle. It's super exciting and I get to write serious stories about fascism and the Jewish community and Venezuela and the Jewish community, so far.

I've also written a forthcoming piece in which I interview civilly partnered Jews about their relationships and thoughts on nearly-legal equal marriage. I spoke to a Conservative politician about this at 7.45 this morning, which to me smacks of utter dedication in all respects.

There has been some discussion of 'The Only Way Is Essex' in the office, but luckily the finger of light entertainment writing doom has not been pointed at me.

Here are some news pieces I have written so far. The first is kind of a big deal:

Biggest Golden Dawn rally in Athens since election.

The second is also massive. Chavez's secret services have allegedly been spying on Venezuelan Jews. For anybody with fluent Castilian, there is a cache of secret intelligence documents floating around on the internet:

Venezuela 'spying' on Jewish community:

Gay marriage, Pussy Riot and that guy from the Big Bang Theory

Pussy Riot masks. Maria Alyokhina has received death threats in jail in Russia. And the colour coding here is super cute.

For the widespread delectation of all, here is a final round-up of stories from my time at Gay Star News.

'Celebrating' the publication of The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill last Friday (25 January), I wrote a feature laying out the the differences between gay marriage and civil partnership. There are actually a surprising number of distinctions. Seven, to be precise.

More importantly, a Pussy Riot member incarcerated in a Russian jail is receiving death threats for her activism there.

Back on the never-ending train of stories about equal marriage: The Tory Defence Secretary Philip Hammond says UK gay marriage will threaten religious groups. He's probably right. But as comedian Wanda Sykes once pithily said, 'if you don't believe in same-sex marriage, then don't marry somebody of the same sex'.



Oh, then there's another story about gay marriage. Go on, you can stomach one more. This one has the low-down on a wildly attractive, mysterious businessman named Ivan Massow: Gay millionare to run as Tory MP in area split by gay marriage row.

Broadcaster and performance artist Amy Lame being awesome.

In other news:

Amy Lamé takes revenge on 'lezzer' white van man (this one is actually pretty cool)

Gay Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons develops child prodigy TV show

And finally, if you don't read this last one your life won't be complete:
Mayor apologises for banning gay signs from family fun day 

Parents leave The Joy of Gay Sex book on son's pillow

The definition of feel-good. On at least two levels.

 A quick stories round-up from last week at Gay Star News.

This one is particularly heartwarming and was most-read on the GSN website for a day or two:

Parents leave The Joy of Gay Sex book on son's pillow 
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/parents-leave-joy-gay-sex-book-sons-pillow170113 

Winning at the unspoken 'best sign at the protest' competition

I also got sent to report on the anti-transphobia protest that took place outside the Observer in the aftermath of Burchill-gate. Having got some brilliant quotes from people who were there, I wrote it up in feature form:

Trans Brits demand to be freed from a hate-filled media 
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/trans-brits-demand-be-freed-hate-filled-media180113
 
There is also a lovely and brave video campaign being run by LGBTQ Jamaicans.

Gay Jamaicans go on video to show the world who they are
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-jamaicans-go-video-show-world-who-they-are180113

Also, I foray gently and tentatively into the murky world of crime reporting:

Lesbian claims partner tortured, murdered bus driver for his PIN  
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/lesbian-claims-partner-tortured-murdered-bus-driver-his-pin170113

And there is more news about cervical cancer, in that the BMA say young gay men should be given the vaccine as well as the school-age girls who currently receive it.

Vaccine must be given to gay men to prevent anal cancer, says BMA 
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/vaccine-must-be-given-gay-men-prevent-anal-cancer-says-bma170113 

Finally, in a case of interns being given the most important news of the day, some bloke from Glee did an interview with the Metro newspaper. I was at the scene (of being able to read the Metro and rewrite what was said):

Chris Colfer: 'I'd love to do a Glee meets Downton special'
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/chris-colfer-id-love-do-glee-meets-downton-special180113

Five top tips for getting a job

You've finally graduated, with a good combined degree in Humanities and Other Useless Studies. You spent your university years relatively well. You played sport for a team, you joined an orchestra. You had a social life. You're reasonably well rounded, and entirely sure that you can a: answer the telephone, b: send an "email" and c: talk to people without accidentally saying "cunt". Ready to take on the adult world of employment.

But the glorious, hopeful summer has now turned to October, and you're sitting in your parents' kitchen in yesterday's pants with a mysterious crust on your face (this bears no relation to my own life, I'm totally fine. Having a great time, actually). You're on your fifth cup of instant coffee and its only ten in the morning. You're flicking through the same unpromising job ads that you've seen every day this week. Most of them tell you neither what the job is nor who it would be for, but they do use plenty of fun, meaningless phrases like "self starter".

The fortnightly trips to the job centre take on a nightmarish air. The night before sign-on day you wake up in your sleep, soaked in sweat. Will you be able to convince the sceptical woman behind the desk that you are worthy of this week's £56.25? Difficult to say, when passing the test to keep your benefits depends on you accepting individual blame for the failings of the political system.

Of course, there's always an opening in recruitment consulting, bribing other people into becoming recruitment consultants. If you don't think about it hard enough, maybe you won't notice that its an empty, self-perpetuating job cycle created to give desperate graduates something to do. Sometimes these consultants even call you up, deliberately ignoring whatever sector it is you marked as desirable on your CV:

Consultant: "Would you like a mind-numbingly boring job that you have absolutely no interest in?"

You: "No, thank you kindly"

Consultant: "You are clearly a benefits scrounging loser. I read about your kind in the Telegraph."


I've never had a conversation like that, but it's only a matter of time.


In any case, from one work-shy feckless job-seeker to another, here are my five top tips for getting a job. They have served me admirably well in the past:


1. Start your cover letter thus:

"Dear Company,

I have no idea who you are or what you do, but frankly the position advertised is an insult to someone of my abilities. Obviously I am capable of filing, answering the telephone, and making tea. During my degree I had to write essays about dialectical materialism, for fuck's sake. Please, please, please give me this job, I really need the money."


2. Apply for unpaid internships. When they offer them to you ask if they'll pay you. If not, turn them down in an outraged email railing against slave labour, linking them to the wikipedia page for the principle of "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work". Repeat.


3. Turn down any job offers you receive. If they're offering you a job, it can't be that great a job. What's wrong with them? (See: Groucho Marx)


4. Write intimidating speculative applications to companies who don't have job openings. Threaten to leave the country if they don't create a job for you. Why should multi-billion pound businesses receive favorable treatment?


5. Whenever friends, parents, partners or bloggers try to give you well-meant job advice, laugh long and loudly. You have no need of their advice! Have you not sent five thousand applications this very week! Do you not have as much chance as anyone else of landing the BBC Director-General job (as and when George Entwistle vacates it)? Shout all these things aggressively, then cry and run out of the room.


Good luck! You'll need it! 

The sex lives of others are our greatest fetish

Allegedly this man's guilty feet have got no rhythm

Rather belatedly, here is my blog at the New Statesman on George Michael, the public interest, and the salacious press creation of "sex scandals":

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/05/sex-lives-others-are-our-greatest-fetish

The lesbian adverts that "One Million Moms" should be protesting

Mothers beware! This advert could influence your teenager to purchase tie-die.  

Urban Outfitters has been in the news as the target of a campaign by homophobic, optimistically titled hate group "One Million" Moms. The reason? A catalogue photo depicting this exceptionally chaste kiss between two flouncily-clad women. I hate the idea that tie-die is in fashion again, but apparently that's not the reason for the protest. Apparently One Million Moms campaign against "immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity." That they have decided to make this ad a focal point for a campaign suggests that this "picture of two women kissing in a face holding embrace!" (as they call it, complete with exclamation mark) falls short on one or more of these points. It must be the old "immorality" chestnut.

As queer adverts go, though, "two women kissing in a face holding embrace!"is pretty tame on the immorality scale. Not even a 2 out of 10. Its nice to see some lesbian-ish (who knows, they could even be bisexual, or just good friends) action, but it's not inflammatory enough to get me out on the streets looking for the nearest straight child to forcibly convert. Of all the queer adverts that One Million Moms could have picked on, some are far more risque.

Relatively few adverts depicting same-sex attraction between women exist, but those that do seem to fall broadly into two categories. The first, and this is by far the biggest, is the shameless lesploitation genre. These adverts may feature same-sex activity between women, but they have about as much to do with self-defining queer women as Margaret Thatcher has to do with feminism. This ostensibly-lesbian-but-actually-lesbophobic-and-misogynist Jim Beam ad - which makes me want to sick in my mouth - is a prime lesploitation candidate.

Ignoring the poor dress choice, I think that the Urban Outfitters' "face holding embrace!" advert falls into another, second category. Its a normal scene (if your version of normal heavily involves Urban Outfitters Spring/Summer 2012), in a normal room, between two normal (if exceedingly slim, white and pretty) women. Unabashedly, it's a consumer capitalist image, but at least for once the content is aimed at the demographic it depicts. It's pleasingly devoid of gratuitously oiled-up nudity. It's a women's same-sex image, aimed primarily at women. 

Unfortunately, One Million Moms' immorality klaxon doesn't seem so tolerant as to enable any consideration of subtlety in intent or representation. Obviously not. If their main worry is that their kids might catch gay from a picture, or that they might be influenced by some queer subliminal messaging sneakily inserted into a handbag advert, then of course they couldn't care less whether the imagery does anything good for queer visibility or not. 

All the same, if they're looking for some other quite nice representations of queer women in advertising to protest, I've found my favourite five: 

1. KY scoops the lesbian audience

Ok look, I obviously hate the idea of orgasms as "that big moment", but actually this is pretty cute observational comedy. There's even a sneaky cat in the top left corner. I can imagine lesbian couples seeing this, then buying lube. Works for me (the depiction, not the lube itself. I haven't tried the lube. Yet).  

2. Lesbian cruises for lesbians: "It truly does change your life." 

An ad made by queer women, for queer women, featuring queer women? Also advertising an niche lesbian service, I know, so not attempting to corner a widely commercial market. But still, stop the press, butch lesbians have made it into an advert! 

3. Martina Navratilova: can't see past her incredible arms to work out what she's selling

Something to do with the supposed "pink pound"? I don't know. It's got Martina Navratilova in. 

4. H&M does ambiguity 

H&M are prime offenders in the sexism stakes, not least for their propensity to photoshop models' heads onto computer generated, identikit mannequin bodies. This ad, however, is part of a series of beautifully constructed ads using intimacy between women to sell to women. 

5. Devin & Glenn: Overturn Prop 8 and Make Homosexuals Marry!

Self-evidently this has little to do with lesbianism, but it is my favourite gay ad ever. If One Million Mom's were to protest anything, it should surely be this. Join them and let them know here: http://www.onemillionmoms.com/register.asp

Why the gender pay gap matters

The real castration complex? 

I have a new post at openDemocracy. It's about the gender pay gap, but is also sexy and exciting: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ray-filar/why-gender-pay-gap-matters

A well regulated press would also be a freer press, if it could do anything to end media sexism

Not another picture of Pippa Middleton's ass

The Leveson inquiry drags on, akin to the 1000 pages in the middle of The Lord of The Rings where the hobbits do nothing but walk across a cliff. We're still only on the first half - the bit of the inquiry in which press culture, ethics and practices are vigorously talked about. In fellowship terms, we're barely out of the shire.

Lord Justice Leveson is now indicating that he is unlikely to consider any government regulation. That may not be so disappointing, given the government's seeming view on regulation, otherwise expressed as 'we hate regulation'. But this does leave us to speculate on exactly what actions Leveson may be intending. In a manner quite dissimilar to that of Tolkien's oeuvre, the inquiry does not seem to be leading to any massive inexorable conclusions. 

At the end of last year coalition of mainstream feminist groups (the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW), Eaves, OBJECT and Equality Now) submitted to the Leveson inquiry that it should address press sexism as part of a full investigation into the relationship between media and society.* How unbelievably heinous; it takes a country-wide media culture overhaul to enable official challenge to media myths of the alien species, 'women', who do nothing but lie about rape, wear clothes, or not wear clothes.

In this video, a Sky News commentator speculates - ever so insightfully - that the inquiry's outcome may be a 'tougher, beefed up, testosterone fuelled regulator.' Sexist language aside (and the identification 'good=masculine' could be one of the first things to go, if you ask me) a proper independent press complaints commission would seem to be one highly logical outcome of the inquiry. We already have one, after all, giving it teeth would be relatively easy. 

The problem is that enabling it to take action against sexism would take greater ovaries than Leveson could ever countenance. The culture is too longstanding, and it runs too deep in the national psyche. The suggestion of any anti-sexist regulation stronger than 'um, guys, can you please play nicely?' is invariably met with the outraged cry: 'FEMINIST CENSORSHIP!!!!' or 'A FREE PRESS IS THE SOLE HALLMARK OF A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!!!' or, as with Clare Short's campaign to end Page 3, you are clearly just 'fat and ugly' and 'jealous of beautiful young women'. 

Here is what will (probably) happen instead. Between now and the announcement of a new PCC, the bit of the inquiry that was about countering media misogyny will get lost. Or looked over. Or watered down so much that it will become irrelevant. Some concession may be made to not displaying 'inappropriate' materials pre-watershed, 'where children can see'. But the banal onslaught of everything that is idiotic in our culture, the four hundred pictures of Pippa Middleton's bum, the appraisal of women politicians on the basis of their clothing choice - all this will continue.

Those who get on the high horse about the inalienable right to free expression forget that in practice this has meant the unabated reproduction of unsubstantiated ideologies about less powerful groups who, non-coincidentally, have less press control. The people who read rape reports focusing mainly on 'false' accusations, skirts, and alcohol consumption, are the same people who comprise juries who sit in on rape cases from which rapists repeatedly walk free. That's the very definition of a vicious circle.

To mandate that women should be represented as people who partake in the public sphere in roles which are not primarily aesthetic is simply to mandate representations closer to the truth. An end to the barrage of boobs and bimbos would make life a lot freer for the women who would like to be assessed on the basis of their actions rather than for the shape of their behinds. I hope Lord Leveson is brave enough to say so.


*Disclaimer: I don't agree with everything that was put forward by all of these organisations, but implementation of anything vaguely anti-misogynist would be better than what we have now. 

Familes are not factories

I'm guest blogging at The F Word this December! This is the first post, published last week: http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/12/post_6

Good question. Tangentially relevant to this post.

My parents have been married for thirty years. I grew up in a semi-detached house in a suburb, one of three kids. The only surprise in the set-up is that we don’t have a picket fence. It was a Tory government’s wet dream of an upbringing. 

Somewhere along the line, though, something went wrong. The conveyer-belt churning out endless, identical replications of this ideal kinship model hit a snag, shuddered and stopped. It turned out one of the slightly-more-than-2.4 kids was queer and at least one of the others didn’t really give a damn about marriage. Our predicted stable, nuclear futures wobbled as reality, in all its glorious diversity, failed to conform to ideology.  

Thank god, then, for the government, who have announced the return, albeit in diluted form, of Thatcher’s Clause 28. Children in free schools or academies will in future be receiving heterosexist brainwashing instead of Sex and Relationships Education. Perhaps they can halt the cultural decline in straight people buying into holy matrimony by literally legislating for its ideological imposition? 

How obnoxiously weird that a practice designed to institutionalise the exchange of women-as-commodities should, in 2011, be being brought back as if it’s the only excellent kinship model. Over one third of marriages end in divorce, we know that only about 50% of people get married anyway - why do conservatives insist on touting the myth that marriage provides a stability that other forms of relationship don’t? Could they actually believe it, or is this a Dorries-esque way of grooming the next generation’s prejudices against the rights of those who threateningly queer the picture? 

Against all the evidence suggesting that other relationship models are also great, we are hugely invested in the ideal of marriage, in particular, in the importance of marriage to women. Popular, mildly-misogynist TV shows Don’t Tell the Bride and Four Weddings (both guilty pleasures, I admit) speak to this, camping up the ‘greatest-day-of-her-life’ aesthetic until it is too absurd to take seriously. Unless you’re Michael Gove, who presumably resolved to bring back Clause 28 during the Don’t Tell the Bride adverts. 

Given how much pro-marriage marketing we receive, perhaps it is not surprising that our common cultural conception is that it is vaguely ‘best for children’ if they grow up with married hetero-parents. The viciousness of anti-single-mother rhetoric, returning time again to narratives of blame and failure, only compounds this problem. The government spectacularly fails to consider the possible impact of such negative socialisation on children growing up in single-parent households. 

No matter. It is best for children to be brought up by married heterosexual couples , apparently, because two parents provide more stability than one. If an extra parent is so great, why wouldn’t it be better to have more than two? Why not four? Or ten? Why don’t we bring children up in communes, as envisaged by our feminist foremothers? 

I want to know why a marriage certificate makes a difference, if it is not just to get couples bogged down in financial commitments to each other so that they can’t separate. I’d like to know, moreover, how it could be better for children to grow up the company of two parents who would really rather have gone their separate ways, and why it is thought to be right that parents abnegate those - potentially eighteen - years of their lives ‘for the sake of the children’. I’d like to know why gender is presumed to make a difference to that equation, why God is genuinely believed to have given a shit about anybody’s chromosomes. 

Clause 28 is a case of cart-before-horse. There is nothing inherently better about nuclear families except the belief that they are better (coupled with tax breaks). If the children of hetero-marriages turn out to be better adjusted, whatever the hell that means, than those from other families, we need to look at the ways in which the former set of children are systematically culturally privileged and change the system accordingly. To conclude that therefore marriage is best and should be preached to kids is question-beggingly circular. It perpetuates the cycle, excluding those who can’t or won’t fit. 

I have seen at first hand that a heterosexual marriage can provide a stable upbringing in which children can grow. But I would contend that if there is anything about my orientation which would prevent me from bringing up kids in just as good a manner, it is the attitude of Gove and co, who, through Clause 28, will attempt to make sure that the society my children will grow up in will be even more full of hate than the society we have now. Thanks Gove, you utter wanker. 

Here is my opinion, deal with it: on real life silencing and internet abuse

Edited version of this post published at Liberal Conspiracy: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/11/04/how-womens-voices-are-silenced-online-through-trolling/



It's funny because it's, like, true

It's difficult for women to speak in public, particularly political women. Today Helen Hasteley-Lewis blogged at the New Statesman about the torrential online abuse feminist writers get. This follows Cath Elliott's blog earlier this year on the shocking invective she personally regularly receives. At the moment, the internet is a society where being (perceived as) female and writing about feminism invariably leads to responses on the theme of: 'shut up or I will rape you/you're ugly and deserve to be raped/you're too ugly to be raped'. 

This is a form of silencing, an internalised gendered behavior which acts reflexively to suppress challenging opinions - particularly those vocalised by women. Abuse is more explicitly misogynist online, where trolls can hide behind anonymised usernames, but it isn't a phenomenon isolated to the internet. The watered-down version plays out offline all the time.

Show me a mixed gender group of any sort and I will show you a group where men speak more than women, where women are regularly interrupted, where something ignored when said by a woman will be praised when said by a man.* Debates about the merits of women-only spaces sometimes ignore the value, for women, of being in a group where they are not constantly struggling to be heard.

This is not to say that there aren't loud, opinionated, dominating women, or shy, retiring men, or that people biologically conform to a gender binary. It not to say that ALL WOMEN are one way and ALL MEN are another way. It's not to say that silencing doesn't happen along other axes of oppression, race and class being two of the rather pertinent ones. It is, however, to say that a meaningful gender analysis can be enacted on the ways that women's voices are publicly stifled. It is to say that the loud, opinionated, dominating women who want to write have to get past discriminations that loud, opinionated, dominating men don't. Online abuse is just the most blatant example of this.


How does silencing work? Partially, it works by ad feminam response. Suppose that Fictional-but-also-factual-John and I are having a discussion. I say that I think silencing is something that is usually directed against women by men in order to shut them up. John replies with, 'okay, but you don't have to be so angry about it all the time/you're cute when you're political!/did someone get out of bed on the wrong side this morning?/you don't have to make it about gender all the time/you're just saying that because you're a woman/ok...come here and kiss me/yeah but you're fat and ugly and therefore irrelevant', and so on. My opinion is sidestepped; irony abounds. Next time, it is harder to speak.


Silencing works by trivialisation of what women say, through mockery of what women say, through reducing-women-to-sexual-appearance. Subconsciously, we have internalised the idea that whatever it is, it is better if it comes from the mouth of a man than from a woman. It happens all the time. Ever seen a group of men sitting around making jokes as their female friends laugh appreciatively? I have, and I've also seen what often (but not always) happens when women try to join in. Anecdotal it may be, but at some point collections of women's experiences become overwhelming evidence. Women are being told online that they're sexually unattractive femi-nazis who deserve to be attacked, and being ignored/mocked/trivialised offline. After being silenced once, twice, a thousand times, I find it surprising that anybody has the labia to say anything at all. 

If you, of any gender, find yourself instinctively disregarding what a woman is saying, if you find yourself not listening, or wanting to interrupt, or looking at the clock, you are enacting a form of silencing. If find yourself thinking, 'what a cow/bitch/hag' when a woman is saying something in an outspoken fashion, you are taking part in the mentality of silencing. Take a step back, have a look at your own privilege, and then, please, stop doing it.

*For more on this, see Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender. 

The comedians that Mock the Week missed out

The twitter war against @mocktheweek has finally ended. It could most closely be described as akin to a battle in which cannonballs are fired at a person who, protected by an imaginary brick wall, simply denies that the cannonballs, the wall, gravity, or any form of Newtonian law exists.

The social media face of Mock the Week, known only as "@mocktheweek", refused, in the face of all reasonability, to accept that there is anything sexist about a panel show in which women comedians are a: rarely booked and b: hate appearing when they do get booked. I can't be bothered to explain, again, why it is very, very, very, very, very sexist, so I will simply recall here that the all-female episode of Whose Line is it Anyway was one of the funnier ones. Just saying. Four comics who were women did comedy on a stage and it was funny. Anyway, if you are confused about why Mock the Week is very, very, very, very, etc, sexist, go on twitter, search 'mocktheweek', and scroll down the exchanges. I'm not linking.

Anyway, and instead, let us feast our ears on a compendium of comedians who, if they were men, would probably be Mock the Week regulars/would by now have their own road-shows and a pile of free money gifted to them by the BBC:

1. Isy Suttie:



In exhibit A (above, literally just above) we see a comedian making funny jokes to a large audience of people who are laughing. That comedian happens to be a woman, and therefore either a: will not be booked to appear on Mock the Week, or b: will not appear on Mock the Week because it is a particularly nasty atmosphere for women comedians - see Jo Brand.

2. Sarah Kendall [Edit 22/1/12: transphobia warning at around 11.30 mins]



One of my favourite comedians who probably won't ever be on Mock the Week. Unlike Russell Howard, who gets to be a regular in virtue of having a real penis, probably. I hope Sarah Kendall does go on it, but if she is her jokes will probably get edited out in favour of some look-at-me-mummy-i'm-clever-now nonsense.

3. Shazia Mirza



Bit of an obvious choice, but also, why the hell doesn't she already have her own show?

4. Josie Long



Pretty well known and stuff. Pretty funny. Probably hasn't been on Mock the Week, and I hope she doesn't go on it. I have a suspicion her style would get lost in the celebratory cockfest. She's spot on with the bit about turning 'go on then, make me laugh' guests into 'I like drinking water out of sponges' guests.

5. Here, to finish, is a trailer from the Funny Women awards of 2010. What's that about female comedians just 'not existing'?




Other things to look at -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/52-female-comedians_n_833214.html - because they have women comedians in America too.

What's that? Another women comedian talking about how Mock the Week is horrible? http://www.birminghammail.net/what-is-on-in-birmingham/birmingham-comedy/2009/12/11/comedy-shappi-khorsandi-takes-on-the-male-world-of-stand-up-97319-25366685/

Good stuff on the most recent sexism debate: http://minority-thought.com/culture/2011/09/twitter-diversity-audits-and-mock-the-week-why-the-bbc-is-failing-its-audience

You can't smash patriarchy with transphobia

You should totally check out Bornstein's book Gender Outlaw. It's awesome. 

I spent a lot of time thinking about radical feminist transphobia whilst writing my undergrad dissertation (on whether trans theoretical and radical feminist ideologies are fundamentally at odds). When writing it, I treated the conflict as feminist history that had really been put to bed by writers like Sandy Stone, Patrick Califia and Kate Bornstein (above). It's strange and upsetting, but then perhaps not so surprising, to see that feminist transphobia is alive and well outside of the ivory tower.

You will be pleased to find that this article is marginally less wanky than my dissertation: http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2011/09/radical_feminism_transphobia. 

Speaking out about abortion: four women share their stories.

I go to sleep fantasizing about shouting this at Nadine Dorries

So Downing Street looks set to advise MPs to vote against the “Dorries amendment”. About bloody time, too. The anti-choice, anti-women attitudes that stigmatise abortion, however, remain. When needed, abortion should be a matter of sheer common sense. The fact that in 2011 a vocal minority can come so close to restricting further the little control women have over our own bodies is terrifying. When a fundamentalist minority has this much influence over policies for the majority, we have a serious problem.

According to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), one in three women will have an abortion in their lives. Yet publicly talking about it is still taboo. Here, four women speak out about their unwanted pregnancies, abortion counselling, and the social pressures they have faced:

How did you feel when you first found out you were pregnant? 

Robyn*: Sheer disbelief at first, then a lot of fear and guilt. I felt guilty because I knew I would have to have an abortion and I knew it would really upset/worry my mum.
Anna*: Scared, terrified, nervous, very alone...
Lucy: I already had three kids, and was very clear in my own mind that I didn't want to carry this one to term. The first child was the result of a one-night-stand (when I was twenty three) and I was a single mother from the start. The second was very much wished for by my husband and the third kid was planned too. My youngest was about sixteen months old at the time and I was still breastfeeding quite a lot. A fourth kid didn't fit into my plans at all, no space in the flat, no room in a normal car for four kids and I didn't want another. My husband was happy with my decision, neither of us have problems with the idea of abortion, especially if it is done early on in the pregnancy.
Sam*: It was pretty unreal, first I felt blank fear and then a brief moment of emotional helplessness.


How old were you at the time? 

Lucy: About forty, happily married, financially secure. 

Sam: Nineteen
Anna: Fourteen years old
Robyn: I was seventeen. 

What caused the pregnancy? 

Sam: Many excuses, but the main one being the sustained belief that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant by having unprotected sex the week following my period because really...there’s no egg there then
Anna: Unprotected sex with my first love... 

Robyn: Me and my boyfriend had unprotected sex.
Lucy: Carelessness with contraception because I was breastfeeding and my periods hadn't returned. Yes, I should've known better.

When did you first begin to consider abortion? What did you do? 

Lucy: Straight away. As I was travelling to the UK to visit my parents a few days later, I decided to try to get a chemical abortion while I was there. Unfortunately, by the time the clinic in the UK could fit me in, it wouldn't have worked out with the second appointment which needed to be in the same clinic and in person. I knew the score in Germany, diagnosis at your GP or gynecologist, appointment with counselling service, some "thinking time" and then the abortion itself. 

Robyn: I considered abortion as soon as I found out. I was seventeen and couldn't raise a child, I was in the middle of my A levels and wanted to do more with my life. I researched abortion services with my mum after I had told her I was pregnant and arranged a consultation. 

Anna: I talked with a teenage friend of mine, at the time. She suggested it, said she knew a doctor. She went with me to the appointment. I remember she was well-off, so I think she paid for it too... 

Sam: Pretty much straight away, it's weird because I went to a Catholic school but at the time it didn't seem like a baby, that's only something I've felt recently. I just wanted my period, it wasn't traumatic, although I was scared, it just seemed like if i thought about it in terms of making my period come on then it felt natural. I did what most would, went online, found a gum clinic and found out what time the drop in session was. 

Who was the abortion provider you eventually got in contact with, and how did they treat you? 

Anna: Dr. Tiller, I think was his name, in Wichita, Kansas. You can actually google what happened to him, later, much later, in life. He was gunned down and murdered, I think in front of his clinic? Or it may have been at his church? I can't remember...
Robyn: I got in contact with Marie Stopes. They treated me very well, provided me with helpful information leaflets on the different types of abortion and arranged a consultation with me a few days after I had found out I was pregnant. They told me about the other options, and made me feel very comfortable and not as if I was guilty for having an abortion.
Lucy: It was a day clinic and they chucked us all out at 6 p.m. My abortion went pretty well but there was a Chinese student all on her own in the recovery bed next to mine who was still feeling pretty bad at 6 p.m. I ended up getting my friend to drive her home.
Sam: The Gum Clinic were already really nice, they booked me an appointment with BPAS straight away, which I was so relieved about. All the nurses I met were lovely and it was their kindness that was reassuring, they were professional and that made me feel secure.


Do you remember your counselling sessions? Could you describe them? 

Lucy: As it was late August and a lot of people were on holiday, I had to wait two weeks or so for my counselling appointment. Luckily the woman was OK. I told her I'd got three kids and knew what I wanted, she was a bit cowed by my clarity and just gave me the minimum spiel. I only had one session with her. She signed my slip of paper and then at long last I was able to book an abortion (I think there was an obligatory wait/reconsider time) and had my abortion a couple of weeks later. 

Sam: On my first appointment at BPAS I met with three different nurses, one of which was just to speak to. She asked me if I was in a relationship, if I had considered the other option. Once I revealed how I came to be pregnant she also talked me through some other forms of contraception besides the pill. She was really nice, and when i showed interest said that she would recommend the same use of contraception to her daughters and was happy to hear that I was in a stable relationship and was receiving support from my boyfriend. I think at the time I was trying to reassure her that I was ok but as she was accepting of all my answers I felt secure in my decision.
Anna: Counselling was offered. It was just one session, rather long, maybe two hours, right before the procedure. Dr. Tiller was the one who counselled me. Asked about the father, activities of the father, I replied that he smoked a LOT of pot, and this worried me about any baby. I explained I wasn't ready to have a baby, I was too young, wanted to finish school and have a life. I was afraid on a lot of levels, and alone. I think the reason Dr. Tiller spoke with me to such great lengths, was because he knew it was "illegal" in Kansas to perform abortion on a girl of my age. He wanted to make sure I could understand the results of what I wanted to have done. My concerns were certainly listened and responded to, the conversation and atmosphere was pleasant, reassuring.
Robyn: I was offered counselling sessions, but I didn't take them, and although I have received counselling I have never told my counsellors about my abortion. This is not for any particular reason, it was just not an imminent concern.

Do you think that your abortion counsellor had a vested interest in making you have an abortion? Would it have been easy for you to finally decide not to have one? 

Anna: Dr. Tiller did not have a vested interest in making me have an abortion. He was just very concerned that I understood the implications of having an abortion, before he did anything. It would have been very easy for me to just walk out. I knew that. He was very easy to talk to. 

Sam: I would say that all the women I spoke to there were impartial. They were extremely sensitive and did not discuss my choice with me in depth, their focus was more medical.
Lucy: No, I think the counsellors here have to be pro-life or at least are obliged to tell you how great it is to be a mother and how much help you can get from the state.


What kind of attitudes do you think society takes towards women considering or having abortions? 

Robyn: I think overall the attitudes are better than they were, but I did have to rearrange the actual termination date because one of the consultation nurses warned me that on that particular day there are often protesters outside the hospital - which I think is disgusting. I didn't want to see any disturbing images or be made to feel as if I should feel guilt for what I did.
Anna: Well I had my abortion in 1975, so views then were very different than they are now. It was very hush hush. It was ok to talk to the doctor doing it but that was about it. It was not acceptable in society. People knew it was going on, but it was not discussed. 

Lucy: Negative
Sam: I used to believe that it was 'murder' because of a video that was shown to me in R.E. but honestly, I feel like our generation are pro-choice.

How do you feel about your abortion now? Why? 

Sam: I feel like it was some serious shit in my life that means that as you get older life becomes more complicated and harder. I will never forget because the feelings get more intense as time passes. As soon as I had it, it was straight out of my mind, but reflection and cute babies in public are a bitch. 

Lucy: Glad I did it. No regrets.
Anna: Well right after I had it done, I was very depressed. I think that's when my clinical depression started really, although I was not diagnosed with it until 1991. I started drinking a lot, became a very hard-core alcoholic, drank for years after... I didn't recognize the depression or link it to the abortion until many years later on. Now, as I am fifty one years old, I am ok with it. I know the baby is in heaven, I feel as if God has forgiven me. He is a loving and forgiving God. I am very pro-choice now, because the alternative would kill girls all over, and because women ultimately should have the say-so over what happens to their own bodies.
Robyn: I feel guilty because I could have prevented getting pregnant in the first place, and probably always will. However, I have learnt from the experience and am now extra careful.


Finally, is there anything else you want to share with me? 

Anna: Well I think I told you I was fourteen when I had the abortion and and I am fifty one years old now. So it has been a very long time. But the memories are as if it was yesterday. It was very painful for me emotionally, I think mostly because I was so in love with the daddy. I stayed in love with him for years and years afterwards. He stopped talking to me after he found out what I had done.
Lucy: I felt very frustrated that although I was very clear about wanting an abortion, I wasn't able to have the abortion for over a month. All that time I was feeling more and more pregnant and I knew the little thing was growing in me. I don't believe in the idea of a soul descending on an embryo at conception, so, for me, it's a sliding scale between a period and a baby. I was completely happy about getting rid of a small clump of cells, I was less happy the further it developed. I've always wondered why counselling before you have an abortion and yet no counselling before you take the much bigger, infinitely more life-changing step of having a baby (like I did at twenty three)
Sam: Sperm can actually stay alive in your vagina for a week.


*These names have been changed. 

Give abortion counselling responsibilities to Justin Bieber

*29/8/11: This entry has been edited to correct a mistake pointed out by 'Anonymous'*

Dear Nadine Dorries MP (and Frank Field MP, and the "up to 80%" of MPs who supposedly back you),

I am writing to commend you on your most recent attempt to obstruct women's access to abortion, specifically, the amendment on the health and social care bill stripping the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Marie Stopes, and other abortion providers of the right to offer women abortion counselling.

The decision to force abortion providers to offer counselling with alternative, "independent" providers - defined as non-statutory bodies who do not offer abortions - shows a level of regard for women's mental health and bodily autonomy which is genuinely staggering.

I would also like to make some suggestions for some alternative, genuinely independent counselling providers. I know (though your tolerance towards the distinction between truth and pure fantasy may lead you to deny it!) that your intention is to gain enough influence over reproductive rights policy to give counselling permissions to fundamentalist Christian 'charities'. It's a shrewd decision. After all, why assault the right to abortion openly when you can sneak restrictions in around the edges! I certainly do not want to think that women considering abortions should be allowed to speak only with people who believe in reproductive rights - we don't want fickle little girls having their heads turned by abstract notions like 'choice' or 'you have a legal right to an abortion, if you want or need one'!

On the other hand, I wonder if it might not be the case that Life, etc, are not really independent enough to take proper responsibility for the lie-filled shaming service that you think should be offered to women? If those who know about abortions are to be stopped from advising or supporting women, it shouldn't be done by half measures. Instead, why not contract out abortion counselling to Dawn French in this video? (1.00 onwards)



As you can see, Dawn French's advice is just as accurate and helpful as the more conventional fundamentalist Christian options. This is a women's rights issue, after all. As someone who might, conceivably, one day be considering abortion, I want to know that my access to correct information is being chipped away at by the state's caring paternalism. Being offered counselling with Dawn French would do just the trick, don't you think? And she's so lovely about it! She could reel women in, get them to trust her, and then make them too scared to even consider abortions! (Silly, easily frightened women).

Alternatively, I recognise that in this particular video Dawn French argues for abortion (though I'm sure she could be persuaded to argue the exact opposite with very few changes needed - the sledgehammer idea could be used as a good anti-abortion scare tactic?). If you prefer, how about instead offering women abortion counselling with this bloke I met in a club yesterday? Or I hear that Justin Bieber is considering a move into the charity sector? You guys totally have all the same opinions.

Oh my god! Do you know who would be awesome as an anti-abortion counsellor? That baby elephant Dumbo from the Disney animation Dumbo ! I don't remember him speaking much but he's really cute and would definitely switch on the natural maternal instinct that every woman always has at all times. I mean, fictional characters, fictional non-information about abortion, things that actually exist, charities with abortion expertise, it's all quite similar really isn't it?

How about letting me advise women on abortion? I'll lay out the 'facts'. Like this. "Stupid little girl: you sluttily opened your legs in the first place, so now deal with the consequences. I don't care what happened to you or what your situation is. Abortion always causes cancer. Abortion makes you evil and bad. Abortion will send you to hell. Don't kill your unborn child. Look, it's probably crying 'mummy!' in the womb right now. Yeah, it's fully formed right now, after two weeks of pregnancy. Have the baby, then you're on your own. What do you think we are, some kind of nanny state?? What do you and your scavenging kid want now?! Welfare? Daycare? Jobs? Child benefits? That's not really the state's problem, soz!"


Please let me know what you think of my suggestions.

Yours, in eternal hope that you will retire from politics,

Ray Filar



In all seriousness, here is the link to email your MP with a real letter: http://www.abortionrights.org.uk/content/view/422/110/

And some news coverage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/28/anti-abortion-lobby-reforms?CMP=twt_gu

A rape culture 101, for the unsure.

'Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.' - Andrea Dworkin

Word


I am pissed off, fucked off, at having to write this. This is about rape culture. It's about the ability of powerful and less powerful men to rape with impunity, whilst worldwide everybody looks on and says, 'ah yes, but it's "he said, she said"/it has to be innocent until proven guilty' or just *stereotypical rape apologism here*'.

I am sick and tired of having rape discussions that start from the premise, 'it is terrible for a man to be falsely accused of rape'. Yes. Of course it is terrible to be falsely accused. Can we stop pretending that we currently have a fair system which simply and rightfully attempts to make sure that innocent men aren't convicted?

More to the point, it is terrible to *be raped* And, putting this out there, MANY MORE PEOPLE ARE RAPED THAN ARE FALSELY ACCUSED OF RAPING. THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS MORE. Stop catering to the Daily Mail's victim-blaming mythologies. Can you, for once, put it into perspective??

Shall we talk about the ways in which rape victims are sometimes treated in court? Shall we talk about the victim-blaming preconceptions of jury members? Can we have a discussion about misogyny and how this might affect cases, for fuck's sake? Or do we have to keep acting as if that none of this other stuff happens, that the only thing at stake is deciding upon a legal principle: innocent until proven guilty?

I have lost count of the amount of conversations I have had about rape which have not been about how thousands of people get raped and don't bring convictions, but that instead centre around the tiny minority of cases where a false allegation is brought. Conversations about rape should not start with me having to reassure your fragile ego that in general, *women don't lie about rape*. Any woman (and I'm focusing on woman because men do not face the same kinds of prejudices) who makes a false rape accusation, and who has half a brain cell, knows what she is getting into. She will be disbelieved, mocked, denigrated, shamed and shamed and shamed. People will simply not believe her. People will sympathise with her rapist, not with her. There is nothing so stigmatising as being a rape survivor; except maybe talking about it.

If in conversation you find yourself defending those who are accused of rape on reflex, ask yourself why. Is it because you are scared that one day you may be falsely accused? If the latter, maybe you need to start thinking about what consent is. Are you having sex with people you aren't sure are consenting? The absence of a 'no' is not enough for consent. You need an enthusiastic yes, and if you aren't sure, ASK. It is highly unlikely that you will simply encounter a vindictive psychopath who puts herself through the hell of a legal rape claim just to get at you. It could happen, but equally, you could get struck by lightening.

Or do you sympathise with the accused because you think that in most cases of rape, it is one person's word against another and the most important thing at stake is innocent until proven guilty? (Aside from the rant about to follow, please see Zoe Williams' point here, that as a false allegation of rape is also a crime, the only reasonable presumption is that you don't know .)

What is rape culture?

Rape culture is one in which the default position in a rape case is not just innocent until proven guilty, but I'm sure that *something happened* but it was probably consensual and she just changed her mind or she was probably drunk and regretted it or she was wearing a short skirt and asked for it or she had some reason to blackmail him or she was walking alone at night and shouldn't have been or she's a bit emotionally unstable anyway or she's a sex worker or she got into his bed or they've had sex before or she isn't credible anyway, look, one time she took drugs, or she's into group sex so how can we tell or she's a member of the BDSM community and that's what happens if you get into that kind of situation or she's a slut anyway or he seems like a nice guy, why would he do something like that, or she has lied before in her life or it wasn't that violent so it can't have been that bad. ETC ETC ETC.

Rape culture is where only 6.5% of reported rape cases lead to conviction. (Thanks, The Guardian, for reconfirming that fact here)

Rape culture is where women and men feel too afraid to go to the police when they have been raped or sexually assaulted. They know there is every likelihood that police treatment will be belittling, denigrating and unsupportive. They know that their word will immediately be put on trial. Rape crisis centres and refuges, at least, often *believe what the survivor is saying* - oh, except most of their funding has been cut.

Rape culture is where being a crime victim leads to your credibility being destroyed in any way possible. You'd better have a 100000% perfect memory of the rape, the events before and the events after - if you mix up the details at any stage of the million recountings you'll have to do, you're clearly lying. In fact, you'd better have lived a saintly life, because if you've ever done anything wrong, you're legally unrapeable.

Rape culture is where the media can spread a lie about the survivor across the world in the pursuit of destroying her credibility. See Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Rape culture is when every major news outlet tells this story: 'charges expected to be dropped', 'prosecutor says charges will be dropped, and accused may rejoin presidential race in spite of other rape allegations', 'prosecution says witness unreliable'... can you see a pattern here? I can, it's one in which powerful white men are allowed to rape powerless women of colour.

Rape culture is where sex, in general, is seen as dirty and bad and only to be done in hetero-monogamous marriage. It's where women are shamed for having sex, or for not having sex. It's where men are taught to aggressively pursue potential sexual partners; to see sex as something to be acquired from the initially resistant (dehumanised) target. It's where sex education doesn't really happen. It's where we don't know, or don't care, that yes means yes and no means no.

Rape culture is where media coverage of rape fixates on, amplifies, hypes, endlessly reports on the small percentage of women who (a law enforcement body has decided) made a false allegation.

Rape culture is where rape coverage relays every grisly detail of an attack.

Rape culture is where falsely retracting a rape allegation can land you in jail. (Supposedly Keir Starmer has now put a stop to this)

Rape culture is when women are invariably represented as devoid of subjectivity, sexually submissive, and acquiescent to forceful sexual overtures.

Rape culture is the fact that a husband could not legally rape his wife until 1991.

Rape culture is where copies of soft porn magazines are seen as appropriate reading material for juries waiting to be called into cases. Possibly rape cases. (I'm not making this up, Snaresbrook Crown Court has copies of FHM in the jury waiting area).

Rape culture is where rape is accepted as an inevitable part of male sexuality. Please see Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Rape culture is where the onus is put on women (men aren't ever seen as victims) to prevent their own rape. Ignoring the fact that preventing yourself from being raped is impossible, however you act. Ignoring the fact that not calling an illegal minicab doesn't reduce the risk of you being raped if your partner, friend or acquaintance decides to rape you.

Rape culture is where you can't withdraw consent after you've given it.

Rape culture is where fucking someone whilst they are asleep, who therefore *cannot* have given consent, is not seen as rape. Rape culture is where preventing someone from using protection is not seen as rape. Please see Julian Assange.

Rape culture is where you can't discuss rape without ending up, or beginning, in a discussion about false allegations.

This list could go on forever. Please feel free to add to it.


What can I do to oppose rape culture?

Make sure you know what rape is and then don't do it, look at these websites, challenge rape apologists. Also give all your money to Rape Crisis:

http://www.scarleteen.com/

http://www.object.org.uk/ (Caveat: I have heard a lot of criticism of OBJECT. They take an explicitly anti-porn and anti-sex work position. You may or may not agree with this, but what they say is nevertheless very much worth your time and thought.)

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/call-end-violence-women-girls/government-stern-review?view=Binary

http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/

http://www.thehavens.co.uk/advice.php

http://www.aswaterspassingby.org/sexualabuse.html


I leave you with another quotation from Andrea Dworkin, who said some good, invariably misrepresented stuff:

We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us. We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way. That’s true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.