20 November 2008

Abortion Rights comedy fundraiser

Abortion Rights are hosting a fundraising comedy night:

When: Friday 28th November 2008, doors open 8pm, show starts 8.30pm.

Where: Upstairs at the Round Table Pub St Martin’s Court, on the side of the Wyndham’s Theatre. One minute from Leicester Square Tube.

£5 in advance, £7 on the door

Booking details here.

All-female line up featuring:

· MC - Kate Smurthwaite
“A little reminiscent of an excitable, slightly irresponsible head girl luring impressionable fourth formers into some illicit fun” - National Student

· Hannah George
Winner of Paramount Comedy’s Student Comedian of the Year 2007 (at only 19 years old!!)

· Grainne Maguire
“Highly promising, has a big future ahead of her” - Time Out
“nice observations…can employ understatement with the dry mastery of a Father Ted script” - Chortle

· Tiffany Stevenson
“Had me and the rest of the audience in stitches” - What’s On Stage TV star who has appeared in: Comedy Cuts, The Office, Chambers, Balls of Steel, Dead Clean and Days That Shook The World.

Posted by Laura Woodhouse at 20 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (0)

News and Views

I am sure I can’t be the only one infuriated that some bloke’s resignation from a reality entertainment programme has overshadowed all other news including the government’s latest legislative announcements on prostitution.

The BBC has contrasting views from two sex workers and the latter one is absolutely right that the legislation fails to address the outdated rules on autonomous brothels (run by sex workers for the safety of sex workers) which I talked about briefly yesterday flagging Fiona McTaggart’s comments on the failure to get that legislation altered.

In brief the new law does take the Finnish model (with some amendments) so that it will be illegal for men to buy sex from a woman who is controlled for gain by another. The idea being that women acting autonomously as sex workers will not be criminalised (and not will their punters) but men who seek to ignore pimping, coercion and trafficking will be criminalised. As an interesting addition on why we need to think about migrants own agency/autonomy offers an alternative view.

Whilst we’re on sex crimes, the UK Police have admitted withholding information about sex abuse at childrens homes in Albania from the Albanian Police. Seems the abusers called on the Old Boys Protection Network and got the result they wanted. And Feministing has coverage of a new Italian anti-rape campaign which may be backfiring slightly because the poster objectifies women and has been called blasphemous.

This blog piece about abled bodied privilege and appropriation of adaptations to make spaces accessible strikes me as very, very timely.

Many accessibility solutions are structural; they require collective action — constructing spaces such that wheelchairs can be used within them; hiring interpreters and providing caption services… these are not actions that can be undertaken by a single person.

What is unfortunate about this, though, is that it relieves the fully-abled individual of hir responsibility to hir disabled counterparts. It means the fully-abled individual can safely get away with never thinking about disability, and the connection between societal access and hir actions specifically, at all. Sie never has to consider how hir attitudes and behaviors very really shape the environment of hir peers. Sie never has to stop and think, how does what I am doing affect those around me, and how can I change that to make things better for them?

And whilst we’re on analyses here’s something on sexual violence against transgender women (may be triggering) which makes some fantastic points. (I know Laura already flagged it here but it’s worth quoting a little…

You know what? Here’s a word that didn’t mean anything to the person who sexually assaulted me, and didn’t mean anything to the people and institutions that made it worse, so much that I’d almost convinced myself it didn’t mean anything when I was the one saying it:

No.

And some good news, as we often miss that here, Nepal has recognised full equal rights to LGBT peoples. Japan has it’s first professional female baseball player. Condoleeza Rice is to fight violence against women internationally after leaving her current job. And the US has it’s first female Four Star General.. And a female commercial pilot who was working as a flight attendant is being feted for helping to land a passenger plane when the co-pilot had a breakdown.

Meanwhile on the popular culture front - Jessica Valenti has written for the Guardian about female comedians and highlights the ever fantastic Target Women as an example. And judging has begun on the first Linda Hamilton Memorial Women In Action Screenwriting Contest. We look forward to the results.

Posted by Louise Livesey at 20 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (2)

Apparently men have to be Cervix Savvy

This website (with hat-tip to C for sending it to me) is designed to encourage people to be more aware of the need for cervical screening - a right and good thing. But on looking at the website who would you think had cervixes?

Gee my top ten reasons for not getting screened after watching it?
1. I don’t see why advertisers thing women want men acting dumb to tell them about cervical cancer.
2. If the NHS can’t manage to put a single woman on the front page of a site about cervical cancer then they ain’t going near my bits!
3. If the implication is “have a smear test, be more attractive to men” then I’ll pass, thanks.
4. Reinforcing the notion that men are “clever” and should explain things to women is infuriating.
etc

I AM IN NO WAY SUGGESTING WOMEN SHOULDN’T GET SCREENED, just to be clear, only that this advertising “campaign” is ill-thought out and rather insulting to women. The only time a woman “appears” (it’s only by name not in a pictorial way) on the site is the “True Stories” page - the message - men “know” about cervical cancer and women just suffer/die from it.

Posted by Louise Livesey at 20 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (26)

Appropriate games for girls

I was covering The X Factor for the Guardian’s website on Saturday night, and, during one of the breaks, was taken aback with one advert featuring Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby. Here’s what I wrote over at the Organ Grinder blog -

“8.01pm: Right, Nintendo DS game inventors. Girls like PINK so you make them a PINK CONSOLE. They like LICKLE FLUFFY BUNNIES so you get Girls Aloud to advertise a looking-after-pets game. And they should all GET MARRIED so you get Fearne and Holly to advertise a wedding-design game. Fantastic patriarchal brainwashing. Good work. I shall step down from my soapbox now.”

And then I went into Woolworths today and saw not only Imagine: Dream Weddings but also Imagine: Babies and Imagine: Happy Cooking. As well as these domestic-focused games, there are some subtle nudges as to appropriate girly careers - Imagine: Fashion Designer, Imagine: Teacher, Imagine: Interior Designer…Any further suggestions for the next game in the line? Imagine: Loading the Dishwasher? Imagine: Sorting Your Delicates?

Posted by Carrie Dunn at 20 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (5)

19 November 2008

Sheffield anti-violence demo this Saturday

Sheffield Fems are holding a demo in Sheffield town centre this Saturday, coinciding with Reclaim The Night London, to raise public awareness about violence against women.

Meet outside the town hall at 2pm, placards and flyers will be provided! This should be a great action, I’ve been out flyering in Sheffield before to raise awareness about the pay gap and people seemed really receptive: so many people are simply unaware of the issues that women still face in this supposedly post-feminist, egalitarian age.

Posted by Laura Woodhouse at 19 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (0)

Reclaim The Night London

EDIT: London Feminist Network members have confirmed that “women only” of course includes trans women. However, considering the confusion this has caused both this year and on previous occasions, I really think this should be made explicit on publicity for future marches.

The fifth annual Reclaim The Night march stomps off this Saturday in London! Assemble 6pm in Whitehall Place, the march will start at 6.30pm. Women only.

The march will be followed by a rally for all women, men and children at the Friends Meeting House, Main Hall, Euston Road (fully accessible).

More here.

Check out our photos and write up of last year’s march to get you in the mood!

Posted by Laura Woodhouse at 19 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (1)

18 November 2008

Muslimah Media Watch

I recently discovered a fantastic blog that I think deserves more attention: Muslimah: Looking At Muslim Women in the Media and Culture

Muslimah Media Watch is a forum where we, as Muslim women, can critique how our images appear in the media and popular culture. Although we are of different nationalities, sects, races, etc., we have something important in common: we’re tired of seeing ourselves portrayed by the media in ways that are one-dimensional and misleading. This is a space where, from a Muslim feminist perspective, we can speak up for ourselves.

As Muslim feminists we aim to locate and critique misogyny, sexism, patriarchy, Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia as they affect Muslim women. Furthermore, we believe in equality — regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and ability.

The blog also has an extensive list of Muslim female bloggers.

Check it out!

Posted by Catherine Redfern at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (1)

Time wasting tool of the day: GenderAnalyzer

Look, look! Stick your blog or site address in here and it’ll tell you whether you write like a man or a woman!

RESULTS: We guess http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog is written by a man (58%), however it’s quite gender neutral.

Well, I guess we feminists do just want to be men…

Posted by Laura Woodhouse at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (14)

68th Carnival of Feminists, and some thoughts on waves

The 68th Carnival of Feminists went up last week at Fourth Wave. Highlights for me include a brief retrospective of the life of Olympe de Gourges, who in 1791 wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman as a counterpoint and protest to the male-centric French revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man, and a frank and moving rape narrative (may trigger) from little light which highlights the prejudice and appalling treatment that trans women suffer as both trans people and women. The piece also appears in the 59th Carnival Against Sexual Violence at abyss2hope.

The name of the blog currently hosting the carnival reminds me of my concerns surrounding this concept of different feminist waves. While I can see a distinction between the first wave, which focused on women’s right to vote, and the second wave, which pushed for women’s full liberation, a third or even a fourth wave seems more difficult to define. After all, we still haven’t achieved many of the aims of the second wave, perhaps best summed up by the Seven Demands of the British Women’s Liberation Movement:

1. Equal Pay

2. Equal Educational and Job Opportunities

3. Free Contraception and Abortion on Demand

4. Free 24-hour Nurseries

5. Legal and Financial Independence for All Women

6. The Right to a Self Defined Sexuality. An End to Discrimination Against Lesbians.

7. Freedom for all women from intimidation by the threat or use of violence or sexual coercion regardless of marital status; and an end to the laws, assumptions and institutions which perpetuate male dominance and aggression to women.

In the UK at least we have free contraception, but no equal pay, no free nurseries, no abortion on demand, continued discrimination against lesbians and attitudes and institutions which help perpetuate male violence. Where the third wave concept comes in is with the recognition that while white, able bodied, cis gendered, middle class women may have equal or close to equal educational and job opportunities with men (and even that’s highly debatable), women who do not fall into these privileged categories do not. Third wave feminism, then, should be about discarding the second wave’s perceived focus on white, middle class, Western women. But do we need a new term in order to do that? Why separate ourselves from women who have so much experience and have worked so hard to achieve the rights many of us enjoy today? What do we achieve by splitting feminists along generational fault lines?

Reading the Third Wave bible, Manifesta, I was completely underwhelmed by the focus on pop culture and young women’s right to paint our fingernails and be girly (and if we don’t want to? if we make a political decision to reject stereotypical femininity?). There are so many more pressing issues, most of which would be much better addressed by working with the women who have began tackling them long before I was born. I just don’t feel the need to symbolically renounce my connection to these women by referring to myself as part of a third - or fourth - wave. In fact, it seems rather disrespectful. I may not agree with Greer’s transphobia, or Jeffreys’ take on BDSM, but there are feminists my age who are transphobic or think my sexual practices encourage violence against women, so to separate along generational lines makes little sense to me.

What do other people think? Maybe I’ve just been reading too much American theory…

Photo by crl!, shared under a Creative Commons License

Posted by Laura Woodhouse at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (9)

New Cardiff Feminist Group

A new feminist group called The Waves has been set up in Cardiff:

The Waves is a forum for feminist discussion and grassroots activism based in Cardiff. It’s a new group and welcomes anyone with an interest in feminism - whether you’re into discussions, social events, activism or the arts - everyone is welcome to join in and contribute ideas!

You can find their blog here, facebook group here and get in touch via Hannah.austin1984[at]hotmail[dot]co[dot]uk.

Posted by Laura Woodhouse at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (6)

OK I eat my hat….

Email just received from Chargrilled on this. All I can say is wow and go F Word! (Obviously the fact they were ever there in the first place is abhorrent but this is responsive).

Dear Dr. Livesey,

We would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Firstly, we would like to apologize unconditionally for the nature of these t-shirts. CharGrilled does not in any way wish to condone sexual violence or minimize the brutality of such acts and we take your accusation very seriously.

Further to your email, the two designs that you enquired about have been removed from the website. CharGrilled has a vast back catalogue of designs that are very rarely ordered, which these designs were among. As such, they have escaped our notice for some time. The designers responsible for these t-shirts have since left the company. We will not be considering re-hiring them.

As a result of your correspondence we are undertaking a frank revision of much of our back catalogue to look for other designs that similarly cross the boundary of acceptability.

We hope you can accept our most sincere apologies,

CharGrilled

Posted by Louise Livesey at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (23)

And in other news

I can’t work out whether to be appalled or applaud this story….

Reinforcing gender stereotypes by having an all-girls school plan a wedding as a learning tool (as that’s obviously the most important thing they’ll ever have to do). But given it’s an all girls school doesn’t that mean this was a woman-woman wedding presided over by a priest?

And whilst we’re on all-girl schools lets just highlight this little gem from the Head of Cheltenham Ladies College who has argued that girls learn better in single-sex environments not because we have a patriarchal gendered society in which boys are privileged and girls taught to embody “feminine” attributes like compliance and quietness but because “girls brains are wired differently”.

there were also neurological reasons that also suggested that girls and boys both benefited from single sex teaching because their brains were wired differently.

I can only presumke HLC only hires female staff who’s brains are similarly wired so they can relate - sadly the CLC webpage doesn’t list their staff so I can’t find out. She also argued that girls schools provide an antidote to “Botox and bingeing” - sadly all I can say is my experience of large groups of teenage girls is that they promote such a culture particularly in contexts which emphasise their roles as being one of traditional heteronormative “beauty, marriage, kids”.

Interestingly this statement was apparently made to “150 conference delegates from 200 girls schools” - good to see some frugality encroaching into private education if only on the girls schools side of things!

Posted by Louise Livesey at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (12)

News Round Up - ridiculous ideas of the day

This might get long….

I have to join the calls for Helen Mirren to stop spouting on rape. It goes against the grain for me to want to silence a woman but sometimes speech can be deadlier than, well, pretty much anything else (I speak from experience as a student of mine did recently use the “But Helen Mirren said so…” line). Mirren’s latest? Women jurors find men not guilty of rape because they are sexually jealous of the victim. No that wasn’t a typo - that was the argument she was making. And apparently this is because we’re “animalistic” or still deeply embedded in “tribalism”. Ms Mirren also decided that the jury which convicted Mike Tyson was wrong and that no rape had taken place. Helen - if you are in the pay of anti-women groups please come clean. Otherwise, as Jess said last time: “her statement that date rape shouldn’t, in effect, be illegal, is dangerous and wrong. In reality, in this country, right now, men can rape with impunity. And in this country, right now, rapists are getting away with it because of woman-blaming attitudes.”

Vera Baird, Solicitor General, has described the comments as “ignorant, absurd and dangerous comments”.

Vera Baird QC pointed out that juries are selected at random and neither defence nor prosecution has the power to handpick a jury based on their suitability for the trial. “This is just such an ignorant thing to say, to suggest that the defence or prosecution have any involvement in the selection of a jury. It’s just absurd. First of all, it’s completely factually incorrect. It shows an absolute lack of knowledge about the way the criminal justice system works. I do not know what she is talking about, women hating women. This is a vast generalisation based on nothing, but unfortunately it is likely to have a deterrent effect. It’s such a shame that a person who has a high profile feels qualified and able to put forward this nonsense. It’s capable of being quite dangerous because someone in that position saying that sort of thing, suggesting that she knows more than she actually does. It’s hard enough for victims who often feel guilt and shame to come forward in the first place. But to put forward this false idea that some covert conspiracy exists in the criminal justice system is very ignorant and totally and utterly wrong.”

Also in absurd assertions is this widely reported archaelogical find of skeletal remains buried in family groups. The evidence shows a shift from communal graves to familial or single graves but really evidence of being “nuclear families”. That’s not really that new but reporters are claiming this is evidence of early “nuclear families”. Say what? The parents and children were buried together where they died in a violent attack is understandable but equating this to be evidence that they lived together with no extended family is absurd. What did reporters think families did in the past - but their kids in 24 hour childcare? Live in single-sex accomodation?

It’s almost as ridiculous as Iain Duncan-Smith’s idea that had the mother of Baby P been married to her boyfriend the child wouldn’t have been murdered. IDS manages to completely misunderstand (or misuse for ideological purposes is more likely) statistics to argue that abuse happens more often in “dysfunctional families”. Becuase obviously abuse isn’t a reason for categorising a family as “dysfunctional” is it? No, wait, doh maybe it is….

IDS then conflates “dysfunctional”/”abusive” with “single parent” completely therefore ignoring the high levels of abuse which occur in dual-partner or married families. Apparently policy should focus on forcing “dysfunctional” (for which read abusive) relationships to stay together. ‘Cos that’ll help prevent child and spousal abuse won’t it?

And I bring all this analysis to you in support of this critique by This is What a Feminist Blog Looks Like debunking the idea that women are better at storytelling than analytical thinking.

Despite the condescending nature of the captions The Guardian is at least foregrounding women war correspondents photographs.

Photographing conflict is a dangerous job, and women are now increasingly at the forefront of this important documentation process, despite the barriers they face.

Posted by Louise Livesey at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (7)

Genuinely being advertised on Ebay

But obviously we don’t live in a society hostile to women’s rights…..

Description: A blue short-sleeved men’s tshirt on which the slogan reads: Statistically 9 out of 10 people enjoy gangrape

Description: A red short-sleeved men’s tshirt on which the slogan reads “It isn’t rape if you shout surprise

The shop claim their tshirts are “fun” and represent a “light hearted attitude”. Yep got that right - ‘cos, y’know rape is inherently funny isn’t it? The violation of an actual person for the amusement of others. Their email address is ebay@chargrilled.co.uk by the way. On their website they classify the “it isn’t rape is you shout surprise” tshirt as “offensive” but the gang rape one is apparently just “funny”.

I’ve emailed a press query asking them 1. why they produce statements justifying and minimising sexual violence and 2. how this fits with their remit of light heartedness. Let’s see if they have the balls to respond - but given their press contact is male I am guessing they won’t. That’s your challenge Chargrilled - come up with a decent response which goes beyond “we’re male therefore we have a right to minimise the abuse of women”.

Posted by Louise Livesey at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (8)

‘Virginity’ is an outdated concept

We prize the idea of ‘virginity’ in our culture, whether valorising it in the form of ‘purity’ balls, or pillorying ‘virgins’. But it’s an extremely problematic concept, bolstering up a highly heteronormative hierarchy of what is and isn’t defined as sex.

Over at Scarlateen, fabulous Heather Corinna answers a question from a young bisexual woman who wants to know how she can “tell” when her and her girlfriend have lost their ‘virginity’. Her answer chimes so perfectly with how I feel about the misguided notion of ‘virginity’ that I had to share.

Since virginity as a concept has historically nearly always been — and usually is still — about heterosexuals and also about marriage, when we talk about virginity, we’re going to find ourselves talking about heterosexuality, heterosexism and heteronormativity a lot. If you’re looking in history for inclusion of lesbian women, or bisexual or heterosexual women who have had sex with other women, when it comes to concepts of virginity, give on up. There’s nothing to find.

However, even for heterosexual women, defining when they have had “real” sex as when they have had vaginal intercourse is a strange thing to do since a majority of women, vaginal intercourse isn’t an activity where they are even likely to reach orgasm or experience as much pleasure as they might with other activities, like oral or manual clitoral stimulation. Like so much else when it comes to virginity (and even sexuality as a whole) as a concept, this is another area where what sex is and is not is being defined not based on all the bodies and persons involved, but on one: while most women do not reach orgasm from intercourse alone, most men do, and that’s who, through most of time, has also been in charge of defining sex and virginity.

Lastly, I think the idea that when we choose to be sexual with someone else, we “lose” something is pretty backwards. When we choose to share our sexuality with someone else who also wants to share theirs with us, we are creating something which did not exist before, not losing something or taking something away from someone. We’re making something new. While sometimes the notion of sex as loss is about loss of childhood, the idea of sex as a loss mostly tends to come from places you probably — especially as someone who loves women — would not appreciate; from ideas about women as property, women as nonsexual beings, women’s sexuality as an object or something to “give” to a husband or man who “takes” it away, or women’s sexuality as something rapists rob from us. One would hope that those kinds of notions would be left well outside the bedroom in a healthy sexual relationship between equals and partners who are seeking to share mutual physical pleasure and emotional care or love.

Photo by smallestbones, shared under a Creative Commons license

Posted by Jess McCabe at 18 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (1)

16 November 2008

Round Up

Why is Germaine Greer writing about Michelle Obama’s dress? Did I miss something? Is this really contemporary feminist analysis? The mind boggles.

Mind it does that a lot, not least with this advertising campaign from the RSPCA Australia (warning distressing for some viewers). Their new advertising gimmick - showing a woman being beaten with an overlaid soundtrack of a dog whimpering. Their argument - you wouldn’t ignore violence against women so why ignore violence against dogs. Shame they fail to spot the major flaw in that argument - violence against women is ignored by some and by others is condoned. (Hap tip to Hoyden About Town for that one). Lets put the RSPCA’s idea about violence against women against these survey results from the White Ribbon campaign in Australia which found that:

• One in seven teenage boys think it is OK to make a girl have sex with them, if she has been flirting with them.


• 22% of young people had witnessed their fathers being violent towards their mothers


• one in every three boys believe it is not a “big deal to hit a girl”.


• 58 per cent had witnessed their father/stepfather yell loudly at their mother/stepmother, 28 per cent had witnessed acts of humiliation and 8 per cent had seen their father/stepfather stop their mother/stepmother seeing her family or friends.

Meanwhile in the DRC, women radio journalists are campaigning against the stigmatisation of rape survivors using their own medium. The issue is that after rape women may be rejected by their husbands, babies rejected by families and communities assume that the woman is “dirty” or has HIV-AIDS. Rape victims may also be treated as adultresses rather than victims. The project by the journalist is simple:

“We try to get raped women to speak up and put them on the airwaves so that the entire community understands that rape is a crime,” says Julienne Baseke, a 29-year-old sociology graduate of Bukavu University who leads the group’s monthly reporting efforts. “We educate. If a woman knows her rights then the situation can change. If she doesn’t, women’s rights are at men’s mercy.”

The group, the South Kivu Women’s Media Association, has been taping testimonies from women for two years and has released cassettes and CDs telling the stories of 100 women for use as public education tools.

And two stories on the disability front - one identifying the additional difficulties disabled women face in disclosing sexual crimes. These include
1. Ideas about WWD being particularly asexual, undesirable, dishonest, or promiscuous.
2. Inability of victims to identify their experience as grooming and sexual assault, due to lack of protective-behaviour and sexual education. (Issues of sexual agency are also touched on in the report.)
3. Punitive institutional responses to reports, including moving the victim rather than the assaulter, or locking victims in their rooms.
4. Dependence on perpetrators can leave victims unable to disclose because their care needs will no longer be met.
5. Communication difficulty, both practical and situational, related to disability or to physical and social isolation. Family carers or residential management act as gate-keepers and decision-makers, taking the power to report out of victims’ hands. Carers and workers lack training in appropriate responses to reporting.

And the other about our very own Marks and Spencer banning a disabled woman from their stores because she rung the emergency alarm in the disabled toilets. The woman was then told that:

“staff were not trained to deal with her and workers were being put at risk,” she received a letter stating that “You are not permitted to enter into any of our stores again. If you choose to ignore this notice you will be asked to leave.”

From Jezebel

M&S has since said this letter, a trespass order rescinding her right to enter the stories, was mistakenly given to her. All I can say is “This isn’t just disability discrimination, this is M&S Disability Discrimination”.

Posted by Louise Livesey at 16 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (10)

More news and views

Jacqui Smith has clarified the proposed law on men who buy sex. It will be criminal to purchase sex with a woman who is controlled for anothers profit - that is women who are pimped and trafficked. Of course this doesn’t tackle some of the criticisms about whether this will continue the racist application - as the law stands the “immoral earnings” statutes have differentially been used against the sons, husbands and boyfriends of women of colour who engage in sex work. It is considered controversial because it criminalises the demand for prostitution.

Smith said it was ‘not mine or the government’s responsibility to ensure that the demand is satisfied’, adding: ‘Is this something about which people have a choice with respect to their demands? Yes, they do. Basically, if it means fewer people are able to go out and pay for sex I think that would be a good thing.’

But it’s a step forward, perhaps, in acknowledging that some women do actively choose sex work which is the case that the ECP (amongst others) has very vocally put forward. Jacqui Smith has now said that the government will not enact a universal ban on paid sex because it’s not appropriate to criminalise how some women choose to earn a living however she has also admitted that she did not believe that was true of most sex workers. Even the ECPs own evidential statements include women talking about their “active choice” in terms of the need solely to escape poverty and demanding that ‘If the government is offended by the work we do, then give us the financial means to get out.’

Viviene Westwood should, maybe, stick to clothing rather than misrepresenting feminism. Or maybe her point is feminists tend to be less naively drawn into spending thousands on designer clothing and that just ruins her balance sheet. ‘Cos apparently feminists:

consider women to be superior beings. And in the end, they just want to be men anyway. They want to do men’s work.”

Well I guess that’d be like, y’know, fighting against women’s equality and the like. Well done Ms Westwood according to your own definition, you’re a feminist. Shame the definition’s vastly, vastly wrong. (Hat tip to Hoyden About Town)

There’s a short but interesting piece here about men challenging men’s sexual violence. And in other good news a British scientist, Athene Donald, has just won a major science prize for her work on cell adherence which has major applications in joint replacement materials and on brain proteins which may help diagnostic tests for Alzheimers and other conditions.

This should give pause for thought to anyone making any sort of defence for lynch-mob violence (you know those people who say it’s “cultural” for example and therefore should be protected). A make a Guy (for Guy Fawkes) competition entrant made a Guy with a CCTV camera for a head to capture those last moments. It’s pretty wierd watching - you know it’s some newspaper and an old leotard and a camera. And at the same time you can’t help but think about those women who experience group violence like Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow and Taslim Solangi and others.

Posted by Louise Livesey at 16 November 2008 | Permanent link | Comments (2)