Kathleen Dehmlow: The sheer rage against women who leave

Kathleen Dehmlow's death notice went viral. Instead of the usual platitudes about being "much loved" and "sadly missed", Kathleen's children, Gina and Jay used the death notice for revenge against the mother who left them in 1962.

It didn't take long for Twitter to erupt in a self-righteous festival of online pitchfork-waving at a woman they never knew. A woman who dares to leave her husband and kids receives a special kind of ire that simply doesn't happen when a man does the same thing. Even if the first instinct is to condemn a man who leaves his wife and kids as a bastard, it's easier for him to rehabilitate himself - Will Smith, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Ted Danson are all better known for their careers rather than the fact that they all left wives and kids for other women. 

The fact that Kathleen was pregnant by her brother-in-law when she left Dennis, Gina and Jay added extra fuel to the fire around the virtual stake to which she was now tied. 

But Kathleen's death notice raises more questions that it answers. Firstly, it's not an obituary, even though people keep referring to it that way - obituaries are written by journalists and should not be used as a one-sided revenge attack. That is not how obituary journalism works. It is a death notice, a classified advertisement paid for by someone who wants to announce that someone has passed away.

But journalistic pedantry aside, it comes as no surprise that a relative, Dwight Dehmlow, spoke up, telling a newspaper that "there is a lot of stuff that is missing" from Kathleen's story. He said she was admitted to a nursing home a year ago and died with her sisters by her side, perhaps the first indication that she was not an evil witch who abandoned her kids on a whim or ended up in a sexual relationship with her brother-in-law for frivolous reasons.

Was her first marriage abusive? Did she find happiness with Lyle Dehmlow? Why were Gina and Jay then raised by their grandparents rather than their father?

It is important to look at Kathleen's life in historical context. Assuming the dates in the death notice are accurate, she was married by the age of 19, had two children in less than five years - by this time, she was just 24. It was around this time that she fell pregnant to her brother-in-law and left her first husband and two kids.

If her marriage was abusive, either physically or psychologically, or even if it was just plain miserable and there was no hope of it ever becoming a joyous union, she may not have had many options in the Minnesota of the late 1950s. 

Today, Minnesota is a no-fault divorce state with "irretrievable breakdown of the marriage relationship" as the only grounds for divorce. This is a good thing, especially for anyone in an abusive or loveless marriage. But this did not become law in Minnesota until 1974. When Kathleen left her husband and children, anyone wanting a divorce in Minnesota would have to prove that their spouse was guilty of one or another of a list of grievous offences toward the other spouse. If Kathleen's marriage was violent, her options were probably limited - the Domestic Abuse Act wasn't passed in Minnesota until 1979. Roe vs Wade, which enshrined the right to abortion in the US wasn't passed until 1973. The birth control pill was not approved by the FDA until 1960.

This is by no means a criticism of Minnesota or indeed America - the late 1950s and early 1960s did not exactly comprise a golden era for women in terrible relationships in most places. 

It could also have been the case that Kathleen was suffering from post-partum depression or she was struggling to cope with motherhood at a young age - again, she was living in an era where mental healthcare for new mothers was not exactly brilliant and, if this was the case, she may not have had many options, short of being dismissed with a bottle of pills or nothing at all by a doctor. She may have been fobbed off as "hysterical".

The 1950s was the start of a busy time for research into depression but it is debatable as to whether those findings would have turned into good treatment in Wabasso, Minnesota.  

Admitting that motherhood is difficult can still be a tough thing to do. The expectations have always been ridiculous, whether it was automatically engaging angelic 1950s motherhood mode or today when women are expected to be invincible supermums, juggling multiple commitments with aplomb while raising perfect kids. 

But Kathleen will never get the right of reply - all we have are testaments of people who have known her for a long time coming to her defence, people who are able to acknowledge that none of us are perfect.

Nobody reasonable would argue that going through the experience of one's mother leaving the family home would ever be easy. It would mess with the minds of young children in 1962 just as surely as it does today. But, with the benefit of the intervening 56 years of changed divorce laws and social mores, as well as better research into mental health and relationships, it is unfortunate that Gina and Jay do not appear to have benefited from the modern trend towards talking through family issues and seeking appropriate counselling. We may well be living in the age of the overshare, but when it means people actually communicate and seek sensitive, professional help for the problems that affect every aspect of their lives, that is no bad thing.

I remember spotting a book at home called The Heartache of Motherhood  by Joyce Nicholson - my mother bought it sometime in the 1980s, when I was in primary school and when my sister and I were probably more of a handful than we realised. As a teenager, I read Joyce's account of becoming a mother in Australia around the same time as Kathleen did in the US. She wrote of how she felt as if she didn't fit in with other mothers at social gatherings. She would gravitate towards men at parties so she could discuss something other than child-rearing, only to get told, sneeringly, that she "liked the men". It was easier to shame her rather than consider the boring truth that she simply liked conversation that was not about nappy rash.  

Joyce Nicholson did not leave her husband until she had been married for 35 years. Obviously, by that time, her children had left home and when a marriages ends after such a long time, people are generally a bit more sympathetic. "Oh well, you gave it a good shot," you'll probably be told in such circumstances. Joyce would not have been branded as an abandoner of children in the way Kathleen has been.

For my own mother, I am sure there were large swathes of the book to which she related. I remember one morning when I was about seven and my sister was about four, Mum became so frustrated with our constant fighting that she grabbed her car keys and handbag and said she was leaving us. She was a woman of her word, driving off in her Mini, leaving my sister and I alone in the house and aghast. She was probably only gone for about five minutes but it seemed like eternity to me. As a seven-year-old, I didn't yet have the logic to realise Mum wasn't going to be gone for too long or get too far with nothing but her handbag and an ageing car for company.

The incident is nothing like the experience of abandonment that Gina and Jay went through but I bet plenty of people will read that and be horrified at my mother's behaviour. I'm not. I don't blame her. I remember how awful my sister and I could be when we fought as kids. Something must have snapped. She just needed a few minutes to drive around the block and calm down. I am not psychologically damaged by it. That's a ludicrous suggestion.

There are probably plenty of mothers out there who have had the urge to drive away from their kids, even if it is only for a few minutes. Equally, plenty of mothers over the centuries have probably wanted to leave awful relationships even if it meant leaving children behind too. The very notion of maternal abandonment offends people so mightily because it's about women not fitting into the ideal of motherhood, that they are somehow belligerently defying nature if they have children and then realise it's difficult or depressing - or it was not the right decision because of time or circumstance.

If Kathleen was 19 today, her life may have been completely different. Would she have married so young? Would she have had two children in relatively quick succession? Would something drive her to leave her family? 

We will never know. But we can be pretty sure that, thanks to the age of the internet, we will probably hear from Gina and Jay again. One can only hope that they find some sort of peace in taking out a hatchet-job death notice and that perhaps they try and find out more about their mother's early life, even if it is too late to tell her she is forgiven.

Photography by Johannes Plenio

The Boots boycott conundrum

When I was a wide-eyed nine-year-old in 1985, I was utterly enchanted by Boots chemists. My family was in the UK at the time and the branches of Boots seemed way more interesting than the pharmacies of rural Australia. I loved the scripted typeface of the logo, I loved the choice of goodies that I had never seen on offer at the Lake Village pharmacy in Wagga Wagga, it seemed like a magical place.

These days I have a more prosaic view of Boots as a reliable source of everything from aspirin to hair brushes to cheap lunches. But in the last six-and-a-half years since I moved to the UK, Boots has found its way into the news for the wrong reasons. It has become the subject of multiple calls for boycotts but it's pretty obvious, given the ubiquity of the blue logo across the country and with tentacles internationally, that the boycotts are not working.

Ongoing reports on corporate tax avoidance - which is perfectly legal although the morality is up for debate - usually mention Boots. Tax avoidance is a sound reason why many people boycott Boots. It is a hard one to boycott because it is usually just so damn convenient to pop into a branch of Boots when a minor ailment threatens to ruin your day.

As a company that gets a lot of business from the NHS, there is a good case for it paying a bit more tax to help fund their golden goose. It is estimated that Boots make £2bn a year from prescriptions alone - that is £2bn of taxpayer money. 

There have also been allegations of Boots profiteering from the NHS through selling customers unnecessary medicine-use reviews. Despite its Methodist church roots, Boots is a business which is now owned by US giant Walgreens. It is not a charity, so such unsavoury revelations about making extra money off gullible customers are hardly surprising.

Then Boots jumped the shark again a few weeks ago with the news that it was not going to drop the price of the morning-after pill. It sells Levonelle for £28.25 and a generic version for £26.75. Competitors, Tesco and Superdrug, are now selling it for £13.50 and £13.49 respectively. This could have been an entirely unremarkable story if the justification by Boots for charging more than double the price of their two main competitors was simply a matter of a private company charging what it thought it could get away with for a product. 

In a free market economy, there is nothing immoral about a company charging a price that it thinks will help cover its overheads and contribute to profits. As consumers, we have the freedom to seek out the goods for a cheaper price, which is precisely what you can do if you need the morning-after pill and you'd rather pay less than half the price at Tesco or Superdrug. 

But Boots told the British Pregnancy Advisory Service that they were keeping the price high to avoid "incentivising inappropriate use". Yeah, that can just fuck right off. Since the outcry and calls for a boycott over Boots passing judgement on its own customers, they have apologised and announced they are now looking for cheaper alternatives to Levonelle. Well, good. Women don't take the morning-after pill for a lark, especially if they suffer side effects such as nausea and headaches. Hell, even at £13.50, it's not an especially cost-effective option for regular contraception. But it's also nobody's business how often they choose to use it.

 In the midst of the birth control brouhaha, plenty of people stuck their heads over the parapet to remind us that the "incentivising inappropriate use" snark was not the first time Boots had passed judgement on customers. If you buy baby formula from Boots, you cannot get Boots Advantage Card points for your purchase or use your accumulated points to pay for formula for babies up to six months old. 

As well as disincentivising "inappropriate use" of birth control, Boots has also taken it upon itself to cast judgement on women who are not breastfeeding babies aged under six months and would like them to avoid being "incentivised" to use formula inappropriately. If you are struck down with mastitis or you didn't have time to express milk or you need to spend time away from your baby during the first six months or you are a new mother undergoing cancer treatment or you simply choose not to breastfeed, Boots is judging your life decisions.

Ugh. But the good news is you can buy baby formula elsewhere, just as you can with birth control. Consumer choice is a good thing.

And then Boots found itself in the media spotlight again, this time with a small but vocal furore over the slogan "Plastic is fantastic".

In this instance, however, the outrage is completely pathetic, a manufactured fauxrage from the permanently offended. The outcry came as a result of Boots using the slogan "Plastic is fantastic" on its range of clear plastic toiletries bags. According to those on board the outrage bus, this slogan encouraged the excessive use of plastic and, hot on the heels of the Levonelle debacle, Boots deleted the slogan from their marketing materials and website. It was a tiny blip in the news cycle but it was cretinous all the same.

I saw this story very briefly on BBC News when I was on holiday and realised I had one of the offending toiletries bags with me. They are fantastic because they are reusable - you can pop travel-sized toiletries into your hand luggage and at airport security, it's more environmentally responsible than having to cram your lotions and potions into a single-use ziplock bag. It's still plastic, there should be some way of recycling it responsibly when it finally falls apart but, given current airport security regulations, it beats the miserable ziplock bag alternative. Fantastic.

Frankly, Boots should have owned the slogan and refused to take it down. The removal of the slogan won't do a damn thing to save the planet. Equally, if they had've simply said they were not dropping the price of the morning-after pill for reasons of capitalism that would have been better than coming out with a load of crap about "inappropriate use".

As for no Advantage points on baby formula, maybe Boots need to consider the awful possibility of a widowed or abandoned father with a young baby. He can't breastfeed, he will need to buy formula. Wet nurses aren't really a thing these days. As things stand at the time of writing, this unfortunate chap can jog on if he thinks he can use his Advantage points on a product that will ensure his poor kid doesn't starve.

Still, now I've pointed out how this ban can affect men too, maybe Boots will change its baby formula policy. After all, there are no Advantage points restrictions on any male-specific products in Boots, not even hair dye for men which surely encourages the cultivation of "inappropriate" tresses on deluded middle-aged blokes.

And unlike the discreet popping of a morning-after pill, we have to look at obvious bad dye jobs on men all the time. You can't tell me Anthony Scaramucci's hair is Danny Zuko-black without some help from the bottle. Hey, look at that sad 50-something twat fly past in his midlife crisis sportscar! What a desperate loser he must be! Maybe I'll boycott Boots in a bid to stop men with "inappropriate" hair appearing in public. What's that, guys? I can't say that because I'm shaming men for their choices? Oh, really...

Photography by Banalities/Flickr

Abortion, adoption and the reality of choice

The story only received scant media coverage when it broke last month. Anti-abortion protesters forced a London abortion clinic to shut down. The clinic's name has not been made public but it is also rumoured that a second clinic is under threat thanks to protesters harassing women. It is suspected that Blackfriars Medical Centre, a longtime target of protest groups such as Abort67, is the second clinic under threat.

Never mind that apart from abortion being legal here in the UK, the Blackfriars clinic also provides ante- and post-natal checks, smear tests, minor surgery, counselling, men's health services, travel vaccines, cardiac health promotion, asthma and diabetes health promotion, dermatology and counselling. But for supposedly prolife people, these life-saving services might get thrown under a bus as long as they can limit access to safe, legal abortion by harassing women whose medical appointments are none of their damn business.

The only politician to stick her head above the parapet is Labour leadership contender, Yvette Cooper, and for that, she deserves respect. She has called for buffer zones around abortion clinics, as has happened in the US, Canada and France. This means the protesters can still exercise their right to free speech and women can still exercise their right to access medical services.

If you want to shout in public about why you believe abortion is wrong, that is your choice - but you have to remember that free speech is not the same as it being compulsory for anyone to listen to you. And free speech means that anyone who disagrees has the right to put forward their case.

Will the UK end up going down the US track of clinics requiring volunteer escorts to usher girls and women safely past protesters? Will the UK ever see its first example of abortion clinic staff being murdered? I really hope that is not the path on which we are travelling. Yvette Cooper should be commended for taking a stand on behalf of girls and women across the country.

Yes, girls as well as women...

The world has been reeling from the knowledge that in Paraguay, an 11-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by her step-father at the age of 10, has just given birth. Her mother, the person who should be able to make medical decisions on behalf of her daughter, was denied the opportunity to let her daughter have a safe abortion just as she was not taken seriously when she tried to report her husband to the police. Everyone should be relieved that the girl survived the pregnancy and the c-section delivery, but every time she sees her c-section scar, she will be reminded of her rape. She is living in a family stricken by poverty in a country where around 600 girls aged 14 or under become pregnant every year. How has forcing her to give birth improved anything?

What is left of that girl's childhood? Is this the sort of awful story that we want to see replicated in the UK? It is the sort of awful story that should not happen anywhere ever.

Pregnancy is the world's biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide and it would be appalling if the UK's abortion laws changed so that girls here joined that terrible, inexcusable death toll in ever-increasing numbers.

But wait! There's always adoption! Well, sort of.

Adoption can be a wonderful thing, giving hope to children who might otherwise face a terrible childhood. But where are the Abort67 activists when it comes to making adoption easier for people who are able to given babies and children loving, safe homes? Such activists tend to sell adoption as a simple solution, a panacea for every unplanned, unwanted pregnancy but why are they not lobbying local authorities when ridiculous criteria make it impossible for potentially great parents to adopt?

Obviously, it would be irresponsible to simply let anyone who wandered in off the streets adopt children without any checks. After all, we are talking about kids who may have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused, kids who have witnessed violence in the home, kids with serious medical problems and kids who were born addicted to drugs or suffering from foetal alcohol syndrome.

It is important to remember that adoption isn't always sunshine and rainbows. It can be very hard on everyone concerned. Potential adopters have to be realistic, to be aware that they probably won't end up with an angelic newborn.

But when local authorities impose conditions such as requiring at least one parent to take a year off work and, for adoption of sibling groups, one bedroom per child, children will linger in foster care. I recently came across the sad case of five siblings who are awaiting a forever family while being separated in the foster care system. Tragically, they will probably remain in the system for a long time yet unless there is someone out there with a six-bedroom house and the ability to take a year off work.

Why isn't Abort67 focusing on these cases? Why isn't Abort67 advocating the use of birth control and ensuring that every school student in the country receives broad-based effective sex education? Why is Abort67 more concerned with sitting outside clinics?

Because that is easier than doing anything that would actually contribute to reducing abortion or helping children that have already been born.

May Abort67 remain a fringe group. Yvette Cooper was dead right when she said that we do not need US-style abortion wars here.

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...

The UAE, women's rights and the dangers of simplistic league tables

It was the kind of startling headline that came as no surprise to anyone working in the media in the UAE. Gulf News proudly trumpeted that in the Global Social Progress Index, produced by a team at Harvard Business School as part of a World Economic Forum initiative, "UAE ranks first in world for respecting women". Except that wasn't entirely true. Or at all true.

The UAE came 37th overall in this rather curious league table and first for respecting women's rights out of the countries of the Middle East. This means the UAE fended off fierce competition from such bastions of feminism as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

But it is easy for me to sit here in London, almost three-and-a-half years on from a five-year stint in the UAE and snark on the UAE's track record with women. Like most of these lists, the Global Social Progress Index makes for easy headlines, offers bragging rights for the nations who do well and is not particularly nuanced.

"Check your privilege" has become a cliche but it is one for which the UAE may have been invented. It is not as simple as "All men in the UAE have it much easier than all women." or "Everything is super-amazing for all women in the UAE.".

As a western expat woman who worked in well-paid jobs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, my day-to-day life was more privileged than a man from India, Nepal, Bangladesh or Pakistan working for Dh500 a month on a construction site, living in awful dormitory-style accommodation unironically called a "labour camp" while being in debt to his employer for his visa, despite such arrangements being illegal under UAE law.

There was a horrible intersection of privilege one night in Dubai in December 2006 when, for the first and only time in my life, I was sexually assaulted. Thanks to a physically unfit attacker, judicious use of my right elbow and the smashing of my Burger King into his chest, I got away with a cat-like scratch on my decolletage and a ladder in my tights but it was not fun. Based on the circumstances of this event, I can ascertain that my attacker was probably a low income earner whose pitiful wage did not allow him, if he had a wife, to sponsor her residency visa. His probable enforced celibacy in no way excuses what he tried to do to me. It was his attempt to exercise power over me, as all sexual assaults are, regardless of the genders involved.

The UAE loves to promote its low rate of sexual assault but I suspect the rates are higher than the official police statistics indicate because of a culture of fear surrounding the reporting of such crimes. After all, where is the incentive to report a rape when, if it is disproved in a court of law, the victim risks being charged with adultery?

When I reported my attack, I encountered an amateur Perry Mason on the phone. He accused me of making it up, demanded to know why I was walking alone at night and asked me what I was wearing. It was only when I was fortunate enough to be put in touch with a very senior member of the Dubai police force, the well-educated and respectful Major Najeeb, that I was taken seriously. Of course by then it was too late to catch the attacker but I was glad that the awful incident was on the record as a reported sexual assault.

Then there was the horrendous case of being tried for adultery in the emirate of Fujairah after my boyfriend was killed in a swimming accident.

But on the flipside, I had plenty of positive experiences as a woman living in the UAE. It was here that I got a couple of amazing breaks as a motoring journalist and men's magazine editor that probably wouldn't have happened if I stayed in Australia. Despite premarital sex being illegal, it was startlingly easy to obtain cheap birth control. I made amazing friends among the local women because of a shared love of motor sport and fast cars. My work in the UAE offered me travel opportunities that would be impossible or expensive from Australia. And for many women, both local and expatriate, the UAE has offered them a great place to start businesses.

Unlike unmarried Emirati women, I could live alone without arousing suspicions of being a harlot, date whoever I liked without family interference, and, as long as I was discreet, lived with my now-husband for more than a year before we got married. The frustrations I encountered in everyday life, such as absurd bureaucracy, a pathetic postal service, expensive internet and cable TV, shops that don't ever seem to have enough change, incompetent signposting, media censorship and life-threateningly bad driving, were encountered by everyone, not just women.

And then there are the aspects of life in the UAE which seem sexist but can often work in favour of women. For example, I had no issue with being served in record time in banks, government departments and post offices because of the "ladies' queue". Waiting in line for any sort of bureaucracy to happen is a monumental waste of time. I was always delighted to not squander entire lunchbreaks in queues, would merrily sail past a line of despondent-looking men and then get on with my life.

Similarly, the system of working men sponsoring their wives on housewife visas wasn't necessarily a ticket to the 1950s. This worked well for many women who accompanied well-paid husbands to the UAE. With no income tax to worry about, a certain freedom could be had on your husband's visa allowing women to work part-time, to freelance without HMRC-related headaches, or to simply have a nice life. If my husband got a well-paid job in the UAE, I'd have no qualms about being on a housewife visa and working from home/in More Cafe as a freelance journalist. (This would involve the farcical situation of my husband having to authorise the paperwork for my UAE driving licence so I could freelance, inevitably as a motoring writer, but hey-ho...) However, with the Dubai government raising the salary for working men to sponsor their wives' visas from Dh4,000 a month to Dh10,000, this becomes a privilege based on wealth and will negatively affect many men and women.

But what about local women? There are plenty of positives for Emirati women, which makes the patriotism of my Emirati female friends entirely understandable. While the UAE is a long way from universal adult suffrage, 17% of government ministers are women. In the UK, just four of 32 ministers are women - a dismal 12.5%. Emirati women have educational and career opportunities like never before. Women outnumber men in UAE's universities and there will be an inevitable rise in their power and influence as a result. Emirati women, like Emirati men, benefit from free education and healthcare courtesy of a government that looks after its own.

But the evil spectre of female genital mutilation is present for some Emirati women. Like sexual assault in the UAE, it is hard to get accurate statistics. A survey of 200 Emiratis of both sexes found that 34% of the women surveyed had been cut. Of these, 40% said they would circumcise their daughters and, overall, 82% of female respondents and 99% of the male respondents opposed the practice. A survey of 200 people is not enormous but it gives a clue as to what might be happening to many Emirati women. Who is going to speak out on their behalf? I am guessing not a bunch of academics in the US putting together a glib index.

And, at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, life for many of the women employed in domestic service in the UAE is no picnic either. While Emirati women and western expat women generally enjoy many privileges, the same cannot be said for many housemaids who generally hail from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Phillippines. Reports of physical abuse, poor working conditions and massive curbs on freedom of movement for domestic staff are not uncommon. Indeed, sometimes the abuse is legitimised on forums such as Expat Woman, where it is not uncommon for discussions about denying maids time off, use of a mobile phone or healthcare to erupt among those who can afford to employ them.

This week, the horrific news broke that an Asian housemaid has been sentenced in an Abu Dhabi court to be stoned to death after falling pregnant to a man to whom she is not married. Details are, so far, scant - we have no information about the man involved. Was he a boyfriend? Was she raped by her employer? All we know is that she must be Muslim because under UAE law only Muslims can be sentenced to death. If there is enough international outrage over this case, her life may well be saved because of the Abu Dhabi government's very real fear of bad PR. But it is appalling that anyone can sentence a woman to be stoned to death in any country in 2014. In a perversion of the country's "prolife" stance (as in abortion is completely illegal...), the execution would not take place until after the baby is born but that's no victory for anyone.

My personal experience of life in the UAE was unique and in many ways, completely off the wall. Horrible things happened to me, happy things happened to me and, to this day, I get bouts of Middle East-homesickness. For every woman who is living the dream in the UAE, there is another who is suffering enormously. The satisfied Emirati career woman's life is a world away from the woman who was trafficked into the UAE to work as a prostitute. My struggles were different to those of the amazing Sri Lankan woman who cleaned my apartment and from those of the sad-eyed men who work for a pittance on construction sites.

But as a pregnant housemaid faces the prospect of being stoned to death in Abu Dhabi, I really hope that as well as an international outcry, women from all backgrounds in the UAE speak out on her behalf. As it stands, this shameful situation makes a mockery of claims to gender equality that a government-owned newspaper is making in the UAE based on an index created miles away in the ivory towers of Harvard University.


Image courtesy of Nemo

The woman with a womb like a clown car: a conundrum for the left and the right

Heather Frost. Mother of 11 to three different fathers. Benefits claimant. She who is getting a £400,000 house - always called a "mansion" by the likes of the Daily Mail - "built for her". She who sluttishly spends her welfare cash on a horse, multiple pets and flying lessons. It's easy to see why the tabloid press is having a field day with this woman.

Now that she has recovered from cervical cancer, she has been rendered sterile. This has been described by her father and others as a "blessing in disguise". It is also the reason why she has been unable to work for the last two years, but it's easier to demonise a cancer patient than express gratitude for living in a country where she was able to access treatment and not deprive her kids of a mother.

One of her daughters told the press that she is a good mother and that seeing her raise 11 kids has actually put her off such prolific breeding. If that's not a lesson learnt that should appease the tabloid disciples, I don't know what is.

It's easy to demand to know why she didn't avail herself of birth control, available for free in Britain, without knowing her medical history. It's easy to call her a slapper. Indeed, one of her neighbours was quoted as saying she treats her womb "like a clown car" - it's the kind of line one can imagine Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld using and it does conjure up a mental image that is awful and comical all at once.

Hell, it's always easy to make this all about the woman and her uterus and for nobody to question why the three men who fathered the children do not appear to be taking any responsibility.

Because it's simpler to make it the woman's fault. Just as unsavoury elements of the prolife movement think a universal "well, if women would just keep their legs shut" policy will render abortions unnecessary, it's always easier to slut-shame the single mother and let the father off the hook. As if all single mothers are reckless, feckless temptresses luring unsuspecting men into their bedrooms so their greedy wombs can take in lashings of semen.

Heather Frost's story troubles elements of the left and the right. She poses an intriguing conundrum for both the prolife and prochoice movements, for example. It would appear she truly chose to carry all 11 pregnancies to term and she has been quoted as saying she is opposed to abortion. But vocal elements of Britain's prolife movement, such as Nadine Dorries and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, (SPUC) have not hailed her as a heroine for "choosing life" 11 times.

Frost's story does not fit the welfare-cutting mantra of social conservatives, even those who are doing their best to reduce access to abortion in Britain. Nor does the Frost example offer a rosy picture of family life as per the SPUC narrative in which every woman who carries unplanned pregnancies to term has an endlessly joy-filled existence. The woman who has become a pariah in her own street and publicly slagged off by her own father is not likely to become SPUC's poster girl any time soon.

It certainly would have cost the British taxpayers less if she had multiple abortions instead of claiming benefits for the last seven years, but true prochoicers acknowledge that the choice to carry to term is just as valid as the choice to have an abortion. Plenty of prochoicers fly the flag for population control, but taking that to the extreme and advocating for a state that tries to dictate how many children people should produce is a troublesome stance for anyone who supports reproductive freedom.

Trying to police family size is a theme that crops up with both the "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em" crowd and fans of the one-child policy of China, a state that is frequently cited as an example of the evil left (despite the rampant capitalism and business opportunities this enormous and growing economy is offering). There is much awkwardness all round and, as a result, Heather Frost has been reduced to a sideshow freak with an obscenely prolific uterus.

But the whole circus is a moronic distraction.

The outrage is disproportionate. Of the 1.35 million families in Britain where at least one adult claims benefits, only 190 of them have more than 10 children. Heather Frost is in a tiny, tiny minority - just 0.014074% of the families on benefits. The majority of Britain's welfare budget is spent on the elderly, but it'd be political suicide to cut too deeply into the pockets of OAPs (except for those who fancy using a library once in a while...).

Tragically, this overblown outrage detracts attention away from the kind of things over which we should be marching on Westminster on a daily basis, such as killing off tax credits for workers, making unemployed people pay council tax, removing housing benefit for people under 25, the spare room tax, a rising deficit, mounting debts, pitiful economic growth, a taxation system that favours the wealthy, the incompetents of G4S running sexual assault referral centres, and the dismantling of the NHS. There are no prizes for guessing who might be pleased if Heather Frost is demonised.


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Don't mess with Texas if you're opposed to birth control...

Texas, I've heard, is an interesting place. I'd like to check it out one day. One of my closest friends is a Texan and she is hilarious. I think I'd have fun there. What isn't fun is the notion of squeezing the entire world's population into Texas, all seven billion of us and counting.

But this is the bizarre argument of certain elements of the anti-choice brigade when they are opposing not just abortion but also access to birth control, particularly for women in developing countries who, quite frankly, might just want a few more choices in their reproductive lives. Yes, the good news is that we can all relax and breed merrily, regardless of our circumstances because agenda-ridden groups say we can all fit comfortably into Texas. This is according to the Population Research Institute, founded by Father Paul Marx, a Roman Catholic priest. No prizes for guessing his standpoint on birth control and abortion.

But as much as I disagree with most of his views, I accept he has the right to hold such views. Indeed, as a prochoice person, I agree that the forced abortions that happen in China as a result of the one-child policy are unacceptable. What is absurd, however, is using the "we all fit in Texas" analogy to argue that the world is not yet full and nobody needs birth control.

The PRI quotes the UN Population Database, which states that in 2010 there were 6,908,688,000 of us on Earth. They go on to say the landmass of Texas is 268,820 square miles so if that is divided up amongst everyone on the planet, we each get a seemingly generous 1,084.76 square feet per person. Hell, that's more space than I have in my whole house and I share that with one other person! Under this plan, I could have more space to myself and so could my husband! What's not to like?

How about the mind-numbing simplistic nature of this line of thought? I get that the Texan analogy is not meant to be taken literally. The PRI is not suggesting the entire world move to Texas and actually admits on the website that this hypothetical utopia would just be "one massive subdivision".

That's what makes the analogy seriously stupid - the 1,084.76 square feet we should each be enjoying doesn't take into account the space we take up when we are at work, when we are enjoying leisure time, when we go shopping and run errands, the roads and railways required to transport people to places aside from their homes, or the need for infrastructure, such as sewerage and drainage systems, water supplies and energy generation facilities or any sort of manufacturing industry or agriculture. Indeed, millions of people across the world do not enjoy basic education, nutrition or healthcare, never mind the work, shopping and leisure opportunities I mentioned. What the hell kind of economy is funding this hypothetical space that can fit seven billion-odd people?

The PRI's disclaimer is that Texas represents "a tiny proportion of inhabitable Earth." As such, seven billion of us can all fit quite comfortably on this planet. Except that land, wealth and food are not distributed fairly, vast swathes of beautiful natural landscapes are destroyed on a daily basis to make room for more people and for the infrastructure and industries needed to support everyone, as well as the industries that are pretty much created to make rich people even richer but don't necessarily benefit society as a whole.

For some additional idiocy, the PRI's analogy assumes that the average family has four people in it. Except that family sizes vary across the world - if anyone should be aware of that, it's an organisation that professes to research population. The rhetoric of PRI also ignores quality of life and places sheer quantity of life as being far more important in every circumstance.

If you are using this Texan analogy as an argument against letting women access birth control, you are oversimplifying a complex issue. Fighting poverty and ensuring our planet has a sustainable future will require long-term cooperation between multiple governments, it will require massive investment across the globe in healthcare and education, it will require entire nations to look at changing cultures of pollution and waste. And that's just for starters.

Giving women access to birth control and more reproductive choices won't solve the world's problems alone. But wanting to restrict access to birth control because apparently we can all fit in Texas is a moronic oversimplification and it harms women.


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Pregnancy! Now with an inquiry nobody's talking about!

Unwanted pregnancy! Now there's a topic on which everyone has an opinion! It's a surefire way to set off a fiery Facebook discussion or a pub debate. Simply drop into the mix an opinion on anything related to this topic - birth control, abortion, single motherhood, sex education, abstinence, pregnant teenagers, benefits et cetera, et cetera - it's easy! So many conversational bombs just waiting to go off!

So why is yesterday's inquiry into unwanted* pregnancy in Britain getting about as much attention as a brunette in Rod Stewart's bathtub?

Just to get you up to speed because none of the major newspapers or TV news programmes are giving this inquiry a whole lot of airplay, the cross-party inquiry is being chaired by Conservative MP Amber Rudd and she is assisted by Labour MP Sandra Osbourne and Liberal Democrat MP Lorely Burt. It is being supported by think tank 2020health with Dr Jonathan Shapiro, the think tank's head of policy and a senior lecturer in Health Services Research at Birmingham University also asking questions alongside the MPs. The MPs plan to present their findings to the government before the Christmas break.**

Rudd, one of the more progressive Conservatives in the House of Commons, set the wheels in motion for the inquiry in July, hot on the heels of Nadine Dorries sticking her hypocritical head over the parapet on the issues such as abortion and sex education.

But we're not hearing much about the inquiry at all. A Google News search for "Amber Rudd" brings up precisely nothing from any of the major national newspaper websites on yesterday's events at the inquiry. Indeed, the newspaper that is offering the most coverage seems to be Amber Rudd's local paper, the Hastings and St Leonard's Observer. It appears to be a perfectly fine newspaper but why is it so hard to find anything much about this inquiry from the Guardian, the Daily Mail, The Times or the Telegraph? Why is this not zooming along the newsbar on Sky News? Why is it not being given the same prominence as the Leveson Inquiry?

Then again, after that inquiry's endless celebrity testimony, the session on the portrayal of women in the media was given less than a whole day in front of Lord Justice Leveson. The easiest way to keep up with that day's events was via Twitter. Disappointingly, the Guardian didn't bother with live updates on its website that day. Was it a case of: "Oh, it's just a few feminists having a whine, why bother? No clickbait there! Hugh Grant's testimony is clearly has so much more national importance."?

In the same it's-only-women-why-bother vein, has the issue of unwanted pregnancy become a fringe issue? Whether you're tired of right-wing demonising of single mothers, concerned about there being too many abortions, concerned that not enough people are availing themselves of abortions, keen for more women to take advantage of Britain's access to free birth control, interested in how many of your tax quids are helping bring up the results of unwanted pregnancy, opposed to comprehensive sex education, fearful that abstinence-only sex education may become part of the school curriculum, a fan of Nadine Dorries or completely terrified of Nadine Dorries, this is an inquiry that you might find just a little bit interesting.

Perhaps there will be findings from the inquiry that won't suit the competing agendas of different media outlets. The Hastings and St Leonard's Observer has diligently reported that Jc Mcfee, the manager of Respond Academy, a youth project told the inquiry that for many young people, an unwanted pregnancy actually isn't unwanted at all, but a lack of support after the baby is born can then lead to problems. Mcfee also said that despite this, there are "amazing stories of mums against the odds, it's not all doom and gloom."

I can see how some voices from the left and right might be nervous about addressing different aspects of Mcfee's testimony. Some from the left may be unwilling to admit that some teenagers do fall pregnant deliberately because of the emotional and financial benefits on offer, while some from the right may not want to promote the teenaged mother success stories that have been achieved, often with help from the British taxpayer and for those who did it alone, there's no benefits scrounger angle to be milked either.

If organisations such as BPAS and Marie Stopes reveal that not every woman who shows up at their clinics with an unwanted pregnancy decides to have an abortion and plenty choose to carry to term after going through the counselling process, that'd be a thorn in the side of the conservative agenda that infiltrates the Telegraph and the Daily Mail on the abortion debate.

But I am merely speculating on what might have been said at yesterday's inquiry because it is proving very difficult to find any good coverage. Why has this inquiry been largely sidelined by the mainstream media? It is not a secret inquiry. There is a real need for an open conversation on unwanted pregnancy, abortion, birth control, sex education and the social and economic impact of it all. It is a big deal.

It would be great to see Amber Rudd and her Labour and Liberal Democrat colleagues from this inquiry become as loud as Nadine Dorries or Louise Mensch, both of whom are never shy of publicity. It would be a terrible shame if yesterday's events are not reported. Here's hoping that when the final report is published before Christmas, the inquiry might get more attention from the mainstream media, from the nationals and the TV news programmes, as well as Amber Rudd's local paper.

More importantly, however, it would be good to see any recommendations taken seriously by government and properly discussed. Or am I being too optimistic? After all, the embarrassingly brief time devoted to women in the media at Leveson has achieved precisely nothing - the cellulite, baby bumps, weight loss, weight gain and breasts of female celebrities still pass as news. But, sadly, looking into unwanted pregnancies in Britain in a sane and even-handed manner, not so much.

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* "Unplanned" is probably a better term than "unwanted" for this inquiry.

** For more information about this inquiry, including the organisations called to give evidence, either verbal or written, please click on these two links:

http://www.2020health.org/2020health/policy/New-Research.html

http://www.2020health.org/2020health/Press/latest-news/Unplanned-Pregnancy.html

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