Happy International Women's Day

Today is a day to reflect on the inequalities we face under patriarchy. 

Here are just a few of them:

• Two women a week are killed in the UK by their partner or former partner.
• 1 in 4 women will be a victim or survivor of domestic violence and rape in the UK
• This number goes up to 1 in 3 if you're a teenager.
• And the UK conviction rate for rape is stagnant at 6.5%
• And 1 in 3 women globally will be a victim or survivor of rape and sexual assault.
• 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to school across the world.
• 4 million women and girls are trafficked across international borders every year.
• Women do 2/3 of the world's work, but only own 1/10 of the world's property
• Women still earn on average less than their male contemporaries for the same work, and 30,000 women a year in the UK are sacked for being pregnant
• Meanwhile, the government cuts are destroying our domestic violence support services and hitting the purses of women disproportionately.
• There are only 5 women in the UK cabinet and only 22% of our MPs are women
• In the developing world, a woman dies in childbirth every minute. 
• Across the world, millions of girls are at risk of female genital mutilation. 20,000 in the UK. 

Meanwhile, all too often women are mocked and degraded as sex objects, are commercially sexually exploited and we're swamped in a cultural femicide that sidelines women's voices, stories and truths. And if you decide to speak out against that, then you're threatened, judged on your fuckability or simply ignored.

BUT

Today is also a day to celebrate our sisters and stand in solidarity across the world with them. There are so many amazing women and men working together to end the inequality, fighting to liberate us all from patriarchy and bring about equality for all. 

By speaking out, standing up, marching, writing, talking, reading, sharing and supporting we are all making a difference. However you do your activism, wherever your feminism lies, you are making a difference. 

Every time I think about the stats above, I feel sad. Angry. Furious! But I don't feel despair because I believe that change is coming, that we are fighting together to make the change. This inequality, this injustice isn't inevitable. It doesn't have to be this way. And we know that. And that's why we are standing together to say no more! 

I hope you all have a fantastic IWD, standing together in solidarity with our sisters and brothers for a better future. 

Stat sources: http://www.weareequals.org/; http://www.cwasu.org/; http://www.stopthetraffik.org/language.aspx; http://www.who.int/features/qa/12/en/index.html; http://www.nspcc.org.uk/inform/research/findings/partner_exploitation_and_violence_wda68092.html; http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/; http://www.dofeve.org/about-us.html

Oy! Cardinal O'Brien! Your homophobia's showing

Another day, and another violently homophobic rant is published in the Telegraph (this is what, the 3rd this week?). This missive, penned by Britain's most Senior Catholic Cardinal O'Brien, pulls every homophobic trope out of the book in what is basically politely written hate speech.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9121424/We-cannot-afford-to-indulge-this-madness.html

I'm going to write this Cruella Blog style, with an-almost line by line deconstruction of why every word in this article is ill-informed, ignorant and motivated by hatred and fear of gay people.

As regular readers of my blog will know, this is not the first time I have written about this. After my parents divorced when I was four, my mum moved in with another woman and they have been together since then - over 23 years. My brother and I were raised by them and maintained regular contact with my dad and his wife. Despite one blog commenter telling me I should not use my personal experience because it's cliche, I am not prepared to hide or apologise for my history and my family. This issue is personal to me, but that isn't the only reason I care about it. I care about it because I despise homophobia and prejudice and I am sick of bigots moaning that they are oppressed when they are wielding oppression.

Let's start at the top. Cardinal O'Brien is Britain's most senior Catholic. Well, I don't want to go religious-bashing, but I can't help but be a bit cheesed off with somone who has chosen to live a celibate life telling other people who they should and shouldn't have sex with, and how they should conduct their family.

Anyway...

'Civil partnerships have been in place for several years now, allowing same-sex couples to register their relationship and enjoy a variety of legal protections.

When these arrangements were introduced, supporters were at pains to point out that they didn’t want marriage, accepting that marriage had only ever meant the legal union of a man and a woman.'

No they didn't. Some campaigners don't want marriage rights extended because they believe that marriage is an outdated patriarchal institution that has no place in modern society. Some campaigners did campaign for equal marriage rights. And some people campaign for straight civil partnerships. No-one ever signed a contract to say 'this civil partnership right...and no further!'. What people want is equality - whether that's in
marriage or civil partnerships or an end to distaste for straight unmarried couples and gay unmarried couples.

'Those of us who were not in favour of civil partnership, believing that such relationships are harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved, warned that in time marriage would be demanded too. We were accused of scaremongering then, yet exactly such demands are upon us now.'

Apparently committing to love someone and share your life together is deadly bad for you if you share the same genitals. But if you are straight, and you're making a commitment in a legal, civil or church ceremony, then you are immediately protected from sadness, illness and atheism. Who knew?

'Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.'

This isn't true. If it was true, no-one would be campaigning for equal marriage rights. The fact is that this two tier system is unfair. Secondly, the annual British Social Attitudes survey and research by the EU’s Eurobarometer research arm says that now 45 per cent of British people agree that ‘homosexual marriages should be allowed throughout Europe’. The anti-crowd was around the same percentage, and a few percentage points said 'I don't know'. So this is not the whole of society being forced to change because of a minority of activists. Nearly half the population are in favour, and if history's anything to go by, that percentage is likely to keep increasing. Instead, a positive change for society is being denied 'at the behest of a small minority of activists' like O'Brien. Pow!

'Redefining marriage will have huge implications for what is taught in our schools, and for wider society. It will redefine society since the institution of marriage is one of the fundamental building blocks of society. The repercussions of enacting same-sex marriage into law will be immense
But can we simply redefine terms at a whim? Can a word whose meaning has been clearly understood in every society throughout history suddenly be changed to mean something else?.'

Ahh, the first 'won't somebody think of the children' argument. Listen O'Brien. I grew up in a gay family under Section 28. Throughout my school life, my reality was never reflected back to me. Gay people and the idea of gay people was silenced, and that, more than anything else, is upsetting and traumatic for gay children or children in gay families. Not that being gay is bad, because it isn't. Being told that gay is bad is the problem. Your life being totally silenced and ignored is the problem. If schools are forced to talk openly and positively about gay relationships then that is a good thing.

Also, marriage isn't static. In our Christian history, and still in some religious communities, if a woman's husband died she was expected to marry his brother. Marriage has traditionally been a deal between male powers, to ensure women breed, rather than anything to do with love and stability. Divorce was banned for years, unless the woman failed to deliver the goods and then she could be cast aside (I'm looking at YOU Henry VIII and founder of the Anglican church). Some changes to marriage have been positive. This is another positive and progressive step.

'If same-sex marriage is enacted into law what will happen to the teacher who wants to tell pupils that marriage can only mean – and has only ever meant – the union of a man and a woman?
Will that teacher’s right to hold and teach this view be respected or will it be removed? Will both teacher and pupils simply become the next victims of the tyranny of tolerance, heretics, whose dissent from state-imposed orthodoxy must be crushed at all costs?'

Well, thanks to a lack of will to encourage comprehensive and healthy sex and relationships education by this government, we know that a teacher will be perfectly free to preach that marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman. Schools are magically exempt from the equalities act and there's even a virulently homophobic booklet doing the rounds that Gove seems perfectly happy to have as curriculum material.

However, I think that a teacher should be reprimanded for being homophobic, just as, one would hope, they would be reprimanded for racism or sexism or ableism. Because imagine if you were me, aged 5 or 12 or 15. And your teacher turns around and says that your family, your upbringing, is wrong and evil and shameful. How would that make you feel? Shamed? Embarrassed? Guilty? And how would your classmates, who use gay as an insult, then react to you? You'd keep your family a secret. You'd feel secretly shamed. And the fault would be with that teacher, and the government who is turning a blind eye to homophobia in schools. Not your parents. Not your own sexuality. The fault is with homophbia and biphobia.

That didn't happen to me because I went to a school with lots of nice non-homophobic teachers. I did go to school with lots of homophobic kids though, and it was Section 28. So I can't emphasise this enough. The problem for gay kids and children of gay parents is other people's homophobia and the silencing of your experience. The problem is not with your parents or your sexuality. That is why it is so important to end this hate, this prejudice.

'In Article 16 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, marriage is defined as a relationship between men and women. But when our politicians suggest jettisoning the established understanding of marriage and subverting its meaning they aren’t derided.

Instead, their attempt to redefine reality is given a polite hearing, their madness is indulged. Their proposal represents a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right.'

Erm, I actually don't think it is. I remember arguing this point with someone on CIF. The right is for men and women to marry, not marry each other. Therefore subversion of this accepted human right is refusing men and women to marry the person of their choice.

But don't let facts get in the way of you telling us that women like my mums' friends who are marrying soon are grotesque!

'today advancing a traditional understanding of marriage risks one being labelled an intolerant bigot.'

Here's a tip O'Brien. If you don't want to be called an intolerant bigot, stop writing articles that make you come across as an intolerant bigot.

'There is no doubt that, as a society, we have become blasé about the importance of marriage as a stabilising influence and less inclined to prize it as a worthwhile institution.

It has been damaged and undermined over the course of a generation, yet marriage has always existed in order to bring men and women together so that the children born of those unions will have a mother and a father.

This brings us to the one perspective which seems to be completely lost or ignored: the point of view of the child. All children deserve to begin life with a mother and father; the evidence in favour of the stability and well-being which this provides is overwhelming and unequivocal. It cannot be provided by a same-sex couple, however well-intentioned they may be.'

Yes, there probably is less respect for marriage these days. Kim Kardashian is the oft-given example. Newt Gingrich and his mutiple affairs and divorces. Britney and her speedy wedding. Funny how none of these people are gay...

Anyway, my main beef. The point of view of the child. Well, O'Brien, I am one of the children you are talking to. My mum has been in a gay relationship since I was four, and I'm now 27. As I said, I have always had contact with my dad and his wife.

My home life was loving and stable and supportive. I don't want to big myself up, but I am a well-adjusted, successful and intelligent woman. I'm happy and caring and I'm a damn good writer. My parents weren't just 'well-intentioned', they were good parents. All of them. Like all families, we had our ups and downs. But stability and well-being - these are two words I would use to describe my upbringing.

Here's some research that backs up my own experience:

http://www.livescience.com/6073-children-raised-lesbians-fine-studies-show.html

You have no right to sit there from your throne and try to tell me that my childhood was wrong. You have no right at all.

If anything undermines the security and well-being of children in a gay household, it is the homophobia of people like you. The people who preach hate and intolerance and look askance at the families you disapprove of. People like you, who tell others to look down on and judge my family. The problem is not with my parents who love me, but with you, who hate my parents.

If all the history of intolerance and hatred of lesbian, gay, bi, queer and trans people has told us anything, it has told us that the prejudice must end. Because it is that hatred that makes life difficult for LGBQT people, nothing else.

I would also like to point out that having a mother and a father, married, doesn't gurantee stability. I have friends with straight parents who have been victims of physical and sexual abuse in their own homes, or who have chaotic home lifes, etc. Heterosexuality is not a magic spell against unhappiness. Look at the domestic violence statistics if you want proof of that (of course all these things also happen in gay and lesbian families, I am not denying that. It just angers me that O'Brien suggests it would never happen in straight families and that the sex of your parents is the issue, not the people).

'Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father.'

No it doesn't. Equal marriage rights isn't going to prevent me from marrying my boyfriend and having children if we so choose. It just means that my gay friends can do the same.

'Other dangers exist. If marriage can be redefined so that it no longer means a man and a woman but two men or two women, why stop there? Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage, if they pledge their fidelity to one another? If marriage is simply about adults who love each other, on what basis can three adults who love each other be prevented from marrying?'

First of all, poly marriages aren't exactly unheard of in Christianity! And secondly, if people in a consensual and happy poly relationship (as opposed to some of the unhappy and coercive arrangements that occur in some religious communities) want to get married and raise children, then they should be able to.

'In November 2003, after a court decision in Massachusetts to legalise gay marriage, school libraries were required to stock same-sex literature; primary schoolchildren were given homosexual fairy stories such as King & King. Some high school students were even given an explicit manual of homosexual advocacy entitled The Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century. Education suddenly had to comply with what was now deemed “normal”.'

My very good friend who has a daughter with her femal partner has recently campaigned to have books that feature gay characters used in her daughter's school. This is a fantastic thing to do. It prevents children from gay families feeling that there is something wrong with their upbringing. It stops them feeling invisible. When I was at school, such books were, effectively, illegal. My reality was never reflected back to me or talked about. It is vital that teachers and schools make the effort to be inclusive and sensitive to the needs of children from all types of families. It is so important to teach equality and tolerance from an early age, and to recognise that not all families look the same so that children from gay families don't feel marginalised.

Further, talking openly about gay people and particularly gay people in history has shown a reduction in homophobic bullying. This is vital in a world where young LGBQT people are often bullied to suicide.

'The Universal Declaration on Human Rights is crystal clear: marriage is a right which applies to men and women, “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.

This universal truth is so self-evident that it shouldn’t need to be repeated. If the Government attempts to demolish a universally recognised human right, they will have forfeited the trust which society has placed in them and their intolerance will shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world.'

Interestingly, O'Brien gets it right here. Marriage is a right which applies to men and women. Whoever that man or woman is, they have the right to marriage.

What really pisses me off is that O'Brien is talking as if straight married couples are being attacked by this extension of their rights. To use an example from history, not so long ago marriages between two people with different colour skin was illegal in America. That law was overturned because it was wrong, and although we know that some racist people felt that their all-white marriages were threatened, it's now nothing to blink at. The same will be true when marriage rights are extended to all. If you're homophobic, you'll be cross. But if you're homophobic, then that is your problem (and, don't be mistaken, if you are anti equal marriage rights because you think marriage is just for straight people, then I'm afraid you are homophobic, whether you think you are or not. If you're anti equal marriage rights because you think marriage is an outdated patriarchal system that should be abolished, then you're possibly excluded from that accusation!).

Throughout my life, I have been so proud and happy to be part of my family. If I ever experienced upset it was the result of other people's homophobia, from kids at school to comments in the workplace, to hate preaching by those like O'Brien. This upset can be remedied, because it will happen by ending homophobia.

Hating people for who they fall in love with is not normal. Marginalising and mocking the children of those relationships is just cruel. Refusing to tackle homophobia that leads young people to suicide is morally wicked. O'Brien, well done. You've just advocated all those things.

Violence against women and girls - more than numbers

This is a version of the speech I made last night at the Radical Film Festival's 'Women and Resistance' event.


It didn't actually sound much like this as a. I nearly started crying and b. I nearly lost my voice. Which meant I rambled a bit. But it was well received. 

I've been asked to speak to you about why feminism is still relevant in the 21^st century. And I have to admit, it’s hard to know where to start, because there are so many reasons why, so many reasons why the battle for liberation from the patriarchy is not over, so many reasons why women and men aren’t equal. 

But when on Sunday night a charity called Nia Central tweeted a list of names and ages, I realised what I wanted to talk to you about. Those names were:

• Susan McGoldrick, 47

• Tanya Turnball, 24

• Alison Turnball, 44

• Kirsty Treloar, 20

• Karen Climpson, 46

• Claire O’Connor, 38

• Kathleen Millward, 87

• Marie McGrory, 39

• Rebecca Holmes, 47

• Sarah Laycock, 31

• Zudba Bi, 34

• Josephine Gilliard, 42

• Cheryl Tariah, 17

• Patricia Cairns, 42

• Sarah Gosling, 41

I doubt you will have heard these names before, or come across them on the news. But these 15 women have all been murdered since 1^st Jan as a result or allegedly as a result of domestic violence. So far this year, a woman or girl has been murdered every 3.8 days as a result of domestic violence. A recent home office report found that nearly half of all women homicide victims were murdered by their current or ex-partner. 

To me, the reason we still need feminism today is because we are in a crisis of violence against women and girls. The list of names I have read out is proof to that. Women are being killed every few days by their partners and ex-partners. In Bristol, there are on average 130 rapes per month, 80,000 nationally each year. Across the world, 60 million girls will be sexually assaulted on their way to school every year, and 1 in 3 adult women will be a victim or survivor of rape or sexual assault. An estimated 70,000 women living in the UK have undergone female genital mutilation, and up to 7,000 girls remain at high risk of having it done to them. Across the world 3 million girls are at risk annually. Things are so bad, that in the UK teenage girls are now at a higher risk of intimate partner violence than adult women – at 1 in 3 as opposed to 1 in 4. 200 million women are missing across the world as a result of gender based violence. 

This is a crisis. This is femicide. Both the UN and Amnesty International are quite clear that violence against women and girls is the greatest human rights violation of our time. Every day women are being raped, assaulted, cut and murdered. 

And what do we hear about this?

Well – had you heard of any of the women on my list? 

Meanwhile, justice is all too often denied women victims and survivors of violence. There have never been any prosecutions for practising FGM in this country. The conviction rate for rape in the UK remains stagnant at 6.5%. Today a report revealed that police are still failing to take rape seriously, putting an average of 12% of reported rapes as a ‘no crime’, even if the alleged victim has not said that no crime took place. Police forces still aren’t joining up the dots on serial rapists, and they’re still not linking up how violence against women happens – how it might start with harassment and continue to rape. Although, I need to say, Operation Bluestone in Bristol which deals with rape and sexual violence are better than most and are leading the way. But this is in part thanks to pressure and collaboration with women’s groups. 

And when it comes to the murders – well what if I told you that a man who beat his wife to death in 2010 was jailed for 18 months, because the judge said that he was an upstanding member of the community and this was a personal row. Or that this year, a man is appealing his sentence because he claims that murdering his ex-wife was her fault as she had a new lover. Or that our own minister of justice last year said that there was a difference between being raped by someone you know, and ‘real or violent’ rape. 

These incidents sound archaic, they seem like they’re from another age. But they’re not. They’re happening now. 

When we ask what our government is doing to end violence against women and girls in the UK, they know how to talk the talk. They tell us it’s a priority. But their actions do not bear this out. The government spending cuts are slowly unravelling the hard and vital work feminists have done since the 60s to protect and support survivors of violence. A report by Professor Sylvia Walby has found that 230 women leaving violent relationships are being turned away from refuges every day. Refuge provision has been decimated. Support workers are instead advising women to go sleep at Occupy camps – themselves not free of sexual violence – because they have no-where for them to go. 31% of national funding to domestic support services has been cut. Small organisations have had 70% of their funding cut, whilst the big charities have lost 30% of theirs. Meanwhile, cuts to legal aid and other benefits will make it harder for women trying to leave violent relationships, whilst the legal aid changes risk women having to be questioned by their abusers in court. The government is turning back the clock on the vital and life-saving work that has happened to end violence against women and girls. It’s pretty stark – the government spending cuts will lead to the deaths of more women. 

And it isn’t just the government. Other areas of public life continue to refuse to take violence against women and girls seriously. Whether it’s the teacher who responds to a girl’s complaint of sexual harassment that ‘boys will be boys’, or Brian Paddick’s Leveson evidence yesterday that the Met covered up its failings when it came to dealing with rape. 

So, to return to the original question that I was asked to come and talk about. Why is feminism still relevant in 2012? Because I believe that feminism is the key starting point to ending to violence against women and girls. It was the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s that started the change; that started to get violence against women taken seriously. It was that movement that built the refuges, the rape crisis centres. That got violence on the agenda. But we haven’t yet ended the violence. We still need to stand together and fight to end it. We need to fight the causes of violence against women and girls, and, unfortunately, we have to fight to keep in place the support services that survivors need. This is a feminist fight, but it’s also everyone’s fight. If we all stand under the banner of liberation from patriarchy and call for an end to the violence, then all together we can make it stop. 

The crisis of violence against women and girls is met with an overwhelming, deafening silence. We are facing a huge humanitarian crisis, and instead of it being headline news, the subject of international summits, the focus of government campaigns, there’s just this silence. Even though there is so much evidence to show how the spending cuts are impacting on women’s safety, this is not making headline news. It’s time to break the silence. To me, VAWG is the key feminist issue. And it is why I am still a feminist, and why we still need feminism in 2012.  

What do Chris Brown, Normal Mailer and Roman Polanski have in common?

In 2009, we woke up the day after the Grammys to shocking images of Rihanna’s bruised face on the internet and on magazine covers. Her then partner, Chris Brown, was swiftly arrested and eventually found guilty of assaulting her. His sentence involved a few weeks community service and a probation period of five years.

In the three years since that night, Brown has had multi-million selling albums, garnered the love of millions of teenage girls and performed onstage to screaming fans. Exactly three years after the assault, he was invited to perform at the Grammys, where he then scooped a gong. The Grammy organisers enthused about the invite, even going so far as to say that they, not Rihanna, had been the victims of the situation, as it had prevented them from having the honour of inviting him before. 

At the time of the assault, few celebrities or people in the public eye spoke out against Brown. Those who did, like Usher, were swiftly made to apologise to the abusive singer. Instead, Hollywood, as it so often does, closed ranks in protection of an abusive man. Responses, such as the ones below, came in:

Carrie Underwood: “I don’t think anybody actually knows what happened. I have no advice.”

Lindsay Lohan: “I have no comment on that. That’s not my relationship. I think they’re both great people.”

Nia Long: “I know both of them well. They’re young, and all we can do is pray for them at this point.”

Mary J. Blige: “They’re both young and beautiful people, and that’s it.”

(http://hellogiggles.com/im-not-okay-with-chris-brown-performing-at-the-grammys-and-im-not-sure-why-you-are) 

This is, of course, not the first time this has happened. The celebrity world has form in protecting and supporting abusers of women. Polanski , a man who anally raped a child, not only has almost unanimous support from his Hollywood peers, but he is a regular recipient of awards – including a Best Director Oscar (http://jezebel.com/5370356/letters-from-hollywood-roman-polanskis-rape-of-child-no-big-thing). The Academy has only ever managed to give one woman a Best Director Oscar, but seems to find no problem in rewarding a rapist-on-the-run. Mike Tyson, a man who served time for rape, is now a cult hero, called a ‘legend’ in magazine headlines (http://bidisha-online.blogspot.com/2011/03/sky-sports-magazine-hails-rapist-mike.html). Norman Mailer, the so-called last great American novelist, was renowned for beating and stabbing his wives (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/nov/13/farewelltonormanmailerase). Then who can forget Charlie Sheen, who last year was interviewed with concern about his drug use, whilst his repeated abuse of women was fairly glossed over. This in spite the fact that he has shot, stabbed and beaten, as well as threatened to kill, numerous women (http://perezhilton.com/2011-03-03-a-look-back-at-charlie-sheens-history-of-violence-towards-women). Then there’s David Soul. Sean Penn. Mel Gibson.  Ike Turner, Phil Spector, OJ. Bobby Brown.  

And that’s the tip of this particularly ugly iceberg. Other celebs who have allegedly abused women include Michael Fassbender, whose former girlfriend filed a petition for a restraining order after he allegedly broke her nose and caused her to burst an ovarian cyst (http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/02/13/the-shit-list/). There are the allegations against Gary Oldman for beating his wife with a phone. Both of these men were the actors-du-jour last year, feted and loved. 

I could go on. There are hundreds more to list. But that would defeat the word count on this post! 

This acceptance and excusing of domestic abuse shouldn’t be surprising. After all, domestic abuse is pretty common outside of Hollywood, and sentencing of abusers is pretty weak whether you’re Chris Brown or the man who beat his wife to death and only received 18 months (http://www.theweek.co.uk/12725/18-months-tv-man-who-killed-wife-over-burnt-roast). 

But it still is surprising. Because we like to think that in our society we don’t approve of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. We like to think that we hold abusers to account. But this celebration of famous abusers shows just how much we spectacularly fail in that. 

One of the most terrifying aspects of the Chris Brown case is that by failing to hold him to account, by failing to universally condemn his violence, he now has legions of girl fans who will happily tweet ‘I’d let Chris Brown beat me’ (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/horrible-reactions-to-chris-brown-at-the-grammys). By excusing his actions, by sweeping his violence under the carpet, we have succeeded in normalising and even glamourising domestic abuse. Rather than challenging it, and showing young women that his behaviour is not acceptable, we have allowed an abusive man to become a heart-throb. Worse, his fans tend to blame Rihanna for the violence. And where does this lead? To young girls who think being beaten is a sign of love or passion; and who think that women are to blame for the violence committed against them. The cultural lauding of Chris Brown sends a far more damaging and powerful message to young girls than we may realise. After all, girls are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than any other group. Meanwhile, Rihanna has been mainly silenced. She has to praise him in interviews and they’ve recorded a song together. And, in a horrific piece of hypocrisy, she’s been accused of being a ‘bad survivor’ for these actions. As if there is such a thing. As if record labels and management and bad headline writers don’t have a pretty big role to play in colluding to diminish his violence. She isn’t the baddy here. He is. 

This is rape culture. Right here. Our culture is teaching young women that the victims and survivors are to blame for the violence committed against them; and that the men who commit the violence are cultural heroes.

Chris Brown is just one in a long line of celebrity men who have abused women and got away with it. He isn’t the first and it’s likely he won’t be the last. But he needs to be. We need to stop this now. We need to stop letting men get away with violence against women and girls, and we need to stop this collusion that protects and celebrates the Browns, the Polanskis, the Tysons and the Sheens, so that these men who abuse women are never held to account. Instead, they get to reap the rewards their male privilege brings, whilst the women they abuse, all too often, are silenced. 

If you have any more examples of famous men abusing women, please list them in the comments below:

PS – but at least we have Ryan Gosling : www.feministryangosling.tumblr.com

A welcome alternative to real women

*Trigger Warning* - this post contains discussion of violent pornography and includes a segment of Kat Banyard's 'The Equality Illusion' where she describes a porn video.

Someone left a comment on my blog this week, on my post about Unilad and rape culture. I deleted the comment, but one sentence really stood out and frightened me:

'it [porn] offers a welcome alternative to real women, in that it never says no'.

I shared the story on Twitter, and one of my followers replied that although s/he was not anti-porn, this attitude was horrific. What causes it, s/he asked. Well, I have three answers. Porn. Patriarchy. Entitlement.

Both Kat Banyard's book 'The Equality Illusion' and Natasha Walter's 'Living Dolls' explore some of the reasons why men use the sex industry, from pornography to lap dancing clubs to prostitution. One motivation that has consistently stood out for me is the idea that by paying for a sexual interaction with a woman, these men are able to escape from the modern world and return to a sexist's paradise where women are submissive, do as their told and sexually gratify them. As one former lap dancer in Kat's book says:

'I truly believe that the reason men pay for lap dances is not because they are titillated visually by the sight of a naked woman, or even because the sexual contact is particularly stimulating. They do it because they get a power rush from paying a woman to take her clothes off. She is vulnerable and he is powerful, and that's the real allure - that's the real reason the clubs are getting so popular. Lap-dancing clubs are places in which you can all pretend that feminism never happened.' (p 139 first ed)

This 'pre-feminist paradise' is part of a continuum that starts at places like Hooters, where women laugh at the men's jokes and aren't allowed to object to being sexually harassed and objectified, to porn where women are degraded and harmed for a presumed-male audience's sexual gratification, to lap dancing clubs and prostitution.

Natasha's book also quotes some research on men's attitudes to women in the so-called sex industry with similar findings. I've lent the book to a friend though so don't have the data on hand.

The comment left on my blog reflects this attitude. It's almost hard to be angry about the comment, as opposed to feel a sort of pathetic pity for a man who feels so much anger and resentment at women that he sees porn as offering a 'welcome alternative...because it never says no' (actually, scrap that, I'm furious). What is this guy saying here? He's saying that the women in porn aren't 'real women'. Instead, they're objects, disembodied objects that perform sexual pleasure, or are even victims of filmed sexual violence, for his own sexual gratification. As Kat says in her book, 'the sex industry requires its consumers to detach mentally from the living, breathing human being stimulating their sexual arousal, as if she were simply a collection of body parts' (p. 142, 1st ed). The fact that he can separate the women in porn from the 'real women' he interacts with in his day-to-day life betrays a very real sexism and misogyny that refuses to see women in the sex industry as anything other than objects. Because, of course, the women in porn, women in the wider sex industry, are real women too. Just like me, just like this commenter's mum or sister or girlfriend. But the sex industry successfully sells its 'product' as just that, an object to buy and use, as opposed to see and understand to be human, to be a woman. How dare these people say that the women in pornography aren't real women, with thoughts and desires and a voice that might want to say no, but can't? Who do they think they are?

The real disturbing part of the comment is of course the 'it never says no'. Unlike those pesky 'real women' outside of porn, to this man the women in porn don't get to say no. Or, when they do get to say no in the films, it's ignored. They don't say no to being hurt, or degraded, they don't have a voice to say stop, or that hurts, or sorry but I just don't fancy that tonight darling. To the porn audience, the woman on the film, whether she is consenting or not, (and, as I always point out, we don't actually know the answer to that question - look at Linda Lovelace) is just a collection of body parts. To put it bluntly, a collection of orifices. Her voice, her pleasure, her desire, her bodily autonomy - none of that matters to the person sat in front of the screen, getting off. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter to the porn consumer or the john who pays for a woman in a brothel or on the street or in a lap dancing club if the woman is consenting and has a voice to say no if she wants to. If it did, then we wouldn't have this scenario [trigger warning]:

'A man off-camera asks her how she's enjoying America. She doesn't understand and it becomes immediately obvious that the woman speaks very little English. The film then abruptly cuts to a scene of a man repeatedly thrusting his penis down her throat so far that she throws up...she throws up a second time...The film cuts again, this time to show a man having sex with her...she is crying. The sound she makes when she is crying suggests she is also in physical pain...The video...had an average rating by viewers of 7.84.' [The Equality Illusion, p. 156, 1st ed]

The woman in that video was denied a voice to say no in every way. Even if she consented to the filming and the lack of consent is acted (and I question that), the point of the film is that she is denied a voice, and in the film consent is not given. The point of the film is her sexual exploitation. That's what the viewer is being asked to get off on. She wasn't allowed to say no, or stop, or object. And I mean, I'm not here to police people's desires and fantasies, but I can't help but feel there's a problem with people giving a 7+* rating to a video of what pretty clearly appears to be filmed rape. But then again, with comments celebrating porn because it 'doesn't say no', I'm also not surprised.

Why are these men so angry? Why do they resent women's right to say no? Well, I believe it is rooted in a sense of entitlement, that is part patriarchy, part rape culture and part the never-hear-the-word-no-and-even-if-you-do-it's-ignored porn culture. As we've already seen, the men who express these views have successfully managed to compartmentalise 'real women' who aren't in the sex industry and who might say no, with the 'unreal women' in the sex industry who always say yes, or whose mouths are kept shut. I've often observed that men who are misogynists, or men who are violent, have this sense of entitlement over women's bodies. They don't have any respect for women's bodily autonomy. They've learnt or learnt to believe that they can do what they like to women. And if that woman doesn't want to, if she says no, then she's difficult, or a bitch. Unlike the 'welcome alternative to real women' that the sex industry offers, where men can do what they like to women and she doesn't have a say in the matter.

It's like every MRA argument I have ever heard, ever, has its roots in an unshakeable sense of male entitlement to women's bodies.

One comment that often gets made in defence of violent porn or filmed rape (because, as I say, you don't know if that free vid on the internet is real or acted rape. You just DON'T!) is that just like violent video games don't make players shoot people in real life, violent porn doesn't mean you're going to be violent against women and girls. And, of course, this is true in many ways. But there's also plenty of research from Gail Dines and others about how it incresases tolerance of violence against women and girls and in some cases is causal. And I know mentioning Gail Dines is like a red rag to a bull to pro porn people, but she has done the research, as have others. My experience speaking to Rape Crisis Centres is the same - that something like 90% of the cases they hear involve porn as part of the grooming or violence. The other point is that people don't tend to have an orgasm when they're playing Grand Theft Auto. But with violent and rape porn, we're learning to associate sexual pleasure, one of the most intense physiological experiences, with images that degrade and harm women. Young men are growing up learning about sex and satsifying their very normal and natural sexual curiousity via porn (because god knows Gove isn't going to let them learn about it in school). They are then left with the message that their girlfriends want to be hurt, or degraded; and their girlfriends are learning that this is what they're supposed to like, even if it isn't what they actually want to do or want to consent to (this is a great post by TheNatFantastic on why if that is what you want, then it isn't up to others to police your sex life http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2012/01/your_nose_has_n). 1 in 3 teen girls have now experienced unwanted sexual contact or sexual violence - this is a huge problem and has something to do with the fact that young girls are losing their voices, losing their right to say no to sex they don't want to have (whilst simultaneously being told they should say no to sex they might want to have).

I'm going to finish this post with a bit about how this links into prostitution. I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to read the comments on Punternet, but it's an ugly place, and the culture of reviewing women in the sex industry is honestly and movingly portrayed in this stunning blog post by Secret Diary of a Dublin Call Girl http://secretdiaryofadublincallgirl.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/how-it-feels-to-get-reviewed/. A lot of the reviews show an utter contempt and disgust for women (totally undermining the argument that men who buy women 'respect' them and are, in fact, the ones being exploited). And most of all, they show a total lack of concern for consent. They describe how 'she isn't really into it' or 'looked like she was in pain and wasn't enjoying it' (from memory in Living Dolls). Research also quoted in Living Dolls found that men who paid for women weren't put off even if they knew the woman was trafficked and being exploited. The only thing that put them off (and this knowledge was the insight that drove Object's and Demand Change's poster campaign when the law changed to make 'paying for sex' with an exploited person illegal) was the shame or embarrassment of being caught or arrested.

I mention this because I think it starts with Hooters, it starts with porn, it starts with lap dancing clubs. It starts with comments that porn offers 'a welcome alternative to real women because it doesn't say no'. It's that normalisation of the sexual objectfication of women that stops women being seen as full and active citizens of the world, and instead sees us as passive objects, or unreasonable bitches. Of course, not everyone who goes to Hooters or watches porn or pays for a lap dance goes on to 'pay for sex' with an exploited woman or girl. I am categorically not saying that. Instead, my point is that when we don't challenge this idea that women in porn aren't real women who are 'good' because they don't say no, then we're basically refusing to recognise and allow women's bodily autonomy. Every woman is a real woman. Every woman has a right to bodily autonomy. And when we say porn is good because it never says no, then we're saying that women's right to bodily autonomy is a bad thing.

That's patriarchy. That's a sense of entitlement to women's bodies. And it fucking terrifies me.

Useful Links:
http://www.object.org.uk/the-prostitution-facts
http://www.demandchange.org.uk/index.php/facts/facts
http://www.antipornmen.org/

Find your local rape crisis:
http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/centres.php

Women's Aid Domestic Abuse helpline: 0808 2000 247

Poppy Project helpline: http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/Contact_Us.php

Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness and how disordered eating is accepted and expected

Portia de Rossi’s memoir of having anorexia during the period of filming Ally McBeal is brutally and searingly honest, and offers a damning indictment on a society that not only accepts, but expects, disordered eating in women.

I have some personal experience of eating disorders. I’ve never had one but a close relative has had an eating disorder and disordered eating for most of my life. Like many women, I also had schoolfriends who suffered from anorexia. I just mention this as it influenced the way I read the book.

De Rossi explains how her eating disorder was partly caused by her fear that her sexuality would be exposed and impact negatively on her career. She also explains that she felt her mum was disappointed that she was gay, and so she strove to be perfect in order to make up for that. She started working as a model when she was 12, where perfection was of course synonymous with being thin. It was as a teen model where she developed unhealthy eating patterns (supported in many ways by her mother who was also a dieter) and her arrival in Hollywood to join the hottest show around resulted in more and more severe disordered eating.

I’m not going to go into detail here about how her eating disorder manifested itself or her journey from bulimia into anorexia, back again and into recovery. Instead I want to focus on the two key issues that her book realised for me. The first, that Hollywood colluded in and encouraged de Rossi’s eating disorder. And the second is that a disordered approach to food is encouraged in women.

Portia de Rossi describes how she felt under intense pressure to be an American size 6 when she joins the cast of Ally McBeal. That was the sample size designers used at the time, and she wanted to be ‘good’ for wardrobe, making it easy for them to find clothes to fit her. However, thanks to her disordered eating that involved a starve and binge cycle, her weight would go up and down. This led to her feeling that she didn’t fit the clothes in the show. She described assistants struggling to do up zips and having to adjust seams, and the sense of guilt and disgust she felt about this. The fact that sample sizes are stupidly tiny, or that the clothes should be ordered to fit the woman, don’t really matter or occur. She just knows that every day she is made to feel that her body is wrong.

This is exacerbated by a photo shoot for L’Oreal. With her lovely long, blonde hair, de Rossi is an obvious pick to be the face of the shampoo giant. But when she arrives on the shoot, none of the clothes the stylist has picked fit her. She tries on suit after suit, with assistants unable to do up zips and complaining that they can’t release the seams any more. Frustrated, the stylist eventually says in disgusted tone that ‘no-one told me she was a size eight’.

What we have here is a very slim woman with disordered eating being told over and over again in lots of different ways by the Hollywood system that her body is not good enough. At 130 lbs, she is told she is simply not the right size. Everyone was telling de Rossi she needed to lose weight, and so she did it the only way she knew how. She broke out of one cycle of disordered eating and went straight into another, effectively starving herself to fit the clothes.

As the weight started to drop off, the system that had told her she was too big, now fell over themselves to tell her she was looking good. Despite becoming obviously underweight, de Rossi was constantly rewarded for her weight loss. She was told how ‘good’ she was being, how she was a ‘skinny Minnie’ who looked great. She was asked ‘what her secret’ was to her ‘gorgeous’ figure. Wardrobe said she was their favourite actress to dress. Everything was telling de Rossi to carry on, because she was doing so well. Rather than being the woman who couldn’t fit into a sample size, she was now praised for her thinness. No-one would say she looked the dreaded ‘healthy and normal’ again.

I feel that de Rossi’s story shows us how her industry, i.e. Hollywood, encouraged her eating disorder, if not directly caused it (there were, as mentioned above, various causes such as the guilt she felt over her sexuality). By accusing her of, and framing her as, being wrong, they created a situation where her only option was to change herself to ‘fit’. And then as she lost the weight, her eating disorder was validated by the compliments and accolades she received. She was made to feel a success, and her success was defined by her weight loss (as opposed to being an amazing actress in my favourite TV show as a teen, and a great comic actress in Arrested Development).

This is reflected outside of Hollywood as well of course. But I think it is magnified in that kind of industry where your size and your ability to ‘fit’ is under such scrutiny. De Rossi’s insecurity about her sexuality meant that she sought to find control and perfection through food and her size. This was allowed because by industry standards, she was being so ‘good’, doing ‘so well’.

At the end of the book, de Rossi shares some fashion images taken of her when she was ill, finishing with a shocking image of her at her thinnest. But what is perhaps most shocking of all is that these images where her upper-arms are thinner than her elbows aren’t a world away from fashion images we see every day. The fact that she was being photographed for fashion shots at all shows very clearly that her weight loss was normal in the world she was living in, that she was acceptable.

The second point that the book brought home was how de Rossi’s eating disorder showed just how common and expected disordered eating is in women in general. Pick up a magazine and you’ll be approached with a new diet or a new guide of how to eat, with fashion editors or beauty editors or actresses or nutritionists or members of the public listing what they eat in a week, and then being told what they should be eating, or being rewarded for doing it right. De Rossi explains how eating with chopsticks meant she ate less – I have read diet tips that say use baby cutlery for the same ends (like Liz Hurley! they cry). Counting calories, reducing calories, talking about food, obsessing about food – this is what we are told to do as women. Women in workplaces bond over diets and food – praising each other for being ‘good’ if they don’t eat the chocolate cake shared around the office. Special K ads make food the ultimate sin, Weightwatchers ads tell you ‘no-one wants a stripy wedding dress’ – i.e. that if you don’t lose weight, you won’t find love. Magazines obsess over skinny celebs and curvy celebs and "too big" celebs. Men on comments boards under articles about anorexia or body image tell women that ‘they love curves and don’t like skinny girls’ – as if anorexia had anything to do with what men like and don’t like.

Imagine how much time, how much energy, how much confidence women as a group would have if we weren’t constantly being told as a group to think about, and not eat, food.

De Rossi weighs and counts and cuts down on calories. Magazines inform us that 12 tablespoons of brown pasta is a meal. She exercises obsessively to balance out the few calories that she eats. Magazines tell us enthusiastically how many calories you can burn having sex (the best reason to have sex obviously!).

Obviously I am not saying that magazines push eating disorder or cause them. What de Rossi describes in her book is a serious illness caused by many different factors. But I think we can recognise and argue that disorderd eating to a lesser effect is more and more normal for women than we think or like to admit. And the way the media focuses women's energies on food and dieting creates an atmosphere where disordered eating becomes normal and acceptable. Women are taught from a young age to be conscious of food, their weight and their diet. The rhetoric around dieting is powerful. It's a multi-billion industry because it's very good at what it does.

We know the end of her story, and it is a happy one. Doctors tell her she is on the brink and she embarks on recovery. It isn’t easy. She relapses and binges and her weight goes up and down. However, after being outed by the press she starts to find peace. She’s not hiding any more and she’s not afraid any more. She realises that healthy eating is eating when you are hungry, and not eating when you’re not. She meets Ellen and you want to punch the air in triumph at that moment.

De Rossi learns in recovery that food isn’t a punishment or a reward or something to feel guilty or ashamed over, or a measure of perfection. Unfortunately this isn’t the reality or solution for a lot of women. Magazines and advertising and Hollywood are still sending this message our way – loud and clear. So many women have disordered eating. Some have eating disorders. And nearly all of us are told all the time that food is a battleground, not something to enjoy, something that enables us to live.

Imagine how much time, how much energy, how much confidence women would have if we weren’t constantly being told to think about, and not eat, food.

You can buy her book here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbearable-Lightness-Story-Loss-Gain/dp/0857204114/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329479710&sr=1-1

It happened one Wednesday...

It feels like there can't be anyone left on the internet who doesn't know what happened to me on Wednesday. But I wanted to write about it anyway to reflect on what happened, to answer some accusations and just to continue to speak out about it to show that I won't be silenced by threats and abuse.

On Tuesday I got a text saying that Hooters had closed down. On Twitter, people were posting the same. Then the BBC called, they wanted a statement from BFN about the closure. I was in the middle of doing some work and hadn't had a chance to really look into the issue of why it had closed, so just said that we thought it was a positive step as it meant that Bristol had rejected this retro-sexist establishment, that they had voted with their feet to say they weren't interested in a restaurant whose USP was the sexual objectfication of women (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-16932892).

I mention this as I've been accused on some online comment boards of gloating over job losses and been told that I should have waited a few days before I issued a statement (that's not how news works btw!). The BBC contacted me and it isn't actually my fault that they didn't contact a Hooters Girl or other member of staff instead (or maybe they did and for whatever reason they didn't get a quote, I don't know how the BBC makes its decisions).

I was then asked by a Bristol Fawcett and BFN friend and colleague whether I'd have time to write a joint press release about the closure. Which I did, and which was signed off by the BFN co-ordinators. I put it on my blog and sent it to some press outlets - I knew I was going to have a busy few days at work in my day job so we wanted to ensure that we had done what we could to prevent phone calls from the press by issuing the group statement instead.

Then, on Wednesday, I looked at the BFN Facebook page to find comment after comment from Hooters staff and Hooters fans accusing BFN of being responsible for closing down Hooters. It was quite remarkable really. How we could possibly have the power to close down a restaurant ran by an international corporation when we couldn't even prevent it opening is beyond me! Perhaps we also have the power to prevent the city council granting renewed licenses to lap dancing clubs...oh no, sorry, they've decided to let most of them stay open.

When we heard that Hooters was opening, BFN did take part and co-organise the campaign to try and prevent it happening (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2010/10/trouble-with-hooters.html). We wrote to the council, attended the licence application hearings, we signed and circulated petitions, we worked with concerned residents and we organised an event to discuss the issues around the commercial sexual exploitation of women. We were also subjected to some vile misogyny from Hooters supporters during the Evening Post's bizarre pro Hooters editorial campaign (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2010/08/stop-calling-me-ugly.html). However, despite our objections, despite resident objections, despite police objections and despite it being in a cumulative impact zone, Guy Poultney and the rest of the licensing committee gave Hooters permission to open its doors on the grounds that it 'offered something really different to Bristol'.

Sexism, degrading imagery and language (careful! blondes thinking!) and the sexual objectfication of women. A restaurant that caters to stag parties. Yep, that's 'different' all right. Never seen that on my high street...

But anyway, it opened and our campaign was pretty much over. We kept an eye on things, and when a bikini contest appeared to be in breach of the licence (which was pretty clear on how wet t-shirt and bikini comps etc were not 'family friendly') we encouraged members to complain to licensing. Residents who were disturbed by apparent licence breaches such as outdoor drinking after 9pm and standing drinking indoors also kept the pressure on the police and licensing. But Hooters stayed open and over time I distanced myself from the campaign as I was busy working on other issues and had some concerns around some areas.

I'm going through this history to show categorically that BFN didn't have anything to do with Hooters closing and if we did have that influence then it would not have opened in the first place. Gallus (the management company) could not, as one supporter threatened, sue me for harm to their business. We never threatened staff or customers, and, apart from speaking out about the sexism and the impact this sexism has on equality, we never put pressure on people not to attend. After some of the accusations any one would think we had picketed the doors and thrown rotten eggs at customers! Hooters in Bristol closed because the management company are mired in debt, have been in an expensive row with a neighbouring business and because people did not go there. The money they were making was not enough to cover their costs.

I've heard from various people that Gallus management didn't pay their staff for two weeks and then made everyone redundant. Hooters employees have a right to be furious. Having been made redundant twice I know how utterly crap it is. We consistently made it clear that the we are sorry people have lost their jobs. But employee fury should be directed at the employers who sold them down the river. Not at me.

Throughout the day the nasty and angry comments continued until a friend emailed me to say that she had looked at one critic's own Facebook profile to find that he was calling me a cunt who needed to pay. He was writing how he was going to find me and make me pay, post my online details on 4chan, as well as encouraging his friends to join in with harassing me. Another critic commented on his profile how I was a douchebag, writing 'screw you'. His friends joined in, one of them saying that he would like to 'kick me in the vagina'. The original poster liked the comment, and his friends joined in the threats of kicking me. Because I have a private page on Facebook they couldn't threaten me directly. And because they have public profiles I was able to screen grab the threats and call the police.

The police have been incredibly supportive and taken the incident seriously. I reported it because this is an incident of gender based hate crime, and needs to be recognised as such. There's a real disbelief in whether gender based hate crime exists, and a consultation is happening right now as to what to do around recognising it. I hope that by reporting the threats against me it offers more evidence that gender based hate crime is real and happening and very, very common.

Bristol 24/7 contacted me to do a short interview on the harassment (http://www.bristol247.com/2012/02/09/hooters-campaigner-reports-online-abuse-to-police-40260/). Comment is Free got in touch and I wrote a short piece for them, making the links between these kinds of threats, and the so-called 'bantering' tone lad culture takes when it comes to violence against women (indeed, the vagina kicking comment defended the words as a joke) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/09/closure-of-hooters-breastaurant-welcome?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038). BBC Bristol have called me repeatedly and the Evening Post ran two articles about it (stupidly illustrating an article about the online abuse with my face - collusion I wonder? Have I grounds to go to the PCC? Advice appreciated). I have declined to talk to the BBC and any further press outlets as I kind of just want it all to stop now and go away. I was happy to do the CIF piece as it gave me the control to make the very important links between lad culture and the threats. But without that control I'm concerned the story becomes about me being a victim of crime, not as a woman speaking out against how this culture dehumanises women.

The conversations continued on Facebook, CIF and the Evening Post. The mantra that feminism is about choice has been repeated ad nauseum, along with the assertion that we therefore need to respect that women choose to work at Hooters. I have to call bullshit on this one. Yes, feminism is about choice in lots of ways. But for me, feminism is about liberation from the patriarchy, and the capitalist patriarchy at that. Feminism is about questioning how our choices under patriarchy are not always free, or how they are influenced by the inequality we experience and the unfair ways in which women are valued. I have real beef with "choice feminism" that completely de-politicises our choices. Under patriarchy, where women's value is placed on her ability to conform to a narrow male-defined beauty ideal, then what do our choices mean? And when this pressure to self-objectify and fulfill this beauty ideal has a negative impact on our self-esteem, mental health and leads to increased tolerance of sexism and sexual violence (http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx), then I ask again, how meaningful, how real is this choice? Do you really think in a world where women are equal and valued we would need to perform a narrow version of male-defined sexuality for the minimum wage? Don't make me laugh. Being told how to dress, how to smile, how to laugh, how to talk, how to perform your sexuality - this isn't choice. This isn't liberation.

However, let me be clear, these restrictions on our choices through patriarchy does not make us victims or mean we are floating helpless on a tide of oppression. Laura puts it brilliantly in the F Word's 'Ask a feminist' blog this week, saying:

"[this] doesn't mean painting women who use fake tan or remove their body hair as incapable of thinking for themselves. The same goes for other examples of social and cultural pressures. Women have the capacity to make different choices, but given that most people want to feel a sense of belonging and do not want to be singled out as different, it makes sense to go along with the dominant cultural norms. And if they're not exposed to any alternative perspectives, or if those alternative perspectives aren't perceived as credible because they're demonised within mainstream society, women are unlikely to question the status quo. That doesn't mean we're unable to: we just need access to alternatives and the tools required to deconstruct what has always been portrayed as normal and natural. We can then make more informed decisions about our lives, which may or may not include conforming to social norms.
For me, that tool is feminism. Reading feminist theory enabled me to stop thinking my hairy legs were disgusting, but prior to reading it I had never come across anyone or anything that told me any different. That doesn't mean I was helpless or irreparably brainwashed, just that I didn't have any reason to think outside the box."
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2012/02/ask_a_feminist_7

The conversations have also included a lot of confusion as to where our criticism of Hooters was aimed. As a feminist, I have never criticised or commented on the women and men who work there. Neither has BFN as an organisation and no comments of this nature have ever appeared on our page. Our criticism and anger has always been reserved for Hooters the brand, the corporation, and the culture that allows for companies to profit from the sexual objectfication and dehumanisation of women. The company that values women as nothing more than T&A that brings in money. Contrary to some of the comments I've received, I have never made negative remarks about Hooters' employees. My feminism is (in part) about tackling the culture that tells us a woman's worth is based on her ability to conform to a male defined beauty ideal - a culture that fundamentally harms women and men. I think that the abuse I have received this week pretty much proves me right in my belief that this culture contributes to the dehumanisation of women. Do you think that men who respected women, who saw us as humans with rights and bodily autonomy would threaten me with violence? Or make 'jokes' about kicking me in the vagina? Nope. But men who see women as objects might do. After all, as the APA research linked to above shows us, this culture that sees women as sex objects contributes to the increased tolerance of sexism and sexual violence. I've certainly felt that this week.

In contrast to us not criticising the employees of Hooters, staff and supporters have called me many variations on ugly, unable to get a man, a bitch, a cunt and threatened me with violence. I challenge anyone to find me writing anything like that about them!

The silver lining to what has been a horrible week has of course been the overwhelming support I have had from women and men on Twitter and Facebook. Some of them are people I know in real life or online, some are strangers. I must have had around 200 @ messages within hours of me tweeting the abusive screen grabs. Messages of solidarity, support, care and kindness. Overwhelming doesn't really cover it. I'm sorry I was not able to reply to everyone individually but there were so many and I was desperately trying to not let anyone at work see that anything was wrong (futile in the end, work have had to have a meeting with me to check that they don't need to do anything to ensure my safety after all the press coverage). It was incredibly moving and heartening to see and hear all the messages of solidarity. In a week that has shown some of the worst of the internet, I have also seen some of the best of the internet. A vast, international commnunity of women and men standing against sexism and online abuse. The love and support of family, friends and boyfriend has also been wonderful. In spite of all the nasty things said and written about me this week, the abiding memory is of this support, and the sense that I am so lucky to be surrounded by so many people who care about me. Thank you.