Online abuse and reporting the man who threatened me

This week, feminist activism saw a real success with the announcement that, after Elizabeth Fry departs from the £5 note, Jane Austen will soon grace the noble tenner. This was after a concerted, high profile campaign run by Caroline Criado-Perez highlighting the cultural femicide of women across our society – the invisibility of inspirational women in the public eye and the impact that has on wider inequality.

Whatever your thoughts on the bank notes campaign, and even within feminist circles there is a divergence of views, what we can surely all agree on is that the scale of abuse Caroline has received in the wake of the announcement is absolutely horrifying and appalling. Rape threats and other violent threats have abounded, along with grotesquely sexually violent language. These message from men – and they are all men – are another sad and horrific example of what happens when a woman speaks out about sexism and misogyny, and brings these issues into the public eye.

Last February, you may remember, I was in a similar situation. I had been involved in a campaign to try and prevent a Hooters restaurant opening in Bristol. The campaign did not prevent the opening, but not long afterwards the self-styled ‘breastuarant’ closed due to poor management, debts and a lack of custom. I don’t know if the lack of custom had anything to do with our highlighting how bloody sexist the establishment was. But I had no direct responsibility for the closure of Hooters.

Throughout the Hooters campaign I had been subject to some pretty vile abuse. A lot of the insults were mocking my perceived appearance and sexuality, general wishing of violence upon me and people finding ways to insult my family. But when Hooters closed, the abuse stepped up. On Facebook a man wrote that I was a cunt, that he was going to find out where I lived, post my address details online and ‘make me pay’. Other men ‘joked’ about how they hoped I got kicked in the vagina.

I probably wouldn’t have gone to the police but my mum gave me no choice. Like women everywhere, when I am harassed or assaulted offline, or abused online, it doesn’t even register as a crime. It is just something that happens, to you, as a woman, in public space. That space might be a pub or a club, a bus, or Twitter and Facebook. We are so used to the language that degrades us; we are so accustomed to having our aired opinions met with deeply sexist and misogynistic insults that to label it as a crime seems absurd. It’s too common, surely, to be a crime?

But it is a crime. It is. And going to the police to report the threat made online was a real triumph for me. The police were fantastic. They took it seriously – more seriously than I had in my ‘this is just what happens to women’ mode. They listened, and they reassured me that no one deserved to be threatened. They asked me if I wanted to go to court and they respected my decision not to do so. And they went to the guy’s house, gave him a caution which is now on his record and he is not allowed to contact me or the Bristol Feminist Network ever again.

When the police officer visited me after the man had accepted his caution, he told me how my online abuser had said he had never considered the fact that I was a real person. He had never thought that his words could or would hurt me.

I don’t believe this. I think this is what men who write vile abuse online tell themselves to excuse their behaviour. But he knew I was a real person. I exist. The men abusing Caroline know she is real. They just believe they can get away with it, because it’s online and because calling women bitches and slags and cunts and sluts is shrugged off. After all, it happens all the time, so it’s ok.

Well, it’s not ok. It’s against the law. You cannot write online that you want to rape a woman, you cannot write to that woman telling her you’re going to find out where she lives and ‘make her pay’ for being a ‘cunt’. It is a crime.

When I wrote about my experience in the Guardian, the local BBC news website and local paper picked up on the story, reporting how I had gone to the police.

I wasn’t surprised that so many of the comments under these articles ‘argued’ that the abuse was all my own fault. If I had shut up, stayed home, not raised my voice in the public sphere, then I wouldn’t have received these threats. According to many, it was my presence as a woman speaking out about inequality that had caused these men to act in the way they had. It wasn’t their fault for being sexist, potentially violent, misogynists. It was my fault for daring to have a voice.

It’s the same old story. Whenever a woman speaks out about the online abuse she has experienced, there is always a vocal group blaming the woman for that violence. Apparently going to the police showed that I couldn’t ‘take the heat’. Just as I should have shut up in the first place, I also should shut up about being a victim of a crime. I should just take it.

It was as if by being a woman speaking out against sexism, I had forfeited my rights. My daring to have a voice somehow meant in their eyes that I had no legal rights, that I had renounced my rights to live free from threats of violence. It was frightening how little they respected that the law applied to me, just as much as anyone else, no matter what I had said about how retro sexist Hooters is.

I believe misogynistic online abuse exists for one reason. And that is that some men are so threatened by women having a voice – by women having a role in the public sphere – that they will stop at nothing to shut her up. They will stop at nothing to deny her of her freedom of speech.

The men abusing Caroline Criado-Perez over the last few days don’t care about Austen, or bank notes. They care that a woman has spoken out about sexism and they want to stop her from doing it again.

The men who abused me didn’t care about job losses in Bristol. They were furious that I had spoken up about sexism and they wanted to stop me ever doing it again.

I called the police on my abuser. I believe doing so means he will now think twice before he threatens a woman online again.

I would never tell a woman to go to the police for online threats if she didn’t want to. But I do believe we need to ram the message home that what these men are doing is against the law. If we report their actions, they will receive a criminal record. The men who write they hope you get raped, the men who follow you online, jeering about all the horrific things they want to do to you, the men who call you cunts and bitches – every single time one of them is breaking the law. It is against the law to threaten someone online, just as it is offline.

I don’t know how we bring this message home. The problem I see is that these men don’t believe you when you tell them they’re breaking the law. As my own experience shows with the reaction I had after going to the police – the fact of you reporting it encourages more abuse, gives more men more leverage to abuse you. But reporting it did mean that this one man won’t be threatening women again. And it means, I hope, that I can write this post and prove that threatening women online is a crime. Perhaps that’s something.

Every woman who speaks out receives threats and abuse designed to silence her. Last February it was me, this weekend it’s Caroline Criado-Perez. It’s Bidisha, Laurie Penny, Cath Elliott, Nimko Ali. It doesn’t matter what we talk about – that’s not the concern. It’s the daring to talk in the first place.

But I have a voice. I will use it. Those men couldn’t silence me then and they won’t silence me now. The fact that they keep trying to isn’t good enough. This has to stop.

Petition to have report abuse button on Twitter 

Some thoughts on p0rn filters and criminalisation, young people and context

First up, let’s explain where I stand on this whole porn filter/criminalisation of rape and torture porn. I (slightly tongue in cheek) describe myself as a sex positive, anti porn feminist. Tongue in cheek because I think in many ways it’s disingenuous to try and define anything as ‘anti porn’. But I also want to reclaim the term ‘sex positive’ as I believe that saying a dislike for porn means you are ‘sex negative’ is to say that good sex is intrinsically linked with the sex industry. I don’t believe that. I believe that enjoying sex, being sexual and having a sexuality can happen without buying into a huge multi billion dollar industry based on the commercialisation of women’s bodies. I don't mind what other people do, I just resent how the term 'sex positive' excludes women and girls who don't watch porn. It's just a bit insulting, don't you think?

So, this week the two stories that have dominated the headlines both relate to public ownership or interest in women’s bodies. One – the royal baby. Two – the government’s plans to introduce porn filters on every internet connected computer and criminalise porn that depicts rape or torture of women (and men, I assume. Although this hasn't actually been mentioned in the media). 

As a feminist who sincerely believes porn is problematic and can have a harmful influence on how young people view women’s right to consent, desire, or pleasure, it would make sense for me to feel support for this move. As it happens, I don’t – particularly. 

Why? Well firstly because I am always wary of anything that is aimed at preserving ‘childhood innocence’. Not the same as child protection of course. I am concerned that the government frames the problem of depicting rape as something that should not be seen by children – not as something that may have an impact in glamorising or normalising the epidemic levels of violence against women. So much of the government's rhetoric on sexualisation seems to work on the assumption that treating women's bodies as commodified objects magically becomes ok when you hit a certain age. This isn't true. This is backed up by the way Cameron continually gives the thumbs up to Page 3 - his whole attitude towards the treatment of women as sex objects simply doesn't add up. 

Secondly, it’s all very well trying to hide this from children’s eyes, but unless this move is accompanied by comprehensive sex and relationships that focuses on respect and consent then it’s not going to have much impact on improving the disturbing levels of teen intimate partner violence. Seeing as the government is ideologically entrenched against sex education, this isn’t happening soon. Which confirms my suspicions that this is more about ‘won’t somebody think of the children!!’ than ‘how can we seriously combat disturbing levels of teen intimate partner violence.’ Remember, according to NSPCC and Bristol University research, 1 in 3 girls aged 16-19 have experienced intimate partner violence including coercion into sexual contact they do not want to have. One survey found 75% of girls reported emotional abuse, 33% of girls had suffered sexual abuse including rape, and 25% reported physical abuse from their boyfriends. The rate of physical abuse rose to 75% for girls with partners who are more than two years their senior. 

Thirdly – and this relates to the other two points – this idea seems unworkable in terms of web technology. The whole thing makes me think this was more about David Cameron having an easy win that panders to the Daily Mail. A paper who, with their constant ‘older than her years’ and ‘all grown up’ headlines are in no position to say anything about sexualisation. 

So, those are my reservations about this proposed legislation. 

But. 

Do I think we need to be talking about porn that depicts rape and torture? Well, yes. We need to talk about this - sensibly and in a grown up manner. And as well as talking, we need to listen to the voices of the girls and boys who this legislation is designed to "protect".  

As the debate has raged across Twitter, a couple of things have really stood out for me. One has been the concern (I’m being charitable) that people living with parents or in shared houses might not be able to watch free online porn any more. 

I think we need to step back and just think a bit harder about that statement, and it’s obvious rejoinder. 

No one has ever died from not watching porn. 

If you live in a shared house and your landlord has applied the filter to your internet connection, I’m sorry but so fucking what? You don’t have an inalienable right to watch porn online. It’s not a human right. I know some people may find it hard to believe, but everyone having internet in their homes is a fairly new thing. The last 13 years really. Before that, people didn't have instant access to porn depicting women being raped.

That's just a personal gripe. It seems a bit silly to focus on 'my right to watch free online porn' when surely the debate we want to be having is about sex education, impact on violence against women and, of course, what it all means for censorship.

Fiona Elvines, from Rape Crisis South London, makes many interesting points in her head-to-head article with Anna Arrowsmith in the Guardian on 24 July. In it, she explains one of the key misconceptions - that the proposals are trying to state a causal relationship between rape and rape depicted in porn.

Of course this causal relationship doesn't exist. To say rape is caused by porn would be to remove the agency of the perpetrator. It would also mean - as per my point above - that 13 years ago we had fewer problems with sexual violence. However, porn depicting rape exists in a context of high - extremely high - levels of sexual violence against women. Where there are nearly half a million sexual assaults every year in the UK alone. I agree with Fiona that porn depicting rape:

'contributes to a conducive context for violence against women through eroticising men's violence and women's non-consent.'

Rape Crisis Centres are well placed to understand the role porn depicting rape often takes in grooming victims and legitimising perpetrators' actions. From my own conversations with Rape Crisis workers, I've heard over and over again how violent porn has been used within cases of abuse. These scenes, this footage - none of it exists in a vacuum. They exist in a patriarchal, capitalist society where there are up to 90,000 rapes every year and a conviction rate of 6.5%.

This is not to suggest that every one who watches porn depicting rape is an undiscovered rapist. It frustrates me that feminists who question rape porn are immediately accused of this strawman argument. That argument is clearly, obviously, ridiculous. Instead, I believe we need to understand how we live in an unequal society with high levels of sexual violence, and so we need to ask questions about how different media portrays rape and violence against women. We need to recognise that porn doesn't exist outside our patriarchal society and therefore discuss how it fits into our culture.

The other argument has been around how these proposals seek to control women's own fantasies around submission, or stigmatise BDSM. I think the important distinction here is that fantasies are just that - fantasy. Women may fantasise about being dominated etc. and that's ok. A huge part of feminism has always been about empowering women's sexuality and that means respecting and celebrating how women want to express that sexuality. My point is however that the very fact of fantasy means consent is present. It's not a rape fantasy - it's a fantasy of controlled submission. Similarly, BDSM is consensual. Rape is not consensual - that's the point. There's a world of difference between women consenting, negotiating and agreeing how they want to have sex with their partner, and the videos targeted by these proposals. Most of the videos under discussion are those where consent is unimportant, disregarded. They are from the rapist perspective. It's a rapist fantasy – not a controlled submission fantasy. They don't celebrate women's sexual autonomy, they elevate male domination and eroticise male violence.

A further argument against these proposals is the question of why the government is picking on porn when film and TV have rape scenes in them all the time. Well, firstly I for one wish there were less rape scenes in film and TV. They're upsetting, many women and girls find them triggering and they're always, always glamorised or unnecessary. Sometimes they are added in for no reason at all - see The Other Boleyn Girl. It often feels that it's a tickbox to add to the script - everything needs a rape scene.

So if there was a campaign to reduce the number of explicit and distressing rape scenes in movies, sign me up.

However, whenever this argument is made that if it's ok on film, why is porn different, I think we need to remember why porn is, in its very nature, different. The sole purpose of porn is to aid masturbation or sex. Films and TV aren't. Porn depicting rape is inviting the viewer to experience one of the most intense and pleasurable feelings any human can have whilst watching a woman experience a horrific, traumatic and violent assault acted upon her.

I know it's not a popular, fashionable opinion but I do find this troubling. I find it particularly troubling that with the dearth of sex education, young people are seeking out porn, finding porn that depicts rape, and associating those images of violence and non-consent with sex, or with what women want. With no context, with no education about consent and respect, the videos shape an understanding of sex and sexuality that eroticises violence and lack of consent. We need to understand the impact this has on young people's approach to consent and sex.

So we need to have this conversation. We need to talk about what an eroticisation of violence means in a culture where violence against women is endemic. We need to discuss what porn depicting rape teaches young men who have no other context to talk about sex and consent. We need to ask why so much porn is based on non consensual violence and non consensual degradation. And we need to listen to how this is impacting on girls.

To me, none of this is about kink, BDSM or any consensual sexual practise. The issues feel very separate and they should be kept separate. This isn't about saying all men who watch violent porn are potential rapists or all women who enjoy violent porn are oppressed. None of those arguments stand up - they're disrespectful and unscientific. It is frustrating that a lot of mainstream media are deliberately blurring the lines on this debate.

This is about the what place porn that depicts rape has within an unequal society with high levels of sexual violence, and what that means in a society that lacks comprehensive sex education.

Do I agree with this proposed legislation? I think it's a moot point. I don't believe it's workable, it doesn't come from a feminist place, it's not about women and it's all about the Mail. Without sex education it's meaningless and will likely have a negative impact on any teenager trying to google 'am i bisexual?'

But do we need to talk about this issue. Yes. 

The WHO stats tell us the extent of violence against women. Now what are we going to do about it?

(TW for violence against women and girls. If you need support, you can call the National Domestic Abuse helpline today 0808 2000 247)

It isn’t really a surprise to anyone involved in feminist activism that 1 in 3 women will experience violence in their lifetimes. 

But the data collected and reported on by WHO amply demonstrates what we have been saying for decades. Violence against women and girls is an epidemic that is ruining the health and leading to the deaths of millions and millions of women worldwide. 

As regular readers of my blog will know, I’m not a number cruncher. I am mathematically useless. So I will just reproduce some of the standout stats here, taken off the Guardian datablog report: 

• 35% of women worldwide have experienced violence
• That figure falls to 30% when looking at intimate partner violence
• 38% of women homicide victims are killed by their partners

The lifetime prevalence of IPV/non-partner sexual violence among all women and girls 15 and over by WHO region is as follows:

• Africa: 45.6
• Americas: 36.1
• Eastern Mediterranean: 36.4
• Europe: 27.2
• South-East Asia: 40.2
• Western Pacific: 27.9
• High income: 32.7

Please note: Europe in WHO regions applies to Europe’s low and middle-income countries. Countries like the UK and France are classed under the ‘high income’ category. 

Intimate partner violence:

• Africa: 36.6
• Americas: 29.8
• Europe: 25.4
• South-East Asia: 37.7
• Western Pacific: 24.6
• High income: 23.2

Non-partner violence:

• Africa: 11.9
• Americas: 10.7
• Europe: 5.2
• South-East Asia: 4.9
• Western Pacific: 6.8
• High income: 12.6

Does anyone know if this is just stranger attacks or also inter-family and acquaintance violence?

These numbers are shocking, but they’re not surprising. 

This week, we have seen what the response to violence against women and girls looks like in two high-income countries, including our own. 

The week started when images showed Charles Saatchi assaulting Nigella Lawson in a public place. A surprisingly high number of people asserted that this was a private affair – perpetuating the silencing around domestic abuse. 

Stuart Hall was sentenced to fifteen months for abusing thirteen girls – some as young as nine.  

A man in Texas shoots an escort dead after she refuses to have sex with him. He walks when the jury find in favour of the claim that her refusal constituted stolen property. 

A soldier in Swindon escapes jail time after assaulting a woman in a pub. He punched her in the face twice and dragged her through the pub by her hair, but because he showed remorse and was essential to his regiment he walked free. Apparently the judge felt this had all been a terrible ordeal for him. 

Julian Assange makes a statement about his self-imposed imprisonment in the Ecuadorian embassy and helpfully forgets to mention that Sweden wants to question him about sexual assault allegations prior to charging him, not extradite him to the USA.  

Two women will have been murdered in the UK as a result of domestic abuse this week, but the Government continues with its cuts to the services that could save these women’s lives. 

With the help of the SWP and Socialist Party, Unison voted against a motion to support women victims and survivors of male violence by promising to believe them. 

The USA agrees to peace talks with the Taliban. On news report after news report, what this means for the futures of Afghan women and girls is not discussed. No one seems to comment on whether this will automatically exclude women from the peace talks and what that means for women’s rights. 

Person turns up at my blog after searching for filmed real rape. Just added that one in there seeing as I just checked my traffic stats. 

Looking at the comments under the initial Guardian report on the WHO data, a lot of people tried to make the point that violence against women and girls is a problem in some cultures. That it’s to do with religion, or tribes. Of course, the data shows that there is more violence against women in certain regions. But it also shows that it is too, too high in every region of the world. 

The data and listed examples show quite clearly that violence against women and girls is not a respecter of class or race or religion or country or region. It happens across society, across the world, across cultures. It happens because in every region, in every country, in every sector of society, some men believe they have the right to abuse women. And it happens in every region, in every country, in every sector of society because our patriarchal culture tells those men who choose to abuse women that they do have that right. Our culture gives those men the green light to abuse. 

We give them the green light when we doubt women, and victim blame. We give them the green light when we say abusers are really good fathers, soldiers, community members. We give them the green light when we report men who murder their partners as being provoked by her behaviour – even when that behaviour is her leaving him because of his violence. We give them the green light when we hand down a longer sentence for stealing an ice cream than abusing girls. We give them the green light when we buy their records, when we watch their films. We give them the green light when ministers refuse to make sex education that includes consent and respect mandatory. We give them the green light when we laugh at rape jokes. We give them the green light when we close down refuges so women have no-where to go. We give them the green light when we say it’s a private matter between a man and his wife. We give them the green light when we refuse to face up to the reality of the extent of violence against women and girls. 

Sadly, as well as dismissing it as a problem for ‘over there’, many of the comments on the Guardian report simply didn’t believe the numbers at all, or asked what about the men, or continued to blame the women. The number of deleted comments was, quite frankly, both troubling and surreal in what it said about our attitudes towards the humanitarian tragedy that is gender-based violence. 

These numbers aren’t lying. 

1 in 3 women globally experiences violence in their lifetime. One sixth of the globe’s population are victims and survivors of violence committed against them because they are women. One third of murdered women are killed by their partners. Over one billion women will be beaten, raped, abused and assaulted for no other reason than because we are women. 

This isn’t the time to victim blame, to deny the numbers, to ask ‘what about…’ or to excuse and to minimise and to prevaricate. This is the time to take action.

This needs to change. This needs to stop now. It’s time to get angry. It’s time to challenge the universal culture that gives violent men the green light. It’s time to stop playing a blame game that tries to shift responsibility away from the perpetrators. It’s time for this to stop. 

National domestic abuse helpline: 0808 2000 247

Greta and Boris reading on Sunday 16 June

I've been invited to take part in the Easton Arts Trail in Bristol and do a reading from Greta and Boris: a daring rescue.

It's at 2pm on Sunday 16 June at the Community Centre. 

There'll be a few books for sale which I'll be signing along with illustrator Robert Griggs.

It's going to be awesome so please along! 

Sex education, young people and talking about, erm, p0rn

So I’m going to stick my head above the parapet here and write about pornography and young women, in light of the report published yesterday that found young people need better protecting from the impact of porn – particularly the flavour that is violent and degrading.

This article is only going to focus on young women and the impact – not on other issues around porn such as worker’s rights, violence in the industry etc. Another day, perhaps!

I want to share then, in this post, what I have learnt about porn and its impact, as a feminist activist for many years, and why I think it is important we have a grown up, non-ideological conversation about it.

A few months ago, I went to a secondary school to talk to young women about feminism. The girls were about 15 years-old. There were 30 of them, and they each had prepared a question to ask me and my colleague. I was surprised at how many of the questions were about pornography.

Compared to when I was a teen, and the boys stuck a page 3/lad’s mag picture on his exercise books or art folders, porn was part of these girls’ lives. Some of them might have been ok with this. But the overwhelming sense was that porn was everywhere, and they didn’t have much of a say in whether they wanted to see it – it was just there. There was also a sense that the sex you see in porn was what girls should want, when in fact – and bearing in mind I was in a school and so had to be very careful about how we talked about sex – the girls weren’t sure about what they were seeing. Talking to them as politely as we could about consent, respect, pleasure and women’s desires was very revealing. Here were young women who were surrounded by a smorgasbord of sexual imagery whether they wanted to be or not, who hadn’t really had conversations before about what they wanted from sex and sexuality, or even how a conversation about what they wanted was important to have. All the imagery and film that made up their sexual landscape was filtered through male wanting, and male expectations.

I share this story because I have seen a lot on Twitter about how criticism of porn is to deny young women’s sexuality, sexual curiosity and desire. But from speaking to young women, I have very real concerns that instead, exposure to porn is having that very effect. Of course some teen girls will enjoy watching porn but for a lot of young women, a world where a man anally rapes a woman and then orally rapes her is pretty confusing. To me, sexuality and sexual curiosity should be about exploring your body, what you want and what you like. When everything you see and hear about sex is telling you that women’s consent, desire, pleasure and safety isn’t important, then it can be very confusing to know that as a woman, you have an absolute right to these things. And, of course, it’s very confusing to boys who are growing up, perhaps with feminist mothers, seeing imagery that tells them that women don’t have a right to these things. If no one is telling you otherwise, how are you going to know that women’s sexuality might differ to the ones on the video?

I know that a lot of women who have gone into schools have had very similar experiences to this and that confusion about porn and sexuality is a theme repeated in school visits by feminists.

There’s the argument for creating ethical, feminist friendly, female friendly porn. But I don’t think we can ignore that for a lot of young women, their first exposure to porn is the violent stuff. And let’s not kid ourselves that there is a hell of a lot of deeply hurtful, painful and violent porn out there. I would argue as well that in some of the more gonzo stuff you simply do not know if there’s consent. This isn’t about BDSM either – which is consensual and agreed. This is about filmed simulated rape or filmed real rape that teaches young women that their right to consent and pleasure is secondary to what the man wants.

To me, the porn argument isn’t ideological. I don’t think we can take a theoretical position which says Ms X denies young women’s sexuality or Ms Y is ignoring the harm porn does. I absolutely believe we have to listen to girls. If a girl tells us that porn is a-ok and she loves it and it’s really helped her explore her sexuality then that is her reality. And if a girl tells us that she finds it confusing, that her partner pressures her into doing things she doesn’t want to do, then we have to listen to her too. And we have to find a way to make it safe for girls to explore their very natural sexuality, free from coercion or violence or the expectation that she should do things she doesn’t want to do. It’s simply not fair on girls to use them as a theoretical example in a discussion that has raged since the 60s. We have to start by listening to young women and supporting them.

One of the problems I see is that young women are growing up surrounded by pornography but with no alternative narrative about sex. And this is why the second report out this week, by EVAW on sex education, is so important. If the porn narrative is accompanied by one that teaches girls and boys about consent and respect, about how violence and coercion is not ok and how women’s pleasure and desire is ok too, then at least girls would have more of a voice to say what they do and don’t like. If we were teaching our young people about consent and respect, then they would have an opportunity to learn that in mutual and respectful sexual relationships, they don’t have to agree to do something they don’t like, and no one should pressure you into doing something you don’t like.

I don’t think we can put our heads in the sand around young people and violent porn. There are cases where porn has been used to groom girls and where girls have been coerced into doing what they don’t want to do because their partner has seen it in porn and therefore believes the coercion is ok. Speak to any rape crisis centre and they will tell you that story again and again. Sexting, non-consensual sharing of explicit images, filming rapes and attacks on mobile phones, taking explicit images of unconscious women  – these are all news stories from recent months and it’s not hard to see how they reflect the world of porn. Porn is telling young people that women’s voices and women’s sexuality are secondary to male desire. Not only is that simply not fair, it can quite clearly have serious consequences.

Again, I don’t think this is about ideology. I think this is about girls’ lived experience and listening to those experiences and respecting them. It’s about hearing what girls are telling us.

Another area where I am concerned about porn is the idea of sex and money. I read a tweet yesterday that said porn is a healthy aid to masturbation. Of course, that is what essentially porn is intended for – duh! But alarm bells ring for me when we link a natural, completely normal human activity that we almost all do with a massive capitalist money making venture. Again, this isn’t to deny that some women and men do find porn a useful aid, but isn’t there something odd in the message that you need to pay or at least contribute to big business in order to enjoy your body? Isn't there something strange in telling us that we need a money-making scheme to help us enjoy sex? And there is big money in porn, most of which doesn't go to the actors and a lot of which goes to men in suits.

The flagrant capitalism of porn is something that rarely gets mentioned and because I am a socialist at heart but not an expert in the theory I don’t feel well placed to comment on it. I just have a strong feeling that anything trying to make cash out of human sexuality and human desires is a fairly capitalist venture. It’s one of the issues around waxing too. Waxing – which is straight out of a pornified idea of women’s bodies – basically tells young women that in order to look sexy and therefore feel sexy, they need to spend money. The idea is sold to us that we can’t be truly sexual unless we buy a product, and that not buying into that product means you’re a prude or non-sexy. But people have been figuring out how to have enjoyable pleasurable sex or to masturbate since time began – why all of a sudden do we need to spend money to do so? It’s weird.

Anyway, that’s a tangent.

Fundamentally, I think we need to have an honest and grown up conversation about the impact of porn on young people. To me, the heart of the conversation has to be about hearing young women, really hearing them, and respecting their experiences of this new world we live in where porn is part of their reality. It’s about listening to why this might be pleasurable to them as well as listening as to why it might be harmful and confusing. It’s about complementing or – in some cases – replacing the porn narrative with proper, feminist sex education that respects women’s sexuality and centres consent and respect. It’s time to stop talking over young women, to stop using them as symbols, and start hearing what they’re trying to tell us.

Status? Nah, I just fancy you

The last few times I’ve read comments under feminist articles on CIF and the New Statesman, I’ve seen the misogynistic old chestnut raise its hoary head again that women choose sexual partners based on social status whereas men choose sexual partners based on whether they think they’re hot. I can’t remember where I read these comments now, which is annoying. But I promise you they exist.

I am so tired of this really stupid and – yes – misogynistic and homophobic and biphobic argument (hmm, Word not recognising biphobic as a real word. Bad biphobic Microsoft!).

Firstly, I think it is vital to understand that it is completely fine for a woman to choose a partner based on status. Some women won’t and that’s ok too. Is there anyone in the whole wide world that is attracted to the same qualities as someone else? We don’t know and cannot assume what leads to one person choosing to be with another. Not all women fancy Brad Pitt, and not all men lust after Angelina Jolie. Just as I will go on to argue that it’s ok for a woman to find the physicality of a partner attractive, it’s also ok to find the status of that person the key definer of what’s attractive about them. But what we must understand, and what is problematic about the view that women choose a male partner because of status, is that this is not the only thing women can, do and should find attractive. To argue, as some do, that women are only after status is to ignore and silence the multiplicities of women’s sexuality in a way that is offensive and, potentially, dangerous.

Anyway. I’ll focus on the homophobia and biphobia first. Basically, the argument that women as a homogenous group who choose to partner with high status men (and by high status these comments tend to mean “choosing a mate” who has money and can provide for a family) renders gay and bi women invisible. It’s making a generalisation that all women want one man who can provide for them and their children. As we all know, not all women want a man. Not all women – straight, gay or bi – want to have children. It frustrates me that this trope of what women supposedly want is so heteronormative and focused on an old-fashioned idea of what men and women are and what men and women do. It’s lazy and it’s offensive. 

The homophobia and biphobia overlaps with the sexism of this idea too. 

Whereas our culture allows and accepts the idea that men fancy their sexual partners, the myth that women choose their partners based on socio-economic reasons suggests the opposite for us. It completely ignores and devalues the idea that women might feel sexual desire, that we might choose to have sex with someone simply because we think that person is hot. I think this is what we mean when we say the gaze is male. We are comfortable with the idea that men might be visually attracted to a partner in a way that we are not for women. It’s why we say that ‘men are visual’ and women are ‘about feelings’. Again, women can be all about the feelings but we can also be about the visual too. And sometimes we can be both. Or we can be about the visual, feelings, senses, status and everything in between all at once. No woman is the same, no human sexuality is the same. How can we pretend we all find the same element attractive based on our chromosomes? It’s absurd.

This whole trope is, to me, based on an old and sexist fear of female sexuality. From Jezebel and Potiphar’s wife, to witch hunts and slut shaming, the idea that women feel sexual desire for another person has been criticised, repressed and used to persecute ‘wayward’ women down the centuries. Millenia even. The idea that a woman might just simply see another person of whatever gender and fancy them, feel desire, agree consent and go to bed with that person is used to judge women in a way that it has never been used to judge men. It’s the whole, he’s a stud, she’s a slut thing. 

Of course we all know that women fancy other people. Of course we do. But because the gaze is male, the idea of a woman gazing at a man is seen as somehow subversive. Far easier to say that women choose partner based on credit card size than allow us to have our own autonomous, subjective sexuality. 

This idea that women are interested in just one thing suggests that women aren’t allowed to feel that undefinable, unintelligible spark of meeting someone and knowing, just knowing, that you want them. It filters women’s wanting through a prism of what society thinks women should want – security – and what society thinks men should want – sex. But individual men and woman want so many different and varied things – for themselves and for their relationships. Not only is it offensive to women, but it’s hugely offensive to men to suggest otherwise. So why do we do it?

Further, it presents sex as a bargaining tool as opposed to something a woman might engage in because she wants to. It suggests that for women, sex is something they give in exchange for security and status rather than something they want, desire, consent to or take pleasure in. This clearly has dangerous implications to what we mean by consent. It also silences women’s bodies – saying that women can’t feel desire without material ulterior motives. 

Sexuality and attraction isn’t something that can be put into boxes labelled ‘men like looking at women who look like X’ and ‘women like to know that a man is respected in society’. Human sexuality is, as Shakespeare would say, a many splendored thing. It really bothers me that misogyny, homophobia and biphobia still conspire together to silence women’s desires in order to maintain a single minded and potentially repressive impression of what women might or might not want. 

It’s important to understand as well that when online commenters write that women are only attracted to status, they are usually doing so to slag us off. It’s generally within the context that women are selfish and shallow, that we just want men to buy us stuff and, most importantly, are not interested in men like them. So not only is it, perhaps unintentionally, misogynistic by refusing to recognise that women have varied and interesting and valid sexualities, it’s also intentionally misogynistic in that it suggests women just want to gold dig. 

Finally I would argue that in a world where poverty has a female face and where women are frequently left holding the baby and never see a penny from their ex-partner, no woman can be or should be judged for choosing a partner based on status and security. 

I want this offensive trope to end. I want a world where women’s sexuality and desire isn’t silenced and where we no longer make ridiculous, single statements about what women and men want from sex. We’re all too different, human sexuality is too varied, for you ever to look like anything but a ignorant numpty on the internet when you say women choose men based on status, when they truth is we might just really fancy someone. 

Scapegoating single mums on benefits and unpaid child maintenance

In Laurie Penny’s article on CIF yesterday about the crisis in masculinity, she writes about the scapegoating of single mothers on benefits by those who prefer to blame women instead of focusing on issues around male unemployment, disenfranchisement, violence etc. In the article, she writes:

There is no creature more loathed and misunderstood in modern Britain than the single mother on benefits. She is blamed both for the financial crisis and for the attendant collapse in men's self-esteem. The academic Geoff Dench was among those who attacked her, complaining that "the taxes of working men pay for [single mothers'] benefits". The taxes of working women, presumably, are spent on shoes and lipstick.

This article was published online on the same day as a data blog analysing the DWP’s publication of child maintenance payments and their subsequent claim that most non-resident parents are paying maintenance – a claim that is strongly refuted by charities, including Gingerbread. 

The DWP claims that ‘81% of maintenance cases were being paid’. However, this number is potentially misleading as the DWP ‘define a parent as ‘compliant’ and a CSA arrangement as ‘effective’ if any proportion of any maintenance payment is made.’

What this means is that a non-resident payment can pay 1p for one month in a quarter towards their child’s maintenance and still be considered ‘compliant’ and ‘effective’ by the DWP. This leads to some seriously fudged statistics – as you can see. 

The article goes on to explain that in March 2012 only 58% of non-resident parents paid their child maintenance in full, 21% paid part and 16% were ‘not paying’. In June 2012 the numbers were 60%, 20% and 15%. However, Gingerbread believes that even this 58% figure might be misleading, ‘as the DWP definition shows, it includes all maintenance direct payments and assumes that these were paid in full’. 

Quoted in the Guardian data blog, Gingerbread Chief Exec Fiona Weir said:

The DWP itself predicts that as more families set up direct payments, once the new child maintenance service starts charging to collect, only one in four (28%) of these arrangements will be paid in full and on time. The department cannot therefore claim to believe that all existing direct pay arrangements are compliant, and it seems extraordinary that it would continue to over-claim in this way.

I’ll get to my point soon but it’s important to understand the numbers. 

Moving on to the Gingerbread website, the charity believes that unpaid child maintenance soared by £25 million to £3.87 billion in the last quarter of 2012. According to Gingerbread:

The new statistics show that the proportion of parents paying child maintenance has declined for the second quarter in succession [5]. This is despite a generous definition of ‘paying maintenance’ used by the CSA, in which a parent is counted as ‘paying maintenance’ if at least one payment, of any amount, has been made in the last three months.

Not only has unpaid child maintenance jumped, today’s statistics also show that in the last nine months the Child Support Agency has taken less enforcement action against parents who don’t pay – this can include deductions from earnings and sums taken from bank accounts. 

So, what does this have to do with the original quote taken from Laurie Penny’s article?

As Laurie points out, single mothers on benefits are the scapegoats for so many of society’s problems. They’re blamed for everything, from a crisis in masculinity, to the benefits bill. Unlike the married mums the Tories are so desperate to woo back into the home, single mums are told to get back to work – regardless of the costs of childcare. And yet, whenever the finger of blame is pointed at single mums, it is pointed away from the other person that really matters. The dad. 

Of course there are thousands and thousands of dads who are awesome and who want to spend time with their children and who support their children yet for whatever reason, the relationship between parents didn’t work. 

But as the stats from the DWP and Gingerbread clearly tell us, there are also lots of dads who are simply not there. They might not be there emotionally or practically, and they’re certainly not there financially. 

When Geoff Dench grouches that working men’s taxes are paying single mums’ benefits, does he not consider that single parent families could be £3.87 billion better off if their exes paid the money that is owed to their children? (I should qualify here that obviously not all non-resident parents are mothers and 8% of single parents are dads) 

Whenever we talk about single parenthood, three issues are generally raised. The first is that single mums on benefits are responsible for the crisis in masculinity. The second is court bias towards mothers – a bias that has been shown not to exist. The bias is towards the primary caregiver and in a patriarchal capitalist society with unequal parental leave and a belief that women are naturally nurturing, that tends to be mothers. 

The third is the very rare cases where a woman divorcing a very wealthy man agrees a large maintenance payment. The fact that these stories become news shows how rare they are and is perhaps best typified by Heather Mills and Paul McCartney. 

But I have long believed that the real issue, the true scandal, is the huge amount of money not paid in child maintenance. It is a scandal that thousands of men clearly feel they should take no responsibility for the financial welfare of their child (I focus on financial here because it is perfectly possible that a father still sees his child without paying maintenance). It is shocking that across the UK billions of pounds are denied to mothers trying to bring up their children. And, of course, this lack of income can then contribute to poverty (of course not all single parents are poor) and then single mothers on benefits are blamed for that poverty. Let’s not forget either that these billions of pounds are not for helping single parents to live a life of riley, but to feed, clothe and care for children. 

Put simply, it’s cruel. We blame those single mums living in poverty for all societal ills. We blame them for their own poverty. And yet we don’t look to the fathers that refuse to support their child. I don’t want to play a blame game but it’s surreal that we don’t seem to blame them for anything. 

Single mums are painted as feckless and lazy – even though they’re raising a child or children alone, with shrinking support from the state and often without support from their ex. They are the ones who stayed but we portray them as irresponsible. Isn’t there something very wrong with that picture?

I am not advocating here for all men to have access to their child. There are often good reasons on the mother’s side if the father is never seen again – for example survivors of domestic abuse. This isn’t about women raising children on their own away from the father but about the way society talks about single mums. 

What I want is more recognition that £3.87 billion of child maintenance is not paid by non-resident parents, the majority of whom are men. I want more people to understand that this is scandalous. And I want an end to a blame game that scapegoats single mothers on benefits and ignores the responsibility of absent fathers who have an obligation to financially support their children and who are left to get away with not meeting their responsibility.