A week on from #ClaphamCommon...

 

A week on from the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard that turned terrifyingly quickly into a hideous example of excessive force by police officers, women are still being condemned for expressing their anger, articulating their pain, sharing their experiences, and making the simple demand to be free and safe on the streets. Make no mistake - freedom is safety for any group that has been oppressed. The two concepts cannot be unlinked. If you are not safe, you are not truly free.

And a week on, it is hard to be optimistic.

Plenty of men, aided and abetted by deeply unhelpful women, keep piping up to tell women that street attacks are rare, that Sarah Everard was unlucky, and the "real problem" is being attacked, raped, killed by someone you know, possibly in your own home or workplace.

This is not constructive. All you're really saying is that women are not safe anywhere. Women's safety is not an either/or proposition - the streets need to be safer for everyone, just as more needs to be done about abuse suffered by women at home, at work, on university campuses, in schools and so on.

And focusing on the greater likelihood of women being killed by someone they know rather than a stranger on the street is a distraction from the problem of "less serious" street offences against women being dealt with properly. Street harassment, indecent exposure, kerb-crawling - none of this is taken seriously enough even though it is not uncommon for someone to start their campaign of violence against women with these "minor" offences. It is symptomatic of a broken criminal justice system if there aren't the resources to do a better job of dealing with these crimes before someone is raped or murdered.

Hell, a woman tried to report an incident of indecent exposure as she was leaving the Clapham Common vigil last week and it was not taken seriously at the time. It's not as if there was a shortage of police officers in the area when she was trying to get home around 8pm last Saturday night. My friends and I saw them waiting in vans in laneways in the area from 5pm onwards. It was only after this woman's story received significant media coverage that the police launched an appeal for witnesses and information a full six days after the vigil. We should not have to go to the media for the police to be shamed into doing their job properly.

Equally, it is not helpful to constantly point out that men are more likely to be murdered than women. More than 90% of all murderers and rapists are men. Male violence and aggression is the issue here. If this can be addressed better, men and women are safer. We all win.

For women, statistics show we are less safe at home than men, we are more likely to be raped than men, and if we report rape, the chances of a successful prosecution are staggeringly low. And when we don't report rape because of fear, embarrassment, shame, being unconvinced that we'll be taken seriously, not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to relive the experience in a court room, it becomes harder for other women and men to come forward and report these hideous crimes against our bodies. 

Then nobody wins. Apart from rapists.

And, of course, because every woman's experience of male violence is different, we don't all feel equally safe or unsafe in the same places. My one experience of sexual assault was a street attack by a stranger in Dubai in 2006 but in 2021, I am happily married and feel safe at home. As a result, I am more wary of street attacks 15 years on - perhaps even more so now that the arthritis in my left ankle and knees has worsened and my fear of being grabbed and being physically unable to run away - even if mentally I am ready to run to the next county - is real.

The day after the vigil, I tweeted a picture of my swollen left foot, a legacy of spending about an hour standing in the one spot.

There were some supportive replies - and one arsehole called me a freak and suggested I join a circus, which proves my point that women are not necessarily safe anywhere and can be subjected to vile abuse from a stranger even while resting on the sofa after attending a vigil for a murdered woman.

But that is just my experience - I am not going to use my feeling of greater safety at home than on the streets to diminish another woman for whom domestic violence means she feels safer when she is not home. All the violence needs to be dealt with and a massive part of that is achieving wholesale cultural change. Women will continue to "take care", to do all the things we're told to do to stay safe on the streets, but until we are not viewed by too many men as expendable, as useless, as easy targets, as semen receptacles, as territory to which they have an inalienable right, nothing much will change.

Over in Australia, there were brilliant scenes of angry women marching in multiple locations calling for justice for women after multiple sexual assault allegations were levelled at men in positions of power, including the federal government. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's disgusting response to this was to tell parliament: "Not far from here, such marches, even now are being met with bullets, but not here in this country, Mr Speaker."

Great. So Australian women should be grateful they weren't shot for speaking out. He is not pledging to take any action, he is merely complaining that his words were twisted. He gaslit a nation by trying to make himself the victim. That is how low the bar has been set by a prime minister - and it shows just how far we have to go. 

Meanwhile, here in the UK, the systemic sexism continues in myriad ways. Just this week, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that care workers are not entitled to minimum wage for sleep-in shifts - this is a terrible, reductive decision that will disproportionately affect women. In the UK, 85% of direct care and support-providing jobs in adult social care are done by women. Depressingly, it was Lady Justice Arden whose written ruling stated that "sleep-in workers ... are not doing time work for the purposes of the national minimum wage if they are not awake." Sleeping while on call in facilities where any number of emergencies can take place during the night is not the same as a relaxing night's sleep in one's own bed. It is work. And it is predominantly women's work.

And that is just one example. We are fighting battles on multiple fronts. There was some momentum for women's rage this week but it already feels like it is subsiding, that the right to protest will be limited on the grounds of noise and disruption, the very essence of how protests work. 

The issues that affect our lives and our bodies every single day will be swallowed up by the news cycle, by ridiculous patriotism pissing contest stories about flags, by divisive vaccine nationalism, by our own sheer exhaustion at it all. 

   

Photography by Heloisa Freitas/Pexels

Rest well, Caroline

As ever, whenever a celebrity dies, especially when they die young, suddenly and tragically, the internet comes alive with the inevitable public grief, hand-wringing, assumptions from people who claim they knew exactly what happened in that unfortunate person's final sad weeks, days and hours, and there is a rush to apportion blame. 

But with the news only breaking last night about the suicide of Caroline Flack, we only have certain facts available. We know she took her own life, we know she was due to face trial for the assault of her boyfriend, Lewis Burton, we know the CPS alleges that she hit him with a lamp while he was asleep, we know he didn't want to press charges, we know that she pleaded not guilty, we know that a condition of her bail was that she was not to contact her boyfriend. 

And there is plenty we do not know. 

We do not yet know what the post-mortem or inquest will reveal. And there are things we will never know, such as whether this story may have had a happier outcome if she was allowed to see her boyfriend before the trial, or indeed what the outcome of the trial would have been. We won't know of a not-guilty verdict or find out how she could rebuild her life after an acquittal - or what would follow for her and Burton in the event of a guilty verdict. 

The only thing we can be sure of is that if she was found guilty, she'd become the anti-poster-child for the "See? Women can be abusers too!" brigade. That brigade had already come out of the woodwork, shitting on the whole concept of presumption of innocence. Nobody is saying that women cannot be the perpetrators of domestic violence - of course they can - but everyone accused of this dreadful crime has the right to a fair trial. 

This brigade of (mostly) angry men was emboldened by pictures published by The Sun of a bloodstained bed at Flack's flat, pictures which, horrifically, were still on the newspaper's website at the time of writing. The publication of the bloodied bed was, at best, in poor taste and, at worst, not in the public interest, particularly before her trial had taken place.

There is a rush to blanket-blame "the media" for Flack's death - and she has long been an object of tabloid obsession, particularly after she dated a 17-year-old Harry Styles when she was 31. No age of consent laws were broken, but eyebrows were raised when Styles was photographed leaving her flat. It didn't take long for her to be pigeonholed as a "cougar", a sexually aggressive and adventurous seducer of younger men, a woman who is seen as a threat to the ideal of a demure, compliant woman. 

She became an easy target for hate and it wasn't restricted to the usual tabloid suspects. Everyone with a Twitter account and a misguided sense of moral righteousness could pile in. 

And the public lapped it up. If there wasn't a market for these sort of salacious stories, they wouldn't be written or broadcast in the first place. We feed the beast when we click on the links. Entertainment journalists are often quick to defend their profession, to point out that it's not an easy job (it's not) and they are obliged to constantly seek out the stories that will get the clicks and the sales (also true). But it is unfortunate that in the quest to keep eyeballs on screens and papers, fingers furtively scrolling or turning pages, that not only does accuracy often fall by the wayside, but public interest tests fall short and there is little time to pause and contemplate if a story is kind or even necessary.

Advocating the end of entertainment journalism or holding "the mainstream media" solely responsible for Flack's death is reductive and simplistic, ignoring the role of social media in this complicated story, especially as that was the only way Burton was able to communicate with Flack since December. However, it shouldn't preclude entertainment journalists from pausing to think about how they cover stories, especially those involving celebrities who may be vulnerable, may have mental health issues, may be struggling with addiction, or may simply be going through a tough time, as can happen to any one of us. 

The guidelines for reporting on suicide, issued by the Samaritans, are an excellent resource - it is not a restriction on press freedom to report responsibly.

Ultimately, gossip is part of human nature. That's never going to change. We devour gossip about our friends as readily as we devour celebrity gossip. Hell, I have an episode of The Bachelor burbling mindlessly away in the background as I write this and I just rolled my eyes as a doe-eyed blonde used her one-on-one time with the prized Colton, the hot, virgin bachelor, to call her mother for the first time since her release from prison. I'm not going to pretend I'm immune to taking a pervy interest in the lives of beautiful people I'll never meet. Of course, with every celebrity death, there's always one sneering blowhard who feels the need to comment "Who?" under a tweet or Facebook post, as if not knowing about a figure in popular culture is some form of moral superiority. 

But the truth is that none of us are superior. We're all flawed and farty and prone to awkwardness, even those who, on the surface, appear to have everything under control. And any one of us could end up in as dark a place as Flack found herself in her lonely final hours. May we all pause to be kind to each other and to ourselves.

Photography by Alex Borland.

When the news became a great big trigger warning...

The news cycle since last Thursday has been more unedifying than usual. Perhaps it is naive to expect that people would largely agree that the correct way to deal with a peaceful protester at an elite dinner is not to push her into a pillar and frogmarch her out, grabbing the back of her neck. And perhaps it is naive to expect that if a couple is having an argument so loud it can be heard in the street as well as in neighbouring flats, a reasonable response would be to knock on the door to see if everyone is OK and, if there is no response, call the police.

Yet here we are, arguing all over the internet about all this. I can only imagine how horrific it must be for so many women who have been victims of physical violence or domestic abuse, which can be physical, emotional, verbal or psychological - or an awful combination of these types.

On Thursday night, Janet Barker, a Greenpeace campaigner, along with a group of fellow activists, managed to barge into the Mansion House dinner just as Chancellor Phillip Hammond was about to give his speech. She was dressed in a red cocktail dress and heels, she carried a small bag, a phone and a bundle of leaflets, and she wore a Greenpeace sash. Her fellow protestors were similarly dressed - red cocktail dresses and sashes for the women and tuxedos for the men - and the obvious question is how did they get as far into the building as they did? It is astounding in these paranoid times, that they were not stopped at the entrance, bags X-rayed and leaflets inspected. I've been to events at the Houses of Parliament and Portcullis House and the security was on par with catching a plane.

But get into the dinner they did. And when Janet Barker walked towards the front of the room, Mark Field MP took it upon himself to stop her - which would have been fine if he'd handled it almost any other way other than the way he did. 

He could have been a true class act and defender of free speech by stopping her, asking her to tell the room why she was there, and then handed her leaflets around the room. Or he could have steered her away by the arm rather than push her into a pillar and grab her by the scruff of the neck, his face magenta with instant rage.

For so many women who have been attacked in that manner, whether in public or private, the endless repetition of the footage for a solid two days cannot have been easy. The pushing into a wall, the grabbing of the neck, instantly weakening defences - it's appallingly familiar for too many. It gave me a brief flashback to the time I was pulled off a footpath in Dubai and pushed into a bush in an attempted sexual assault. And I managed to get away, albeit with laddered tights and a scratch on my chest. I can only imagine how much worse this footage would be for women who have suffered worse violence at the hands of men, especially over a sustained period of time.

Field's defence was that he "acted on instinct" but if that was his instinct, he really does need to take some time away to reflect as to why his immediate reaction was rage and excessive manhandling of a woman who was clearly representing a group known for peaceful protest. Please note that "peaceful" in this context means "non-violent", not "quiet" or "non-disruptive". The Greenpeace protesters who woke me up one morning in Durban in 2011 to protest a gas industry event in my hotel made a racket but nobody was in any danger. They were allowed to sing, bang drums in the street and chant unimpeded. One activist managed to get into the hotel business centre and change the wallpaper on the computers to the Greenpeace logo. There was no harm done. I giggled to myself when I went to the business centre to write up my notes from the gas event on one of the altered PCs - it was excellent mischief.

And nobody was in any real danger last Thursday night. 

Nobody else at the dinner felt the need to react so disproportionately. Plenty of people who were at the Mansion House dinner were at the Conservative Party conference of 2017 when Simon Brodkin, a "prankster" (read: overgrown schoolboy who is about as funny as burning orphans), barged in and handed Theresa May a P45. On that occasion, no male MPs felt the need to be a Billy Big-Balls hero and push Brodkin into the wall or frogmarch him out by scruff of the neck, Theresa May was the very model of British good manners when she took the P45 form in the same way that many a Brit is too polite not to take a leaflet from someone at the tube station, and the security guard who escorted Brodkin out did so with a single, gentle hand to the back.

Following on from the usual suspects defending Mark Field, news broke of a noisy row at Carrie Symonds' flat, which would not be newsworthy except the argument was with her partner, one Boris Johnson, the man most likely to be the next prime minister. He has been staying there after his second marriage broke up. God forbid he rent a place in Uxbridge, his actual constituency, but that would require him to show some sort of commitment to his job as an MP.

But I digress. As with any argument between a couple, only the couple knows the full story, but we do know this argument was loud enough to be heard on the street and through walls, Ms Symonds was heard saying "get off me" and "get out of my flat", Mr Johnson was heard saying "get off my fucking laptop" and smashing sounds were heard. It's the kind of language and sounds that are familiar to many a victim of domestic violence.

The ethics of the neighbours giving a recording of the altercation to the Guardian newspaper is being furiously debated - along with the ethics of other newspapers making hay from it all while spouting fauxrage at the neighbours who recorded the argument and claiming Ms Symonds is "furious" based on what "friends" have apparently said, rather than anything she has directly told a journalist. There is definitely an intelligent debate to be had about media ethics here, especially in regard to whether this endangers Ms Symonds' safety. The Daily Mail, in particular, should remove from its website a diagram of the apartment building, including a floorplan of Ms Symonds' flat - that invasive crap goes way beyond the public interest defence.

However, it is stunning that anyone says the police should not have been called. The ire has been directed at "nosy neighbours" and their own politics have been thoroughly dissected in today's papers. But in this sort of situation, where an argument can be easily heard outside a flat, where it sounds as if there are people in distress and possibly in physical danger, calling police is absolutely the right thing to do.

It is pretty common for police to arrive only to be told everything is fine, but there are plenty of occasions where the arrival of the police has saved someone's life or is the turning point for an abused partner to leave a dangerous relationship. In the wake of the Johnson-Symonds row, people have spoken up about how they were grateful for the neighbours who called the police, or how they would have left an abusive relationship sooner if the police were called earlier or, tragically, how people were left badly injured or killed because nobody picked up the phone.

I have been the "nosy neighbour". In 2005, I called the police multiple times on the couple in the flat across the hall from me in Sydney. They were drug addicts who would have noisy and violent fights that would spill out of their place and carry on outside the door to my flat, usually in the middle of the night. This went on for months. On one occasion, after I knocked on their door telling them to be quiet because I was trying to sleep, the woman bashed on my door when I was back in bed, yelling that she would "kick my cunt in". Then there was the day when I burst into tears at my desk, crying frustrated tears of distress and exhaustion because I was too sleep-deprived to do my job properly.

That story did not end happily. The parents of the woman called me, desperate for information about their daughter, particularly as they were caring for her child from a previous relationship. One night, the woman knocked on my door to tell me she was pregnant and too scared to tell her boyfriend - I told her she would have to start taking better care of herself if she was serious about continuing the pregnancy and that she should end the relationship. I let her know that her parents were very worried and would take her in. She told me it was too hard to leave him and scuttled back to her flat. The good news is that ultimately she did leave the toxic relationship, but not long afterwards, her boyfriend committed suicide in the flat - by this time I'd moved to Dubai and a friend who lived upstairs told me the sad, sorry story.

I don't regret calling the police. The police officers' interventions could have defused life-endangering situations, even if they always sent the police away and said they were fine. Calling the police several times was still the right thing to do. And it is the right thing to do, regardless of whether the couple is a wretched pair of drug addicts or a privileged couple who are on the verge of being the most powerful twosome in the country.

The more we argue about the morality pushing women into walls and grabbing their necks or whether we should call the police if we overhear a nasty argument, the less safe women will be. Why the hell is anyone who professes to be decent tolerating this?

Photography by George Hodan

Feminism 2018: The state of things so far

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No ifs, no buts, no excuses, there is a global problem with rape

"No punishment for man who raped girl, 12" was the stark headline on the BBC News site on Friday. Never mind that since 2009 under British law, anyone under the 13 is deemed unable to give informed consent to sexual intercourse. This negates the defence of consent in such cases, except the judge Lady Scott decided it was not in the pubic interest to punish Daniel Cieslak, who pleaded guilty to rape, saying it would be "disproportionate given the nature of the criminal culpability here". 

The girl in question said she was 16 and CCTV footage confirmed to Lady Scott that it was reasonable for Cieslak to assume this was the case. He procured alcohol for her even though he knew she was, at the very least, too young to legally consume it.

Well, if that decision isn't a goddamn gift for paedophiles as well as rapists in general, I don't know what is. What is the bloody point of even having age of consent laws when the line in the sand can be easily washed away on the strength of CCTV footage and a tearful defendant?

Still, the same judge has form here. In 2013, she sentenced Hamadache Hamza to just six years for weekend-long rape ordeal that took place in the victim's flat, despite the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines suggesting five years as the starting point for a single offence rape sentence, eight years for rape with aggravating factor, and life imprisonment as the maximum sentence. Lady Scott's reasoning was that Hamza had come to the UK from Algeria, overcome a difficult background, and set up a successful hairdressing business and this had to be taken into account.

Never mind that most people who are either immigrants or have come from a difficult background, or both, manage not to rape people. In the world of Lady Scott, these two factors lessen the severity of the crime of depriving a woman of her liberty and her right to personal safety and bodily autonomy for 48 awful hours - and she insults every law-abiding immigrant and every law-abiding person who has come from a disadvantaged background in one fell swoop.

These are just two of the endless cavalcade of examples of rape-related bullshit from all over the world. They are examples are from Britain but Britain is not unique in the ways it fails women and girls.

Rape is not unique to any particular race or religion or social class or profession. That is what makes the problem seem so insurmountable. To single out any one group is to throw the bodies of women under countless other buses. It is a grotesque game of whack-a-mole - while we villify one group based on the example of a few, women are still being raped by other men in other places and in other circumstances, whether it is at the hands of a stranger, as a weapon of war, or in the depressingly likely scenario of being raped by someone she knows.

What is particularly tiresome is the constant minimising of women's anger by men. Just today, a friend of mine from India posted an opinion piece on her Facebook page which advised women not to come to India. It was written by an Indian woman, it was an agonising cry from a woman who does not feel safe in her home country. Pathetically, a man jumped on the page to tell us that there was no use in getting angry.

With all due respect, sir, fuck off. When you are not feeling threatened on a daily basis, it is easy to wonder what all the fuss is about. But it is something women live with every day of their lives in every country in the world. I completely understand why millions of American women choose to take advantage of the second amendment and carry a gun.

The reason why women collectively roll their eyes when they are told to be careful when they leave the house, is not because we are obstinate little flakes. It is because we know already. We bloody know. We make a habit of being careful all the damn time. We carry our keys in a position that is suitable for jabbing an assailant as we walk from the bus stop to the house. We install sensor lights near our front doors so we're not fumbling about in the dark for too long. We tell each other to text as soon as we get home safely. We help each other into taxis. We feed each other water and kebabs and paracetamol when we've had too much to drink. When Judge Kushner said that we are entitled to "drink ourselves into the ground" but our "disinhibited behaviour" could put us in danger, she was not saying anything new.

Still, at least Judge Kushner didn't compare women to cars or houses by using the horrible "You don't leave your car or house unlocked when you go out" rape analogy. Reducing our bodies to a comparison with the contents of a glove compartment or a jewellery box is appalling, reductive nonsense. And if you do get burgled because you forgot to lock a door, you might just get more sympathy than a rape victim who was drunk or wore a short skirt or wore a long skirt or only drank water or left the house or caught a bus or went to work or had the temerity to leave the house in possession of a vagina.

"You silly bugger; leaving the house with the door open!" is hardly on par with the disdainful spite of "Well, you were asking for it, walking around that part of town at that time of day..." when you've just had your body violated in the worst possible way, shy of actually being murdered.

And then if something horrific does happen to us, we'd better hope and pray our assailants aren't wealthy, privileged, or have a great future as an athlete or a city trader because they may just get a sweet deal from a judge.

That is if you report the crime at all. I know plenty of women who have not reported rapes. This is usually because of fear: fear of being disbelieved, fear of ending up on the wrong side of the law in countries where premarital sex is illegal, fear of spending a lot of time being humiliated and reliving a repulsive experience for no justice to be done, fear of bringing shame to the family, fear of the reaction of one's partner, fear of simply making a fuss...

Please do not start with the "But men get raped too!" line. Yes, they do. They do not get raped in quite the same numbers as women but male rape is no myth. And guess what? They are usually raped by other men.

And male rape is, like female rape, drastically under-reported. Oh Lord, I wonder why that might be? When men see what crap women are put through when they attempt to get justice for being raped, where is the incentive for them to report the crime when they are raped?

If more women are confident to come forward without being accused of "asking for it" when reporting a rape, perhaps it will follow that more men who are raped will come forward too. This is a prime example of how achieving justice for women and girls has the potential to help men and boys.

Indeed, the eternal pit of dick-driven ignorance was fed by the unctuous Philip Davies MP recently when he tried to derail the passing of a bill to recognise the Istanbul Convention in a bid to prevent violence against women and girls.

Predictably, all the douchebros came out of the woodwork to cheer Davies on because men get attacked too. Except clearly none of these intellectual bankrupts bothered to look into the finer points of the Istanbul Convention which quite plainly recognises that men and boys are victims of violence too. But that would require doing some research, becoming informed, not simply believing everything a pig of an MP tells you because it suits your hateful little narrative.

These are the same men who disbelieve the low rates of false accusation and see nothing wrong with someone who admits to grabbing women by the genitals, someone who feels so permanently entitled to access women's bodies, is now the president of the United States. Indeed, yesterday it emerged that Theresa May thought Donald Trump was "a gentleman". Brilliant. Britain's second woman Prime Minister has been gaslit by a self-confessed sex pest.

And so we continue, the women and girls of the world, to constantly take precautions against rape, to be constantly on our guard, because that is our normal. For some, normal means regular rape by a partner. For others, normal means rape at the hands of terrorists. For some, it just means never quite feeling safe.

If you have never felt that fear, you are automatically privileged. It is your duty to stand alongside those who are not so fortunate, the women and girls of the world.

  

"Nightmare of a Gang Rape Victim" image by Syed Ali Wasif/Flickr

An oath for oafs

Sajid Javid simply loves the idea of an oath of allegiance to British values! He is all excited after reading Dame Louise Casey's report on social cohesion because it recommends public office-holders take such an oath. Elected officials, civil servants and council workers would be expected to take this oath, should it ever become a requirement, according to the report.

But Sajid has taken an already scarily Orwellian idea one step further and said that all migrants, not just those seeking UK citizenship, should take the oath. 

Yep, he is mad about the oath. Sajid would rather talk about this oath instead of, oh, I dunno, his own decision to vote against landlords requiring their properties to be fit for human habitation while he is an actual landlord. But, hey, letting hard-working people pay through the nose to live in squalor is clearly a British value! Am I right, Sajid? Jolly good show, old chap! 

Hell, he is so keen to advocate for an oath that he has even started spitballing a few ideas for it. What a guy! I am so glad that as a permanent resident of Britain, owner of property in Britain, married to a British citizen, working, paying my taxes and voting in Britain, that Sajid is here to tell me how I can best direct my loyalty.

Sajid said the oath might include phrases such as "tolerating the views of others even if you disagree with them" as well as "believing in freedom of speech". OK, fine. So I have the freedom to say I find the vile and racist rantings of, say, Anjem Choudary or Jayda Fransen are utterly repulsive but I still must "tolerate their views"? I have zero tolerance for racism. If I had to take this oath, would I really mean it? What would happen to me if I publicly said I didn't tolerate the crap people like Choudary and Fransen come out with it? I'd be exercising my freedom of speech, as per the oath, but breaking the bit about tolerance.

"Freedom of religion" was another of Sajid's helpful suggestions. Yep, you can believe in whatever deity you like but what about freedom from religion? I am unimpressed, for example, that certain politicians voted against marriage equality with their religious beliefs being a factor in their decision. I find that sort of church-state crossover hard to tolerate - whoops, there I go again, being intolerant! Indeed, while we're talking about religion, would I be breaking the oath if I dared suggest that it is high time the Church of England was disestablished? If I say so, am I breaking the bit in Sajid's imaginary oath about believing in freedom of religion?

Sajid also suggested "freedom from abuse". If he means physical abuse, we already have laws against assault, rape and murder. These are laws everyone is expected to obey, whether or not they are a public official or not, and regardless of whether they were born here or came here from somewhere else. 

Or does he mean verbal abuse? If so, there are already laws against hate speech and death threats? Do the anti-hate speech laws contravene the "freedom of speech" part of the oath? Honestly, Sajid, this is a minefield! It's almost as if you're making this up as you're going along rather than thinking it through rationally.

Then Sajid said "a belief in equality, democracy and the democratic process" should be chucked into the oath which, the more I think about it, the more it starts looking like having about as much credibility as a pinky promise. Sajid, we currently have an openly misogynistic homophobe on the Commons Women and Equalities Committee in the form of Conservative MP Philip Davies. This is a man who this week tried to filibuster a bill to ratify the Istanbul Convention because men are victims of domestic violence too - even though the convention covers violence against men and women. If only there was a senior woman in the Conservative Party with the power to prevent ridiculous appointments to committees...

As for a belief in "democracy and the democratic process", sure, I can get on board with that. My belief in democracy extends to believing that the monarchy is undemocratic and has no real place in a modern society and that the House of Lords needs urgent reform. I am, apparently, free to say this but does the oath cover democracy and the democratic process as it currently exists or is there some wiggle room on that one, Sajid?

And finally, he suggested "respect for the law, even if you think the law is an ass". So this oath would mean that we must respect all laws at all times, no matter what? Blind loyalty for the win, eh Sajid? What if a public official who had to swear this oath found that stupid laws made their job impossible or compromised safety or would put a vulnerable person at risk? How would swearing to this part of the oath help whistleblowers who expose things that may well be legal but are morally wrong or dangerous or just plain ineffective? 

Sorry, Sajid, you're going to have to work much harder to convince me that this idea for an oath is not just creepy and chilling, but also that it is not completely and utterly useless. Would this sort of lip service really help different groups in communities come together or get along better? Would this prevent a single act of terrorism? Nope. And nope. 

What I do know is that I have lived here long enough to know this sort of forced patriotism, this ridiculous, ill-thought-out jingoism is just a stupid distraction by Sajid Javid and if it ever happened, it would not do a damn thing to improve anything.

  

Photography by Karen Arnold

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

The unseemly spectacle of disgruntled men piggybacking on the Natalie Allman case

I genuinely had no idea that the law was such an ass. To discover that a judge can order a woman who was treated so violently by her ex-partner that she could have died from a slashed throat to write to that same abuser three times a year to update him on their kids came as an appalling shock.

But that is what has happened here in the UK in 2015. In a country that I think is generally a very good place to be a woman. In 2011, Natalie Allman was tortured for seven hours by Jason Hughes. They had broken up but he was still living in the same house while Hughes was looking for a new place to live. He had a drinking problem - a litre of vodka or six bottles of cider a day was not unusual, according to court records. Allman called off their engagement two months before their planned wedding day and had started seeing someone else. Hughes, it would seem, did not take this news well.

He tried to smother her with a pillow. He battered her face was battered with a dumb-bell. He slashed her throat in front of their twin sons. The blade narrowly missed a major artery. Her throat had to be surgically rebuilt.

Hughes has been jailed for nine years for malicious wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Not attempted murder. His defence was that he wanted to make her look ugly to other men, not to kill her. Astoundingly, this worked. One would think that if you wanted to make someone look ugly, you'd slash their face but according to the judge, this was not the case.

One would think that the nine-year jail sentence would be the end of it. With Hughes locked away for nine years, Allman could get on with her life, safe in the knowledge that he could not harm her or her sons. And she did just that. In 2012, she gave birth to a son with her new partner, Wayne Young. They are still together. This should be the happy ending Allman deserves.

But in January 2014, Hughes applied for a Residence and Contact Order. He asked for six letters a year and phone calls from the twins at Christmas and on their birthday. After spending £3,000 on legal fees to fight this absurd demand, a court ruled that she should send up-to-date photos and three letters a year to update Hughes on their health, education and emotional development. The court gave permission for Hughes to send the twins Christmas and birthday cards and a letter at the start of each school year.

If Allman does not comply with this order, she could be found in contempt of court and jailed. She is the victim here. We should not have a situation in a civilised country where a victim of horrific domestic abuse faces prison for refusing to stay in touch with her abuser. That is the sort of morally repugnant rubbish you'd expect to find in societies where women are made to marry their rapists, not in Britain.

This is a story about the importance of justice for domestic violence victims. And it is a story about the importance of balancing parental rights with compassion, commonsense and the protection of children. Hughes should have lost all rights as a father when he attacked his sons' mother in front of them.

But this story did not stop a few trolls from coming out of the woodwork. A particularly unseemly character on the Metro newspaper's Facebook page hailed Hughes as a hero for wronged men and condemned Allman as a cheating woman and a bad mother who was asking for it. No. She was not. To make excuses for such brutal violence against a woman you've never met on the grounds of adultery, either real or imagined, is to live in the dark ages. Or modern day Saudi Arabia, where people can still be beheaded for adultery. In Britain, beheadings for adultery are associated with Henry VIII and he has not been on the throne for quite a while now.

The cesspit of foolishness that is the Daily Mail comments section featured academic giants criticising her for finding a new partner and having another baby so soon after her relationship with Hughes. I'm sorry. I didn't realise there was a required period of celibacy for women after the end of a bad relationship.

And then someone popped up in my Twitter notifications to tell me "the law is a farce here". No argument from me so far but then there was the kicker: "Good fathers get deprived because of bitter mothers but evil men get rights."

Yes, I know, there are indeed cases where men miss out on access to their kids for no good reason. This is not a good thing. Obviously. But to tack this issue on to this story is appalling. The Natalie Allman case is not about a bitter mother. It is about inexcusable domestic violence and how the laws in a supposedly civilised country can fail victims so comprehensively.

If Natalie Allman speaking out to the media gives domestic violence victims, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, the confidence to come forward, to bring their attackers to justice, that is a good thing. Like rape, we will never know the full extent of domestic violence because it is not always reported. But if we expect to walk down the street without being assaulted, the same should apply in our homes, in our most intimate relationships.

And if Natalie Allman speaking out can help bring about a change in the law so that men like Jason Hughes are not able to be a grim spectre in the lives of their victims from behind bars, that would also be a good outcome.

Let Natalie Allman have her moment without slut-shaming her for her life choices or turning this into a chance to slag off "bitter mothers". She is not a fame whore. She just wants justice.

Image by Sabine Sauermaul

Nigella's business is now everyone's business...

The reaction to the Nigella Lawson-Charles Saatchi assault story reminds me of the armchair heroes who come out of the woodwork every time there is another horrific shooting in America. They are the people who claim with absolute certainty that if only they were on hand in Aurora/Sandy Hook/Santa Monica, they would have saved the day and shot the bad guy dead.

Ever since the jarring pictures of the Lawson-Saatchi argument were released, there has been a similar spate of heroes-after-the-fact. People who were not at the restaurant are sticking their heads over the parapet to claim they would have done something to help Nigella. The claims of "doing something" have ranged from asking if she was OK to calling her a taxi to calling the police to embedding a shattered glass in Saatchi's skull.

Yet the reality is that for those of us who weren't there, we don't know what we would have done. We only know what we like to think we would have done.
 
And now that Nigella has apparently moved out of the marital home, she is being called upon by people who have never met her to speak out about domestic violence. In Australia, the improbably named Dee Dee Dunleavy, a radio DJ, wrote a particularly stupid blog post in which she concluded: "Nigella, like it or not, you're a beacon for women from all walks of life. If you want us to buy your books and watch your shows on how to run our kitchens, then we need you to make a stand on domestic violence."

I've written before on why the idea of celebrity role models is ridiculous and I maintain this is still the case.

Dunleavy hastily issued a ridiculous clarification and claimed she wasn't victim-blaming or calling for a Nigella boycott despite her chronically patronising last sentence. That'd be the sentence where she advocated not helping Lawson to earn a living until she "make[s] a stand on domestic violence". Uh, yeah, because encouraging the reduction of a woman's earning power is, er, so empowering, right?

But Dunleavy is not alone in telling Nigella what she must do now. Globally, she is being ordered to speak out against domestic violence, to press charges against her husband and to divorce him.

In the meantime, Saatchi has accepted a caution from the police telling the media: ""Although Nigella made no complaint I volunteered to go to Charing Cross station and take a police caution after a discussion with my lawyer because I thought it was better than the alternative, of this hanging over all of us for months."

Given the extensive photographic evidence as well as accounts from people who were at the restaurant at the time, it would not have been unexpected if the CPS decided to charge Saatchi, even if Lawson chose not to co-operate. The CPS can prosecute in domestic violence cases without the alleged victim pressing charges, although I have been told by a police officer that this usually only happens if the "injuries are worthy of Section 47 Assault or above" - or in other words, at least an assault under the legal definition of actual bodily harm, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

So what now? Whatever Lawson decides to do next is up to her.  That's the thing about choice - sometimes people will make choices that we might not find acceptable or would not make for ourselves, but that doesn't mean the choices are invalid. Nor does it mean that it is always easy for a woman, even one with all the advantages of Nigella Lawson, to simply leave an abusive man.

In the court of public opinion, an idiotic peanut gallery if ever there was one, she is damned no matter what.

If she speaks out against domestic violence, some will say she is pandering to the busybodies and that private lives should stay private, even if that life spills out onto a public street.

If she stays with Saatchi, she will be portrayed as an object of pity, a middle-class, apron-clad version of Rihanna who can't seem to break up with notorious abuser Chris Brown.

If she breaks up with Saatchi, the likes of Cristina Odone, who seemingly can't bear to see a marriage break up for any reason at all, will blame media pressure. While writing about the marriage in the media.

The media circus has now dragged on for days - Saatchi has been spotted at a restaurant without Lawson and sources are saying they hosted dinner parties after the awful incident and they seemed happy. There seems to be much consternation that Lawson has not confirmed via her spokesperson whether her move out of the marital home is permanent or not.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Nigella Lawson cannot be blamed for lying low for a while and she is under no obligation to tell the media anything about her private life. Can you imagine what it must be like to open pretty much any given newspaper and see photos of yourself as your husband grabs your neck or read opinion pieces by people who presume to know what is best for you and profess to know more about your relationship than you do?

Meanehile, the Evening Standard has run a series of pro-Saatchi pieces every day since the story broke - he is a columnist for the ES after all. Is this their bizarre way of telling the world it's all fine, he is a top bloke, it was just a "playful tiff" (ugh...), and he will continue to write for them.  Still, it's a change from their daily pro-Boris Johnson nonsense, I suppose.

It's one thing to raise awareness of domestic violence via the media, to use the Lawson-Saatchi story as an example of how domestic violence can happen to anyone - but it is quite another to use the media to tell a grown woman how to live her life. Nigella Lawson is an intelligent, successful woman - we can only hope and assume those closest to her are offering her all the support she needs at the moment. And we can only trust that she will make whatever choices are best for her without blaming her, patronising her, talking about her as if she is a stupid child, disapproving of her or judging her.

Instead of stalking Mayfair restaurants and getting columnists to dole out unsolicited marriage guidance counselling, it would behoove the newspapers of Britain to report on some other news. There's plenty of it about at the moment.


____________________________

Here is a rare articulate piece of writing on the whole sorry story: http://sarahpinborough.com/2013/06/19/i-dont-know-where-to-put-my-feet/



Image courtesy of Brian Minkoff - London Pixels

False rape accusations: perceptions, proportion, paranoia and problems

False accusations of rape ruin lives. Only an idiot would dispute this. Anyone who is a fan of justice is not a fan of false accusations for any crime, especially one that carries the stigma of a rape conviction or a rape charge which is later disproved in a court of law. As well as the great personal cost to the falsely accused, false accusations cost public money and waste court time. As such, it is appropriate that false accusers are punished within the boundaries of the law. None of this should be disputed.

What should be questioned is whether there is a plague of false accusations sweeping the nation. A study released this week would indicate this is not the case at all. The study, released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), found that over a 17-month period in England and Wales, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 prosecutions for domestic violence. Over the same period of time, there were just 35 prosecutions for false rape allegations, six for false domestic violence allegations, and three for false allegations involving both rape and domestic violence. So, in a country of more than 60 million people, there were 117,542 prosecutions for rape and domestic violence in total, compared to a grand total of 44 prosecutions relating to false accusations. Over the 17-month period of the study, 159 suspects were linked to allegedly false claims.

It would be lovely to live in a world where there were no false accusations of rape or domestic violence, but when the false allegations are massively outnumbered by the successful prosecutions, it is pretty clear that a sense of proportion is required.

It is certainly important to look at who makes false accusations and why they happen, but it is extremely important to focus on preventing rape and domestic violence from happening in the first place. The domestic violence figures, in particular, are shockingly high and a national conversation is required to find out why there has been an increase of 11% in cases reported to Citizens Advice in the last three months of 2012 compared with 2011.

It is heartening to see advertising campaigns here in Britain that focus on telling rapists not to rape rather than blaming the victim. The If You Could See Yourself television advertising campaign (TRIGGER WARNING) is a welcome step away from telling women what they already know about unattended drinks and walking home alone, or reinforcing the Taliban mentality that what you wear means you're asking for it. But what the government gives with one hand, it takes with the other with the privatisation of sexual assault referral centres. Inexplicably, the government has given a contract to manage some of these centres to G4S, a company best known for their incompetence in handling security at the 2012 London Olympics,  No private company should profit from handling sexual assault cases - that is completely immoral. Meanwhile, on Sky News, Lorna Dunkley interviewed the British woman who alleges a hotel manager attempted to sexually assault her before she escaped by jumping over the balcony of her room in the Indian city of Agra. It is a shame Dunkley felt the need to ask her if she felt there was anything she could have done differently to prevent the assault. Like what? Not travelled alone? Not requested a wake-up call to catch an early train?

And in the meantime, the "Bitches ruin men's lives!" cries from rape apologists just keep on coming. Let's look a little deeper into the figures, shall we?

Of the 159 people linked to allegedly false claims over the study's 17-month period, of which 44 were prosecuted, 92% were women, almost half were aged 21 or under and in 38% of these investigations, the initial complaint was made by someone other than the alleged suspect. None of this should come as a shock to anyone.

There is no one-size-fits-all profile of a false accuser any more than there is a one-size-fits-all profile of a rapist. False accusations are often a symptom of an immature person trying to deal with relationship issues in an immature way. False accusations can also happen as a result of mental illness. False accusations can happen when a vulnerable person is used by another who seeks vengeance. False accusations can happen when well-meaning but ultimately misguided parents mistake their offsprings' consensual sex lives as rape. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that for many false accusers, the situation raged out of control and they felt unable to stop the legal process. Then the waters are muddied further by cases of women who have been raped but then retract the rape claim and, as such, find themselves on the end of a false accusation charge. And so on and so forth...

So what is to be done? Of course, false accusers deserve punishment - it is a crime that destroys people and they make it harder for rape victims to come forward and report the awful crimes committed against their bodies. But this is largely because of the myth perpetuated by many rape apologists that false accusations are pandemic.

As a result, we end up with loud voices, such as the campaigners to free Ched Evans, a footballer convicted of rape and sentenced to five years in prison, adding to this myth. Leaving aside the issue of guilt, Evans' campaigners are obsessed with stereotyping women, especially women who sleep with footballers (not a crime last time I checked...), as a horde of greedy, lying harridans. One of them called me a slut, a slag, a libtard and a cunt via Twitter this week, which doesn't exactly help the credibility of the cause. The cause's website also hoists the campaigners by their own petard. It features a large section dedicated to unused witness statements. This is a catalogue of inadmissible evidence, such as a statement that the victim had left the club with other men on previous occasions. Having this information on the internet for all to see could seriously prejudice a fair retrial.  

In punishing false accusers, just as in the case of punishing rapists, rehabilitation is as important as retribution. If there are mental health issues or evidence of past abuse experienced by false accusers, this should be dealt with compassionately. Equally, a sane justice system should offer its full support to those who have been falsely accused, and convicted rapists need rehabilitation to reduce the risk of re-offending and have them emerge from prison as better, more educated people.

False accusations ruin lives. Rape also ruins lives. If we lose sight of that, Steubenville-type incidents will keep on happening, victims will continue to be blamed, victims will continue to be too scared to come forward and the false reporting myth will be grotesquely inflated and this will continue to harm women.



Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

The idiocy that is celebrity role models

Every time a celebrity does something stupid, the inevitable cry from the gallery of pearl clutchers is: "But he/she is a role model for the children!".

Except they're not. They're human beings who happen to be very well paid for whatever it is that has made them famous. These people are usually physically attractive - indeed, this often helps make them more famous than actual talent - and they can be regularly seen on magazine covers, in newspapers, on TV and online.

Unless they actually publicly state that they would like to set a good example for kids everywhere, these people are under no obligation to meet any minimum behaviour standards as deemed appropriate by the gallery of pearl clutchers.

Premier League footballers, for example, are young, fit, healthy, wealthy men who are blessed with the ability to skilfully kick a ball. For this, they frequently earn more in a week than many of us earn in a year. Why is anyone remotely surprised when they sleep around or drive fast cars idiotically or behave like entitled brats? Obviously, not all of them behave like dickheads. Plenty are perfectly nice blokes. But when a footballer scandal breaks out, it's not about letting down their kiddie fans. It's about young rich men behaving in an entirely unsurprising manner. Cue the opening of the No Shit, Sherlock files.

Or when Rihanna again returns to the abusive and awful Chris Brown or tweets photos of herself in various states of inebriation, the instant reaction is an appalling mix of victim-blaming, slut-shaming and freaking out about the example she is setting teenage girls. Instead, the reaction should be to have proper discussions about domestic violence, about how being a celebrity isn't a guarantee that you'll be immune from douchebag boyfriends, about how it's perfectly fine to emulate Rihanna's style or enjoy her music, but that doesn't mean copying her life choices is compulsory.

When a celebrity does something stupid, it's an opportunity for parents to, oh, I dunno, actually have a conversation with the kids about it all. As soon as a kid can read a magazine and look up stuff online, that's when it's important to talk to them. It is easy to see how young people develop the idea that celebrities have an apparently easy and glamorous existence. This leads to the notion that footballer's wife, reality TV star or glamour model are all realistic career paths.

I know it all sounds way too hard but there is no reason why young people can't be taught to be critical consumers of media. Why not explain to the teenage girl who hates her spots and her thighs that the images in magazines are PhotoShopped to within an inch of their lives? Why not tell a boy whose favourite footballer has been caught in bed with three prostitutes and enough white powder to do the hotel's laundry that he can admire him for his on-field skills but that off-field behaviour is separate and nobody's damn business?

It is naive to try and shield kids from the world of celebrity. It is naive to think an earnest conversation over the breakfast table will mean a 14-year-old girl will stop wanting Kim Kardashian's hair and put up posters of Marie Curie instead. It is farcical to think a football-mad boy of the same age won't get excited at the thought of being a wealthy Premier League star with a Ferrari in the garage. But it is commonsense to respect their intelligence enough to talk about celebrities with them, challenge their notions of role models, and gently let them know that finishing their education is a wise idea, regardless of what path they might choose as adults.