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

There's never a right time for women to get angry

 

Last night, I attended the vigil for Sarah Everard. I am not going to apologise for this. Women are done with apologising, with trying to please others, with being quiet, with being told to take care. 

The Metropolitan Police could have worked constructively with the organisers of the official vigil to ensure it was Covid-safe. The ambiguous High Court decision by Mr Justice Holgate left the door open for the Met to work with the organisers, to use commonsense, to trust women. Instead, the organisers reluctantly cancelled. Sisters Uncut stepped in and called on women to meet at Clapham Common, not far from where Sarah Everard was last seen alive, to hold the vigil anyway. 

As soon as the Met made it difficult for the organisers to plan a Covid-safe event, the vigil was always going to be tinged by protest and anger. Let us not be naive. 

I am in a Facebook message group that was started a few days ago to plan our attendance at the vigil. When it was cancelled, some of us decided not to go for perfectly good and sensible reasons, and some of us decided that a socially distanced, mask-wearing walk n the fresh air of Clapham Common would be our Saturday exercise. It just so happened to coincide with a vigil. If any of us ended up getting fined for breaking lockdown rules, we would chip in. 

We kept an eye on the news and Twitter and when we discovered there was a strong police presence at Clapham Common and Clapham South tube stations, Clapham North became my tube station of choice, followed by a walk down the Clapham High Street, something I hadn't done for more than a year even though it's only a few miles from my house. 

I had a little bunch of daffodils from Sainsbury's hidden in my bag, rather than buying a more ostentatious bouquet to lay down in Sarah's honour, so it wasn't immediately obvious to any police officers that I was en route to the common. I didn't know those flowers would be trampled by police officers a few hours later. 

Before I even got to the common, I had to moderate my behaviour. It's always women who have to moderate their behaviour, to not make a fuss, to not cause any trouble.

Holy Trinity Church at Clapham Common was our meeting point so we could walk safely to the vigil together, masks on. It was weird to meet with friends I hadn't seen in ages and not instantly throw my arms around them as we did in Before Times. At the bandstand, we stood near the back - two of the group had bicycles so it would have been a bit rude to barge through to the front - with our masks on, without touching each other or anyone around us. 

The police presence when arrived was not heavy, it did not feel like we'd be kettled at any minute, most of the officers, all wearing masks, were women. We did not feel scared. 

Then the first dickhead incident happened. Some maskless bloke with strong Piers Corbyn energy got up on the bandstand and started to speak, to yell at us, a group that was almost 100% women, to tell us why we were here, as if we didn't know what we were doing. It was peak mansplaining. It was disgusting. He started making irresponsible statements that could prejudice the trial of the police officer charged with Sarah's murder if they were widely broadcast or shared on social media. 

We got angry, we started shouting, "NOT YOUR PLACE!" over and over again until he was led away by police. People started to applaud the police - some of us felt uncomfortable with applauding the Met after the events of the previous days but at least it gave a sense that maybe, just maybe the police would be on our side this time. No such luck.

People were adding to the carpet of flowers on the bandstand steps, we held a silence for Sarah Everard as a police chopper hovered overhead, a member of Sisters Uncut spoke powerfully from behind her mask. It was a simple speech. Without the aid of a megaphone, she would call out a sentence and then we'd repeat it to ensure everyone heard. 

There was no talk of politics, no calls for high profile resignations, she said we were there in "grief and anger", she demanded that women be safe no matter who they are or where they are. It was powerful and respectful of Sarah. We called her name in unison. Our masks soaked up our heartbroken, furious tears. 

And for a lot of us, that was it. That was the vigil. It was precisely 6:31pm when I texted my husband to tell him I was heading home. Because that's what women always do. We take care, we do the right thing, we let people know where we're going and when we get there. And still men attack us.

As we walked away, we sensed that things were about to turn. The benevolent, woman-dominated police presence was absorbed by a lot of men in hi-vis vests over their uniforms. I heard cries of "SHAME ON YOU!" as I walked toward Clapham Common tube station with a friend. By the time I got home, about 40 minutes later, the scenes were horrific. I did not recognise the vigil I had just left - it was always going to be tinged with anger but it was peaceful. My friends and I started to piece together what happened after we left.

To my utter horror, the Piers Corbyn tribute act earlier in the evening was just the warm-up. Piers Corbyn himself turned up along with mostly men - again the men making a women's event all about them - with placards calling to free Julian Assange. Julian Assange. A man who hid for years in an embassy to avoid answering rape charges. How dare anyone bring that man's presence to a vigil for a murdered woman. I felt sick.

There was an excellent Twitter thread from Helen Lewis who stayed on for longer than I did. She said there were indeed assorted fringe groups trying to take the focus off Sarah Everard and off our collective grief for murdered women, but heavy-handed police attempts to disperse the crowd set off an inevitable, horrible chain of events. These were the scenes that will forever be remembered from yesterday - flowers trampled by police officers, people who were still on the bandstand were effectively kettled. The photo of 28-year-old Patsy Stevenson pinned to the ground by police officers, her terrified eyes above her black mask, will be the image that lives on for years. 

Helen got it right when she said that if the police presence hadn't become so heavy-handed, people would have drifted off of their own accord into the cold night. 

Inevitably, I have been told on Twitter that I should have been fined for attending the vigil. Inevitably, everyone who attended has been accused of being paid protesters. Inevitably, the mindless "crisis actor" accusations have been bandied about. Inevitably, the fact that there is no evidence that outdoor events where everyone wears masks cause spikes in coronavirus cases has been roundly ignored.

Inevitably, we have been told that last night was "not the time" to do this.

But we've been here before. We have held vigils for other murdered women. We have dutifully tweeted and changed our Facebook profiles in impotent rage. And we have been the ones to modify our behaviour. 

We are the ones who carry keys as a potential weapon when we walk alone at night, we choose our routes carefully, we stick to main roads and well-lit streets, we pledge to text our friends when we get home safely, we tuck ponytails into collars to make it harder for us to be grabbed from behind, we quicken our pace or cross the road when we hear footsteps behind us, we think hard about where we sit on buses and trains at night, we think twice about short hemlines and low necklines, we catch taxis we can ill-afford even if we're not necessarily safer with a cab driver, we make pretend phonecalls and invent husbands and boyfriends because apparently some men will only respect our boundaries if they think they might piss off another man, we are the ones who constantly change and think about our behaviour. Not men.

We are the ones whose bodies are likened to stolen, unlocked cars by men who still think we're asking for it. We are the ones who are told by men that it is rare to be attacked on the streets, as if that is going to reassure any of us. We are the ones who are told men are assaulted and raped too even though it's almost always by other men. We are the ones who are told men are assaulted and raped too even though making it harder for women to speak out makes it harder for male victims to speak out too.

But still we're told now is not the time to get angry. Because of Covid. Because it's too soon. Because we're wasting our time. Because, because, because... 

Because if we don't do it now, when do we do it? When another woman is murdered? When the government makes it near-impossible to protest? 

If not now, when?

The pandemic of "honour" killings

 

Let's start calling so-called "honour" killings by their real name. They are misogynistic murders. They are the murders of girls and women who have done nothing wrong. They are murders committed almost exclusively by men, although women can be complicit. They are murders with vile motivations such as a taking false offence, feeling an unwarranted sense of shame, a desire to control girls and women in everything they say, do and think, a heinous jealousy that is never flattering, a desire to maintain a sickening patriarchy where men and boys enjoy freedoms that they deny to the girls and women in their lives.

The disgusting reality of misogynistic murders was brought into sharp focus last week with Honour, the ITV drama based on the 2006 murder of 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod at the hands of her own father and uncle. Three of her cousins and two family friends were also convicted in relation to her killing. Her non-crime was to leave an abusive forced marriage and find happiness with a new boyfriend, who killed himself 10 years after Banaz was murdered. 

Banaz had gone to the police multiple times to share her very real fears that her life was in danger, even naming names of the people of whom she was rightly terrified, but she was not taken seriously until she went missing. Her body was found in a suitcase buried in a derelict garden in Birmingham, after she was killed in South London a few miles from where I'm now sitting. She is buried at the cemetery down the road. Her family tried to insult her one last time with an unmarked grave but a granite memorial stone now marks her final resting place, paid for by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO), police officers and Nazir Afzal, the tenacious lead prosecutor in her case.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the ITV drama was the portrayal of Diana Nammi by brilliant, brave Saudi actress Ahd Hassan Kamel. Diana is a British-Kurdish activist who came to the UK as an asylum seeker, founding IKWRO in 2002. There is a scene where she expresses her sheer frustration that because she is a woman, she is not considered a leader in the community where Banaz and her Iraq-Kurdish family lived.

But Diana is a leader. It is so important that Britain has elevated her to this status because of her important work, which included helping bring Banaz's killers to justice. In 2014, she received a Barclays Woman of the Year award,s a Women on the Move award from UNHCR and named one of the BBC's 100 Women. In 2015, she received a Voices of Courage award from the Women's Refugee Commission in 2015 and an honorary degree from the University of Essex in 2016.  

This is important because Britain needs to be better than the misogynistic murderers of Banaz Mamod, to take a stand, to speak the truth that there is nothing honourable about honour killings. A vital part of this is for Britain to be a place where women, regardless of their ethnicity, are empowered to be community leaders, to be taken seriously when they defend vulnerable girls and women and denounce misogynistic, patriarchal cultures - all of them everywhere - in no uncertain terms.

Appalling stories such as that of Banaz Mahmod are low-hanging fruit for racists. There will always be the people whose first reaction is to blame immigration, to claim that if "these people" weren't allowed in the UK, then such murders wouldn't happen here. 

This is a dreadful notion for two reasons. 

Firstly, while Banaz Mahmod would not have been killed on British soil if her family didn't come to the UK, it is entirely possible that she could have been killed in similar circumstances in Iraq - the problem of so-called honour killings would simply happen elsewhere and that is equally as unacceptable as when it happens here. The banning of immigration and, in particular, the stopping of all asylum seekers being allowed to seek safety in the UK, simply moves the problem to other countries. If Britain is serious about the moral high ground and about stopping the bloodshed, it is essential that we condemn all so-called honour killings, no matter where they happen.

And secondly, it is wrong to claim that such murders are only the domain of immigrants, that the only hands that are gripped around innocent necks or holding knives or tightening ligatures or pointing guns in the name of false offence or bringing supposed shame to families and, in particular, to men belong solely to foreigners.

In the UK, the number of women killed by current or former partner is on the increase. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that 80 women were killed by a current or former partner between April 2018 and March 2019, a 27% increase on the previous year.

If you think these men's motivations are any different to those of the pathetic men who were offended by Banaz Mahmod making her own life choices, you're mistaken. When women are murdered by men close to them, it doesn't matter what colour anyone's skin is or whether anyone's family has been in the UK for a few years or since Roman times. The killers are still men who hate women. They are still offended because a woman has dared to leave or spurned advances or was perceived to have strayed or flirted or fell short of some impossible standard. These men, just as surely as Banaz Mahmod's killers did, feel a misguided and bogus shame, feel like they have lost control of women they considered their property, feel their pitiful male pride has been wounded by women who would not comply. 

If we are serious about ending this misogynistic turf war that is fought on women's bodies, more needs to be done. We should absolutely engage with all communities in Britain, to uphold courageous people such as Diana Nammi who shine a light on this hatred and violence at great personal cost. But we also need to acknowledge that murderous misogyny is not exclusive to any one community or ethnic group. It is a dark stain on every town and city and as long as women are killed by people close to them every single week, it shames us all.   

Photography by Joanne Adela Low/Pexels 

Leaving women alone should not be a big deal

This blog post should be filed squarely under "I cannot believe this even needs to be said" but here we go... Yesterday, Mallory Hagan, a former candidate for Congress and Miss America 2013, tweeted the following truth which should be self-evident:

Dear every man in America, I’m sitting at the bar by myself because I want to. Please be self-aware enough to know when we are simply not interested in carrying on conversation. Sincerely, 

All women

Sadly, it should come as no surprise that this tweet triggered men far and wide and soon Mallory had to deal with an online pile-on from overgrown, entitled toddlers throwing testosterone tantrums (with apologies to the perfectly adorable and polite toddlers I know). And there were, depressingly, a few women joining in - generally the "but I love being chatted up!" brigade.

Let's go through some of the asinine responses to break down why they're tweeting utter horseshit, shall we? *rolls up sleeves, has bottle of brain bleach at the ready*

Of course Stefan Molyneux piped up. Any opportunity to be a misogynistic dick, eh Stef? He tweeted:

"Drinking alone in public with a hostile and entitled attitude. RUUUUUUN!!!!!"

I see you, Stef. I fucking see you. You think that if you say something rude about a woman and then imply that this makes her unattractive to men everywhere then she'll realise the error of her ways and go out of her way to make sure next time a man talks to her, she'll fawn all over him whether she wants to or not. You big hero, Stef! Look at you speaking up for the men who feel entitled to conversation from every woman they meet, claiming that you're actually helping them rather than telling women what to do. Because that's not at all creepy...

And now for a tweet from a guy who, without irony, claims to know why all women do the things they do:

"No woman goes alone to a bar/club if she is not looking for attention. She goes with her girlfriends."

Sorry, but you clearly don't know any women who travel regularly for work (or indeed women who have gone out on the pull with a few girlfriends - and that's perfectly fine too). I am a woman who travels for work. Sometimes I want to have a quiet drink after a long day working. Inevitably, I've been talking to people all day, I'm possibly jetlagged and the last thing I feel like is a conversation with a stranger. But I might want a glass of wine and some time alone. I might use the time to lazily scroll through the news on my phone, check emails, write up my notes or I might just want to have a drink and watch the passing parade. Whatever the case, it's nobody's business but mine.

If someone tries to talk to me under these circumstances, I quickly and politely let that person know I'm not interested in a conversation - as I'm sure Mallory does too, judging by her patient replies to the idiotic tweets. Usually I am then left in peace. Sometimes I feel the need to flash my wedding ring and let it be known that I am married - but I shouldn't have to do that, just as a single woman shouldn't feel obliged to invent a husband or boyfriend to be left alone. But if someone is persistent and you're alone, especially if you're far from home, that is the kind of thing that women often feel they have to do to feel safe without causing offence. 

We are conditioned to not cause offence, to always be polite and demure, even if we're receiving unwanted attention and don't feel safe. That is how fucked up things still are for women. 

Then there's the tweet from the guy who assumes that a woman who wants to be left alone will suddenly change her mind when an Adonis appears at the bar:

"Translation: “Unattractive Beta males should know their place and not approach me. If you are attractive it’s your duty to approach me.”

This guy would be stunned to know that there are women who don't want to be approached at a bar by anyone, regardless of where they might fall on the scale of attractiveness, conventional or otherwise. Of course, it could be that a good-looking man might enter the bar, the lone woman may spot him and it could be one of those love-or-at-least-lust-at-first-sight moments and if she decides to have a conversation with him, that's her right just as it is to ignore him - except that LIFE IS NOT A GODDAMN MOVIE! There are myriad reasons why a woman might be drinking alone in a bar and for many of us, it wouldn't matter who walked through the door, we'd still like to have a drink in blissful solitude. 

And there were plenty of tweets mansplaining bars to Mallory, such as this genius:

"People go to bars to SOCIALIZE. It's that kind of place."

The use of capital letters always makes a point more valid, right? And sure, the majority of people in any given bar probably are there to socialise. But that doesn't mean that people who want to have a drink by themselves should stay away. If a solo individual wants to buy a drink, whoever owns the bar is hardly likely to stop them give they're in the business of making money through selling drinks. Anyone who tweeted this sort of tripe while claiming to be a free market capitalist is, with all due respect, an idiot. 

And here we go with one Dr Saad. He's a professor of evolutionary biology, according to his Twitter bio. But here he proves that having a PhD does not exempt a man from being a dick:

"If you are sitting at a bar, it is perfectly reasonable for people to think that you are open to social interactions. It takes a lot of courage for most men to approach women. If they do so politely, act kindly rather than as a smug schmuck to half of humanity. Dr. Saad- A man"

No, Prof, it's not "perfectly reasonable for people to think you are open to social interactions". You have no idea why that woman is alone in the bar. Maybe she has just received some bad news and wants to process it over a drink. Maybe she is there to get away from a pesky man in another bar. And sure, you won't know unless you approach her - but if you approach her with the assumption that she is "open to social interactions", you're already being an entitled twat.

And, yes, I get it - it takes courage to approach a woman, just as women may need to summon up courage to approach a man - or just as any of us have to summon up courage to have any number of difficult conversations in this life. But even if it took every ounce of courage you possess to talk to a woman in a bar, she still does not owe you her time or a conversation. You do not get to assume that she really wants a man to insert himself into the situation or into any other part of her life or anatomy.

At no point did Mallory suggest that women shouldn't "act kindly" if someone approaches them politely so to go straight to accusing her of being a "smug schmuck to half of humanity" is a rather un-nuanced escalation for someone who claims to be an academic.

This tweet is just the academic version of the common man-whine of "How are men and women meant to get together if men can't talk to women anymore?". Sit down. Nobody is saying men can't talk to women. We are simply saying we don't owe you anything if you talk to us and if we make it clear we're not interested, back off. Men and women are still getting together, and if they are doing so in a more mutually respectful manner these days, that's a good thing. 

And then there is the patronising oversimplification from a man:

"Try this simple hack: “Nice to meet you, I’m not interested in talking right now.” Works every time"

No, it doesn't work every time. If a polite response worked every time, it wouldn't be a problem for women. How the hell would a man know if it works every time anyway? He is only speaking from his own experience. If he can accept that a woman is not interested, good for him but he can't assume that every man who is politely turned away will take no for an answer. 

There were plenty of responses to Mallory's tweet along the lines of  a sarcastic "the struggle is real", as if she is detracting from what a bunch of men on the internet have decided to deem as genuine oppression against women. The struggle is real. We know the struggle is real because conversations where women have told someone they're not interested have ended up in their rape or murder. That's why it's a struggle and that's why we have the right to be angry about this issue along with the thousands of other reasons from around the world for why feminism should still exist.

And here are a few terrible responses from women, such as this one:

"Well Mallory, there are many of us women out here who adore men. In fact, take me as an example: I quite prefer conversation with a man over a self-absorbed puppet propaganda female."

Thank you for perpetuating the myth of the man-hating feminist. It is possible to "adore men" and expect these adorable creatures to show us respect if we want to be left alone. You are perfectly entitled to talk to men instead of women. Literally nobody is stopping you from doing this.  

And just as there are patronising men, there are women who are not above patronising other women:

"Dear men, Not all women are like this. If you speak to me, I’m perfectly capable of being polite. I’m often blessed by the stories/people I meet when I don’t close myself off. A brief conversation never hurt anyone. And listening is a valuable skill to develop. Sincerely, me."

Oh yawn. Any civilised adult is "perfectly capable of being polite". The problem is that a polite refusal is not always respected. Good for you that you've been "blessed" by the strangers that you've met because you don't "close yourself off". But nobody should be expected to be permanently open to chatting to strangers, no matter how fascinating they may be. As for the patronising guff about listening being a valuable skill to develop, it is precisely because I've spent all day listening to people that I might want a drink by myself when I'm off duty.   

"Dear Men, when I was single, I was mature enough to carry on a conversation with men, and when their attention was unwanted or inappropriate, to let them know that I wasn’t interested. PS, you all responded as mature humans as well."

And this is the terrible female equivalent of the "simple hack" man. Just as he has never seen an example of a bad situation as a result of a woman rejecting a man politely, this lucky woman is here to tell us that when she politely rejected men, 100% of the time they "all responded as mature humans". That's great but extrapolating from the example of one is stupid. 

If you refuse to recognise that not every polite refusal ends in a civilised manner, you are denying the real experiences of real women than happen all over the world every day. When these interactions go sour, at best, it might result in an awkward conversation - but, hey, nobody ever died of embarrassment, right? Or it could escalate to an angry conversation. Or it could end in unwanted touching, which could be an insistent hand on the arm, hand or thigh or it could be rape or murder.   

Because men who feel entitled to a conversation from a woman can easily be the men who feel entitled to our bodies.

I stand with Mallory.

Photography by Frederic Poirot/Flickr

In defence of Meghan Markle

If we were still living in Tudor times, Meghan Markle, the heavily pregnant Duchess of Sussex and triggerer of idiots across the nation, would be in what was known as her "confinement" by now. And the aforementioned idiots would be over the moon that she was out of sight and out of mind, spending the final months of her pregnancy cooped up indoors, drinking brews of questionable medical efficacy, her staff on the lookout for the slightest sign of labour in between prayers being said for mother and child.

But thankfully times have changed and Meghan is going about her business as what is hilariously known as a "working royal" with her bump on display for all the world to see. And this is causing so much offence, as if she should leave the foetus in the car when she dares to step out in public.

A quick trawl through the sadder recesses of the internet reveals an especially tragic, creepily obsessive underbelly of cretins whining about Meghan putting her hand on her bump (as if she is the first-ever pregnant woman to reflexively, instinctively be protective of the growing contents of her uterus), being too showy with her choice of stylish maternity wear (as if the world of style needs a return to the dire days of billowing maternity dresses cut from acres of fabric that would not be out of place on a nursing home sofa) or faking the pregnancy (as if it's impossible that a healthy, attractive, wealthy couple would easily conceive despite most likely having all the sex or accessing the very best fertility care available). There have even been especially absurd sad cases accusing Meghan of being involved in a plot to stop Brexit.

Of course, when Meghan isn't being too overtly pregnant or making devious political plots, her pathetic army of haters will find other things to pick on. The other day, she was slagged off for not wearing tights while signing a book of condolence for the victims of the terror attacks on the Christchurch mosques and holding her husband's hand in public as they emerged from the car.

Jesus H. Christ on a two-wheeled perambulation device, would you people listen to yourselves? Do you know how ridiculous you all sound moralising about tights and public hand-holding? You're all one royal engagement away from demanding that table legs in the presence of duchesses are covered for fear of outraging public decency.

Then there are the critics who don't like that she is the "woke" duchess, the one who dares to use the f-word - "feminism" - in public when talking about her pregnancy. When she wrote messages of support on bananas for homeless women, people carried on as if she stripped naked and used the bananas like dildos in front of Buckingham Palace. Sure, it was a bit cheesy (and is there a fruit more comical than a banana, I think not...) but so what?

If telling women who have fallen off the lowest rungs of society's ladder that they are important and valued means that people might just look at these women as important and valuable, why is that a bad thing? Just try and answer that question without sounding like an arsehole.

The same people who were moved to tears by Diana simpering to Martin Bashir that she wanted to be the "queen of people's hearts" (show me to the vomitorium...) are often the same people condemning the sometimes schlocky but generally well-meaning words of Meghan. Diana was a fine actress, someone who knew exactly what she was doing when she teased the media, but when someone who has worked as an actual actress marries a royal, the old nose-in-the-air tropes about princes and showgirls rear their tedious heads.

Indeed, it is Meghan rather than Kate who has picked up where Diana left off, with the genuinely good work she did in raising awareness about issues such as land mines and acceptance of patients with HIV and AIDS. It is Meghan who has thrown herself into causes, both fashionable and unfashionable, since becoming a duchess, while it took Kate months to work out what causes she might support so that she had a purpose beyond breeding.

A lot of the hatred towards Meghan is rooted in jealousy, prudishness, snobbery or, at its most sinister, barely concealed racism.  There are grown women (and it is mostly women, sadly) out there, walking among us, who seem to think Prince Harry would have married them, if only this stunning, smart, caring woman hadn't stood in the way. The mere fact that she is American is a trigger, as if she deliberately deprived a British woman of her rightful royal husband. Watch these titwits clutch their pearls at the revelation that Meghan and Harry had a date camping under the stars in Botswana very early in their relationship. STOP THE PRESSES! THEY PROBABLY HAD SEX OUT THERE WITH ALL THAT WILDLIFE ROAMING ABOUT!

These envious, venomous, intellectually bankrupt women are generally perfectly OK with Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, citing her as an example of "class" while Meghan is slagged off as "tacky".  "Class" is often a racist dog-whistle here, for what they are really saying is a white Englishwoman is an "appropriate" bride for a prince, while a mixed-race American woman is not. Whenever someone is obsessed with "appropriateness", it is almost always a cue to mentally cross them off any future party guestlist because you know they will be about as much fun as a yeast infection, as is the way with bigoted dullards.

And, of course, as an American divorcee, the tedious comparisons with Wallis Simpson pop up, as if Meghan too is a Nazi sympathiser, as if she is somehow going to undermine the institution of royalty.

Never mind that this deeply undemocratic institution has survived not just Edward's abdication but the affairs of Charles and Diana, the subsequent divorce of Charles and Diana, the death of Diana, the remarriage of Prince Charles, the Duchess of York's toe-sucking debacle, serious questions over Prince Andrew's alleged sexual peccadilloes and those of some of his awful mates, Princess Michael of Kent generally being a terrible human being, issues surrounding the taxation arrangements of the royal family and their estates, taxpayer-funded palace renovations, security and clothing, rumours currently fizzing away on Twitter about Prince William having an affair, and Prince Phillip's casual racism and bad driving - apparently, if you're an intellectually bankrupt hater, it will be Meghan Markle that will bring the whole damn house down.

Spoiler alert: if the royal family comes to an end, it won't be because of the saucy, woke wife of the guy who is sixth in line to the throne.

Photography by Genevieve/Flickr

Periods are still bloody hard

Metro ran a comment piece on its website about period poverty and the role the government can play in helping end this monthly nightmare, particularly for disadvantaged teenage girls.  It was written by the founders of the excellent Red Box Project, a UK-wide scheme to provide sanitary products in schools. Inevitably, when the story was posted to the newspaper's Facebook page, plenty of people felt the need to say there is no such thing as period poverty, largely because you can buy pads and tampons for a quid at Poundland and every young person has a mobile phone - the usual asinine responses to a complex issue...  

Tragically, one of the commentators on the newspaper's Facebook page said she had to use toilet paper as sanitary protection when she was growing up and therefore couldn't see why poor teenagers today couldn't do the same thing. Race-to-the-bottom comments like this are frustratingly common, where people boast of their suffering and see no reason to prevent others from suffering, even if such suffering could easily cause infection and even if there are solutions to prevent the suffering from continuing.

It is indeed true that sanitary products are available for £1 at Poundland but there are households where every pound spent has to be carefully considered. If there is an alternative to sanitary protection, such as loo paper filched from schools or public toilets or even socks, a poor family may forego buying £1 boxes of pads and tampons for the girls and women and spend that pound on food instead. If you are donating to your local food bank, please consider adding pads or tampons to the pile of tinned food and pot noodles.

And if you have the awful misfortune to be menstruating and homeless, your options for a hygienic and comfortable period are even more limited.

It is not an issue that many people like to discuss but if the hideous realities of periods for the poor are not confronted, girls and women will continue to suffer here in the UK and other developed countries, just as surely as they suffer in cultures where menstruation is seen as unclean and periods mean monthly banishment and disenfranchisement of girls and women as they miss out on educational and employment opportunities. 

Plan UK introduced the period emoji (see at the top of this page) to encourage more open discussion about menstruation - obviously an emoji won't solve everything but it's a start. The mere fact that plenty of ignorant people responded to the simple drop of blood with revulsion illustrated why it's needed in the first place.

Every discussion about period poverty inevitably results in someone, usually well-meaning but privileged, demanding we all use moon-cups. The moon-cup is a great idea - it is an eco-friendly, reusable means of dealing with periods. However, it is still out of reach for many people with a starting price of £21.99. And it needs to be used in hygienic conditions - this is not always possible for poor people and it can be especially impractical for the homeless. We are not yet at a place where girls and women are frequently seen rinsing out their moon-cups in public bathrooms and school toilets - and there are plenty of grotesque public and school conveniences out there where it is not hygienic to rinse a moon-cup properly. And some girls and women just don't like them or have trouble using them - this is not a character defect, it's just the way it is.

Likewise, reusable fabric sanitary pads are a great, eco-friendly idea but they are not practical for anyone who struggles to access good laundry facilities.

So we need to talk about solutions to ensure everyone has a hygienic and comfortable period. After all, periods are the one biological fact of life that affects every girl and woman. We won't all experience pregnancy or childbirth or miscarriage or endometriosis or gynaecological cancer but menstruation cannot be avoided if you have ovaries and a uterus. 

Menstruation is the one biological event that has an impact on our lives across the entire time we are fertile. It comes with emotional challenges and joys as well as physical challenges.

The first period can be a time of excitement for those who can't wait to grow up, it can be terrifying or confusing for those who experience menarche at an early age, it can be a relief when it finally happens to a late bloomer or it can be seen as an inconvenience, something that needs to be dealt with, its impact on everyday life minimised. Indeed, it was only last month that mass outrage erupted when the UK Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare of the Royal Collage of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists released guidelines stating that there is no need to have the pretend period you get when you take the sugar pills in your contraceptive pill packet. Cue masses of furious women thinking about the money they have spent on sanitary protection over the years, the holidays ruined, the sexual encounters messed up, the time lost from work or school with cramps, the excuses they had to make for not going swimming and so on, all of which could have been avoided if myths about needing to take the sugar pills hadn't been peddled by everyone from their mothers to their doctors.

As we get older, our periods continue to govern our lives - there is the relief when a period arrives after an unwanted pregnancy scare, the sadness of a period arriving when one is hoping to be pregnant, the realisation when a period arrives in March that one will probably not have a baby that year, the sheer joy when a period doesn't come and a pregnancy, either planned or a happy surprise, is happening, and the relief or sadness when one is perimenopausal and the period years are coming to an end. 

Periods are a big deal and it can be hard to explain this to anyone who has never had a period. Menstruation is something that simultaneously demands that those experiencing it can have privacy and good sanitation - and that those experiencing it can talk about it without being howled down, accused of being hysterical (a word which has its origins in our wombs being the source of ungovernable emotions), or told to simply toughen up because we are no longer in the Tudor era of rags and the belief that periods were a punishment from God because of Eve's temptation in the Garden of Eden is no longer widely held in the UK.   

In 2016, 19-year-old Ryan Williams, a self-proclaimed "meninist", embarrassed himself by posting on social media that tampons were a luxury, that taxes on sanitary products should not be abolished and that "if you can't control your bladder then that's not the taxpayers' problem" - when people aren't even aware that period blood and urine orginate from different places and out of different orifices, we really do need to talk. It's not just men who need educating either. I remember telling a female friend at university - we were both 20 at the time - that you don't need to remove a tampon in order to do a wee and this was a revelation for her.  

So, instead of being revulsed by a period emoji or rushing to be the first to say that period poverty is not real, how about being constructive instead? How about we discuss ideas to ensure that hygienic, comfortable periods are a right, not a privilege? How about we make sure it is widely known that skipping periods while on the pill is not harmful? How about every pupil who receives sex education at school knows how periods work so we don't have another generation of people thinking we simply piss out our periods at will? How about we don't rest until this basic dignity and comfort is afforded to every girl and woman on the planet? 

If we fail to do this, we really are no better than those who punish menstruation through banishment. Hiding menstruation away is misogyny. 

In defence of Miley Cyrus

If I was Miley Cyrus' mother, I'd be proud of how my daughter turned out. Of course, this would also mean that I had sex with Billy Ray Cyrus in 1992, which my 16-year-old self would find hilarious, but I digress.

Miley has turned out well.

The criticism levelled at her is usually sexist or prudish or both. As far as her detractors are concerned, she commits the heinous crimes of dancing in possession of an arse and having the temerity to wear clothes that are too short or too tight or too midriff-baring. Her Christmas appearance on The Tonight Show, in which she sang a feminist re-working of Santa Baby, predictably outraged anyone who thinks women are taking over all the men's things for the purposes of establishing an evil gynaecocracy - or anyone who is permanently outraged about even the slightest display of female flesh.

Good on Miley for speaking up for all women with a smart song that deservedly went viral - equal pay for equal work, not being sexually harassed at work, not having to put up with men sending unsolicited dick pics, being financially able to take care of yourself without relying on a man - these are issues that resonate with women everywhere.

Of course, her path to becoming an intelligent 26-year-old woman with a grown-up career was not a seamless transition from her child star days. When she was twerking at Robin Thicke to the frankly repulsive, if annoyingly catchy, song Blurred Lines at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards,  it was not a career highlight. But it was nearly six years ago and since then, she has spoken out about how she felt conflicted by it all - on one hand, she wanted to make a statement about female sexual freedom but on the other hand, she says that overtly sexualised dance moves were expected of her and it seems that she was not entirely comfortable with it at the time.

Twerking in front of a creepy man in a crap suit and a global audience of millions is a specific situation that not every 20-year-old experiences, but it is hardly rare for a 20-year-old woman to do something sexual that she later looks back on with regret or makes her wish she exercised more agency at the time. It's just that when most of us are being ridiculous 20-year-olds, our collective ridiculousness does not end up on front pages or become a subject for national debate.

I am glad that when I was 20, I had the freedom to figure out who the hell I was and the worst consequence was risking becoming the topic of small-town gossip in rural Australia - although the damage that can be done to people's lives when someone becomes the subject of gossip cannot be underestimated. That is not something unique to this online era but the risk of going viral certainly magnifies things.

Miley Cyrus has moved on, grown up and ultimately made a good transition from child star to adulthood. She shot to fame as Hannah Montana in the eponymous TV show in which she played a girl with a double life - high school student by day and pop star by night - it was fun, it was cute and Hannah's character was funny, smart and, even with the pop career, still relatable. Having the excellent Dolly Parton as a godmother can't have hurt her development either - indeed, Miley's cover of her godmother's hit, "Jolene" is absolutely gorgeous. She has a great set of pipes and real talent should always be encouraged in this world of mediocrity.

The fact that Miley Cyrus has come out the other end of the child star sausage factory sane, stable, alive and not plagued by any number of awful problems that have either killed former child stars prematurely or led them into a lost adulthood, particularly if the cuteness is replaced by ordinariness post-puberty, should be celebrated.

I would much rather those who slag off Miley Cyrus, especially those who claim to be feminists, reserved their ire for genuine oppressors of women. In 2019, there are still plenty of things to be angry about and none of them involve cutting down a talented young woman.






Photography by Ted Eytan/Flickr

Young women should never stop travelling

Phuket, 1998. I was 22. I had about $1,000 in credit with a Sydney travel agency after I cancelled a trip to spend Christmas 1997 in Japan. Naturally, there was a bloke involved in that particular debacle. When I was back at work in the new year, feeling more feisty than heartbroken, my boss told me I had "way too much annual leave owing" and asked if I could take a week's leave soon. How dare I save it all up to take a long trip later that year, eh? 

"Fine!" I said with all the breeziness I could muster. "I'll be on the beach in Thailand next week."

My boss made a noise like Henry Crun and said: "Oh, I didn't mean quite so soon...".

I knew my rights so I went to the travel agent after work and used the credit to pay for a week in Phuket, one of those rite-of-passage places for young Australians. I was on a plane within days of the ridiculous conversation with my boss.

None of my friends could get the time off work at such short notice or they were short on funds, so I buggered off for a week by myself. I rode an elephant, saw some alarming monkey-based entertainment, posed for a photograph with a snake coiled around my legs and shoulders, bought myself awful pink sapphire earrings that made my earlobes look infected, drank beer with some friendly Irish lads, got into an argument over a sunlounger on the beach after being told I'd paid the wrong person, the usual holiday fun...

In the middle of the week, I met two young Swedish men over breakfast at the hotel. They were hiring motorbikes to go to Karong Beach and asked me if I'd like to join them. Sami looked like a bulkier version of Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper but seemed very sweet and Ari was blonde and cartoonishly muscle-bound like Johnny Bravo and seemed rather sure of himself. Within half an hour, we were careening around a winding road on motorbikes. No helmets because it was the age of invincibility that everyone should experience in their 20s. I was on the back of Ari's bike, clinging for dear life. I took a peek over his shoulder and realised the speedometer was broken, stuck on zero.

"How fast are we going?" I yelled over the wind rushing into my face.

"Who cares?" he replied. And I didn't particularly care.

The three of us spent the day on the beach, which was uneventful until a sea creature stung me and my pallid chest and bikini-exposed abdomen briefly erupted in red spots. The lifeguard had some potion which calmed the rash down and then we were back on the bikes in search of a bar.

When one of the bikes broke down, Sami and Ari abandoned both bikes by the roadside and we walked to a bar. A terrible Bon Jovi cover band played, the beer was watery and, after a few hours, I was bored so I made my excuses and got a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. I paid the driver and as I handed him the cash, he grabbed my face in his hands and aggressively kissed me. I snatched the money back and ran into the hotel. The concierge, a pretty young man who sported eyeliner and a long coke nail, asked me how my night was and I told him it was OK. 

As I cleaned my teeth vigorously, the phone in my room rang. It was the concierge, not for the first time that week, calling my room to ask me if I wanted to join him "on my motorbike for discotheque". Every time he called, I'd politely refuse. 

I'd had enough of that day so I went to bed, naked under lovely, crisp hotel sheets, and promptly fell asleep. A few hours later, I was woken up by a solid, naked man spooning me and licking my ear, his erection making inquiries around my buttocks.  

It was Ari. I sat bolt upright, gathered the sheets around me like a toga and demanded to know what he was doing.

"I thought you wanted this," he said.

"No, when did I ever give you that idea?" I asked.

"Oh, come on..."

"If you don't get out of my room right now, I will scream so fucking loudly, the whole hotel will hear."

And with that, he gathered up his clothes from the floor and left. I will never know if he had assistance in accessing my room or whether I simply forgot to lock the door or didn't lock it properly.

It could have been so much more horrific. The result of the whole sorry situation was four days of awkward breakfasts at the hotel before I flew back to Sydney. I weighed about seven stone back then. It would not have taken much for Ari to pin me down and rape me or worse. 

When the horrific news about the murder in New Zealand of Grace Millane broke, it was chilling. Like me, on holiday alone in Thailand, she was just 22. Some news stories feel personal. It could have been me in the news in 1998 if Ari decided to proceed. And you can guarantee that there would be assorted trolls blaming me for the crimes, just as a disgusting cabal have in response to Grace Millane's murder. 

Indeed, there are probably people reading my account of the events in Phuket from 20 years ago and tutting at me for having the temerity to go to Thailand by myself or to agree to ride on motorbikes with men I'd just met in the hotel or to wear a bikini or to have a few watered-down beers or to jump in a tuk-tuk alone. I can just see these judgemental, joyless prigs going over my story like a hate-filled editor, drawing lines through my words with a blue pencil of sexist fury.

Nothing much has changed since 1998, except for the addition of Tinder and social media as a way of meeting people, which has given those vile cretins who blame anyone but murderers or rapists for murders and rapes a new way to tell women that they were asking for it. 

Jacinta Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand was right. Grace should have been safe in New Zealand. Her statement was one of immense decency and it should ring out whenever a woman is not safe on her travels. As Grace Millane's devastating story ebbs and flows in and out of the news cycle with the arrest and forthcoming trial of the accused, the sickening news broke that two women had their throats cut in Morocco. A suspect has been arrested for the murders of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, a 24-year-old from Denmark, and Maren Ueland, a 28-year-old from Norway, and police are investigating more people.

Grace, Louisa and Maren should never be forgotten. But their legacy should not be an end to women travelling the world.

Since my Thailand trip, I've had assorted adventures, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied, all over the world - Turkey, Greece, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Africa, Laos, Ghana and Nepal are just a few places that spring to mind when I think of travel anecdotes best told over a beer. 

Over the decades, I've found myself in situations that might scare some people into burning their passports but what would be the point of that? In a perfect world, Grace, Louisa and Maren would have come home from their travels full of stories, they might have gone on to see more of the world, they would have lived long, fulfilled, happy lives.

But life isn't always that good to people. And the sad, depressing reality is that staying at home won't guarantee any woman's safety. Across the world, girls and women are killed in their own homes or their own towns and it is often by someone known to them, someone they thought they could trust.

Travelling is not the problem. Seeing the world is not the problem. Having adventures in faraway places is not the problem. Travelling alone is not the problem. Wearing a bikini is not the problem. Having a few drinks is not the problem. Hanging out with people you meet along the way is not the problem. Being independent is not the problem. 

"Doing the right things", whatever the hell that means, to prevent your untimely demise while travelling is no guarantee of safety either. I will happily offer advice about staying as safe as you can, based on my experiences travelling the world, especially when someone is apprehensive about going somewhere for the first time. But I would never tell anyone, male or female, not to travel. 

The rewards of travelling far outweigh the risks. Not everyone will come home safely. But when the act of coming home is a risk for so many, you may as well take your chances with a suitcase and a passport because being scared of the world is no way to honour the memories of Grace, Louisa and Maren.

Photo by Dương Nhân from Pexels

On reclaiming decency

Sadly, the notion of decency is often associated with joyless pearl-clutchers expressing disgust at everything from nubile young women in minimal clothing to gay couples having the temerity to get married to anyone having sex outside of heterosexual wedlock. But to automatically link decency to displays of flesh or other people's sex lives is to merely be a pathetic busybody rather than an advocate for genuine decency. 

Indeed, plenty of people who are synonymous with decency are actually pretty terrible - the TV evangelists who inevitably fall from grace when they are caught in bed with people other than their wives while expecting sexual purity - and money - from everyone else, the anti-gay zealots who force people into the closet and inspire homophobic violence, the exposed flesh police who play no small role in creating a vile culture where short skirts and low-cut tops are blamed for rape rather than rapists.

But it is good to see that in the wake of England's surprise performance in the World Cup, decency has been the winner. Gareth Southgate, the team manager, has emerged as a genuine role model - a man who has been humble, respectful and compassionate while still being a strong leader. His young team responded well to this sort of leadership and their World Cup was not marred by scandal or idiotic comments during post-match interviews. Usually when football managers and players end up on the front page rather than the back page of newspapers, it is because they have behaved like dickheads. Not this time. Instead, these fine men made it to the front page because they inspired love, loyalty - and everyone was glad of some temporary respite from stories of catastrophic Brexit negotiations and Theresa May's amazing collapsing cabinet.

Southgate and his team have all been thoroughly decent.

Not so decent were the idiots who jumped on an NHS vehicle and damaged items in an Ikea store after England defeated Sweden in the quarter-finals. In this era of social media, it wasn't long before video footage of these people went viral - the woman involved was quickly identified and has been arrested. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the men involved have not been tracked down. I hope they are found and arrested too.

Inevitably and ridiculously, there were pleas to not ruin the lives of these young people by sharing the videos of them vandalising publicly funded emergency vehicles. "Calm down, nobody died," one tosser moronically opined on a Facebook page. Would he be as sanguine if it was his car that was vandalised, or one of his loved ones experienced a delay in receiving treatment because that NHS vehicle was off the road? 

And the NHS vehicle in this case was so badly damaged that it was taken off the road - the bonnet was dented, the windscreen was shattered, a wing mirror was destroyed and the radio was broken. This is not OK. It is criminal damage and the repair bill will be footed by the taxpayer. 

To deliberately jump on an NHS vehicle is an act of indecency. 

Doing daft things when one is drunk is not unusual but there is a world of difference between nicking a traffic cone to wear as a hat for a selfie and rendering an emergency services vehicle unroadworthy.

Yes, it is very easy to be publicly shamed in this internet era - and for some people, the shaming is unfair and unjustified, or blown out of all proportion. But equally, the internet can make it easy for people to make amends, to publicly apologise or to set the record straight. And just as today's dead tree newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper or kitty litter liner, the content-hungry beast that is the internet means that while the story may live on in Google searches, other stupid things will happen to make people forget about it and move on.

And the existence of the internet does not mean an end to adults taking responsibility for their actions. The woman who was arrested was 21. That means she is considered in the eyes of the law to be responsible enough to drink alcohol, drive a car, get married, join the military, buy property, consent to sex, and vote. The comments on social media about her thighs and body were revolting, unnecessary and irrelevant, but the outrage at someone behaving so irresponsibly was justified, as was the outrage at the fools who were egging her and the other car-jumpers on.

At 21, you are expected to be able to distinguish between right and wrong, to not jump on an emergency vehicle, even when you are drunk or encouraged by other drunks. Howls of "But she's so young! Her life is ruined!" are infantilising nonsense. At what age is it OK for someone to be held to account for this sort of mindless vandalism? I wouldn't expect it of my seven-year-old nephew - if I did catch him jumping on my car rendering it unroadworthy, he would not see the calm side of Aunty George for quite a while and his parents would not be amused either.

The contrast between a small minority showing off the worst of Britain and the decency of Gareth Southgate and his team is immense. His squad was the second-youngest in the tournament and they behaved like grown-ups. Indeed, plenty of much older sportsmen have, over the years, lacked the decency of the England team - I'm looking at you, Shane Warne.

The English squad's conduct on and off the pitch was something to aspire to - the term "role model" is bandied about too often but in this case, it is perfectly apt. The term "decency" is often mocked as old-fashioned, of being from the dull, prudish world of Mary Whitehouse - but in the case of Gareth Southgate and the England squad, we have an example of genuine decency, a decency that does not dwell on the activities in one's bedroom or the brevity of one's clothing because it is much bigger than that. 

True decency is not petty. True decency is not limited to any one religion and it is does not have to involve religion at all. True decency is not self-serving. True decency recognises the good that can be found everywhere. True decency is about showing respect, thinking about the consequences of your actions, taking responsibility, being honest, recognising that you are part of something bigger than yourself. And, sadly, the stories that are once again wiping the World Cup off the front pages show true decency is in very short supply.

Photography by Dean Johnson/Flickr