In defence of anger

People across the world are angry. They are rising up in response to the actions of President Donald Trump. And they are told that American politics are none of their business unless they are actually in America. Never mind that American foreign policy affects the whole world and we are part of the world, as much as we'd like to get off it some days. That sort of global view doesn't wash with the current tribe of Trump apologists.

Angry women in particular are being told to calm down, especially if they have the temerity to be angry while living in a western country instead of being angry in Saudi Arabia.

Apparently, women can only be angry if they live in repressive shitholes and therefore women have absolutely nothing to be angry about if they live in anything resembling a democracy. This always seems to come back to some intellectual bankrupt yelling "BUT SAUDI WOMEN CAN'T DRIVE!" as if western feminists think this is OK and as if none of us have ever spoken out about this, or countless other oppressions against women in Saudi Arabia and other restrictive states.

Apparently, women are not allowed to care about issues that affect the lives of women in countries other than the one they live in. 

Apparently, women who lead comfortable lives should just shut the fuck up and not speak out on behalf of our sisters in countries where they may not have a voice. 

Apparently, our ladybrains are so tiny, we can't care about more than one thing at a time in more than one place at a time.

Frankly, I've had enough. Mansplaining has reached Everest-like heights. In recent weeks, more than one man has tried to tell me I should hail Kelly Conway as a feminist heroine because she successfully managed a presidential campaign. Yeah, get back to me when you can tell me why helping a self-confessed sex pest win high office is some sort of victory for women. Equally, I am not about to get my blue stockings out in support of Theresa May's embarrassing sycophancy to Trump, something that could have been replaced by diplomatic caution if only we'd voted to stay in the EU.

Then there was the genius-with-a-penis who told me women were already equal where he comes from (Turns out he comes from India... Yeah, sure, honey. That is another column for another time as I'm sure my Indian female friends would agree.) and that we should wait and see what happens with Trump's reinstatement of the global gag rule and then we can "discuss" whether women should be angry about it. Never mind that there is plenty of evidence that girls and women in developing countries have suffered when funds that are used for essential healthcare are taken away for ideological reasons.

Today, some twat on Twitter told me that because I am a feminist, surely I must be a student, a vegan and unable to cook, Er, no, no and no.

And another bloke had a pop at me because I pointed out that it was poor media strategy for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour to do a public protest on the NHS on the same day as the women's march. Cue further explanations on how feminism should be done along with accusations that I - and by implication, other women - don't care about healthcare. Again, we are capable of caring about more than one thing. 

I'm the first to agree that I am not personally the victim of horrific oppression. I am nobody's sex slave. I can drive. I have a management job. I have access to every women's health service I need without cost. I don't need to ask my husband's permission to do anything. I married a man of my own choosing. I have money of my own. I dress how I please. I have an excellent life.

But why should I, or countless women like me, stay silent? Why shouldn't we speak out? Why shouldn't we use whatever platforms we can access to shine a light on issues we think are important? What is wrong with speaking out, especially if it is on behalf of women who are held back from doing so?

Of course, mass movements are always messy, not always coherent, and can be perceived as lacking focus. The women's marches which happened around the world in response to Trump's elevation to the office of POTUS were not always perfect. There were events where sex workers, trans women and women of colour felt excluded - these are issues that feminists need to deal with if they are to be successful about changing the world. But it is no surprise that there were conflicting views - that is the inevitable result of intersectionality.

And there was a very real sense among the women marching globally that this was not just about an obvious sexist ascending to power. It was a chance for more localised women's issues to come to the fore, for women to have a chance to speak out against multiple bees in multiple bonnets. There were women who took to the streets having never marched before.

The real challenge now is for people to take real action beyond the marches to happen. It is all too easy for people to look back on marches over the years and ask what was achieved. Wars still happened, it looks like the UK is still leaving the EU, last night's marches won't on their own bring down the Trump presidency.

But everyone who marched last night and the day after the inauguration showed the world that there are places where we have the freedom to publicly protest, to see where the power of free speech might lead, to set an example for countries such as Saudi Arabia where there is no freedom of assembly, to quite simply be heard. Hell, I'm a militant pro-choicer but I'll even throw the recent March for Life into the mix here - not because I am anti-abortion, quite the opposite, but because I believe that even those with whom I disagree have the right to peaceful protest. 

And that is what is happening - protests are making headlines, the pictures will live on in years to come, this will be taught in history classes in the coming decades. Actions are just as important as marches but, regardless of your politics, if you live in a country where angry people can march, where peaceful protest is a right, you should be proud and grateful. 

Photography by Chris Brown/Flickr

Keith Vaz and the veneer of respectability

Everything old is new again. There is a Conservative woman at 10 Downing Street. The opposition leader is reminiscent of Michael Foot. I keep seeing teenaged girls in jeans similar to the ones I wore in about 1986. And, thanks to Keith Vaz, we have a good old-fashioned MP sex scandal all over the front pages once again.

Vaz has a long history of slipperiness. Time and again, he has remained in politics despite multiple scandals and became the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. But this latest scandal, exposed by The Mirror, involving male escorts, may well be the one that brings him down.

Based on the available evidence, Vaz has not broken any laws in relation to prostitution. It is not illegal to pay for sex. Soliciting is only illegal if it happens in a public place. It is not illegal for the escorts involved to accept payment for sex when it takes place in private or if they visit clients on outcalls. It does not appear that anyone involved in the party was underage. As far as we know, nobody was coerced or trafficked, although plenty of people have been disturbed by the text message exchange published by The Mirror in which the group plans to get a fourth man involved and Vaz texts: "Someone will need to break him tonight."

The poppers he took were not illegal. In fact, Vaz helped see to that when poppers were left off the list of banned once-legal highs in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 and commented on their usefulness in facilitating anal sex. In the Mirror's sting, Vaz offered to pay for cocaine for two of the escorts but said he didn't want any himself. He could have been charged for carrying or buying the Class A drug if he had been caught handing over the cash in exchange for it or it was found on his person or in a bag he was carrying. But this does not appear to be the case either.

In short, most people are shocked because he has sold himself to the public as a married family man, a father of two who married his wife in a white wedding in a Roman Catholic church. Vaz himself is the one who created the veneer of supposed respectability.

Are we at a place in British society where the family man with a couple of kids is considered more respectable than an openly gay man? For the most part, most people probably don't give that much of a damn. Crispin Blunt, the openly gay Conservative MP for Reigate, outed himself as a user of poppers and this has not affected his political career. He is the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Ben Bradshaw is the popular, openly gay Labour MP for Exeter and his name is regularly cited as a potential leader, someone who might help steer Labour away from the hard left.

Coming out may not be considered an easy thing to do for a Roman Catholic man of Goan heritage. In India, homosexuality is still an offence and can be punished by a life sentence. It is unclear whether Vaz is gay, bisexual, likes men for sex but not necessarily for a relationship or whether sex with men is something he has started doing recently. We don't know if his wife knew any of this before the story broke, whether she was happy to help Vaz maintain his veneer of respectability (after all, she was heavily implicated in relation to interference with a citizenship application and a financial relationship with the Hinduja brothers at the centre of that particular Vaz scandal), or whether her inevitable embarrassment is now being compounded by complete and utter shock.

And the male escort sting may well be this scandal that finally ends his political career.

His backing of 42 days of detention without charge for terrorism suspects would not lose him too much support in these paranoid times. Like both Jeremy Hunt and Jeremy Corbyn, he has supported funding homeopathy on the NHS. This makes his an anti-science bunkum pedlar but it won't affect his career. He helped Anglo-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi in his bid to avoid extradition to France to face fraud charges and he was a director of the British arm of Auchi's company, General Mediterranean Holdings. He has been suspended from the House of Commons for making false allegations about a former policewoman. He has been investigated by the Parliamentary standards watchdog over failing to declare several thousand pounds received from a solicitor. Shortly after being elected in 1989, he joined a march of Muslims in Leicester calling for Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses to be banned. So he is also a pro-censorship buffoon.

But he has censored his own life, edited his public persona and now he may finally come undone.

And here is where it gets interesting, here is where we find out what really shocks the British public or, more accurately, what attitudes still bubble below the surface. If he was more open about his sexuality, there probably wouldn't be the same level of vitriol and shock.

The Mirror's revelations have revived calls for Vaz to step down for helping shut down a probe in the 1990s into allegations of child sex abuse by Lord Janner, the former Leicester MP who died last December. In April last year, it was decided that because of his advanced dementia, he was unfit to stand trial on 22 counts of child sex abuse. But to link a scandal involving gay sex to a paedophile scandal that is entirely unrelated to Vaz's personal life is to perpetuate the harmful, awful lie that all male paedophiles are gay or to consistently link homosexuality to paedophilia. If Vaz really did stop justice being properly served in relation to Lord Janner in the 1990s, he should have stepped down a long time ago, regardless of what he gets up to private.

To bring up Lord Janner now, tying it to Vaz's latest scandal, is bogus, it builds yet another pathetic veneer of respectability that is as hollow as the one Vaz created for himself.

Vaz is also being accused of hypocrisy in relation to the Home Affairs Select Committee's recommendation that laws on soliciting and brothel-keeping be relaxed. The report found that while there was no clear evidence that decriminalising sex work reduced demand, it would make it easier for sex workers to report crimes such as assault and make it easier for sex workers seeking to quit the industry to change jobs. The report also recommended zero tolerance on exploitation. Vaz was quoted as saying it is wrong to penalise and stigmatise sex workers.

Is his own use of prostitutes enough to constitute a conflict of interest? After all, if there was a parliamentary committee into the effectiveness of, say, the NHS, something we've all used in this country, it would be nigh-on impossible to find someone whose views on the state of the nation's healthcare had not been coloured one way or another by their own experiences, either positive or negative.

Perhaps Vaz would have been more useful to the inquiry as a witness rather than the Chair?

Will the unearthed disgust at unfaithful husbands, at using multiple male prostitutes at the same time, at the lurid details involving a cavalier attitude to condom use, and even deep-seated homophobia mean the end of Keith Vaz? He may well be a hypocrite but, as far as we know, he has not actually broken any laws.

His political career should have come to an end years ago. He has developed a startling ability to climb down from his mountain of scandals and to thrive. But I suspect this one may be a bridge too far in the court of public opinion. We'll see.

Photography by George Hodan

Pearl-clutching prudery and John Whittingdale

Would you like some pearls to clutch while you carry on about the culture secretary, John Whittingdale's long-finished relationship with a sex worker?

For this story is not about press regulation, or blackmail, or Leveson. It is about prudery and the inability of people to mind their own damn business. It may also be about the Tories and a complicit press merrily throwing one of their own under a bus to stop people talking about piddly little things like tax reform, but most of all, it is about prudery.

There have been some rather unsavoury suggestions that Whittingdale was blackmailing journalists who knew of his past relationship with a sex worker. Something along the lines of: "If you run that story about my personal life, I'll tighten the screws on press regulation!". But nobody has been able to produce any evidence of this being the case.

If this is what happened, we have a problem. It would be a serious compromise to the office of Culture Secretary if Whittingdale was holding journalists over a barrel in such a manner. If any journalist has any evidence of such outrageous behaviour by a member of the cabinet, please speak now or forever hold your peace.

There are loud howls from the peanut gallery as to why journalists who knew about Whittingdale's relationship with a sex worker held off on publishing such a supposedly embarrassing story.

If it was the case that Whittingdale was blackmailing journalists, he should resign, and the blackmailed journalists would surely be calling for his resignation on those grounds.

But what if the story simply failed the "So what?" test. What if the journalists who were fed the information by another sex worker out to make a quick quid decided that a relationship between two single people that has long since ended was not newsworthy? What if it was decided that there was no news value in reporting on a past relationship that happened well before Whittingdale was Culture Secretary and involved a woman who is not and does not seek to be a public figure?

What exactly are people shocked about here? That sex workers exist? That an MP might, quite legally despite other outdated laws, pay for sex? Or that a sex worker would have the temerity to join a dating website and seek to have a personal life?

Is British society so whore-phobic that collectively a dim view is taken of a sex worker seeking a relationship outside of work, something the rest of us in supposedly respectable jobs take for granted?

Whittingdale's relationship did not break any laws. He has not attempted as an MP to pass punitive legislation in relation to sex workers nor has he ever put himself forward as a "family values" spokesman. As such, he is not a hypocrite.

The only way I can see to move forward from this fiasco is for Britain to finally grow up and quit being shocked by sex workers or by the sex lives of consenting adults. We need to get over our appetite for non-news stories about stuff that affects nobody outside of the relationship. This current debacle is pathetic. John Whittingdale's long defunct relationship is not news. Can we please move on and discuss things that are actually important?







Picture by FergalFam007

Why I'm still a feminist: Part 2

Following on from yesterday's International Women's Day blog post, in which I looked over assorted feminist rants I wrote in 2012 to see how far we've come (Hint: Not far enough in many cases...), I am now casting my beady eye over 2013's blog posts. My International Women's Day reflection for 2013 seems to ring true today, sadly.

"My feminism is better than your feminism" reflected on how women harm each other by turning feminism into a competition. Sometimes some of us will have to agree to disagree on certain issues. This does not mean healthy discussion should be shut down. It does mean that more will be achieved when there is mutual respect.

January 2013 was also about pap smears and cervical cancer - this is an issue very close to my heart, among other parts, as early detection of pre-cancerous cells back in 1997 probably saved my life. This is where Australia is leading the way - pap smears are advised 18 months after you first have sex or once you turn 18, whatever comes first. But the UK lags behind with early detection and, as a result, women under 25 are dying unnecessarily. More still needs to be done here, I am sorry to report.

I joined in the feminist fun of writing the terrible Nadine Dorries a letter from my uterus. I am quite sure she never read it but the good news is that she seems to have piped down, at least on the issue of reproductive rights. She has, however, made a fool of herself in many other ways since then.

Welfare reform and sexism intersected with my piece on the "woman with a womb like a clown car", representing as she does a tiny minority of benefits claimants. It remains to be seen with the General Election looming in May as to whether whatever damn government we end up with examines the benefits system with the right mix of commonsense and compassion.

And I probably alienated myself from some women with my dismissing of Seth McFarlane's "I saw your boobs!" song at the 2013 Oscars as a fauxrage. There is now at least one fauxrage a week as people become more and more determined to find things by which they can be offended and have less and less consideration for what true freedom of speech really means.

Additonally, I mocked Cosmopolitan magazine because its sex tips remain stupid. It is trying very hard at the moment to be the "acceptable" face of feminism. Sometimes it makes good points, sometimes I roll my eyes hard.

There were plenty of stupid things said about rape in 2012 and this has not really changed. As such, we had the unedifying spectacle of Ashley Judd being shot down in flames for daring to discuss rape. This led to idiots quoting her out of context and any intelligent discussion on rape fell by the wayside. I attempted commonsense on the thorny issue of false rape accusations but I am not sure anyone noticed.

April was a weird old month in the feminist rant department. I wasn't exactly tackling the big issues with a piece on marketing chocolate Special K to women (although I remain so tired of food being referred to as "naughty" or "wicked"...) and another piece on why shoe shopping sucks. But then Margaret Thatcher died and while the people who commented on my reflections on Thatcher as a feminist icon, I am quite sure many disagree with me wholeheartedly. Her legacy remains a topic of debate and I expect this to continue for decades.

And then there was another piece on lads' mags and Page 3 which resulted in some interesting comments indeed. I encountered a tiresome woman who used her "I'm a mother, you're not!" reasoning to try and shut down debate on censorship of lads' mags. That is a surefire way to quell any hope of intelligent discussion and it happens all the time. Nuts magazine announced more modest covers, possibly in the wake of the Lose The Lads' Mags campaign but I doubt campaigners will rest until these magazines are eliminated.

A century after Emily Davidson's untimely death elevated her to suffragette martyr status, I shared a few thoughts on things that would probably appall her in 2013. And looking over the points I made, not much has improved for women's voices in Parliamant. There is still tedious Daily Mail slut-shaming, and G4S still getting government contracts despite being inept and unscrupulous.

Nigella Lawson's personal life hit the headlines in 2013 after awful pictures of her now ex-husband throttling her at a London restaurant were published. She seems to have happily moved on. If only the same could be said for everyone who has suffered at the hands of an abusive partner. Domestic violence remains a problem.

I took a look at Australia, my country of birth after Julia Gillard stopped being the Prime Minister. I maintain that a lot of the vitriol directed at her was sexism pure and simple.

2013 also marked the year I could have been released from a UAE prison had I not acted my way out of a farcical adultery trial. It was a shocking and sad story but I do mot regret living in the UAE nor do I think it's the worst place on the planet for women. Indeed, a later rant on the niqab showed that my time in the Middle East led me to views on Islamic dress that may not be popular in certain circles. When it comes to how much flesh a woman should show, she simply cannot win.

Despite being a long-term Cosmo and Grazia magazine snarker, I defended writing about beauty because, basically, lipstick is not the enemy. Hell, some days I wear it myself. More seriously, there was a censorship row at Sydney University over a magazine cover featuring a range of vulvas. It would appear this is just one of many incidents in universities around the world where free speech is being stifled. This has become an alarming trend in recent years and it has to stop. Universities will no longer be bastions of free speech and thought if the rot is not stopped.

Sex workers' rights is always a tricky one. But I don't think anyone can deny that the current laws help anyone, especially women, whether they are brilliantly unrepentant sex workers by choice or whether they are true victims. In any case, a moral panic over women selling sex is never helpful.

And as the sun set on 2013's blogging, I reflected on the role of first ladies. Again, they can't win. It doesn't matter what political stripe they belong to, or what causes they choose to champion, they will be slagged off by someone. It is an awful job and I do wonder how much relief is felt by first ladies when their husbands are no longer in office. Whatever the case, it'd be good to see more bright women leading countries - not that this will be the outcome of the 2013 British General Election...

Photo by Vera Kratochvil

Sex work, job creation and the latest moral panic

The headline from the International Business Times was a moral panic classic: "UK Government Pays Sex Clubs To Employ Teenage Girls." But it is a headline that is misleading and it misses the point. It conjures up sordid images of underage girls being plucked from schoolyards by evil government sex traffickers to work as prostitutes.

What has actually happened is that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has paid cash incentives to a range of employers in the adult entertainment industry to hire unemployed people aged 18-24. Yes, if you are 18 you are a teenager - but you are also an adult in the eyes of the law and when you are an adult, you can work in for any legal employer in the adult entertainment industry. You may disapprove of the adult entertainment industry but if that's the case, you can go and do something else for a living.

The DWP distributed a list of the employers that can benefit from at least £2,000 in incentives funded by UK taxpayers. Here is the list:

1. Those involved in the sale, manufacture, distribution and display of sex related products;
2. Auxiliary workers in lap/pole dancing clubs – e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or cleaners;
3. Auxiliary workers in strip clubs – e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or cleaners;
4. Auxiliary workers in saunas/massage parlours e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or clearers;
5. Glamour model photographers;
6. Web-cam operators;
7. TV camera operators, sound technicians, producers/directors for adult channels on digital TV;
8. TV camera operators, sound technicians, producers/directors for pornographic films.

Like it or not, these are all perfectly legal ways to earn a living.

DWP rules stipulate that such employers can offer young jobseekers full-time work for up to 26 weeks as long as the jobseeker is not a performer nor performing sexual acts. Given the laws surrounding the legality of prostitution in the UK are rather muddy (and frankly ridiculous), this rule seems fair enough.

But it's not the morality of working in the adult entertainment industry that is the real problem here. The problem is that the UK government is turning the employers into welfare recipients in a scheme that doesn't do a damn thing to create long-term jobs. It doesn't matter if it's Sainsburys or Spearmint Rhino - this policy is stupid.

There is nothing to stop any employer from simply hiring someone for 26 weeks, getting rid of them and then hiring someone else for another 26 weeks to do the same job. This is not real, long-term job creation. This is simply a way for employers to hire staff at the expense of the taxpayer. Sure, the experience might lead to another job, or it might lead to another 26 weeks of temporary work elsewhere or it might lead to nowhere but long-term uncertainty. If any employer has work that needs to be done, they should hire staff and pay a living wage. This way, people have some financial security, they are less likely to be dependent on benefits, they pay tax and they are economically active consumers.

Similarly, if people are forced to do any job under the threat of losing unemployment benefits, whether it's in the adult entertainment industry or not, that is problematic. This harks back to the case last year of Cait Reilly, the graduate who had to forego work experience in a museum to work in Poundland or face losing fairly meagre unemployment payments. The museum experience would have helped her get a better-paid job relevant to her degree. Instead, she has ended up working in a Morrisons supermarket.

There is nothing wrong with working in a supermarket but there is plenty wrong with a system that is focused on number-crunching. This is all about forcing people in any job at taxpayer expense to make the unemployment figures look more attractive in time for the 2015 election. There is nothing in this policy that focuses on creating real jobs across a range of industries, looking at the individual situations of unemployed people on a case-by-case basis, or regional development so that jobs are not just created in expensive, crowded London. But none of that makes for a good headline.

In short, the pearl-clutching article from the International Business Times is simply another excuse to slag off the adult entertainment industry.



Image courtesy of the British Library, 1885

Late for Friday the 13th... Why sex workers' rights matter

 I feel terrible. I had every good intention to write a blog piece for Friday the 13th in support of sex workers. But I missed the deadline. And I missed the deadline because I was doing something pretty darn conventional. I was attending a wedding. Between a man and a woman. With my husband. A bunch of us, all of us heterosexual married couples, all met at a pub and got on a minibus to go to lovely stately home for a lovely wedding.

And all of us are privileged. Among the group of friends on that minibus, the women represented a range of occupations - teacher, nurse, journalist, brand manager, stay-at-home mum. Not one of us, as far as I am aware, is a sex worker.

So why should any of us care about the rights of sex workers?

Because, under current laws in Britain, sex workers do not enjoy the same rights as the rest of us working in supposedly non-controversial occupations.

UK laws are muddy when it comes to prostitution. The exchange of sexual services for money is perfectly legal but soliciting in a public place and owning or managing a brothel are illegal. Pandering is illegal, but this can mean anything from trafficking a person into Britain for the purposes of sex to transporting a prostitute to the location of her work. In theory, if a taxi driver knowingly drove a prostitute to a client's house or to a hotel where she (or he) intended to work, they are breaking the law.

Meanwhile in the Australian state of New South Wales, sex workers can work in legal brothels, which are subject to the same sort of planning and zoning laws as other businesses. This means these brothels are subject to the same taxes as other businesses as well as workplace laws. Most importantly, this means that sex workers do not have to tolerate sexual harassment, they are entitled to fair pay and they can report any sort of physical attacks, including rape, to the police without any fear of ending up in trouble themselves.

Whether a prostitute is raped at work or not, she should not have to fear ending up getting arrested herself.

Just as my friends and I would not be accused of asking for it if we were raped because of the jobs we happen to do, the same should be true for a sex worker. Any sex worker. Regardless of who they are or the type of work they do. When there is no consent, there is rape.

But under current British law, it is not necessarily that simple for the sex worker who wants to report a rape or any other kind of assault.The possibility for too many terrible situations is ever-present for sex workers in Britain.

If, for example, a prostitute was attacked in any way while travelling in the back of a taxi with a client, her reporting of the crime could land the taxi driver in trouble under absurdly broad pandering laws. Even if the driver tried to help the sex worker. There is also the additional risk of exposure to charges for laws about soliciting in public as well as indecency laws. In such a hostile legal environment, it would not be surprising if such attacks have happened but have never been reported at all.

It's not good enough. Laws need to change. Nobody is saying life is all sunshine and rainbows for every sex worker. If someone has been forced into any form of sex work against their will, that needs to be dealt with under the law. But when a sex worker is working of his or her own free will, not only should they have the respectability of earning a fair wage and paying tax without stigma, but they should also have the same rights to safety as anyone else, regardless of their occupation.