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

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

Womansplaining #metoo

Inevitably, my Twitter mentions filled with outraged, self-righteous men this afternoon after I had the temerity to tweet with the #metoo hashtag. 

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MALE VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT? DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MANY MEN COMMIT SUICIDE? WHY ARE YOU SILENCING THE MEN?" 

Making people aware of how many girls and women have suffered sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual violence, all manner of intrusions on our personal space, on our bodies, on our dignity does not diminish the pain of male victims. 

It's often hard for women to speak out about sexual abuse, to gather the strength to report sexual offences, to call out the creep at work or on public transport. Making it hard for women when they do speak out makes it harder for male victims to speak out too. "I don't feel I can speak up as a male victim of sexual abuse so I am going to belittle women who speak up!" is completely unconstructive. The cognitive dissonance is astounding. 

For girls and women, there are aspects to the abuses we experience that are, for the most part, our own. Here is a handy checklist of why girls and women needed today, just one solitary day, to be listened to and taken seriously.

- Because of the sheer relentless of it all, the harassment and aggressions that seem minor but are genuinely tiresome, annoying, upsetting and, for so many of us, frequent, just part and parcel of being a woman. 

-  Because we automatically grab our keys and thread the ring over our fingers as a makeshift knuckleduster as we get off the bus or train to walk home, as we walk to our cars, as we walk to our places of work, as we walk anywhere by ourselves.

- Because we tell each other to call or text when we get home safely and panic if someone forgets to call or text.

- Because what starts out as "flattering jealousy" in a relationship can quickly turn to stifling control.

- Because what is perceived as a grand, romantic gesture when people mistake real life for a rom-com can quickly turn to stalking, especially when a woman has decided that a relationship is over.

- Because the workplace creep is routinely laughed off as a bit of a lad when he actually makes women feel uncomfortable, sometimes to the point where they can't face going to work and will quit rather than go through the stress of making a formal complaint or even just telling him to fuck off.

- Because too many of us put up with harassment, inappropriate touching, kerb crawlers - it can just seem easier than constantly calling it out.

- Because it doesn't matter how enlightened a legal system may seem, women are still made to feel as if they asked for it if they are sexually assaulted while drunk, wearing a short dress, wearing a low cut top, walking home alone, wearing shoes that are not conducive to running away...

- Because women are not protected from sexual assault by wearing dowdy clothes, no makeup, long skirts, tracksuits, hijabs, high necklines, pyjamas, baggy trousers, big jumpers, caftans, trainers...

- Because leaving an abusive relationship isn't always as easy as simply walking out the door and can force women and children into poverty.

- Because rich, powerful men can settle out of court to avoid criminal charges, freeing them up to assault and harass again and again.

- Because the mere desire to not make a fuss can be enough to not speak up. 

- Because the real fear of a ruined career can be enough to not speak up.

- Because receiving unsolicited messages from men you've never met is tiresome and creepy.

- Because study after study shows that false reports of sexual assault are rare.

- Because trying to unlock the front door at night in the dark with your back to the street can be a genuinely panicky experience.

- Because sometimes it's the person on the other side of the front door who will harm you.

- Because girls experience sexual harassment in primary school and this is not new, it's not "because of the internet", it happened before smartphones.

- Because a woman may already be struggling on a day-to-day basis with racism, poverty, homophobia, disability, physical or mental health issues and so on and so forth... Dealing with unwanted sexual attention can fall to the bottom of the list of priorities.

Taking women seriously when they talk about their awful experiences paves the way for male victims to do the same, to start their own campaigns, to get justice. No reasonable person is OK with men being sexually assaulted. When women sexually harass and assault men, that is not OK either. It is stunning that this even needs to be said.

And now that women from all over the world have spoken out and shared their experiences, it's up to men to take responsibility for their actions, it's up to parents of boys to not raise empathy-free arseholes who feel entitled to women's attention and to their bodies. And it's time to hold an unflinching mirror up to male violence because, whether it's assaults on men or women, men still make up the overwhelming majority of perpetrators. 

     

It's open season on parents

Judging parents, in particular mothers, has become a global sport. And the way we pour scorn on celebrity mothers is merely a pitiful reflection of the way we judge mothers we come across in our own lives.*

Lily Allen caused significant horror when she admitted that she got bored with staying home with her children and that's why she made another album. She didn't say she hates her kids, as far as we know she doesn't starve or beat her kids, and they seem to be perfectly healthy. But she was honest enough to admit that being a mother wasn't 100% fulfilling and, as such, she wanted to do other things with her life.

If a mother goes back to work after having a baby and she is looking forward to it, good for her. While economic necessity is a big reason for many women to return to work after having a baby, for many others, the reasons include spending time with grown-ups, taking on challenges that are not related to being a mother, relieving the cabin fever of staying at home with the kid, and simply reminding herself that she is not solely defined by her offspring. How any of this is anyone else's damn business is a mystery to me.

Meanwhile, the Duchess of Cambridge was criticised for the way she carried her baby off a plane and for taking a kid-free holiday with her husband when the baby was seven months old. It's not as if Prince George would have been left chained to a radiator for a week. Good Lord! Personally, I am no fan of any monarchy but equally I don't think the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are terrible parents either.

Among the parents I know, there are massive variations in the age of their kids when they decided to take a holiday without them - or even leave them overnight with a babysitter. What works for one family might not work for another. Again, how any of this is anyone else's damn business is a mystery to me.

Then ex-Neighbours star Jane Hall felt the need to tell her listeners on Sydney radio that model Miranda Kerr "repulsed" her for having the temerity to talk about sex in an interview with GQ magazine. According to Hall, Kerr talking about sex was repulsive because she is "a young girl" (er, she's 30...) and "someone's mother" (which one can only assume happened because of sex). Clearly, Kerr never got the memo about how women must shut off their sexuality like a light switch the instant they give birth.

Given that I have friends with more than one child, I am pretty sure that despite the inevitable tiredness and time pressures of parenthood, it is not the death knell for sex either. And while I don't monitor my friends' bedroom activities, I can confirm that parents do still talk about sex, often in explicit detail.

Neither Allen, the Duchess or Kerr are bad parents. Obviously, having wealth and privilege helps make their lives easier, despite Gwyneth Paltrow's moronic comments about how simple life is for mothers who work in offices rather than on film sets. But I wouldn't even describe her as a bad mother, just a daft one with no idea what it's like outside her organic lentil bubble. And there is no law against daftness.

But the culture of judging parents has created a maelstrom of loud voices calling for such things as making drinking alcohol in pregnancy a criminal offence (absurd when there is no medical consensus on alcohol consumption in pregnancy), banning smoking in cars with children (which is surely commonsense - not even the most committed smoker I know would smoke in a car with kids and, as a bonus, it's hard to police) and now the Cinderella Law that will be mentioned in the Queen's speech at the next opening of Parliament.This would make emotional cruelty towards children a criminal offence.

We really need a lot more detail on definitions for the Cinderella Law before we can form a clear view. While there are certainly horrific cases of children being damaged by neglectful parents, the law's main cheerleader, Robert Buckland, a Conservative MP, made this sweeping statement about it on BBC Radio 5 Live: "You can look at a range of behaviours from ignoring a child's presence, failing to stimulate a child, right through to acts of in fact terrorising a child where the child is frightened to disclose what is happening to them."

It's not hard to see how such a law could be open to abuse and time-wasting false reports. Is the mother who needs to take a moment in the garden to compose herself because her kids are behaving horribly an emotional abuser? What about when a parent is tired and plonks a child in front of the TV for a couple of hours just to get some peace and quiet or the washing done? How about when a child is older and savvier - but still legally a child - and tries to criminalise his or her own parents in a fit of teenage vengeance? If you think an adolescent would never do that to a parent, you haven't met many adolescents. After all, we are living in an era where childhood is longer than ever.

Will there be some sort of state-sanctioned quota on hugs and kisses that will mean a child is being loved enough? What if there are too many hugs and kisses and the pendulum swings from neglect to sexual abuse?

As things currently stand, too many kids do slip through the net and end up abused and, equally, there are ridiculous cases of false accusations given a life of their own by over-zealous social workers. A commonsense-driven balance between parental responsibility and state intervention when required needs to be struck.

Whether more laws are required or just better application of existing laws, I am not sure. But I am sure we are living in an era of extreme judgement of parents. Eleanor Roosevelt nailed it when she said: "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." Perhaps we could all benefit from less talk about the scandalous mother who got bored by her kids/took a holiday/talked about sex. We could do with more talk about how we can create a society where we deal effectively with genuine abusers while accepting that parenting is not a one-size-fits-all occupation where there is only one way to do it right.

* Disclaimer: It is perfectly acceptable to judge parents who don't vaccinate their kids. They do not understand science or herd immunity and their actions harm others.

It's that time of the week again! It's the world of stupid!

This is a gun-free World of Stupid this week. I need a break, my head is going to explode. Instead, here are some other examples of idiocy that demand exposure. I warn you. It's not an entirely light-hearted rant this week. There is predictable political stupidity, religious stupidity and stupidity from the judiciary that is either rank or completely repulsive.

1. Britain's bid for marriage equality has officially jumped the shark. Culture Secretary/Equalities Minister  Maria Miller was doing surprisingly well with it all until she announced a "quadruple lock" making it illegal for any Church of England vicar to conduct a same-sex marriage. Except that some vicars would very much like to be able to do this and they are bit peeved that they were never asked. And now the Muslim Council of Britain has demanded that the government make it illegal for them to conduct same-sex marriages as well. Never mind that they are already allowed to discriminate against gay couples in that way already - and they would still be allowed to do so after marriage equality becomes law here. "PASS A LAW FOR US TO NOT BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING WE ALREADY REFUSE TO DO!"

2. Maria Miller's shark-jumping went beyond her club-footed handling of marriage equality and extended into her expenses when The Telegraph revealed she had claimed £90,000 in expenses for a second home in which her parents live. If only we could all be so well rewarded via the taxpayer for looking after elderly parents... And then, according to The Telegraph, Joanna Hindley, one of Miller's special advisers, warned the paper to consider Miller's role in deciding the future of press regulation before running such a story. Naturally, the government is denying any wrongdoing and it was maybe a little convenient for the right-leaning Telegraph to run this story on the same day as the marriage equality story was breaking, but the stench around it all is not just stupid, it's ominous.

3. Geoffrey Clark, who was running as a UKIP candidate for election to Gravesham Council announced a pretty appalling policy in his manifesto, which we can only assume was seen by other party members before it was printed. Under the section on NHS policy, Clark puts under "items for review": "compulsory abortion when the foetus is detected as having Downs, Spina Bifida or similar syndrome which, if it is born, could render the child a burden on the state as well as on the family."

Just so we're clear here, this is not what prochoice is about - compulsory abortion is not choice. It would be amazing if prolife and prochoice voices could actually come together on this one and condemn this policy equally loudly.

On the upside, it may make the head of many a Daily Mail commentator spin uncontrollably as they try to reconcile their hatred of all abortions with their constant threats at the bottom of every story to join UKIP.

An update on this story: UKIP say they have suspended Geoffrey Clarke from the party, he will be running for election to Gravesham Council as an independent. A UKIP mouthpiece claims they were not aware of his views. Yes. And I am Dolly Parton.

4. A woman in Australia has won her bid for compensation following injuries she sustained while having vigorous sex in a motel room while on a business trip. This court decision sets a fairly stupid precedent. A light fitting came away during the act and she suffered facial injuries and then depression - and then she couldn't do her job anymore. Now, I'm sorry, and I am certainly not one to dismiss mental illness, but a cheeky shag in a Nowra hotel room is not part of anyone's job. Well, unless you're working in legalised prostitution, as is the case in the Australian state where Nowra is. The woman in question was a federal government employee so I am going to go out on a limb and suggest the sex was not work-related.

Eating, sleeping, showering, going to the loo, reading boring conference papers - these are the sorts of things you have to do when you're in a motel on a business trip. If you suffer an injury during these activities, then, yes, employers should compensate away. The sex bit is entirely optional. It would have made more sense to sue the motel for the dodgy light fitting. Or simply get your face attended to at the nearest A&E and have a laugh about it at the pub by Friday night.

5. And speaking of stupid precedents, it appears Lord Turnbull, a judge in Scotland, does not understand why Britain has age-of-consent laws. This week, 22-year-old Steven Pollock walked away from Edinburgh's High Court with just a community service order and the stipulation that he attend a sex offenders' programme - for the rape of a 13-year-old girl. Who was drunk. In fact, in Lord Turnbull and the prosecutor's world, the offence wasn't even a rape at all - the charge was downgraded to "sex with a minor".

Lord Turnbull said out loud in the courtroom where other people could hear him: "It is important to understand that the offence rises out of consensual conduct rather than any form of force, grooming or manipulation."

Oh boy, here we go again. We're bound to have morons come out of the woodwork to say that 13-year-old girls "these days" all wear high heels and make-up and have the temerity to reach puberty earlier. As if every 13-year-old girl is a sex-hungry vixen dressed like a truckstop lapdancer. And even if a 13-year-old is dressed "inappropriately"/is not wearing a burkha/put a saucy dab of Carmex on her chapped lips/grew breasts, that is not an invitation for rape. The age of consent is a sane line in the sand - it is the age at which most reasonable people are mature enough to decide if they want to have sex or not.

There has been a media campaign in Britain to hammer home the point that if someone of either sex is drunk, they're not well placed to consent to sex and it is best to either help them get home safely or find somewhere for them to sleep it off. But in the world of Lord Turnbull, this basic level of respect does not apply to 13-year-old girls.

Bloody hell. After all this week's stupid, my head is going to explode anyway...


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

This week's world of stupid

The week started well - I was having a great time in sane, liberal Amsterdam and Barack Obama won the US election. Then the wheels started to fall off.

The US state of California depressingly voted against a ban on the death penalty - and the County of Los Angeles voted for compulsory condom use in porn movies. It was a bizarre example of misuse of big and small government. The death penalty is abhorrent and ineffective and government should go big and step in to ban it globally. That is the only civilised solution. But how the hell did condom use in porn even end up on ballot papers? How is that something that needs government regulation and a public vote? Yes, sometimes government can be way too big. It would be far saner to ensure sex education covers the benefits of condom use as well as intelligent class discussion on pornography and its relationship to real life sex. If you think high school students can't handle such discussions, you've clearly got no idea what they've probably seen online already.

And Nadine Dorries happened again. This time, the MP buggered off to Australia to appear on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here without telling anyone. On one hand, it is brilliant that she is currently not here in Britain. On the other hand, it is beyond scandalous that she is still accepting her taxpayer-funded salary, neglecting her constituents and abandoning her seat for important votes in the House of Commons. She further raises the idiot stakes by claiming that her appearance on a moronic TV programme will get people interested in politics and raise awareness of her views on abortion. If you are unaware of Nadine Dorries' views on abortion, you have been living under a rock. If you need to see MPs eat kangaroo testicles on TV to be interested in politics, you are too stupid to fill out a ballot paper and shouldn't leave the house without your name and address pinned to your clothes.

Meanwhile, Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, and Labour MP Chris Bryant, attempted to manufacture outrage over claims that bets were taken on the appointment of Justin Welby as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Apparently, people who knew Welby was going to be the Church of England's new leader took bets and it was likened to the ecclesiastical equivalent to insider trading. But the outrage missed the point. Why is government still involved in the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Given that Britain generally does a better job of separating church and state than America, it is time to cut this particular cord once and for all. This country has grown up enough to have an openly atheist deputy Prime Minister, freedom of religion, freedom from religion and a general attitude that religious beliefs are personal.

But any chance of intelligent discussion about betting on bishops, and the Church of England's role in Britain, got lost in the news cycle in the wake of George Entwistle's resignation as BBC Director-General after an ill-starred seven-week tenure. While the BBC-bashing newspapers get away with a tiny apology on page 23 buried next to an advertisement for mail order slippers for all manner of lies, inaccuracies and ethical failures, the BBC has to go big with a mea culpa. Yet ITV gurner-in-chief Phillip Schofield thought handing David Cameron an internet witch hunt list of suspected child molesters on live TV was the way forward and he is still employed. Alarmingly, Schofield made the Prime Minister look good - David Cameron handled an insane situation well.

Yes, there was much ineptitude on the part of Entwistle over the Jimmy Savile affair, and journalism at the BBC should be held up to a higher standard than The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, ITV and Sky News, but this is not an excuse to tear down the entire organisation. It is a time to look ahead and ensure high journalistic standards are maintained at all times in the future. As I predicted on October 23, the real victims of paedophilia are being forgotten in the midst of a frenzy to burn Entwistle at the stake. There is no joy to be had in this prediction coming true.

Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

Jimmy Savile's victims and other sticks for bashing the BBC

Are allegations that the late Jimmy Savile has abused many innocent children worth investigating? Yes.

Do any victims deserve compensation as the result of an investigation? Yes.

If anyone still alive is found to be in any way culpable, should they be held to account? Yes.

Could the BBC have handled this appalling situation better? Yes.

Was it inappropriate to run Jimmy Savile tributes when allegations of abuse were widely known? Yes.

Was the original dropping of the Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile wrong? Yes.

Has George Entwistle had an excruciating time in front of incredulous MPs today? Yes.

Is this whole sorry saga a good reason to try to bring down the BBC? No.

The Jimmy Savile story is a sick gift for the likes of Sky News and the Daily Mail. It is the perfect stick with which to bash the BBC. It is easy for right-wing commentators to demand to know why we pay our licence fee and, in the case of Sky News this morning, interview an alleged victim of Jimmy Savile's abuse. It was a hard-to-watch attempt at sensitivity that only served to cause an obviously upset grown man to become tearful on live television. 

Liberalism has also come in for a beating. Melanie Phillips wielded that stick this week in a column for the Daily Mail blaming the "liberal left" for encouraging the sexualisation of children and how this created the culture that allowed Savile to allegedly abuse children. Her evidence is the now-defunct (and, yes, very wrong) affilliation of the Paedophile Information Exchange with the National Council for Civil Liberies (now known as Liberty), and the "liberal left" allowing kids to see sexualised images such as Rihanna gyrating in music videos. Yes, that'd be the images left-leaning feminists have been criticising for years while the Daily Mail has no compunction in running them on a daily basis. Phillips is referring to images that are used so that music company owners, capitalists of the highest order, make money. Hardly beacons of the left. 

Phillips continues her string of non-sequiturs with a spot of BBC-bashing. By running a documentary 10 years ago about children as young as 11 being preoccupied with "fancying each other" and exposing the parents and teachers who encouraged such behaviour, this was evidence in the mind of Phillips that the BBC was part of a culture of sexualising children. But she provides no context and her column collapses with the flabby conclusion that "paedophile bogeymen [arise] from a grossly displaced sense of personal responsibility". 

In Phillips' world and that of her disciples, a documentary on the BBC that exposes bad parents and teachers is somehow an example of the BBC's left-wing bias and paedophile-enabling. Except that stories condemning parents and teachers are the kind of thing that keeps the Daily Mail and its ilk ticking over. Witness the hysterical coverage of Jeremy Forrest, now charged with abducting one of his students, complete with large photographs of the 15-year-old at the centre of the story, for example. Or any opportunity to slag off single parents, drunk parents, parents dressed inappropriately, benefits-scrounging parents, celebrity parents...

The BBC is constantly under attack for left-wing bias and the Jimmy Savile story has been used to further push that tired barrow. Whoever says that clearly has never seen Andrew Marr in action or watched the other week as Jeremy Paxman mercilessly skewered up-and-coming Labour MP Chuka Umunna. 

Yes, folks, this is the organisation that broadcasts such extreme left-leaning programmes as Songs Of Praise, Antiques Roadshow, Top Gear, Homes Under The Hammer, Bargain Hunt, The Great British Bake-Off, New Tricks, Nigellissima, Strictly Come Dancing, Don't Tell The Bride, Great British Railway Journeys, Be Your Own Boss, Midsomer Murders and the Formula One races that haven't been lost to Sky. If ever there was a collection of programmes that will inspire militant revolutionaries storm Buckingham Palace, demand the overthrow of the Queen and barbecue the corgis, that'd be it.

Instead of using the Jimmy Savile affair to try and portray the BBC as nothing but a taxpayer-funded pack of lefty, decadent paedophile enablers, how about focusing on what justice can be achieved for the people who are making the horrific allegations. In the midst of the agendas of noisy people who would like to see the BBC torn down, the real victims are the people who could end up being forgotten. 

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography