Wednesday 22 October 2014

Now The Circus Has Left Town...

Yesterday, after a trial which was initially supposed to last three weeks but instead went on for almost seven months, former Paralympic golden boy Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years in jail for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine’s Day 2013. The media circus surrounding the trial means you’re probably aware of this fact already; after all, unless you’ve been living on, say, Pluto for the past year or so, you really won’t need me to go into the whys and wherefores of the case. It was everywhere. The coverage was in a sense unprecedented: here was someone who had overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to reach near-dizzying heights of fame and success…before having her life brutally and terrifyingly snatched away in the early hours of the morning by the man who professed to love her; who had also overcome life-altering challenges and become possibly the most famous sportsman on the planet. His ‘fall from grace’ was documented in excruciating detail as the trial was broadcast live across the world, consuming yards of newspaper pages and sending social media into a flurry of excitable opinion and judgement.

Now, of course, the trial is over. Oscar Pistorius is starting his time behind bars while the family and friends of Reeva Steenkamp, who have been in attendance every day throughout this very public ordeal, must now somehow find a way to go on with their lives. The circus has left town and the courtroom stands empty, awaiting its next, no doubt far less public, usage. And yet between the day Reeva Steenkamp was killed and the day the man responsible started his prison sentence – 596 days – approximately 255 women and girls over the age of 14 in the UK were killed by men. That works out at one woman having her life ended by male violence every 2.21 days. It is a statistic so horrible I can barely believe it, so I’m going to say it again.

One female aged over 14 living in the UK is murdered every 2.21 days.

This is appalling.

More than that, it is frightening.

These women were someone’s daughter, someone’s mother. They could be your daughter or your mother. They could be your sister, your cousin, your aunt, your grandmother; your child’s teacher; the woman who lives next door or the woman you see at the bus stop every morning. More importantly, they mattered; maybe not to you or me, but to someone.

They mattered.

And yet, whether by shooting, stabbing, strangulation, decapitation/beheading or blunt force trauma (or, in one case, by the deliberate crashing of the car in which she was a passenger), every single one had their life ended as a result of male violence. In all but a handful of these cases the man responsible was known to the woman he killed: a husband or boyfriend, an ex-partner, a son or grandson.

All brutal acts.

All violent deaths.

Most perpetuated by intimate partners or family members.

255 women!

This doesn’t just make me angry – furious, in fact – it also makes me unbearably sad. Most of you by now could quote the “2 women a week are murdered by their partner or ex-partner” statistic; it is the one the Home Office uses when discussing domestic abuse homicides or intimate partner violence; it is the one we all know and can all recite. But how often do we actually sit back and think about what that actually means?

We don’t.

And hey, I’m as guilty as anyone of blithely parroting the “2 women a week” stats at people, and I have a background in working with survivors of domestic abuse! I’ve seen firsthand the trauma inflicted on women and children and yet still I barely give that line a moment’s thought. Two women a week…that’s, what, 104 a year, right?

And yet here we are in October – not even the end of 2014 – and already 126 women have been the victims of male violence, violence which led to their deaths. Some of them were young, barely out of childhood with their whole lives ahead of them; others were pensioners, and yet every single one of them has become nothing more than a statistic. We know nothing of who they were or what they did, save in a very few cases which made the national press (and even those were mostly quickly forgotten); the spotlight which shone on the tragic loss of Reeva Steenkamp was not turned to the equally tragic loss of 255 other women who shared her fate; they are numbers, facts, crime statistics for the Home Office to bandy about when patting itself on the back for the overall reduction in crime.

And yet…and yet…

And yet they were people; human beings the same as you or I, who must have shared similar terror in those last moments of their lives and whose families join the Steenkamps in mourning a beloved relative. They were – are – more than just a statistic.

This is why I thank whatever remarkable Cosmic Force you wish to believe in for the existence of two absolutely extraordinary women, Jean Calder and Karen Ingala Smith. Karen is the Director of London-based domestic abuse and sexual violence charity nia, and the founder of the “Counting Dead Women” campaign; Jean is Director and founder of “For Our Daughters”, a website which aims to end sexist homicide and violence against women and girls. What Karen and Jean both have in common, besides excellent campaigning backgrounds relating to domestic abuse and sexual violence, is a shared commitment to identifying the individuals behind the murder statistics.

In a week where Oscar Pistorius and Ched Evans have dominated the headlines and social media; in a month where the Home Office can reveal that overall crime is falling but reported rapes and violent crimes are up (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/16/crime-england-wales-falls-ons-survey; in a year when it was revealed 90% of all domestic violence reports never make it further than  actually being reported (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/10/domestic-violence-police-referrals-numbers) two things have become crystal clear to me:

  1. We don’t connect the dots.
  2. It’s never about the victim.
My reasons? Well, how many times do we hear, even fleetingly, of cases where a woman is murdered by her partner or ex-partner; that a schoolgirl has been killed on her way home; that a woman has been raped? Watch the news, read your local paper – it happens more than you’d think. And that’s not including actual incidents of domestic abuse, which are rarely reported either to the police or in the press unless there has been a death as a result. Male violence, male aggression, with women as the victims. (And yes I know men are victims of rape, violent crime and domestic abuse as well as women, I’m not a complete fool, but the statistics show women are far more likely to be hurt by intimate partners or die at their hands than men are. Sorry to all those anti-feminists and the like, but a fact is a fact is a fact no matter which way you cut it.  I also know that not all men are violent, sexist morons; many of them are lovely, kind, rational human beings; some are even feminists themselves.  Again, that isn't the point). And yet each case is treated as a tragic, isolated incident. Why aren’t we, the Government, the media – anyone – connecting the dots and spotting the patterns? Connections are not being made; these are not ‘isolated’ incidents, not really. They are part of a pattern of systemic aggression and violence towards women perpetrated by men; a status-quo where men feel free to catcall women in the streets (thank you Laura Bates and the Everyday Sexism project for helping me feel less alone), or use raising awareness of breast cancer as a valid excuse for keeping antiquated soft porn in a newspaper (well done, the Sun). Every time a woman is murdered at the hands of her partner or ex-partner, it is yet another example of the reinforcement of this bizarre sense of entitlement. There’s a reason feminism wants to “smash the patriarchy” and it’s not because we think we’re better than men; it’s because we’d quite like to be able to go on living and so need to jump and down to raise awareness of this systemic aggression. We live in a world where rape is a punchline, where casual sexism is seen as part of the system, where kids are getting their sex education from pornos. And I say enough is enough.

The second thing, of course, is perhaps more important as it may help us somewhat solve the first issue. Kat Lister, writing for the Huffington Post, points out that the vast majority of the coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial was all about him. (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/kat-lister/reeva-steenkamp-simon-jenkins_b_6021076.html?utm_hp_ref=tw) “His jail sentence, his crime, his life, his guilt,” she says, discussing an article by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian which, in 439 words, never mentioned Reeva Steenkamp by name, casually dismissing her in the opening stages when he says of Pistorius “he killed his girlfriend.” Wow. WOW. No mention of Reeva by name; nothing about how she broke her back and had to learn to walk again; how she was bright as well as beautiful; how she graduated from university and worked as a paralegal while applying for the bar, hoping to become a fully-fledged legal advocate before she was 30. Nothing.

The same thing happened with the Ched Evans case. While the victim cannot be named as she, still in the land of the living, has every right to her privacy despite what some morons on Twitter might think (yes, lets publish her name and address and hound her out of her own home; she hasn’t suffered enough, after all), every single scrap of coverage has been about her rapist. His suffering. His innocence. His, his, his – the male narrative dominates everything. Where are the women in this? Where are the victims; their suffering, their ‘innocence’? Which, by the way, is equally bullshit. “Another innocent victim” screamed the headlines when Reeva Steenkamp died. As opposed to what, might I ask? A guilty victim, somehow complicit in her own murder?

So. We live in a world where the male narrative dominates, where female victims are obscured or forgotten, and where casual male sexism and aggression rules. This is why I celebrate Jean Calder and Karen Ingala Smith and the phenomenal work they do. Karen’s brilliant blog (http://kareningalasmith.com/) is full of righteous indignation and home to the “Counting Dead Women” project, where since 2012 she has done her best to record the names of women who have been killed through male violence. Domestic homicides, sons killing mothers…Karen does what she can to identify and name these women so they don’t become lost in the quagmire of “homicide statistics”. Jean Calder and the “For Our Daughters” team (http://forourdaughters.co.uk/) also commemorate women and girls who have lost their lives at the hands of violent men – and also the names of the children who have died with them.

I urge you to go to the websites and read some of the names. It is truly gut wrenching to realise just how many victims there are, and For Our Daughters in particular does its best to bring the women to life. It isn’t easy reading. It shouldn’t be.

Jean and Karen aren’t the only people trying to raise awareness, of course. There are plenty of organisations and individuals who actively lobby Government; who lurk in the corners of the internet defending women’s rights against the mindless trolls who dismiss rape victims as “sluts”; who shout from their soapboxes about how appalling the whole thing is and who want to help change the world. But in naming the women who have been killed in such a violent manner they are doing something remarkable: reclaiming the individual person and making the rest of us sit up and take notice. There are many women and girls on these lists whose deaths passed me by, cases I had never even heard of, and that both saddens and shames me.  Surely the violent, brutal death of anyone should be something which makes the news?  Have we become so desensitized to violence against women that their deaths no longer register with us, don't raise even a flicker of emotion?

Reeva Steenkamp wasn’t the first woman to be killed by her partner. She won’t be the last either. But you can be damned sure that, for as long as there are people like Karen and Jean out there, they will not go unnoticed...


Wednesday 23 April 2014

No Such Thing As "Fifty Shades of Rape"...

If you’re not a fan of a particular fantasy TV show based on a series of bestselling political-fantasy-epic novels then you may be unaware of the most recent controversy coming out of ‘Game of Thrones’-land at the moment. GoT, as we fans endearingly/lazily shorthand it, has never been one to shy away from controversial things; it’s not exactly a Disney series after all and, much like the books it is (now somewhat loosely) based on, the show has among other things killed often-beloved characters in a variety of nasty and gruesomely-effective ways; depicted both incest and torture remarkably graphically; and just generally spattered boobs and blood all over the screen, as HBO shows are wont to generally do (remember the Sopranos? Oy…)

This past week, however, GoT has surpassed itself, in an act so horrifying that even Tony Soprano would say “now steady on, chaps; this has all gone a bit far, hasn’t it?” (Or words to that effect). For those out of the loop, a brief synopsis: two of the characters in Game of Thrones are Jaime and Cersei Lannister, twins who have an unusually close relationship with each other. And by “close” I mean “incestuous”, since Jaime has fathered all three of Cersei’s children while the rest of the world generally assumed the father was her late husband King Robert Baratheon. All the in’s and out’s of what has happened up to this point are not really relevant (and would take far too long to go into), but the basic things you need to know are this: Cersei is power-hungry and resents the fact that, as a woman, she can’t do half the things a man can do, (like rule a kingdom in her own right), but she does love her children which redeems her slightly; and Jaime was the best swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms, but has recently lost his sword hand after being captured by their enemies (there was a war going on. It’s complicated). As a result, Cersei is totally repulsed by her brother/lover’s sudden ‘deformity’ and has generally been a bit of a bitch to him since he got back. I DID tell you it wasn’t Disney…

On Sunday night’s episode of the show, however, after the sudden demise-by-poisoning of their eldest son (spoilt evil shit King Joffrey, who was mourned by precisely no one in the fandom whatsoever), things moved beyond the “oh, it’s just GoT, what did you expect?”- way of thinking. While Cersei is in the sept (church) mourning her dead son who is lying in state, Jaime rapes her. Cue uproar. Now this differs from the scene in the actual book; whereas in the show Jaime has been back home for a while and Cersei has been a Grade-A bitch about his hand, insisting he “repulses” her and not letting him touch her, in the book the first time she sees him is when he rocks up at the sept and, regardless of the “morality” of shagging her brother, is swept up by the fact he’s come back home to her. She does hesitate to begin with, but only because she’s afraid they’ll be caught; as he kisses her she protests about getting caught but then explicitly consents to the sexual act. In fact her exact words are, “hurry; quickly, quickly, now, do it now, do me now.” I mean yeah ok it’s still incest and therefore all kinds of ick, but at least it’s, y’know, consensual incest. (And there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write…) So yeah. Cue uproar.

Cue even more uproar, however, when the director Alex Graves, in response to said uproar, made a statement which said that the scene “becomes consensual by the end, because anything for them ultimately results in a turn-on, especially a power struggle.” This is apparently clarified by the fact she kisses him back and wraps her legs around him. HOWEVER. In another interview Graves refers to the entire thing as “forced sex”; one of the directors, David Benioff, then chimes in with the statement, “It becomes a really kind of horrifying scene, because you see, obviously, Joffrey’s body right there, and you see that Cersei is resisting this. She’s saying no, and he’s forcing himself on her. So it was a really uncomfortable scene, and a tricky scene to shoot.” Watching the scene this becomes entirely apparent by the fact Cersei says “no” and “stop” a whole lot and Jaime carries on regardless; at one point she says “it’s not right”, to which he responds “I don’t care”.

But here’s the thing. “Forcing himself on her” and “forced sex” are synonyms for rape. There’s no if’s or but’s or maybe’s about it: she said no, he carried on, that equals rape. And herein lies the inherent problem.

For me personally, it’s not about the changes to the book this time (and this is the second time a sex scene in the books has been “dramatised” as a rape; what was a surprisingly tender moment between Daenerys and Khal Drogo in the books was also turned into a brutal rape in the TV show back in series one); it’s about the minimising of the rape. I mean I don’t agree with it, even in light of the changes made to the plot, but it wouldn’t be the first time rape has been used as a plot driver in a fictional story. It’s not my personal cup of tea but then again neither’s dismembering corpses, yet crime fiction is one of the consistent best-selling genres of fiction. Plus rape, y’know, HAPPENS, which means that people making TV dramas or writing books are going to use it as a way of moving the plot along, whether it’s a police procedural or a gritty revenge drama. So. Bad stuff happens and fiction writers write about it. It happens. What HAS pissed me off, however, has been the minimising done by those connected with the show and some of the comments I’ve seen from men about rape in the debates which have spawned from this incident.

It seems utterly ridiculous to me that in the 21st century we still have to point this out to people, but apparently there are some who just don’t get it. Rape is rape is rape. There are no “grey areas”, no “shades”, no “yes-and-no” about it; there is only rape. If someone says “no, I don’t want you putting that tongue/finger/penis/sex toy/bottle/whatever inside my person, thank you very much,” and you go right ahead and do it anyway, guess what? You’re a rapist. It doesn't matter if we're drunk, sober, virgins, prostitutes, walking home alone at 3am, in a cab, wearing red knickers or wearing a burka - NO MEANS NO. And that applies whether it's a stranger, fuck buddy or your long-term partner: if someone says "no” to sex – even if they've let you do it before and even if they said yes and then changed their minds and said no – and you carry on regardless YOU HAVE COMMITTED RAPE!!! The law is unequivocal on this; and I quote:

“Rape:
A person is deemed to have committed an offence if -
a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis;
b) B does not consent to the penetration; and
c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.”
(Sexual Offences Act 2003)

There is also an offence of “assault by penetration” which is similar except it relates to penetration of the vagina or anus “by a part of his body or anything else”.

Now anyone who thinks that a woman saying “no” and “stop” constitutes anything other than non-consent is at best deluded and at worst a danger. I'm GLAD the scene was “hard to film”; so it bloody should be!! Anyone having shits and giggles over filming a rape scene wants their head examined; to then minimise the scene – to imply that it's all ok because she “gave in” in the end and everything between them is a “turn on” - is hugely irresponsible and incredibly disrespectful to anyone who has ever been a victim/survivor of rape. It is, however, yet another reminder of the systemic and endemic misogyny and sexual objectification of women which is so prevalent in our society. We live in a world where violent porn is accessed by kids and seen as “normal sex”, for god's sake. I don't need a UN Special Envoy to tell me how sexist Britain is; I live it. We live in a society where rape is both a punchline (ha ha, how hilarious) and the most brutal outcome of the opposite end of that spectrum; where sexual violence has become so normalised that teenage girls don't know they've been victims of rape or sexual assault “because he's my boyfriend/in my maths class/everyone else did it”. That's beyond abhorrent. We need to be dismantling these myths, tearing down the layers of bullshit which surround this issue so that the next generation realises that it's wrong. We need strong, brilliant women to teach their daughters/younger sisters/nieces to sit up and say “oy, misogyny, bog off and leave us alone!” and we need strong, brilliant men to sit their sons/younger brothers/nephews down and tell them that when a girls says no she means no; when she says yes and then changes her mind and says no she means no; that if she says yes because you pressured her into it then she hasn't really said yes. We need to stop victim blaming; the whole "oh, she was drunk/led me on/was wearing red knickers/walked home by herself/said yes to start with etc etc" thing is just horrendous. Rape is always the fault of the rapist, NEVER the victim; and on the issue of consent if a person is *that* drunk then they CANNOT give informed consent and so it is STILL rape!!! Similarly if you go to bed with your wife/girlfriend/woman you picked up in a club and she suddenly turns round and says “no, I changed my mind, I don't want to sleep with you” but you ignore that...ta-dah! Rapist. It doesn't matter that you've been married twenty years, or that she kissed you in the club, or that she let you sleep with her last week – once she says “no” and you don't stop, you've committed an illegal act.

The complete bullshit spouted by the GoT team on this issue has just added another layer of normalisation – nay, even glamorisation – of the entire issue of rape and sexual violence in our society and I for one am getting heartily sick of it. To put it in simple terms, it's like the NSPCC campaign to teach children the Underwear Rule: MY body, MY rules, and if I say stop you bloody well stop. Otherwise it's rape. End of. Simple as. There is no 'technical' rape or “shade” of rape or “degree” of rape or any other bullshit definition; there is only rape.. The fact we still have to point this out to people just goes to show how depressingly far there is to go...

Sunday 6 April 2014

Allow Me To Introduce Myself...

...I'm a woman of no wealth and slightly questionable taste.  Hi, I'm Kate.  I'm almost 32 (erk!) but in my head I'm actually only about 17.  I love my cat, my family and my friends, have a passion for vintage fashion and know all the words to all the songs in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  I like full moon nights, sunsets, walks in the park and reading.  I write a little (ok, a lot) and have a thing for rock, heavy metal and cheesy pop songs.  And sometimes cheesy rock/metal songs, because there are days when a girl just needs a bit of Manowar in her life.  (Sometimes).  My favourite swear sentence in the whole wide world is "fuck-a-duck".  Oh, I also have boobs.

Aaaaaand with that last sentence I immediately eradicate everything that makes me a unique and quirky individual Human Bean and reduce myself to nothing more than an Object, like a table or a lamp, for other people to pass judgement on as they see fit.  At least I'm pretty sure it's the boobs.  I mean I thought it was the serial killer thing, or the weird way I dance when I walk sometimes, but closer inspection of Society-in-General and a brief poll among my friends both with and without boobs pretty much put that theory to bed.  The ones without boobs didn't have the same experiences I've had, but the ones with boobs all spoke of similar things. So yeah; it's boobs and the possession thereof which apparently renders Kate-the-Individual-Person a non-entity and makes Kate-the-Sexualised-Object appear in her place.  Pretty neat trick if you ask me...

Except it isn't a trick, it's a fact of life.  Apparently being female immediately makes it perfectly acceptable for the rest of the world to reduce me from a complex bunch of cells with diverse and wide-ranging interests into a cardboard cut-out.  And I've had enough of it, especially since today I noticed the effect it has on my god-daughter (almost 13) and her friends.  I bumped into them in town and as we were talking a group of lads of about 14/15 walked past and made some comments about the girls which made me want to race after them and smack them.  Hard.  The girls, however, merely shrugged and informed me that "boys always speak to girls like that".  I genuinely didn't know whether to scream or cry at that.  If I'm honest I still don't, but it brought home to  me, not for the first time, how all-encompassing and pervasive the entrenched misogyny and 'porn culture' is in our society.  

"Don't go out dressed like that, son; all the girls will think you're asking for it!" said no mother to her male offspring ever.  And yet because I am in the possession of boobs, apparently whatever I wear is cause for comment on my perceived sexuality or lack thereof.  But here's the thing: I wear what I want because I like wearing it, not because of what anyone else wants.  Some days I dress like a total slob - jeans, crappy t-shirt, hoody - because frankly I can't be arsed with anything else; and some days I wear short skirts and low-cut tops because dammit, that's just how I roll.  But no matter what I choose to clothe myself in doesn't give anyone - anyone; my mother, my friends, random strangers in the street - the right to pass either comment or judgement on me.  If I'm covering up on a 'slob' day it doesn't give you the right to tell me I should 'make more of my assets', and if I'm flashing a bit of flesh it doesn't mean you should assume I'm a slag and address me accordingly.  We've had our disagreements over the years, my boobs and I, but we've come to some sort of mutual acceptance now so if I'm wearing something that might give a sneak peek of them, believe me when I say its entirely for my benefit and no one else's.  No one has the right to tell me, or anyone else for that matter, that what we're wearing is in some way related to any form of sexualistion; either to judge us or attempt to oppress us.

Growing up female, I was very aware of all the things I should and shouldn't do to try and prevent myself becoming a rape statistic.  Don't walk alone after dark, especially not down alleyways or through car parks.  Don't let your drink out of your sight.  Keep your keys in your hand, or a can of deodorant in your bag.  I don't remember all the edicts meted out to the boys telling them not to rape girls but still, you can't be everywhere, so maybe I missed them while I was busy keeping an eye on my drink and clinging to my keys.  

Don't get me wrong, I have to hold my hands up and confess to my own sins.  There have been times when I have, to all intents and purposes, objectified members of the opposite sex; in the grand scheme of things, however, my harping on about how gorgeous George Clooney is remains a mere drop in the ocean compared to the barrage of sexual objectification women are subjected to day in and day out.  Men are nowhere near held to the same level of objectification as women; yes, the Dreamboys and the Chippendales and their ilk could be argued to be seen as mere 'sexual objects', but compare them to to the numbers of women prancing around in their underwear in advertisements and 'lad mags' and what have you and the comparison becomes laughable.  Just recently the Sun has even started trying to posit its Neanderthal Page 3 thing as a weapon in the fight against breast cancer!  Now while I think it's vitally important that men as well as women are aware of the signs of breast cancer - after all, they often get quite up close and personal with our boobs - the idea that Page 3 is suddenly some ultra-feminist "ra ra ra, aren't we brilliant" statement is frankly laughable.  How is posting a picture of some nubile young thing in her underwear in any way related?  It's yet another excuse for them keeping such a prehistoric thing going, plus it only reinforces the idea that women are merely objects for men to lust over.  I suppose the next time some random idiot attempts to grab my tits on a night out I should thank him; after all, he could be the one who saves my life by discovering I have cancer...yeah, right.  My boobs, my rules; the only way anyone gets to go groping them is on my say-so.  Besides, if I wanted someone to take a look and make sure there wasn't anything scary going on with them I'd ask my GP, not "random Sun reader in the pub".  

I've always been in two minds about the whole "porn" thing, actually.  On the one hand, it's about bloody time women were entitled to take charge of their own sexuality.  ("What, you mean we can actually decide when we have orgasms and who we have them with?!  Halle-bloody-lujah!!!")  Why shouldn't we; our bodies, our rules after all, and if the likes of Jenna Jameson can amass a small personal fortune by making the most of what she's got then bloody good luck to her.  On the other hand...well, Jenna Jameson herself admits she can't actually watch any of her own work, in spite of the fact she's a one-woman industry and was at one stage the highest paid female porn star in the world, and that's before you even mention the rape and abuse she suffered in her younger days.  Female empowerment?  Um, not really; sure, these women are getting paid loads to be in this porn film/lapdance in this club/pose for this magazine, but actually the people (mainly men) who see it are not going to be interested in them as individual people - they're just another pretty girl we can drool over and get our rocks off to.  And that then feeds right back into the way male entitlement sees women as cardboard cut-out sex objects they can project their own desires onto, so "normal" women  then become just as fetishised and objectified as the porn stars and glamour models which leads to the whole "slut-shaming, slut-dropping, I'm-going-to-grope-you-in-a-club, everyday sexism women have to endure.

Now I've seen my fair share of pornos in my time and, frankly, I find them laughable.  All the women look incredibly bored throughout the entire thing; I'm sure they're actually calculating how best to spend their wages when they get off the set rather than on what they're actually supposed to be doing.  It's just wall to wall plastic-looking women plastered in make-up, looking ridiculously bored and twirling their hair round their fingers, pouting a lot and making vague "ooh" noises.  Fuck-a-duck, is that really it?  If so then I also think porn is demeaning for men, too; if all it takes to get you off, boys, is some bored-looking woman trying not to grimace in pain while her back arches ever higher off the bed/floor/kitchen counter and groaning in the right places while some bloke bangs away at her, or an equally bored-looking girl for that matter, then I feel really sorry for you; you're missing out on a whole world of sexual experiences and you don't even realise.  Frankly I'd much rather get my rocks off reading Anais Nin than watching Jenna Jameson make out with the "man who's come to fix her washing machine".   Not to mention the fact it gives both boys and girls incredibly unrealistic expectations when it comes to sex; as we now live in a world where even primary school kids are aware of pornography, since they all seem to have their own laptops/tablets/i-Phones etc these days, we shouldn't be surprised at all the reports coming out which bang on about how children are being exposed to this stuff at ever-earlier ages.  Or the ones which highlight how many young girls are having sex because "everyone else is and that's just what you do", even if they don't actually want to.  Besides, it's not rape if it's the boy in your maths class and everyone else has slept with him, right?  Um, wrong...but thanks to the prevalence and fetishisation of ever-increasingly-violent porn, apparently this is the new normal.

I fully appreciate that we of the 'fairer sex' are bloody gorgeous, but why the hell does it have to be our raison d'etre, and why can we not just be 'sexy' (or not) because WE want to (or not)?  What if Eva Herzigova wasn't advertising Wonderbras to say "hello boys" (objectification/sexualisation) but "hello, Girls, you look rather fabby in this bra and now I feel awesome"?  I wore my Wonderbra not because I was desperate for male attention but because I hated my small boobs (sorry, Girls) and wearing said Wonderbra made me feel better about myself.  It's got nothing to do with anyone else, much like what I choose to wear on top of said Wonderbra has nothing to do with anyone else; I'm  getting heartily sick and tired of turning on my TV or opening a magazine or walking into a shop and being confronted with scantily-clad stick insects with fake breasts advertising stuff.  No wonder sexual assaults and rape figures are going up; no wonder teenage boys don't think there's anything wrong with making sexualised comments about teenage girls, and that teenage girls just shrug it off as normal; the "pornification" of our culture is endemic and it's getting beyond a joke.  I want my god-daughter to be proud of her body rather than go through the whole body-loathing thing I did as a teenager/young adult, but I want her to be proud of it because SHE thinks it's awesome, not because some spoddy oik in a hoody passes some sort of benevolent judgement on her.  I want her and her friends to celebrate the fact they can wear mini-skirts when they're older if they so choose, but I don't want them to have to constantly justify themselves to men when and if they do.  Most importantly, while I know that not every man in the world thinks like this and are actually aware of the whole "my body, my rules" thing, I want boys to be taught that girls are Human Beans like them, with a whole myriad of complex thoughts and feelings and opinions on stuff, and that they should be treated as such rather than as some object of sexual gratification.  My body, my rules.  Even though I have boobs...

Saturday 15 February 2014

One Step Forward, Several Giant Leaps Back...

Hi, I'm Kate and I'm straight.  I just thought I'd get that out there right away, just in case, y'know, my being straight makes you uncomfortable in anyway...

Kind of ludicrous, huh?  But, sadly, we still live in a world where someone's sexual orientation can quite literally be a matter of life and death.  Now I know from the experience of a few friends of mine that coming out in 21st Century Britain can be traumatic enough thanks to the backwards attitudes of certain sections of society but, thankfully, it hasn't yet led to them being locked up, 'cured' by crackpot 'doctors' or religious leaders, or stoned to death in the middle of Southend High Street.  Which makes them - and us - more fortunate than an awful lot of other people around the world.

The issue of gay rights has been in the news a lot recently, what with the Winter Olympics being held in Russia and all.  Now I have to hold my hands up here and admit that the term "gay rights" makes me a little uncomfortable, because I find it frankly ridiculous that we still live in a world where people are still discriminated against because they happen to be gay, or black, or a woman or, I don't know, a three-headed Martian or whatever.  I believe firmly in Hillary Clinton's "women's rights are human rights" maxim and I also believe in applying that to any other issue as well; so "gay rights are human rights" is kind of where I stand on this whole thing.  Like I've said before, I believe in the Gospel of Bill and Ted: Be Excellent To Each Other And Party On, Dudes.  I genuinely don't give a flying monkey whether you're gay, straight, male, female, black, white or anywhere in between any of these; if you're a halfway decent Human Bean I will probably like you, and if you're a pretty nasty Human Bean I will probably not like you.  Simples.

Apparently there are people in the world - quite powerful people, too - who have yet to wake up to this way of thinking.  Now while I feel it's important that everyone be entitled to their own beliefs and have a slight nagging twinge of conscience everytime the Imperialist West goes and starts pushing its way of thinking onto other people, nevertheless I feel that what is MOST important, over and above any other form of belief, is the belief that everyone on the planet is fundamentally a Human Bean and therefore should be treated fairly.  Anything they then happen to be on top of that - gay, straight, Purple People Eater or Justin Bieber fan (or even Justin Bieber) - is just part of life's rich tapestry making all those billions of atoms into each individual person.  Beneath all the quirks and idiosyncrasies, though; all the likes and dislikes; the colour of our skin and who we want to sleep with, we are basically all the same: atoms and molecules, cells and particles all smooshed together to produce a member of the Human Race.  So why is it so bloody impossible for people to treat people like, um, people?!!

The Russian thing has been talked about for a long time now, especially since the Winter Olympics are being held there.  If you've been living under a rock recently, the basic problem is that Russia has recently passed a law making it illegal to promote "propaganda"  which highlights "alternative" lifestyles to people under 18 - basically anything that isn't Mother, Father and 2.4 children.  Now, any one person or organisation who tries to highlight the issue of gay rights, or offer support to anyone under the age of 18 who is struggling with their own sexuality (because -surprise! - you can realise you're gay before your 18th birthday) faces imprisonment.  There are so many levels of wrongness in this law that I don't even know where to start, but I'm guessing that most of the people who will read this blog will have half a brain and a fully-developed sense of Humanity, so I probably don't need to go into details.  

Now the Russian thing is bad enough, and that's on top of all the places like Nigeria where being gay will get you either jailed or killed, but then today I came across this doozy: Kansas anti-gay segregation bill  Basically, the state of Kansas has pretty much all-but written into law a ridiculous state of affairs which, under the guidelines of "religious beliefs" will legalise the segregation of gay and straight people.  Anyone else getting flashbacks to the Bad Old Days of Jim Crow and racial segregation?  Oh good, so it's not just me.  Basically this law means that it will be perfectly legal for people to openly discriminate against someone based on their sexuality.  Worst case scenario - a police officer or member of the medical profession can refuse to help you based their religious beliefs (I'm sorry, let's call this out for what it actually is: their hate-filled bigoted fear of what they don't like or understand) and they will not be punished for it!!!!  So you can be bleeding to death in the gutter because some half-crazed lynch mob has decided to attack you for holding  hands with your same-sex partner, and the ambulance crew can refuse to assist you because your being gay offends their religious belief that Men should only sleep with Women.  Words fail me.  I mean words literally fail me.  This goes against every basic principle of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; more than that, it morally offends me.  I find it morally repugnant that, in the 21st Century, we still live in a world where people can plead the protection of their religion and infringe on someones basic right to exist as healthily and happily as everyone else.  My one consolation - small though it is - is that, thanks to Judy Garland's Kansas-based Dorothy Gale being such a huge gay icon, the state will forever be linked with homosexuality whether it likes it or not...

I want to say it's not all bad.  I want to say there is light at the end of this tunnel, where one day it genuinely won't matter whether you're male/female, black/white, gay/straight, religious/not religious etc etc, but will be judged according to your moral character alone.  (That Martin Luther King was a very smart man.  He'd be spinning in his grave if he knew we were still having the same old basic arguments even now).  Sadly, I don't see it.  Whether because of fear, religious belief, ignorance or just downright hate, it seems to me there will always be some 'Other' who is persecuted either physically, spiritually or morally; this has been going on since well before Edward Said discussed the phenomena of 'the exotic Other' in his seminal text "Orientalism" (1978), and I have no doubt that in a hundred years some other group will be identified as the "Other" and marked out for discrimination.

It's why Ellen Page's public coming out saddens as well as delights me.  Here we have a young actress, a role model to many young people, who has decided she's sick of "lying by omission" (her words) and has decided to publicly announce she's a lesbian.  If you want to see the video (and I strongly recommend you do), it's here:


On the one hand, I want to applaud her for speaking up so publicly and for (hopefully) giving hope and encouragement to other young people who may be struggling with their sexuality and their desire to come out to their loved ones.  On the other hand it saddens me, because while I want everyone to be able to live a full and happy life with the partner of their choice (provided of course we aren't talking about paedophilia or incest, because regardless of laws and what-not that is morally heinous), I hate that because Ellen Page's partner of choice would be female it's suddenly a "thing".  Does it make any difference to her ability as an actress?  No.  Does it suddenly turn her into a baby-eating monster? Um, no (sorry Kansas...)  So why should it make the blindest bit of difference?  I long, perhaps blindly and in vain, for a day when no one feels they need to say "hi, I'm gay", just as I don't feel the need to say "hi, I'm straight".  Will it ever happen?  I don't know.  Because while there are people like Ellen Page who are brave and confident enough to come out in public and 'normalise' their sexuality in the eyes of the world, there are oppressive and backwards governments the world over, even in the most powerful Western civilisation of them all, who still seek to oppress, deny and demonise those who are 'other'.

We've come an awfully long way on so many human and civil rights issues.  But we also have an awfully long way to go...