The charitable gropers of the Presidents Club

Tiresomely, predictably, there have been tiresome, predictable responses to the FT story in which undercover reporters alleged that women employed as hostesses at the Presidents Club all-male charity fundraiser experienced sexual harassment. This included being groped, invited by guests to join them in hotel bedrooms, guests demanding phone numbers from the hostesses, guests trying to kiss hostesses, hostesses being asked if they were prostitutes, guests putting their hands up the skirts of the hostesses, hostesses being followed into the toilets by representatives of the agency to ensure they didn't take too long in there, a guest asking a hostess to remove her underwear and dance on the table, a guest taking his penis out during the dinner...

Upon arrival, according to the FT report and a subsequent interview with one of the reporters on BBC Newsnight, the women were made to sign non-disclosure agreements without being given time to read them. They weren't allowed to take a copy with them either. The women were given fitted black dresses for the occasion and told to wear matching black underwear. Payment was £150 plus £25 for a taxi home (bad luck if you live in Zone 4 or you're not on a night bus route, sweetheart, you'll probably be at least £25 out of pocket). That equates to a little bit above minimum wage. The hostesses, hired if they met the criteria of "tall, thin and pretty", were encouraged to drink alcohol at the event so any notion of the employer having a duty of care towards the workers went out the window, along with the inhibitions of some of the guests, it would appear.

So, what have the apologists been saying?

"The women knew what they were getting themselves into!"

Sure, some did. According to one of the reporters, some women have worked at this event before, knew the men that attend could be a bit gropey, still thought it was a bit of fun and some claimed they got job offers from it. But plenty of women did not know what the event was going to be like beforehand and, once they were in there, were horrified by what they experienced and saw. Just because some women thought it was a bit of a lark, that does not excuse the behaviour that other women found unacceptable. It's like saying you're OK with the parish priest abusing the altar boys because he left the church secretary alone.

"So, why didn't they just slap the men? Or knee them in the balls?"

Don't get me wrong - any woman who slaps down a sex pest has my full support. Any woman should feel empowered to use whatever physical means she can to fend off everything from an unwanted hand on the knee to rape. But sometimes this is not so easy. 

When I was sexually assaulted while walking home in Dubai one night, I was able to fight off my attacker because he was not much taller than me, and he was overweight and not agile. I was "lucky enough" to get away - if coming away from an attempted rape with a bleeding scratch on my chest, torn tights and an overwhelming feeling of nausea is anyone's idea of a lucky day. I am only 5'1" and these days, I have arthritis on top of my two club feet and a knackered lower back. If someone tried to attack me again, I am pretty sure I would try and fight them off but my success would depend on factors such as whether or not I was having an arthritis flare-up and the size and physical strength of an attacker that I hope never comes my way. 

The same goes for hostesses at the Presidents Club - if a physically stronger man or a drunken, belligerent man crosses a line, a woman may think twice before using brute force, even if a polite "Do you mind?" or an escalation to "Fuck right off!" doesn't work.

"Boys will be boys! This is what happens when men get together!"

Still not OK. The men at this event are meant to be leaders - politicians, businessmen, captains of industry, men who are employers. We really are setting the bar low if we think it's OK for these men to harass women who are trying to earn a few quid, especially if these blokes are responsible for making policy in regard to workplace rights or they are employers, presumably of women. Why should they not be held to a high standard of behaviour?

These men are powerful. Many of the women working at the event were not - there were students, actresses and models in need of some extra cash because of the sometimes-sporadic nature of their work, they need the money and the fear of that agency not giving them any more work if they complain too loudly about creepy men is real, especially when you have London rent to pay. 

"What did they expect when they were given tight dresses to wear?"  

To not be sexually harassed. To not be groped. To not have men demand their phone numbers or ask them to accompany them to hotel rooms. To not see some miserable cretin flop his penis out during dinner. To be treated with respect. 

Wearing tight dresses does not mean an instant invitation for harassment. This is the same for women who work at, for example, Hooters. Some women who work there might enjoy the job, for some Hooters employees, not so much. 

"It's hardly the crime of the century! Lighten up!"

No, I won't lighten up, thanks all the same. I have other plans. As far as we know, nobody was raped that night. As far as we know. But that still doesn't make the accusations at all palatable or such behaviour acceptable. It's the mentality behind the groping that is disturbing. It's all about men feeling entitled to access women's bodies, even when the women are trying to work. And I shouldn't need to spell out the ultimate, awful consequence of a man feeling entitled to access a woman's body.

What about FGM or the Rotherham rape victims, huh?

Here's the thing - women can and are capable of being angry at more than one thing at a time. And all of it has the same mentality of misogyny, of exploiting women's bodies, of controlling women at its root. All of it.

"The big losers here are the charities!"

There has been much debate since the story broke about whether the charities should give the money back, as Great Ormond Street Hospital is doing. It is the morally right thing to do as accepting the money does compromise the reputation of the charity. And if any criminal charges were to emerge from the events of what turned out to be the last-ever Presidents Club dinner, it could be illegal to accept the money.

Or, here's a wacky idea: how about holding charity events where wealthy men can donate without feeling the need to grab women earning about £13 an hour?  

If the right to grab a woman's arse at a charity do is the hill on which you choose to die, you shouldn't be in a position of power. And it seems that all the men who were at the dinner are either denying all knowledge of any inappropriate behaviour or claiming they left before anything untoward happened or they really, truly would have left if they had seen any harassment.

Or, here's another wacky idea: how about men speaking up about such behaviour, having the courage to call it out when it is happening before their eyes, not just coming out with mealy mouthed excuses after the event. Would any of these men have said a damn word if the FT story wasn't published? Probably not. And this is why women will keep speaking out. Deal with it.

Image by Karen Arnold

Feminism 2018: The state of things so far

We are only 21 days into 2018 but already I have rolled my feminist eyes so hard, I am in danger of being able to see out of my ear holes.

First, let's talk about where the hell the #MeToo movement is headed. It has been a great thing in many respects, getting women to speak out about their very real experiences of sexual assault and harassment, even if we have to constantly let men know that:
1. We are aware that men can be victims too and we are disgusted by attacks on men.
2. Encouraging women to speak out makes it easier for men to speak out. It does not negate horrible experiences men have had or make them any less awful. When women are cut down for speaking out, is it any wonder that men are often reluctant to share their own experiences?
3. The existence of this movement and the ensuing conversations, or the existence of women's shelters or services, are not affronts to men. They are entirely necessary.
4. Men can and should start their own movement, start their own conversations, open their own shelters and start their own services to help male victims of sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence.

Now we have allegations about Aziz Ansari via a woman identified only as "Grace" on the Babe website. Predictably, critics of #MeToo have seized upon this as a sure sign that the #MeToo movement is over, it has jumped the shark, it is now only concerned with the supposedly petty trifles of bad dates. Never mind that when a date turns bad, it can result in rape - that would require the naysayers to quit missing the point.

But here's the thing - our ladybrains are not so tiny that we are incapable of having more than one important conversation.

Just as we can talk about sexual assault and sexual harassment, as exemplified by the horrible Harvey Weinstein stories, we can talk about what happens on dates, when dates go bad, why they go bad, the worst-case scenarios on dates, how men and women behave on dates, understanding consent, reading non-verbal cues, raising women to be comfortable with saying no, raising men to accept no for an answer, the radical notion that both men and women can be horny, and that sex is not merely something that men get and women give.

And let's be honest here - the #MeToo movement really needs to trickle down a hell of a lot more than it is. Don't get me wrong - if I was appearing on the red carpet at the Golden Globes the other week, I would absolutely buy yet another black dress for the occasion - but the impact it is having on Hollywood and in politics needs to be happen for so many more women in so many industries. The #MeToo movement cannot just be the domain of the wealthy, privileged and famous. It needs to change the lives of the women who wait tables, pull pints in pubs, work on factory production lines, ring up groceries in supermarkets and so on and so forth.

Too easily, the working class women are forgotten in popular movements. Hell, many of them are too busy working for a living to be activists, let alone share their experiences in a few pithy tweets. Activism is frequently a luxury denied to those who could really benefit from wholesale social, legal and political change.

See also, the bungled attempt by Richard Branson to ban the Daily Mail from Virgin Trains. I completely agree that the Daily Mail teems with all manner of sexist and bigoted bullshit but the outcry from all quarters was faintly ridiculous. Anyone who gleefully thought this would be the end of people reading the Daily Mail on Virgin Trains didn't seem to grasp that the paper could still be bought at one of thousands of outlets across Britain and read on the train. And anyone who furiously accused Richard Branson of censorship and thought policing also, er, didn't seem to grasp that the paper could still be bought at one of thousands of outlets across Britain and read on the train.

It was never going to be a feminist victory and, on the same token, the critics from the right missed the point that Virgin is a private company and is therefore entitled to stock whatever the hell newspapers it likes. In any case, if anyone cares about Virgin's treatment of women - and indeed people in general - they might like to get outraged at the company suing NHS trusts, and their Hoovering up of NHS contracts, even though they are clearly not always the best candidate for the contract.

Indeed, the death of a woman has happened on Virgin Care's watch - the family of Madhumita Mandal probably don't give a damn what newspapers are available on the East Coast mainline. Mrs Mandal was triaged at Croydon University Hospital by a receptionist instead of a medical professional, a series of delays followed, an ovarian cyst ruptured, and she died of multiple organ failure four days later.

But these are the kind of stories Virgin would rather us forget. Hence the Daily Mail ban was a distracting stunt, albeit one that backfired badly.

That is where we are now - there are plenty of distractions to steer people's minds and anger away from things that really matter. #MeToo runs the very real risk of being a movement that mainly helps the privileged and those in the wealthy, developed world. Meanwhile, the girls and women of the under-reported countries and women in minority groups and poor women in developed countries, continue to suffer.

While actresses are lauded for wearing black dresses, women are getting excited about an ineffective Daily Mail ban, and people are arguing on the internet about whether bright pink pussy hats are racist or discriminatory against trans women, violent rapes are endemic in India, the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl in Pakistan dropped out of our news cycles, a doctor in Kenya is using faux feminism to try and legalise female genital mutilation despite a 2011 ban, women living in poverty in the US are more likely to be denied access to abortion, there is a real crisis in mental healthcare for black women in the UK, in Australia, the first Aborginal woman MP in the state of Victoria is receiving death threats for having the temerity to have an opinion on observing Australia Day, and in South Africa, a lesbian couple has been raped and burnt to death.

In 2018, feminism is as relevant and necessary as it has ever been but it remains to be seen how much will actually be achieved.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year! It's taxation by stealth.

Abu Dhabi, 2010. I receive a speeding fine - not an unusual occurrence when I lived in the Middle East, I confess - but on this occasion, there is no way that my car could have been caught on a camera at 2am on an Abu Dhabi road travelling at 100km/h in an 80 zone. On the date of the supposed offence, my car was safely parked in the car park of Volkswagen's UAE head office in Dubai. This is because I was testing one of their cars for a review during that particular week.

The only way it could possibly have been my car was if someone broke into it without damaging the lock, hot-wired it, again without doing any noticeable damage, drove it from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in the middle of the night, got snapped by a speed camera, and then drove it back to the Volkswagen office car park, parked it in the exact same spot, and returned my driver's seat and mirrors to the positions favoured by my 5'1", corgi-legged self.  

Still, I paid the fine. Compared to Australian or British speeding fines, it wasn't too expensive, I was well-paid, the points system for traffic offences was way more generous than Australia or Britain, and the process for appealing vexatious speeding fines is a bureaucratic palaver for which I had neither the time or energy.

I know I am not the only person to have lived in the UAE and paid a phantom speeding fine. The governments of the seven emirates probably do pretty well out of these fines.

But before anyone outside the UAE dismisses my phantom fine as part and parcel of life in a country that is not a fully fledged democracy or writing it off as the result of corruption in a far-off land, ask yourself if you think such a thing could ever happen in your own country. Would your government find ways, either by accident or design, to get their hand in your pocket for some extra revenue, above and beyond what you legitimately pay via such things as income tax or VAT?

I fear this is happening in Britain right now. This is not the fear of a paranoid, conspiracy theorist. Let me give you an example of what happened to me over Christmas.

My parents and my sister and brother-in-law, all living in Australia, sent Christmas presents to the UK for my husband and I. The gifts were items of clothing and jewellery, not ivory furniture, weapons or hard drugs, so hardly the sort of thing that would ring alarm bells for HM Revenue and Customs. But instead of these parcels, which would have fitted through our letterbox, being delivered to our house, we got red cards from the Royal Mail informing us to collect the parcels from the nearest mail collection centre. 

On two brisk Saturday mornings, we walked across the park and on both occasions, could only collect the parcels after paying £17 in "customs duty and/or import VAT" for receiving goods from outside the European Union. This struck us as bizarre, especially as the customs forms that our loved ones filled out in Australia clearly had a tick in the "Gift" box. I am hardly likely to go into business by trying to sell on the Wonder Woman apron my sister gave me, rather than exporting it to me, for Christmas. At the same time as this farce, a friend posted us some novelties from Cyprus, a fellow EU member state for now. The parcel came through the letterbox, it didn't cost us a penny.

Somewhat miffed about being £34 poorer for the privilege of receiving Christmas presents, we looked into the matter and found out that you can try to claim back incorrectly charged customs duty. We now have to fill in a form for each parcel and provide a load of documentation. This includes (and I am looking at the form as I write this):

● Customs black and white charge label

● Customs declaration form

● invoice/receipt or other evidence of value (such as eBay page or Paypal receipt) of the goods

● for returned goods - evidence of refund on goods returned, certificate of posting, cost of repair etc

● for overseas students - confirmation from University/College of course details and permanent address outside the European Community

● for antiques - verifiable evidence of age

If the parcel contains one or more personal/private gift(s) from someone abroad, please provide written confirmation from the sender, including details of the gift(s), its/their value and the intended recipient(s).

Rather like appealing a phantom fine in the UAE, this is a palaver but we're going to go through with it and hopefully recoup the £34. It's a matter of principle.

But I do wonder how many other people who received Christmas presents from outside the EU got a similar festive surprise this year? And it's not as if people only receive gifts from outside the EU at Christmas - I am now looking forward to paying needless tax on any birthday presents from Australia in a few months time. 

According to www.gov.uk, you do need to pay 2.5% customs duty on gifts worth between £135 and £630, and there are special rates for gifts worth more than this, depending on what they are or where they came from. But for most of us, we are not expecting or receiving gifts worth more than £135. That would be a very expensive T-shirt and apron from my sister and brother-in-law.

And of the people who received a bill for customs duty on Christmas presents from outside the EU, how many simply paid up without question? How many people were aware that you don't have to pay customs duty on gifts? And of those, how many knew how to go about claiming the money back? It's not as if this was advertised at Christmas. You do need to go digging around online to find the information you need and then download the form, print it, fill it in and post it, along with the aforementioned documentation, to a sinister-sounding government department called "Border Force", located in Coventry.

For people without internet access, for people with literacy issues, for people who need to get letters from relatives abroad who might struggle to write letters in English, for people who simply didn't think to question this charge, it's not hard to see why many people wouldn't try to claim the money back. It just goes straight into the government coffers, unchallenged.

And if a hard Brexit goes ahead, it does not take a great leap of imagination to picture more and more people getting a red card from Royal Mail and bill to pay for presents from friends and family across the Channel. Can anyone seriously imagine this government going out of their way to inform people about their rights in regard to gifts from Europe?  

Consider this a warning. If you have received a bill for customs duty on a gift, click here for the link you need to download the form and obtain the information you need about the rules on this matter.

Photography by Petr Kratochvil