Some thoughts on intersectionality and swearing on Twitter

Last week, Vagenda magazine wrote an article in response to M&S’s surprising re-brand of themselves as ‘womanist’. Apparently their PR people are unaware (or simply don’t care) that Alice Walker kind of got there first with womanism.

Towards the end of the post, the author wrote:

‘As to the question as to whether M&S have rebranded themselves as intersectional feminists, we're waiting to see if they take to swearing at people on Twitter for occasionally disagreeing with them (or, in some cases, not actually disagreeing with them at all but writing an article that dares to suggest that their methods may be alienating), and telling customers to 'check their privilege' or they'll 'call them out', the bastards.’

WHOA THERE! I said to myself. Where did THAT come from? This comment made me feel really fucking sad. What point have we reached where intersectionality – a concept which should be key to feminism – is reduced to ‘shouting at people on the internet’ by one of the most-read feminist websites in the country? What is going on?

(Vagenda has an open submission policy for their site so I did consider sending this piece there, but I appreciate they’re very much a humour website and frankly, my TOV is all wrong. I’m not very funny. Or sassy. Or concise. So I figured what’s my own blog for if not my own not-very-funny, meandering thoughts?)

So let’s rewind. I want to use this blogpost to try and articulate what I believe intersectionality to mean and why I believe it’s important – particularly in how it has helped influence my own feminism. And then if there’s time after that let’s consider why the word or concept has been devalued to ‘shouting at each other on the internet.’

Intersectionality is the theory or concept that we all experience multiple oppressions that intersect with one another. To coin the introduction to the Wikipedia definition (which is well worth a read):

‘Intersectionality (or Intersectionalism) is the study of intersections between different disenfranchised groups or groups of minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination.’

The term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 and the theory explores how social, biological and cultural categories such as race, gender, sexuality, ability and gender identity intersect with other axes of categories to contribute to systematic injustice and inequality.

What this means is that we all have different levels of privilege and we all lack privilege in other areas. How those categories of privilege (or lack thereof) intersect leads to and shapes our experience of oppression.

I’m a white, middle class, and cis with no visible or invisible disability. I have a lot of privilege. I’m also a woman and identify as bi, although I am in a straight relationship. In those areas I lack privilege. I have experienced sexism and misogyny, bi-phobia and homophobia (as a result of growing up in a gay household) in a world where power is held by white, middle class, cis, straight, non-disabled men. However I also benefit from having a lot of privilege within that patriarchal society.

Perhaps one of the problems people have with the concept of intersectionality is the word ‘privilege’ itself. After all, privilege stinks of David Cameron and his Eton mates, stalking deer that they then don’t even bother to eat for tea. We therefore have an uneasy sense that privilege must be bad, and that we must feel hyper defensive about having it. That shouldn’t be the case. We aren’t at fault for having privilege. The fault or the problems come when we use our privilege to stamp on people and silence voices – where a vested interest in maintaining the status quo means supporting the structures of oppression. Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of privilege gets used – ergo Etonian deer stalkers.

Intersectionality and privilege is of course far deeper and complex and interesting than my whistle-stop tour. I would recommend reading ain’t I a woman by bell hooks, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh and generally there are some great blogs that discuss intersectionality, including this one and this one. And this one.

So why is intersectionality important to feminism and how has it helped me understand feminism more?

We all have slightly varying definitions of what feminism means and what feminism aims to do. To me, feminism is the social revolution to liberate all women from the capitalist patriarchy and improve the lives of all people everywhere.

The key here is ‘all women’. All.

Feminism is not – to me – about improving the lot of some women to be equal to some men. This is, perhaps, the definition of ‘blue feminism'. It’s a feminism that concerns itself with board quotas. Now, I am totally for board quotas and I do believe that more women in leadership roles will benefit women overall. However, if feminism is about making some privileged women equal to some privileged men – on the men’s terms, well then it’s not for me. All that does is replicate existing power structures that are damaging equality for a huge, massive proportion of the world’s population.

For example, having women on boards of huge textile companies isn’t necessarily going to improve the working conditions of women working in textile factories. It raises up one woman to be equal with one other man, on patriarchy’s terms. Meanwhile thousands of women continue to be unequal under patriarchal capitalism. In my view, we can campaign against power structures that lead to the exploitation of women’s labour across the global south, and ensure that women have equality of opportunity and outcome across the board (pun totally intended).

This is why intersectionality is important. We need to recognise and respect how we experience oppressions across a range of points and that those oppression intersect. Feminism that only seeks to benefit one group of privileged women is not going to achieve feminism’s aims of liberating all women from patriarchal capitalism. As Flavia Dzodan said, ‘my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit’.

For my own feminism, intersectionality has taught me so much. It has forced me to confront my own prejudices, my own beliefs and my own misconceptions and really question how my behaviour and attitudes can contribute to oppression. It has made me wake up and think about what my feminist campaigning looks like, and what I can do and must do to be part of an accessible feminist movement. It has alerted me to other struggles, other issues and other oppressions that I was ignorant of, and how I have been complicit in supporting those oppressions. Intersectionality has challenged me to be a better feminist and it is a challenge I try to meet. Sometimes I fuck up because we all do. But I hope that when I do fuck up, I apologise, learn from it and don’t do it again.

I hope I have made a convincing case about why intersectionality is important. So how is it that this vital and central tenet to feminism has been degraded to being ‘people shouting at one another on the internet?’

Just to go off track slightly here – a few months ago a famous male comedy writer was accused of ‘mansplaining’. He said ‘today I learnt what mansplaining is – apparently it just means shut up’.

Of course, on one level, mansplaining does mean ‘shut up’. But only because there are times (lots of times!) when we, as women, need men to quieten down and listen. We need men to listen to our experiences of sexism and misogyny, and we need them to listen and respect those experiences. We certainly don’t need men trying to tell us what our experience is, what our experience means, or how we didn’t ever even experience that experience in the first place.

Being ‘called out’ can lead to a similar defensiveness as being accused of ‘mansplaining’ can do. It can lead to us saying ‘how DARE you! I’m TRYING!’ in response to someone suggesting that we’re not being supportive.

That’s why, to me, intersectionality has to start with listening to one another, as women. Really listening, really hearing, and respecting what we hear. It’s really easy to go ‘oh no, I don’t agree with your experience because I would never do X'. It’s also easy to go the other way and to join in as an ‘ally’ and go ‘yeah, yeah, I would never do Y’ in response to women speaking out about our experiences of oppression. But just as I would not expect a man to try and deny my experience, or expect a ‘cookie’ for ‘getting’ my experience, I don’t think we should put up with it from other women. Sometimes it really is just about listening. And once we’ve heard one another’s truths, it’s about using our platforms and our skills and our activism to support one another, as women, in sisterhood.

But what has all this to do with shouting?

There’s a real debate going on in online feminism at the moment about shouting and politeness and women’s anger. Historically (and presently TBH), our expression of our anger has been used to silence and dismiss our concerns. When we get angry and upset about, say, 90,000 rapes in the UK each year, we’re called ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational’ and ‘ranty’. We’re shut up.

We have the right to be angry and to express that anger. We have the right to respond to oppression with rage. But what we don’t have the right to do is upset, attack or dismiss one another, or to use language that might trigger, or to hurt one another.

None of us wake up one day and become the perfect feminist. We are learning all the time. We make mistakes, we get things wrong. When we get things wrong, the hope is that someone will explain to us why we got it wrong and what we can do to fix it.

In my own experience, I once wrote a line on a Reclaim the Night poster to emphasise our trans* inclusive policy. I messed up the phrasing and it sounded the opposite of inclusive. I spoke online to a trans* woman who went through the phrasing with me, helped me fix it and was cool with my mortified apology.

I’m not saying that people who experience different oppressions from me should sit down and give me a talk about how to do inclusivity right. It’s up to all of us as individuals to Google, to read, to talk to one another and to learn. But I do hope that when we get things wrong, we are willing to accept mistakes and support one another – to learn from one another.

There’s a lot of shouting going on at the moment and I worry that rather than supporting one another to learn and explore intersectionality, we’re drawing up battle lines. These explosive rows can lead to feminists dismissing this vital and valuable concept as ‘people shouting at each other’. The idea that intersectionality is difficult or inaccessible is becoming entrenched. Considering that the whole point of intersectionality is to be accessible means this row is not good for feminism and it’s not good for social justice.

To sum up then, I guess this is kind of a plea. It’s a plea for all of us to explore intersectionality and approach it as a fantastic theory and tool for feminist activism. It’s a plea to not see feminist anger as irrational. And it’s a plea to listen to one another.

I won't apologise for not 'getting the joke' of rape threats

Trigger warning for rape and domestic abuse

Last night, after a very long day that involved sitting in a car for eight hours in traffic jams on various motorways, I read the news story that Hadley Freeman and Grace Dent had received death threats by a man who was so angry at women having a voice in public space, his response was to say he had planted a bomb at their homes. 

Before I continue with this post I would just like to steer away the inevitable comment about the Twitter joke trial. The two cases are not analogous. They are not even similar. One was a joke about how flight delays are annoying. These are directed threats at two named women, naming the time and place where this Twitter user "plans" to kill them. See the difference there? One = joke in poor taste. Two = threat.

Reading this article left me with a feeling of total, free-falling despair. I kept whispering to myself, ‘they want to kill us. They want to kill us.’ That’s how these threats made to women I admire and respect made me feel. That some men want to kill women for having a voice. 

And then I remembered one very important thing. 

Every week, men are already killing women. Last month 12 women were allegedly murdered by men, because they were women. This month will be the same, as two women are killed each week. Even the most conservative estimate by the BCS tells us that last month 5,000 women were raped. It will be another 5,000 this month. 

In response to my last blogpost on online abuse, which was cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy, I had what felt like legions of men telling me (not assuring me, not wondering – straight up telling me) that the threats I received last year, and the threats Caroline Criado-Perez is continuing to receive now, are ‘angry humour’. They’re not to be taken seriously. One man even hit the sexist and classist double whammy of calling it ‘proletariat vocabulary’ – as if rape threats are just part of being working class, and only come from the working class. 

They’re not ‘real threats’. That’s what they say.

They’re ‘just a joke’. That’s what they say.

Just ignore them. Don’t feed the trolls. That’s what they say. 

But, you see, when 5,000 of my UK sisters are raped every month, a man telling a woman that he is going to come to her house and rape her at 9pm that night simply isn’t funny. When two of my UK sisters are murdered every week, a man telling a woman that he has planted a bomb designed to kill her outside her house is, actually, a real threat. 

When every day I fear I will be harassed, groped, assaulted; men calling me a slag and a bitch and a slut isn’t funny. When I’ve sat there with friends or in discussion groups and heard women disclose the violence committed against them; men telling rape survivors that they’re going to rape them again isn’t funny. When I name the assaults that happened to me as sexual assault; men saying they hope I get kicked in the vagina, they hope I get raped, isn’t funny. 

We have to take these threats seriously because as women, we know they are serious. We know that there are thousands of men raping women every month. We know there are over a million men abusing their partners every year. We know that every single day these threats made online are enacted, in fact, offline. They are committed against the women around us. Maybe to us. 

So forgive me for taking it seriously.

Forgive me for not laughing when the Twitter abuse story rips open the ugly maw of misogyny that often resides behind closed doors, but that every woman experiences throughout her life. Forgive me for not laughing at the widespread abuse of women just because in this instance it’s online and not in the street, in the club, in the school, in the workplace, in the university, in the home. 

Forgive me for not laughing at the victimisation of women for being women.

We live in a society where violence against women and girls is epidemic. This news story has shone a light on the casual and not so casual misogyny of some men online. It is now out for all to see how some men view women as deserving of violence because they are women speaking, doing, acting. We take these threats seriously because we know they are meant seriously. 

They are meant to shut us up. They are meant to put us in our place.

They, like all acts of violence against women, are designed to control us. 

And every male commenter and commentator who is desperately trying to mock and belittle those of us who have received this abuse, you need to listen. You, who have never woken up to a man telling you he wants to rape you because you have written something, need to listen to us women who have. You need to listen to why we know it’s serious. You need to think about the context of violence within which these threats are made. Listen to us. Listen to our stories, our histories, our lives negotiating a world where 1 in 4 of us experience domestic abuse, where 1 in 5 of us experience sexual assault. Listen to us. Then try and tell us it’s not serious. Then try and tell us it’s just a joke. 

Because not only is this joke not funny any more, it was never funny to begin with. 

PS. Man who said I was ‘ranting’ on Liberal Conspiracy. If you thought that was a rant, well, this certainly is!

National domestic abuse helpline: 0808 2000 247

Rape Crisis: 0808 802 9999

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.