The week of International Women's Day is typically terrible for women

 

International Women's Day landed in yet another week that was largely terrible for women everywhere. The sad part is that the reasons why this week has been terrible for women were the same sort of reasons for this last week, and the week before that, and the week before that and so on. And next week will no doubt be terrible for depressingly similar reasons. And the week after that, and the week after that, and so on.

Around the world, women have protested on International Women's Day for a range of causes that serve to demonstrate why feminism is still necessary.

This week alone, here are a few terrible things that have happened.

- In Clapham, a few miles from where I am sitting now, Sarah Everard disappeared as she walked home from Clapham to Brixton. Today, it was announced that a serving police officer has been charged in connection with her disappearance and a search for her is underway in the area where she was last seen. We still cannot walk home without fear. And depressingly, the advice is for women in the area to stay home. That doesn't solve anything. It just fails to hold men accountable for the actions against us and simply says, "You stay home, ladies, and maybe the women in the next neighbourhood will be preyed upon instead.". I am not here for any advice where the message is: "Don't touch me, touch that other woman instead.".

- In Mexico, protests by angry women will probably have little impact. Women took to the streets because President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's party continues to back Felix Salgado, a candidate for governor, even though allegations of rape and sexual harassment have not been properly investigated. The protests turned violent and despite photographs to the contrary, police have denied using any kind of gas on the women. The only decent thing to do in such circumstances is for the accused to step down until a proper investigation has been carried out. The president's response has been to gaslight every woman who marched by saying the protests are motivated by conservative and foreign interests. His popularity appears to be unaffected by this scandal.

- In Australia, allegations of rape dating back to 1988 have been made against the attorney-general Christian Porter. The woman who made the allegations committed suicide last year. The coroner has ruled that the investigation is "incomplete" and has asked for further investigations before he decides whether to hold an inquest into the circumstances of her death. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has already publicly given Porter his full support and refused to commission an inquiry. See above for advice on the only decent thing to do in such circumstances...

- Rape allegations have also been politicised in Senegal. The opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko was arrested last week on rape charges. This week, he has been freed from detention pending an investigation and civil unrest has ensued, including clashes in which a schoolboy was killed. Sonko has claimed the rape charges are politically motivated by President Macky Sall. In the midst of all the noise, one person has been largely forgotten - the woman who made the allegations. She works at a beauty salon where Sonko received massages and she slips to the bottom of news reports as Sonko and Sall continue a war of words.

- The 40 Days For Life anti-abortion protests started on 17 February and continued here in the UK and elsewhere on International Women's Day and beyond. Two weeks ago, Edinburgh Council agreed to support the introduction of buffer zones around abortion clinics in Scotland so protesters have to stay at least 150 metres away from clinics. This is good news. Unfortunately, the rest of the country has been slower to act and women are being harassed by protesters every day while they access legal medical procedures. Click here for more information about how to join the BPAS Back Off campaign.   

These are just a handful of examples of things that are utter crap for women in different parts of the world. I could sit here all day and add more. It is a neverending stream of horror for women everywhere. We cannot and will not be silenced or gaslit into believing we're just being hysterical, that it's all in our heads. We must fight on.   

Photography by Maria Plashchynskaya/Pexels 

International Women's Day. International. The clue is in the name, people.

I spent International Women's Day flying from Abu Dhabi to London, The simplistic metaphor for that journey is that I flew from a backwards, sexist society to a place where women are free. But it's not that simple. 

The reality is that I flew from one country where feminism is still necessary to another country where feminism is still necessary. I flew from one ally of Saudi Arabia to, er, another ally of Saudi Arabia. 

Theresa May might have won the exchange during Prime Ministers's questions in which she was able to accuse Jeremy Corbyn of mansplaining feminism when he asked her about meeting Saudi's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman on International Women's Day, but let's be realistic. For all Theresa May's bragging about being a female PM meeting the Saudi Crown Prince and challenging him on human rights, only the terminally naive believe that her meeting yesterday will make a difference to women. 

Britain will still sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and these will be used in Yemen, a truly appalling place for women. The bombardment of Yemen is pushing the impoverished country even further backwards, doing nothing to empower Yemeni women. Just 55% of women aged 15 and above in Yemen can read and write. This is a country where a woman who was campaigning to improve female literacy rates was shot dead last year.

I was in Abu Dhabi covering a security conference, before drafting this blog post in longhand on the flight home. At the conference, I led an all-women editorial team representing Australia, Britain, India and Slovakia. We covered the news from a male-dominated industry event where female speakers were scarce.

But the conference's awards for student innovation offered hope. In the university students' category, all three prizes were won by all-female teams. In the school students' category, the prize for the best security invention was won by a girl. This should come as no real surprise - in the UAE, way more women than men are at university. More than 70% of Emirati university students are women. Record numbers of women are going to university in Britain too. 

But then there are terrible similarities for women in the UAE and Britain, with serious issues in regard to how rape cases are dealt with by justice systems. Rapes are certainly under-reported in both countries. In the UAE this is often because victims are worried that if the defendant is acquitted, she could face adultery charges for consensual sex with a man to whom she is not married. In the UK, many rapes are not reported for fear of a truly appalling experience at the hands of the system. Here, it is a place where women are, with depressing frequency, made to feel as if they were asking for it, for daring to walk alone at night, dress a certain way, drink alcohol, go on a date, be in a relationship, not be a blushing virgin and so on. 

Neither country's situation is acceptable. This is not an either/or thing. The issue of justice for rape victims is a genuinely international issue that affects women all over the world. And there is the crux of International Women's Day. It's a day for girls and women across the whole world. The clue is in the name.

There are issues which are universal for girls and women everywhere and there are issues which pertain more to some countries than others. And they are all important.

International Women's Day is not a day for sneering mansplainers to tell western women that we should shut up and be grateful that we are not under bombardment in Yemen, enslaved by Daesh in Syria, restricted by the guardianship system in Saudi Arabia or risking being kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria or threatened with the horrors of female genital mutilation.

Our little ladybrains are more than capable of caring about more than one issue in more than one country.

We are capable of rising up in support of our sisters all over the world. We are capable of doing things to make a real difference to the lives of girls and women everywhere. 

And we are doing this. We are angry. We are not going to be sidelined because of our biology. We are not going away. We will not be quiet. We will fight our battles great and small. We will celebrate our victories. And it won't just be on International Women's Day. This happens every day in every country in the world. Deal with it, sexists. This is our time.

Photography by jooleah_stahkey/Flickr

Why I'm still a feminist

It's International Women's Day and, as such, there is always someone who uses the day to declare that feminism has failed, as if it is a homogenous movement where every single person who identifies as a feminist thinks in exactly the same way and agrees on absolutely everything. Feminism is different things to different women.

I have taken a look over blog posts I have written about women since I started writing this blog in 2012. If anything, they demonstrate why women still need to get angry about many things and why it would be much appreciated if men can join in too.

Here is a selection from 2012 alone which demonstrates that vigilance is essential for women everywhere.

Boobs have featured heavily in my blog, either by accident or design. One of my first blog posts, "Not all boobs are created equal", was about how we perceive different boobs in different contexts. The Page 3 girl argument rages on - and, even if The Sun does drop this dinosaur of a page, that still won't make everything better.

Caitlin Moran and Lena Dunham continue to polarise opinion, as per "Why Caitlin Moran and Lena Dunham can't win", but whether you love or loathe either of these two women, I am glad they keep feminist issues in the mainstream and help more young women become aware that sexism still happens.

"Honour" killings still happen and I stand by my refusal to take "honour" out of inverted commas and to prefer to call them "sexist murders".

"We are Malala (except for the idiots who just don't get it)" remains one of the most viewed posts on this blog. Since then, Malala has continued to be a remarkable young woman and her work is more important than ever given the rise of Boko Haram and IS, both of which oppose the education of girls and women.

"Pregnancy! Now with an inquiry nobody's talking about!" is one I'd forgotten about, ironically enough. What the hell did happen with the cross-party inquiry into unwanted pregnancies in Britain? I'd best follow this up. Since 2012, teenage pregnancy has fallen and I believe that is largely down to improved sex education and availability of birth control - so that's good news. Whether this inquiry would ever lead to an erosion of reproductive rights in Britain remains an interesting question.

And, funnily enough, a few months later, I wrote "Britain remains proudly prochoice". This was in response to Nadine Dorries and Frank Field attempting to change abortion laws here. As far as I can tell, neither of them were involved in the unwanted pregnancies inquiry. They were just trying to impose their ideologies on the whole country and I am glad they failed.

In 2012, I blogged twice  from Amsterdam about how their approach to sex, prostitution, pregnancy and motherhood helps women (although I am not so naive as to believe every single Amsterdam prostitute loves her work or is there by choice). In any case, the Netherlands does a lot of things well when it comes to women and many other countries could learn from this example.

Such as Ireland - "RIP Savita: A tragedy that was always going to be political" reflected on the horrific chain of events that led to the unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar, denied an abortion despite being in a situation where her foetus was not going to make it to full term. Irish women are still fighting for better access to abortion and I stand with them all the way.

Funnily enough, I also reflected on International Men's Day and got at least one predictable comment at the end. Like International Women's Day, it is often misunderstood and attracts trolls. Quelle surprise!

In November 2012, I wrote about the possibility of women becoming bishops in the Church of England. And this has now happened. Progress indeed!

December 2012 saw much madness erupt around the first pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge. As an avowed republican, I resent paying for her or her offspring but as a human being, I believe she deserves privacy. I also believe that every woman should have the same level of care if they are suffering from acute morning sickness. The tragic outcome of a prank call on the hospital where the duchess was being treated still has an impact today - indeed, the Australian radio station involved in the prank call which, in all likelihood, is linked to the nurse who answered the phone committing suicide may lose its broadcasting licence. And I may be imagining things, but the media seems to be more respectful towards the duchess during her second pregnancy - apart from a gross promo from The Mirror last week promising pictures of Kate "in full bloom". Ugh.

I also managed to outrage herbal tea fans when I called out a PR company for using the Duchess of Cambridge's morning sickness to sell ginger tea - it would not do a damn thing to cure women suffering from the kind of pregnancy ailment that killed Charlotte Bronte.

And 2012's blogging came to a tragic close with a post on the disgusting gang-rape and murder of a young Indian woman. Victim-blaming rages on globally and India is not even close to dealing with this problem properly, as India's Daughter, the BBC documentary demonstrates with a sickening rapist interview.

I'll try and reflect on my blog posts from 2013 and 2014 over the next week...

International Women's Day: The good, the bad and the smug...

It's International Women's Day. Should we celebrate? Be really angry about stuff? Argue about shit that doesn't actually matter? Ignore the whole damn thing and take a nap?

Every year, someone always asks why there isn't an International Men's Day. There is one on November 19. You can read about it here. But what about today? What are we meant to do about it?

Today, there has been an outbreak of women arguing over whether we should take our husbands' surnames if we get married. This was largely in response to this Jill Filopovic column in the Guardian - the insane thing is that I kept my name when I got married but I still think Filopovic wrote a smug and sneering piece that ends on an asinine note about Facebook.

Seriously, this nonsense has to stop - it is a debate for the privileged. Ironically, in many Middle Eastern countries, the kind of places often flagged up by western women as beacons of oppression, it is common for married women to not take their husbands' name. If you get married, take his name, don't take his name, go double-barrelled, blend the surnames, it's entirely your choice. And feminism is about respecting all women's choices, even ones you wouldn't make for yourself.

Moving swiftly along...

If International Women's Day makes people think about their attitude towards women, about how they treat women and how they can do better from this day forward, that is a good thing.

If International Women's Day raises awareness of serious issues and is the catalyst for people to actually do something about them rather than getting outraged for a day and then forgetting about it, that is a good thing.

If International Women's Day raises money for causes that help women, such as education and healthcare programmes in developing countries, that is a good thing.

If International Women's Day helps people realise that feminism is not about being perpetual victims and that feminists come in all shapes and sizes, that is a good thing.

But if the day is spent arguing over minutiae, when there are women who are truly suffering, and possibly even dying, because of truly oppressive conditions and because their rights have been eroded or never existed in the first place, we have a problem. When feminism is seen as smug women sniping at each other, trying to outdo each other and win some imaginary feminism trophy, we have a problem. That is when feminism starts to look stupid. That is when real issues fall by the wayside.

No matter what you do or don't do to mark International Women's Day, we will not wake up tomorrow to a world of gender equality, a world free of rape, a world where girls and boys have equal access to school education, a world where female genital mutilation has been consigned to the dustbin of history, a world where women are not trafficked into sexual slavery, a world where women everywhere have freedom of movement, a world where both sexes are treated equally before the law, a world of equal employment opportunities, a world where women and men will always earn equal pay for equal work, a world of reproductive freedom, a world where female politicians will be judged on merit rather than appearance, a world where girls and women are not forced into marriages against their will and so on and so forth...

Celebrate women's achievements today and reflect on how much progress has been made for many women in many places, by all means, but don't kid yourself that one day a year will make everything OK.