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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photography by Maria Plashchynskaya/Pexels 

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

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

The depressing impasse of #MeToo

 

The #MeToo movement only started last October. On one hand, it feels like it has been around for much longer, perhaps because of the sheer volume of words written on it - and here I go, adding to those words, which will inevitably cause some eyes to roll, I am sure. But on the other hand, it feels like the #MeToo car, which was on an empowering ride, has crashed into a brick wall, like a prosaic and mundane alternative ending to Thelma and Louise.

We see progress with the arrest of Harvey Weinstein and one can only hope the wheels of justice turn surely and fairly. But while he is a grotesque warping of the leading man role, the one at whom we can all wave our pitchforks, it still feels like nothing much has changed. For the past seven months, the same arguments are going round and round on an eternally unconstructive hamster wheel.

When the men that we rather like are accused, we don't want to believe the allegations. Instead, we seek out alternative narratives, the accounts from those who thought he was delightful, a proper gentleman, when they met him. When eight women came forward to accuse Morgan Freeman of inappropriate touching and harassment and CNN ran a detailed report, nobody wanted to think about a man who has literally played God being the next one to fall by the wayside in a shameful pile along with Bill Cosby and Kevin Spacey.

And so the same arguments keep breaking out ad infinitum. 

"Poor men! They're too scared to even ask a woman out now!" is a pretty common howl, as if all human relationships have suddenly ground to a halt since last October, as if some unseen force has caused Tinder to freeze and nobody is getting laid anymore. If a man wants to ask a woman out (or vice versa), all he has to do is politely ask. If she says yes, they can go on a date. If she says no, he should accept her rejection graciously and move on with his life. This is not hard or oppressive to men. 

The same goes for sex - why is striving for a world where consent is given freely and clearly, where men and women are comfortable and confident enough to say yes without fear of judgement or say no without fear of assault, such a terrible thing? Why are we instead setting the bar so low for men and women?

"Why was she in a hotel room with him in the first place?" is another common question. Hotel rooms are often used for meetings. I've conducted interviews in hotel rooms where I've been alone with a man. These interviews have never ended up in bed and I have never been harassed or propositioned in any professional situation in a hotel room. The closest shave happened in 2006 when a creepy guy on a press trip to Ireland called my room and asked if he could come in and give me a massage. I told him: "Good God, no!" and hung up the phone. 

I should not feel like I need to breathe a sigh of relief because this is how my life has panned out, that I have never been groped or harassed or raped in a hotel room in the line of duty - it is simply the way it should be. 

And even if every woman in the world refused to have professional meetings in hotel rooms, even if it was illegal to have meetings in hotel rooms, that wouldn't stop the problem of sexual abuse. The abuse would simply move to other locations, in much the same way that banning abortion in Ireland didn't stop Irish women having abortions. It merely moved the abortions to England. Sexual predators have an awful habit of finding a way to do what they do in all manner of places. It's just that "hotel room" has seedy connotations that "meeting at Costa" does not - but that doesn't mean women aren't harassed over coffee. Hell, Max Clifford allegedly groomed one of his victims at the Wimpy burger joint down the road from my place. He didn't need to book a suite at the Dorchester. 

Or there are the inevitable non-sequiturs - "Why are all the feminists making a fuss about this and not about female genital mutilation/the kidnapped girls in Nigeria/the raped Yazidi women/child marriage?" - except that "all the feminists" is not a homogenous blur. "All the feminists" covers a diverse group that transcends national borders, religion, ethnicity, body type, socio-economic status and so on. And plenty of feminists speak out about issues apart from #MeToo and do some incredible work with girls and women all over the world - women are capable of being angry about more than one thing at a time and taking action. We are pretty damn amazing in that regard.

The #MeToo movement does need to go beyond the world of celebrity so women who have been exploited, harassed, abused and raped in all industries can speak out and get justice. We should stand behind every actress who has been abused and equally we need to stand behind the waitress who is being groped by her boss on the promise of better shifts, the nurse who gets her arse pinched in the hospital corridor as she tries to do her job, the immigrant cleaner who is raped in exchange for her silence on illegal workers.  

And then there are those who worry about men's careers being ruined. If someone is found guilty of harassment, abuse or rape, his career is not going to be at the top of things I'm especially worried about. This plays into the narrative of false accusations - which are terrible but rare. Seriously, think it through, everyone - the shit women go through when they speak out or try to report such crimes is frequently horrific. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this and there would be no need for a #MeToo movement.

Then there are those who claim that all these women are coming forward because they want to be famous. Here's a test - without Googling, tell me the name of the woman - first name and last name - who accused Bill Cosby in the court case that led him being found guilty of drugging and indecently assaulting her. Go on, it was just last month.

While all this is going on, guess what? Men are getting away with it. There have always been men who get away with it. A self-confessed pussy-grabber was elected president, for God's sake.

Roman Polanski may not be able to come back to the US any time soon without being arrested but that has not stopped him making award-winning films - and it certainly hasn't stopped plenty of celebrated actresses from working with him and singing his praises. Rob Lowe was caught out in a sex tape scandal in 1989 after he claimed to have no idea that one of the two participants in the threesome was actually 16 years old. But since then, he rehabilitated himself as slick Samuel Seaborn in The West Wing and too-good-to-be-true Chris Traeger in Parks and Recreation. Enough water seems to have passed under that particularly seedy bridge that he even made a parody of the sex tape in 2016. Hey, we should all be able to look back and laugh at the time we shagged a minor, right?

And Morgan Freeman? My prediction is that the worst thing that might happen to him is the reconsideration of a lifetime achievement award. He will still die a wealthy, multi-award-winning actor, and because he is one of the guys that nobody wants to think ill of, his films will be rewatched over and over again. He may be a sex pest, he may not be - but what I do know is that when people come forward with accusations, they need to be taken seriously. This is not the same as all accusations being automatically believed - but if #MeToo is going to mean anything, allegations require proper investigation. Sweeping it under the carpet may have been the way it used to be in the "good old days", but the more we learn about what used to go on, the more we realise that for many girls and women, the "good old days" were bloody horrific. 

Photography by stock.tookapic.com

Incels and Daesh: lethal mysogynists

This month, so-called incels finally got the attention they have been craving so pathetically after Alek Minassian became their poster boy. Ten people were killed and 15 injured in an act of terrorism in Toronto - a van mowed people down as they went about their business and Alek Minassian was arrested for the atrocity.

It has since emerged that Minassian frequented white supremacist sites and praised racist murderer Elliot Rodger, who, aged 22, shot people at random and then killed himself. Minassian posted on Facebook: "The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!".

"Incel" is short for "involuntarily celibate" and in their hateful little subculture, "Chads" are the men who are getting laid and "Stacys" are the women who have sex with these men. 

Incels do not take responsibility for their romantic and sexual failures. They are not interested in personal change so they can become happier, better-adjusted men. They just want to blame others for their lives, and this extends to harming innocent people in vile acts of terrorism. 

These are the men who may seem harmless enough when they whine about constantly being "friend-zoned" but for these men, there is no value in friendships with women if they refuse to have sex with them. Instead of viewing healthy platonic friendships as part of a normal adult life, these men view women as gratification machines and if they drop in enough friendship tokens, sex will eventually come out.  

If incels actually cultivated healthy friendships with women, they might learn that sometimes we don't have sex as much as we'd like either. Women get dumped, women get friend-zoned, women's partners may lose interest in sex - being "involuntarily celibate" isn't just for men. Sorry, guys, you're not special. And when this happens to a woman, it can hurt, it can be embarrassing, it can crush self-esteem and it can lead to feelings of worthlessness. But it's not women who are reacting to romantic and sexual disappointment by plotting cowardly acts of violence because a man wasn't interested. 

When women aren't getting laid, we might get together and whine about men over a bottle of wine or a tub of ice cream, but you're not going to find us organising to kill innocent people. Sure, not every woman will handle being rejected in an entirely rational manner but the murderous bunny boiler of Fatal Attraction is a rare exception, rather than the rule, as crime statistics will bear out. 

Like Daesh, the incels have started a deadly movement and the parallels are chilling. Incels and Daesh prey on vulnerable, lonely young men, men who feel disenfranchised, men who are yearning to feel powerful and important, men for whom the ability to control women to the point of rape and murder is appealing, men who get very angry when they are referred to as losers. And now, with the Toronto attack, it is clear that incels and Daesh are both planning to kill more innocent people in the name of hateful and perverse ideologies. 

Incels and Daesh both hate women. They do not like to see women empowered or educated. They feel entitled to women's bodies, whether it is for their own selfish gratification (can anyone seriously imagine either an incel or a Daesh recruit giving a damn about female pleasure during sex?) or to breed a new generation of haters. 

There is no respect for women in incel chat rooms or Daesh training camps. They both hold juvenile, reductive views of women, they want to control us but they are also disgusted by us. They are the very worst examples of toxic masculinity. Their murderous foot soldiers might be dismissed as lone wolves but they are the useful idiots for the leaders of horrific ideologies. They are both terrorist organisations. They both need to be stopped.

Photography by cocoparisienne

The charitable gropers of the Presidents Club

Tiresomely, predictably, there have been tiresome, predictable responses to the FT story in which undercover reporters alleged that women employed as hostesses at the Presidents Club all-male charity fundraiser experienced sexual harassment. This included being groped, invited by guests to join them in hotel bedrooms, guests demanding phone numbers from the hostesses, guests trying to kiss hostesses, hostesses being asked if they were prostitutes, guests putting their hands up the skirts of the hostesses, hostesses being followed into the toilets by representatives of the agency to ensure they didn't take too long in there, a guest asking a hostess to remove her underwear and dance on the table, a guest taking his penis out during the dinner...

Upon arrival, according to the FT report and a subsequent interview with one of the reporters on BBC Newsnight, the women were made to sign non-disclosure agreements without being given time to read them. They weren't allowed to take a copy with them either. The women were given fitted black dresses for the occasion and told to wear matching black underwear. Payment was £150 plus £25 for a taxi home (bad luck if you live in Zone 4 or you're not on a night bus route, sweetheart, you'll probably be at least £25 out of pocket). That equates to a little bit above minimum wage. The hostesses, hired if they met the criteria of "tall, thin and pretty", were encouraged to drink alcohol at the event so any notion of the employer having a duty of care towards the workers went out the window, along with the inhibitions of some of the guests, it would appear.

So, what have the apologists been saying?

"The women knew what they were getting themselves into!"

Sure, some did. According to one of the reporters, some women have worked at this event before, knew the men that attend could be a bit gropey, still thought it was a bit of fun and some claimed they got job offers from it. But plenty of women did not know what the event was going to be like beforehand and, once they were in there, were horrified by what they experienced and saw. Just because some women thought it was a bit of a lark, that does not excuse the behaviour that other women found unacceptable. It's like saying you're OK with the parish priest abusing the altar boys because he left the church secretary alone.

"So, why didn't they just slap the men? Or knee them in the balls?"

Don't get me wrong - any woman who slaps down a sex pest has my full support. Any woman should feel empowered to use whatever physical means she can to fend off everything from an unwanted hand on the knee to rape. But sometimes this is not so easy. 

When I was sexually assaulted while walking home in Dubai one night, I was able to fight off my attacker because he was not much taller than me, and he was overweight and not agile. I was "lucky enough" to get away - if coming away from an attempted rape with a bleeding scratch on my chest, torn tights and an overwhelming feeling of nausea is anyone's idea of a lucky day. I am only 5'1" and these days, I have arthritis on top of my two club feet and a knackered lower back. If someone tried to attack me again, I am pretty sure I would try and fight them off but my success would depend on factors such as whether or not I was having an arthritis flare-up and the size and physical strength of an attacker that I hope never comes my way. 

The same goes for hostesses at the Presidents Club - if a physically stronger man or a drunken, belligerent man crosses a line, a woman may think twice before using brute force, even if a polite "Do you mind?" or an escalation to "Fuck right off!" doesn't work.

"Boys will be boys! This is what happens when men get together!"

Still not OK. The men at this event are meant to be leaders - politicians, businessmen, captains of industry, men who are employers. We really are setting the bar low if we think it's OK for these men to harass women who are trying to earn a few quid, especially if these blokes are responsible for making policy in regard to workplace rights or they are employers, presumably of women. Why should they not be held to a high standard of behaviour?

These men are powerful. Many of the women working at the event were not - there were students, actresses and models in need of some extra cash because of the sometimes-sporadic nature of their work, they need the money and the fear of that agency not giving them any more work if they complain too loudly about creepy men is real, especially when you have London rent to pay. 

"What did they expect when they were given tight dresses to wear?"  

To not be sexually harassed. To not be groped. To not have men demand their phone numbers or ask them to accompany them to hotel rooms. To not see some miserable cretin flop his penis out during dinner. To be treated with respect. 

Wearing tight dresses does not mean an instant invitation for harassment. This is the same for women who work at, for example, Hooters. Some women who work there might enjoy the job, for some Hooters employees, not so much. 

"It's hardly the crime of the century! Lighten up!"

No, I won't lighten up, thanks all the same. I have other plans. As far as we know, nobody was raped that night. As far as we know. But that still doesn't make the accusations at all palatable or such behaviour acceptable. It's the mentality behind the groping that is disturbing. It's all about men feeling entitled to access women's bodies, even when the women are trying to work. And I shouldn't need to spell out the ultimate, awful consequence of a man feeling entitled to access a woman's body.

What about FGM or the Rotherham rape victims, huh?

Here's the thing - women can and are capable of being angry at more than one thing at a time. And all of it has the same mentality of misogyny, of exploiting women's bodies, of controlling women at its root. All of it.

"The big losers here are the charities!"

There has been much debate since the story broke about whether the charities should give the money back, as Great Ormond Street Hospital is doing. It is the morally right thing to do as accepting the money does compromise the reputation of the charity. And if any criminal charges were to emerge from the events of what turned out to be the last-ever Presidents Club dinner, it could be illegal to accept the money.

Or, here's a wacky idea: how about holding charity events where wealthy men can donate without feeling the need to grab women earning about £13 an hour?  

If the right to grab a woman's arse at a charity do is the hill on which you choose to die, you shouldn't be in a position of power. And it seems that all the men who were at the dinner are either denying all knowledge of any inappropriate behaviour or claiming they left before anything untoward happened or they really, truly would have left if they had seen any harassment.

Or, here's another wacky idea: how about men speaking up about such behaviour, having the courage to call it out when it is happening before their eyes, not just coming out with mealy mouthed excuses after the event. Would any of these men have said a damn word if the FT story wasn't published? Probably not. And this is why women will keep speaking out. Deal with it.

Image by Karen Arnold

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.

On believing women

One of the howls that has emerged from the #MeToo stories and the ongoing breaking news about accusations of sexual harassment, abuse and rape in multiple industries is the objection to those who say we should believe women when they come forward.

"But what about the women who falsely accuse men?" is the inevitable reaction, regardless of how many statistics from multiple countries on the low rate of false reports are cited. I am pretty sure this will always be a kneejerk reaction to the notion of believing women.

Would the howls stop if we said instead that when a woman comes forward with an accusation that she is taken seriously? Can we please at least get to that point?

This is not about denigrating the vital legal principle of innocence until proven guilty. It is about treating women with respect when they come forward to report something that is incredibly serious. 

Because there is no other crime where the accuser, the alleged victim, is not taken seriously.

When someone reports a burglary, the initial response is not usually: "But were you really burgled? Are you sure you just didn't put the TV in another room? Maybe you sold all that jewellery and you just forgot about it.". Yet a woman is often made to question her judgement, to second-guess herself, to ask herself if she really was sexually assaulted, if her memory is failing her.

When I was sexually assaulted and called the police, the first thing I was asked was: "Are you sure? Are you just making this up?". As if I was calling for a lark on the weekend, as if that is how I planned to spend my day off.

If someone is burgled after leaving the house with a door or window left open, the worst they might get is to be made to feel a bit silly, but they are not going to be made to feel like they were totally asking to be burgled. Yet women are accused of "asking for it" all the time with the short skirt or the low-cut neckline or the tight dress being the unlocked door equivalent for a woman's body.

When I was sexually assaulted, I was asked what I was wearing and instead of telling the amateur Perry Mason on the other end of the phone to fuck off, I sheepishly said I was wearing a knee-length red dress and black tights. The tights were torn in the assault, for God's sake. The neckline on my dress was not low yet my attacker managed to scratch my chest, drawing blood. 

Or maybe the woman was not sexually assaulted while being dressed "provocatively", whatever the hell that means except to insult men by implying that they are a pack of sex-crazed beasts with no self-control, and to insult women by removing our agency and implying that we should all dress like nuns at all times to protect ourselves. 

Maybe she was assaulted in her own home by a man that she lives with, while she was dressed in a onesie and slippers, or maybe she was assaulted by a man whom she invited into her house, which could be for any number of reasons. 

But what if you threw a party and got burgled, or that royal wedding street party kicked on after the kids had gone to bed and a few neighbours went over to yours for a few more beverages, and you got burgled? Most people's reaction would be: "How terrible. You invite some people over and that's all the thanks you get!" rather than "Well, you were asking to be burgled by being so hospitable!".

Yet that is how women are made to feel when they are attacked in their own homes. If a plumber comes over and nicks your cash when you're not looking, you might well get more sympathy than if the plumber raped you instead of unblocking the loo. Throw a party and if you're raped while a bit drunk, you will probably be blamed for your attack in a way that would not happen if instead of being raped, you were robbed instead.

If you were drunk when you were burgled, you will probably get more sympathy than the woman who was drunk when she was sexually assaulted. 

Contemplate that - a woman may get more sympathy for a stolen television than a violation of her body.

And then there is the old chestnut about why a woman didn't speak up at the time. Obviously, I would urge every woman, girl, man or boy who has been sexually assaulted to speak up, to report it, to tell someone. But if there is a real likelihood of being interrogated about everything from choice of clothing to alcohol consumption to sexual history to why you were alone with that person in the first place, there are plenty of reasons why someone felt as if they couldn't come forward.

When I was sexually assaulted, I reported it quickly but I was asked why I didn't scream. I did scream. Anyone who has known me for more than two minutes would probably not be surprised to know that I yelled and screamed. I told the officer I screamed. I was then asked why nobody came to help me. Fortunately, I managed to get away before I was raped but even if I froze in fear and didn't make a sound, it would not lessen the seriousness of what happened to me. There is no correct way to react when someone has pushed you off a footpath, shoved one hand down your neckline and the other hand under your dress when you are walking home after being unable to find a taxi.

And if you have ever slagged off a woman for being too mouthy, for having the temerity to be loud or outspoken, or you have tried to silence her for making herself heard, you have no right to demand to know why a woman didn't make more noise at the time of her attack. If you are telling any girls in your life to be quiet and demure, to never speak up or make a scene or draw attention to themselves, you are part of the problem. Women are routinely told to shut up in a way that men, in general, are not. An outspoken woman may be seen as a bitch, as a mouthy cow, while an outspoken man is more likely to be seen as assertive, powerful, statesmanlike.

If we raise our girls to be demure, fearful women who don't feel as if they can speak up, then of course it will take days, weeks, months and even years for women to come forward when they have been sexually assaulted.

So we could argue until we are blue in the face about whether believing women is the right language to use here. Or we could quit being collective brutes as a society and treat attacks on our bodies with the same seriousness that we give to stolen material possessions. Whether it's an accused rapist or an accused burglar in the dock, they both have the right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law. But the people who report the crimes deserve respect too. 

My body is not the same as a goddamn stolen television.

Photography by Pablo Fernandez/Flickr

Post-Hef-post-Weinstein confessions of an ex-men's mag employee

I suppose I should be grateful to Hugh Hefner. With Playboy, he created the market that created a job for me from 2003 until 2006 - in those years, I was working as a sub editor at the Australian edition of FHM, the men's magazine which launched in 1985 and, ultimately, was eaten alive by the internet.

But in my time there, I worked with people who actually had ethics. I received nothing but support from male colleagues after I was followed by a man in a car when I walked home alone one night after a 15-hour day in the office, or when my terrible neighbours were having drug-fuelled arguments outside my flat door at 3am and I turned up to work looking like death, and when there was a family tragedy. The office fell silent and sad when we looked at our watches and realised that a young Australian man had just been executed for drug trafficking in Singapore in mitigating circumstances in 2005, and when a member of staff was sent the video of the beheading of Kenneth Bingley in 2004.

There was was one bad apple who was on staff briefly. He was a very junior member of staff, who I later discovered behaved in a sexually aggressive way towards a friend. He ended up being struck off my friends' list when he revealed himself to be a racist worshipper of Stefan Molyneux. And a member of staff, who worked across other magazines in the company, was dealt with severely, and rightly so, after he called one of the entrants in an FHM modelling competition after spotting her phone number on the back of the photo she sent in, back when people still entered competitions by post. I still remember how appalled the guys in the office were when word got out about that incident.

When it comes to writing, there are very few sacred cows in the barn when you work on such a magazine and everyone is under constant pressure to be the funniest person in the room. But jokes about race or rape or paedophilia, for example, did not find their way into the pages. A lot of the jokes were self-deprecating jokes about men written by men.

There were lines in the sand. We didn't really need to be told where the lines were, and if anyone was unsure they'd run it past someone else, or it would be filtered through the editing process, because we were essentially decent human beings. FHM was an excellent example of media self-regulation, something which tends to cause panic among fans of censorship and restrictions on press freedom.

Sure, there were gags in bad taste - I made a few crass jokes myself in the line of duty - but there was an innate sense of decency even amid the farts, belches, hangovers and comedowns.

We did not exploit the women who appeared in the magazine. Nobody was forced to pose for photo shoots in bikinis or lingerie against their will. The women who appeared in FHM all had agency and were treated with respect. I supervised many photo shoots myself and I can honestly say nothing bad happened to the women on any of them.

Yet I am not going to worship at the altar of Hugh Hefner.

Yes, Playboy published many excellent articles, genuinely good and groundbreaking journalism, witty opinion pieces from men and women. He paid writers well and, in many cases, they were pieces which would not have found their way to press anywhere else. 

Yes, Hugh Hefner gave airplay to black writers, activists and entertainers through publication of their work and interviews.

Yes, Hugh Hefner donated extensively to civil rights causes.

Yes, the Playboy Foundation funded the first rape kits in America, which are essential for evidence-gathering in such cases.

Yes, Playboy was one in the eye for prudish conservatives and lovers of censorship.

But here's the thing. Hugh Hefner could have achieved all of the above without doing anything from the list below.

He didn't have to sleep with Dorothy Stratten to apparently further her career, with the support of her obsessive husband, Paul Snider. Snider, by the way, ended up shooting her when she was just 20 years old, before turning the gun on himself. Nor did Hefner have to ensure she posed for Playboy when she was still 17.

He didn't have to publish full frontal nude photographs of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields posing in a bathtub, her face plastered in makeup.

He didn't have to publish photographs of 11-year-old Eva Ionesco in the Italian edition of Playboy in 1976.

He didn't have to refuse to wear condoms during his sex parties at the Playboy Mansion.

He didn't have to pay Marilyn Monroe a pitiful $50 for her Playboy shoot, a shoot from which he profited handsomely over the years.

He didn't have to be a douche in death by spunking $75,000 for the crypt next to Marilyn Monroe's final resting place.

He didn't have to impose controlling rules such as 9pm curfews, restrictions on social life, and insistence on sex on demand, on the women in the Playboy Mansion. If you seriously think every woman in there genuinely loved her time in the mansion or truly had a wide range of life choices available to her, you're deluded. Plenty of women came out of the mansion physically or psychologically damaged - it's not sex-phobic or prudish to say so. It's reality.

And so here we are, in the post-Weinstein era, with Hugh Hefner barely cold in his grave, and plenty of men are whining about how they just don't know what to do with themselves anymore. Apparently, for these poor little petals, a new culture where girls and women are not afraid to speak out about the whole spectrum of sexually abusive and inappropriate behaviour, will be the death of flirting and will prevent people from having relationships.

Except that nobody has said that flirting or touching or sex with consent should be banned, or that workplace relationships will suddenly stop. Hell, I met my own husband at work without either of us exploiting the other. If the right to say no does not exist, the right to say yes is meaningless. If the right to give consent disappears, we live in a wilderness where entitlement to the bodies of girls and women reigns supreme.

Men do not have to rape women, or harass women even after they have told them they are not interested, or stalk women after break-ups, or follow them home as when they walk alone, or call them sexually explicit and unasked-for names in the workplace, or kerb-crawl them, or demand they smile when they have the temerity to not beam like a beauty queen at all times.

All the things we are asking of men are not onerous demands, just as Hugh Hefner did not have to do any of the awful things he did when he was alive.

So I am not going to sit here in eternal gratitude for Hugh Hefner. Even if his legacy never happened, even if FHM never happened, I am pretty sure I still would have found work in publishing and, more importantly, progress in areas such as civil rights and rape case investigations still would have happened. And I am pretty sure the men I worked with at FHM would still be decent human beings and not exploiters of women and underage girls.

Photography by Alan Light