£500,000 over three years? That's not commitment

On Monday at the Bristol Feminist Network ‘Where are the Women’ event, my friend Shabana spoke about her work setting up the Sky Project (http://www.skyproject.org.uk/), a charity dedicated to working with young women affected by forced marriage. She said how it was all of our responsibilities to tackle and raise awareness of forced marriage, it isn’t a cultural issue, but a women’s issue and a human rights issue. We all need to speak out about all the issues that impact on women’s safety, right to freedom and right to bodily autonomy. So I’m speaking out about it, in my own small way, here.

After a long period of consultation, the government yesterday announced that it would make forced marriage officially a criminal offence yesterday, along with a pledge of commitment to tackling the causes of the crime.

The Guardian reported that last year the forced marriage unit dealt with nearly 1500 cases, 600 this year (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/08/forced-marriage-criminal-offence-david-cameron). It’s difficult of course to know how many people are forced into marriage each year in the UK - the estimated number is believed to be between 5,000 – 8,000. Forced marriage affects women and men, but the majority of the victims are women – 78% in fact (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/when-things-go-wrong/forced-marriage). According to 2010 statistics, a third of victims referred to the forced marriage unit were under 18 (http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/11926).

There has been a lot of debate about whether or not forced marriage should be categorised as a criminal offence, and both sides of the debate speak a lot of sense. The pro side argue that by making forced marriage a criminal offence, a strong message is sent out to perpetrators that what they are doing is wrong, and that if they do force someone into marriage they will be punished with a prison sentence. That message is important and powerful. It brooks no argument and it refuses to let anyone off the hook. The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Association, quoted in yesterday’s Guardian, praised the move, arguing that it would hold perpetrators to account and empower women with the knowledge that what is happening to them is wrong.

The flipside of the argument is that criminalisation will have a detrimental impact on levels of reporting and force the issue underground. As Imkaan explain in their Myths and Realities of Forced Marriage post (http://imkaan.tumblr.com/post/20551683898/forced-marriage-myths-and-realities), legislation doesn’t stop an offence happening, and without work to change attitudes, a law which puts prosecution in place without a wider plan of education to change attitudes won’t have the desired impact on protecting young women from a gross violation of their human rights. The Ashiana Network – the only refuge dedicated to working with survivors of forced marriage – asked the 20 women in their refuges what they thought of criminalisation. Seven believed that it would raise awareness within affected communities, but 19 out of 20 said they would not have come forward if forced marriage was a criminal offence in case it meant their parents went to prison. Many of the women also feared that reporting would leave them ostracised by their community and left vulnerable. All together it shows that this is not a straightforward issue. (https://theguardian/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/forced-marriages-criminalising).

Many of the elements of forced marriage – such as abduction, imprisonment and rape – are already criminal offences. So there is an argument that perpetrators can and should be prosecuted on those grounds, rather than through a separate criminal offence. Currently those who press charges against their families do so through the family courts, assured that parents won’t be prosecuted before they make their statement. All this could allow for forced marriage to be an aggravating factor in a criminal case, rather than the criminal offence itself.

I don’t know what the right answer is. I understand the arguments for criminalisation as this does send a message. But I also have grave concerns that once again the government has held a consultation, disliked what women’s groups and experts on women’s rights have had to say, and done what they wanted to. If the women who work on the ground on this issue every day are telling you something, then listen to them. Hear their truths and hear their reasons. They know what young women need and what young women want, far more than, as one tweeter put it to me, 23 millionaires sitting in cabinet (most of whom, in case we needed reminding, are men). Just as with the consultation on reform to family courts, which found that there was no bias towards women and that the secondary care giver was almost always allowed access, the government show signs of hearing what they want to believe, not to women’s voices.

As I say, I don’t know the answer. I recognise both arguments, and believe very strongly that we listen to the voices of survivors, and those who work with survivors. And of course, not all these voices agree, as the links I have shared above clearly show.

To support the new law, the government have promised £500,000 over three years to tackle the causes of forced marriage, through education particularly.

And this is when alarm bells started ringing for me. £500,000? Over three years? To tackle a crime against women that is such a huge violation of their human rights? Is this what the government’s commitment to ending violence against women and girls looks like?

I have real concerns that once again, this move by the government is not much more than a statement with no plans behind it. Froth, but no beer. It’s all very well making something a criminal offence. But if you are not going to invest time and money into making the crime stop, if you are not going to invest real money and time into education, into refuges, into support networks and groups for the young women affected, then frankly change isn’t going to happen just like that. We already know the violence against women and girls sector is facing a crisis of funding. We need to see proper commitment.

Because otherwise we’ll end up where we are with FGM – where there have been zero convictions since the law against the practise was passed, where the ministerial position to tackle FGM has been cut and where the work of supporting and helping young women is split between different agencies and charities, and varies wildly depending on postcode. Where I live in Bristol we have some excellent work happening to tackle FGM – with healthcare, social and education services working together in partnership with the community and charities to affect change. But that is certainly not the case everywhere. And that is the case here because of the incredible work of a few people making change happen.

£500,000 over three years isn’t a lot of money when we estimate 8,000 women and men are affected every year. The intentions might be good, but the commitment seems to be missing. If the government are really serious about stopping violence against women and girls, they need to stop talking the talk, and start investing money and time into the sector that can make it stop.

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/when-things-go-wrong/forced-marriage/information-for-victims
The above link has info to various organisations working with survivors of forced marriage and other types of gender based violence.

My body is not your property - street harassment

Last month (May 2012) a report found that 43% of young women (18-25) in London had experienced street harassment. Whilst many commenters on Comment is Free shook their heads in disbelief at the number being so high, most women and feminists were equally as confused as to why the number was that low. A quick chat to any group of women about street harassment quickly reveals that the number is closer to 100%, rather than just under half. 

Which begged the question – how exactly do we measure or categorise harassment? Is it a grope, is it a shout, is it violent sexual insults, is it flashing or physical and sexual assault, is it being masturbated on? How do we understand harassment and how do we categorise it? Is it being told to smile? Having ‘bitch’ chanted at you? Having a man scream in your face to give him, and I quote, ‘a blowie’?

The answer we came to during a discussion group on sexual harassment last night was simple. We, as women, are the only people who have the right and the knowledge to define what happens to us as harassment. No-one else can tell us what we’ve experienced, how we’ve experienced it, or try to define our experience for us. 

It sounds obvious doesn’t it? Sounds quite simple. But yet…but yet…When you talk about street harassment you are all too often met with a barrage of disbelief from (some) men.  Disbelief that centres on how it can’t happen that often, turning into accusations of sensitivity on your part and then grumbles of ‘it’s a compliment if anything’, that next we women will want to ‘legislate against flirting’. 

And it’s hard, it’s hard when faced with disbelief, with dismissal of acts that might be irritating, might be triggering, might be traumatising, might be violent, might be threatening. It’s hard in the face of this disregard to remember that what is happening to us, on a daily basis, is harassment. That it is a crime. An assertion of power that deliberately seeks to exclude women from public spaces. 

Make no mistake. A deliberate assertion of power to exclude women from public space is exactly what harassment is. Whether it’s a sexist joke at work to remind you that you’re not part of the boys club, to the showing off of pornographic material to intimidate girls in the classroom, to the shouting of sexually violent words to me on the street – the root is the same. It’s the man or men explaining to you, in the most demeaning way possible, that this is their space, and that they have more of a right to be in it than you do. 

Even the seemingly innocuous shout of ‘smile’ (always aggressively, always to put you off smiling!) is an assertion of power. It’s being told that you are not behaving in an acceptable way in the public space, your behaviour is not pleasing and – because we as women are on display, the spectacle to the male spectator – we need to amend our behaviour to be acceptable. We’re public property and we’re not measuring up. So we’d better smile sweetly and demurely like a proper woman should.

But it’s a compliment if anything. Do you want to legislate against flirting? 

I once talked to my brother about street harassment, after he complained about a group of drunken women harassing him in the city centre. He claimed an equivalence in their harassment to the type of sexual harassment I and other women experience. And although I do not want to diminish the male experience, I really doubted that the two are equivalent. Did you, I asked, feel fear when those women shouted rude things at you in the street? Did you feel afraid they would follow you? Did you feel afraid they would assault or rape you? Did you feel scared to answer back, in case it escalated into physical or sexual violence? Did you feel scared to answer back, because to shout back would be to transcend a gender norm that tells women to take it, to keep their mouths shut, to nurture the male ego?

The answers to all those questions were, of course, no. When women shout obscene things at men on the street, it’s no doubt horrible and rude and my brother had every right to be angry about it. But the reason for those shouts? Not the same. Women don’t shout at men to remind men that they have more of a right to public spaces. Women don’t tend to harass men to assert power over them. And, frankly, most of the time it isn’t women harassing men anyway. Further, women don’t leave men shaking in fear after they harass them, they don’t leave men trembling or in tears because, once again, they’ve been called a bitch, or a cunt; because once again they’ve had sexual violence screamed in their faces; because once again they’ve been reminded that their bodies are public property in a public space. 

This is another key element of harassment – the idea that women’s bodies are public property and that men have a right to our bodies. This goes some way to explaining why street harassment often goes unnoticed by men – even the nice ones! In my experience, if a man starts harassing me and then realises I’m with another man, the harassment stops. Sometimes it even leads to an apology…to my boyfriend. When a woman is identifiably with another man, then her body is already identified as the property of that man, and so she won’t be harassed. And therefore the men don’t see it. 

But when we’re on our own? Then we are fair game. Our bodies resume to being public property. And when we discussed this last night, we came to the conclusion that this was one of the reasons why people don’t intervene when a woman or women are being harassed or assaulted. It’s still seen as the domestic, it’s still seen that the man has a right to that woman’s body and a right to shout, to yell…even to physically or sexually assault. To intervene would be breaking the rules that privilege the man’s right to the public space over the woman’s right to bodily autonomy.

It’s horrible. It really is. It’s horrible to feel worried about walking through your own streets, with the knowledge that at any minute someone might decide to harm you, simply because you’re a woman and they’re a man. It’s horrible to have ‘strategies’ to keep ourselves safe from harassment, from judging where to cross the road, to carrying keys in our hands, to talking to Ms Nobody on our mobile phones. It’s horrible to have to judge whether you’re safer on the street where you might get abuse shouted your way, or safer in a cab where the driver might make lewd and sexist comments to intimidate you (this happens. Cab does not equal safety).

And it’s horrible to know all of this, to speak out about all of this, and to still have people not believe you. To still have people diminish or excuse your experience. 

So what can we do? Well, since I started talking to other women about street harassment, I have felt more empowered to fight back. I feel more powerful to turn around and tell them where to go, to give the finger, to demand they fuck off. I feel the force of the sisterhood behind me. But it’s hard. Not only because you feel the very real threat that fighting back could lead to more violence, but because to shout back goes against everything we are told to do as women. To keep quiet. To take it. To not be aggressive or to defend ourselves. But when I do fight back? After the shaking and fear has passed, I do feel better. I do feel better than when I used to duck my chin, and imagine all my powerful and right on comebacks. 

Of course, sometimes it isn’t safe to fight back. We need to trust our instincts on that one. No-one should feel pressured to fight back if they feel it might put them in danger. 

Another important thing is to keep talking about it. To other women, and to men. To name and shame the men who hurt us on Hollaback. To refuse to accept the denials of our experience. And to encourage everyone to respect and honour that experience. 

I’ve written about street harassment a lot. But I will keep on writing about it, because to speak out? To shout out? To tell our truths? That’s what will make it stop in the end.    

A gender diversity audit of the New Statesman's home page

Disclaimer this post is not an attack on the New Statesman as i v enjoy that site & its coverage of feminist issues. It was prompted by a reader's comment about how it over-represents women's issues, which I also read as over representing women's voices and experiences.

Last week, some of you may know that the New Statesman dedicated some time to talking about men.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/staggers/2012/05/lets-talk-about-men

Unfortunately interesting articles about masculinity and men's roles were hijacked in the comments by MRA types. But it was one comment in particular on the linked article above that caught my eye. It was from one Robert Taggart and said:

'This all makes an interesting change...
From talking about Women and their interminable 'problems' !'

Hmm, I thought. Does the New Statesman really spend all that much time talking about women and our interminable problems? And what are our interminable problems? Male violence against women and girls? Gendered nature of poverty? Cultural femicide? I mean, they're quite serious problems and although they get an airing on the New Statesman I wouldn't say the content was overwhelmingly biased to these issues.

But you know me - never one to trust a hunch. So I've spent a productive evening going through every single article featured on the New Statesman home page just to see how much space is given to women, and our interminable problems.

This isn't an attack on the New Statesman. It was just prompted by that comment. I read the website a lot and love the blogs.

Here are a few points to understand about my quick audit.

I came up with the following categories to measure gender diversity:

About 'women's problems' written by woman/women
About women's problems wrtten by man/men
About 'men's problems' writen my women/woman
About men's problems written by man/men
About non gendered issues, written by man/men
About non gendered issues, written by woman/women
About non gendered issues but focus is on man/men
About non gendered issues but focus is on woman/women
Article is illustrated by man/men
Article is illustrated by women/woman
Article is not illustrated
Article quotes men/man
Article quotes women/woman
Article is illustrated by mix of people or no people
Men and women are quoted in the article
There are no quotes in the article
The article doesn't focus on men or women/man or woman
No named author
No named quotes

I then looked at every article featured on the New Statesman home page at 7pm on Tuesday 29th May. If an article was linked to twice I only counted it once. There may be some errors where I forgot to count a 'no quotes' or 'no illustration'. Easy to miss!

I measured my categories as follows:

In the women's problems section I included: sex industry, representation of women, VAWG, women's poverty, child care, gender pay gap, feminism, women in conflict, women's health

In the men's problems section I included: masculinity, men's rights, health, men's unemployment, paternal rights, violence against men, representation of men

I counted as non gendered issues: economy, Leveson, global warming, Jewish history, UK politics, global politics, reviews, crime, migration issues, science and tech, business news,media, world affairs.

People who the article could be focusing on included: politicians, media types, judges, leaders, film directors, writers, scientists, business leaders, musician or other cultural types, interviewee who is a member of the public

So! What were the results?

Well, unsurprisingly, Robert Taggart's belief that the New Statesman talks too much about women wasn't true. Although none of the home page articles actually talked about men's problems specifically, men were dominant as writers, as quoted sources, as topic of the article and most articles were illustrated by men. Of the few articles illustrated by women one of them was a group of Playboy bunnies. No men were pictured in a sexualised manner needless to say!

THE RESULTS!!

About 'women's problems' written by woman/women                2     
About women's problems wrtten by man/men                           0
About 'men's problems' writen my women/woman                    0
About men's problems written by man/men                               0
About non gendered issues, written by man/men                      43     
About non gendered issues, written by woman/women            21     
About non gendered issues but focus is on man/men               38     
About non gendered issues but focus is on woman/women       9     
Article is illustrated by man/men                                             31     
Article is illustrated by women/woman                                   10     
Article is not illustrated                                                           4     
Article quotes men/man                                                        35     
Article quotes women/woman                                               11     
Article is illustrated by mix of people or no people                 25     
Men and women are quoted in the article                                1     
There are no quotes in the article                                           12     
The article doesn't focus on men or women/man or woman    19     
No named author                                                                    9     
No named quotes                                                                   5    

As you can see, over twice the number of articles are written by men. Nearly four times the number of articles focus on men rather than women. Men are illustrated over 3 times more than women. And the same number applies to quotes.

Proving that, on this day at least, men are being well represented by the New Statesman (and all the other news outlets) and women's problems, voices, faces and stories are, where they normally are - i.e. not very present.

Robert Taggart - take note.

Diamonds, dresses....but no directors?

There’s something very 1950s and 1960s about the coverage of the Cannes Film Festival this year. Whilst the men get down to the serious business of directing the films nominated for the awards, the women are busy looking gorgeous in expensive dresses and diamonds. Of course, there’s nothing new or strange in this attention to the dresses of the rich and famous – I for one am not immune to the appeal of these gorgeous frock concoctions. But I feel there is something retrogressive when in 2012 we are still looking at women in dresses, and listening to men about their directorial qualities. 

This year’s Cannes Film Awards have failed to nominate any women directors for an award (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may/20/cannes-women-andrea-arnold-row?newsfeed=true). Meanwhile, a man who anally raped a child and subsequently has avoided justice for nearly 40 years is feted, celebrated and called a genius for what is basically an ad for Prada (http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/may/22/prada-roman-polanski-cannes?newsfeed=true). The lack of women represented was of course reflected in the Oscar director list – another awards ceremony that has managed to award eight gongs to said child rapist whilst only finding one in its collection to give to a woman director. 

Why is there still this blatant inequality when it comes to the representation of women in the film world? In fact, in the arts world full stop? The typical response to this question is the usual drone about how the films nominated for these awards are chosen on merit and that positive discrimination is a bad thing. But that isn’t what we’re arguing. It’s a total straw man to any debate on representation. No-one wants positive discrimination. Of course we want films to be judged on how good they are. We’re not stupid. 

But something is going wrong. The industry is steeped in inequality that means a fair playing field of what is ‘good’ and ‘worthy of merit’, and what isn’t, simply doesn’t exist. Merit is gendered. Greatness is gendered. The canon is gendered. Because despite the amount of good women-led films out there, none of them are considered to have ‘merit’ by what continues to be the male-dominated industry that is so sunnily encapsulated by Cannes.

In 65 years of Cannes, Jane Campion is the only woman to receive the Palme D’Or. Are men so much better at making films that this inequality makes sense? I don’t think so. 

Where do we start to unpick the gender bias that means women are so badly represented by an industry that millions of us love, and millions of us fund? I think we can begin with the fact that the film industry is so male-dominated. I believe that this leads to a climate where films that get the green light reflect male stories and male interests. A prejudice against women creators persists, the belief that whilst men are equipped to tell women’s stories (e.g. D H Lawrence in books, Tate Taylor – director of The Help – in films), women will always and only tell women’s stories. In English literature, for example, VS Naipul recently claimed that he is a better writer than all women writers ever – including Jane Austen – because men write about universal things, and women just write about the petty and domestic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/02/vs-naipaul-jane-austen-women-writers - having read A House for Mr Biswas I disagree!). 

But this pigeon-holing of women’s creativity is nonsense. And of course, the film industry itself knows this is nonsense. Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker was a man’s story about men, directed by a woman. And it’s brilliant. But this belief that women are ‘the other’, whilst men are universal is persistent and does, I believe, lead the industry to distrust women’s stories and women’s narratives. And this is something reflected across our entire culture, where ‘human’ is male and therefore the human experience is male. 

This prejudice neatly fits into another belief – that women are placidly happy to watch stories about men, where men do all the talking and all the action, whilst the ladies stay shh or are reflectors of the men’s ego. Meanwhile, the theory goes, men aren’t happy to watch films where we women get to have a go at speaking and having conversations. And because the industry’s assumed audience is male, and because male is seen as the universal, men’s films and men’s stories get made and get told. It’s the same again with literature – this belief that men won’t read books by women whereas women will read books by everyone. 

It’s such utter nonsense. 

Because as we well know, when a film does tell women’s stories or reflect women’s interests, it explodes and does well. Mamma Mia is one of the top earning films ever. I’ve not met anyone – man or woman – who doesn’t love Bridesmaids. 

And, as I say above, women are very good at telling men-focused stories. Wolf Hall? The Hurt Locker? Your gender doesn’t preclude you from being able to tell a story in another gender’s voice. But we live with this belief that it does…well, for women anyway. 

A further irritant is that even if it was true, and women’s stories were always concerned with ‘women-y things’, then so what? It shouldn’t matter, and the only reason it does matter is because the women’s experience is seen as ‘less’. I mean – it isn’t like male creators have a huge gamut of stories either. Coming of age here, war there, explosion-car-chase-monster over here. It is because we value men’s stories and culture more than women’s that we create this false dichotomy between what has ‘merit’ and what is ‘petty’ or small. 

The questions lie in how we decide what is great and good, and who is doing the deciding. To give another literature example, a lecture on Christina Rossetti during my university years always stays with me. In the 1960s, I learnt, there was only one edition of Christina Rossetti poetry. She was ‘woman-y’, she was ‘other’, and she wasn’t ‘great’. Then – feminism came along. Now there are dozens, she’s on the school syllabus and she is considered one of the leading Victorian poets. This clearly shows how our idea of what constitutes ‘great’ and ‘meriting recognition’ changes. Rossetti was just as marvellous a writer in 1965 as she was in 2005 when I had that lecture. But the canon only decided she was that good when perceptions on women’s writing and ‘herstory’ began to change. 

The future of our culture has to start including women – in film, books, arts and music. When we value women’s creativity, when we recognise that women can write the universal, and that women’s experiences are valid and matter, when we stop believing that men won’t watch or listen to women, and women can’t write men… then change will happen. We’ll have more films by women getting funding. We’ll stop thinking of women as a genre. And women’s work will be truly valued on merit, because women’s work will be truly valued. 

But what can we do? I feel like I’ve been writing this article over and over, with cultural femicide continuing and the straw man of ‘positive discrimination’ always raising its ugly head. 

Well, I try to represent women writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians. My activism started with Ladyfest – a celebration of women’s creativity. On 4^th June I’m co-curating an event at the Cube (https://www.facebook.com/events/363818227009424/) that profiles women activists, artists and singers. I’ve edited a book that brought together women’s stories and published a book about the forgotten role of mothers in fiction (by Carrie Dunn: http://crookedribpublishing.wordpress.com/our-books/.) I buy women’s writing, I watch women’s films, I listen to women’s voices. The (soon to be re-named) Orange Prize, Bird’s Eye Film Festival, London Feminist Film Festival – all of these events celebrate how amazing we women are at being creative, at getting creative. 

So as well as a complaint against the sexism at Cannes, this is a rallying call. Let’s get out there. Let’s create. Let’s celebrate and profile women’s creativity. We need positive action to change these perceptions, and we can all play a role in doing that. What will you do? 

Ladyfest Bristol 2012

A proud veteran of Ladyfest Bristol 2007, I'm thrilled to be able to share with you the details of the forthcoming Ladyfest in our city - organised by some wonderful feminists.

See you there!

* MUSIC * ART * FILM * DJS * COMEDY * POETRY * WORKSHOPS *

Early bird tickets go on sale April 15^th for £20/standard tickets retail for £25

What?

Bristol Ladyfest is a cultural festival running on 7^th and 8^th July, with a pre-party on 6^th July. It’s designed to showcase women in the community who contribute a valid and significant amount of work to the art and entertainment industries. 

Profits from the event will be split between four charities, all of whom make an invaluable contribution to keeping the streets of Bristol safe:

Womankind + One25 + The Well + Rape Crisis

Tickets

Pre-party tickets: will retail on the door, for more information check out our FaceBook page

Early bird tickets: ending Tuesday, retail at £20 exclusively from DrunkenWerewolf

Weekend tickets: will retail at £25 from May 15^th or if earlier when early birds run out. This will get you full access to all of Saturday and Sunday’s events. Please note that spaces at workshops will be limited and to ensure entry to popular events you must arrive at the venue early. Vendors will be announced in due course on our site.

Note all events are subject to change and Bristol Ladyfest does not take responsibility for artistic license.

Who?

Friday 6^th July: LIPSTICK ON YOUR COLLAR pre-party @ Bristol County Sports Club, Colston Street

Saturday 7^th July: GABBY YOUNG // RACHAEL DADD // THIS IS THE KIT // SHRAG // THE HORN THE HUNT // HYSTERICAL INJURY // SHE MAKES WAR // ROZI PLAIN // STRAYLINGS // RITA LYNCH // DRUNKEN BUTTERFLY // MARY EPWORTH @ The Fleece, doors 5pm - late

Sunday 8^th July: various events across the Stokes Croft area from 10am, including

-          A screening of Dreams of a Life and other films at No 51

-          FGM’s Silent Scream, Naomi Smyth’s Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal and other documentaries with Q&A sessions at Art House

-          Workshops for safeguarding and understanding modern feminist issues

-          Classes on creative writing, music making and dancing

-          Exhibitions and zines by Rachael Dadd, Laura Kidd, Annie Gardiner and more

-          Open debate at The Canteen

Sunday 8^th July (evening): WHAT THE FROCK presents: Women in Comedy, 


Rosie Wilby/ Elf Lyons/ Zahra Barri / O'Shea & Ogilvie.
 

We also have a fundraising event this Sunday 20th at Start the Bus, featuring The Jelas, Poppy Perezz, Morbison, Jemima Surrender, Stevie Parker and Big Wave. There will be discounted weekend tickets for sale there at £20.

Don't presume

I don’t watch Question Time anymore. I’ve got better things to do than to watch lots of often ignorant people being given a national platform to air often ignorant views. But I checked Twitter last night when I was reading my book (These Old Shades fact fans) and saw that the panel were indulging in some pretty disgusting victim blaming in terms of the Rochdale case that was sentenced the day before. Comments ranged from the ‘girl surrendering their innocence for a bag of crisps’ to how we need to give girls ‘values to keep themselves safe’ and the ridiculous suggestion that we should put a ‘curfew’ on girls (what happens if the rapist is at home ey? But don’t let facts get in the way of your victim blaming – oh no!). The people that no-one was talking about of course, were the perpetrators. The men who sexually exploited and raped those girls. You know, the men. Who chose to commit these crimes. 

I took to Twitter and wrote: 

‘Rape is caused by some men choosing to rape and abuse women and girls. That's what causes rape. That's what we need to talk about #bbcqt’

There were a few re-tweets but then the responses came – responses where people helpfully informed me that men are survivors of rape too, and did I know that women can be perpetrators? I explained that I was tweeting in the context of the BBCQT discussion – especially in regards to the curfew comment. 

But the episode made me angry. Because I feel so strongly that the accusation was that because I care about violence against women and girls, and because I pointed out that the elephant in the room in the discussion about VAWG was the men who committed the crimes, then it meant I immediately didn’t care about men survivors or women perpetrators. That I’m ignorant, and that someone had better inform me pretty quickly and patronisingly of my ignorance. 

And so now I am going to tell you why that accusation is untrue, and why that patronising telling off is not only offensive, but potentially triggering.  

Like everyone in the UK, I know women who are survivors of rape and domestic abuse. I say ‘like everyone’, because 1 in 4 women experience this, so the chances are someone you know is a survivor. I also know men who are survivors of various forms of abuse and assault. A woman who I know very well was quite seriously sexually assaulted by a woman, and a woman friend of mine was in an abusive relationship with another woman. 

Finally, I have experienced two identical ‘unwanted sexual contact’ from a man and a woman. The incidents were exactly the same – I was pushed against the wall in a club and the other party stuck their tongue down my throat without my consent, before pushing me back and walking away. 

So for people who don’t know me, who know nothing about me, to have the gall to come over and tell me that men are survivors too and women are perpetrators too? How dare you? How dare you make the presumption that I don’t know this, that I don’t care about this, that I haven’t experienced this? How dare you? How dare you presume to know anything about my life or my experiences? What gives you the right to tell me what I do and don’t think, without even asking me if I know, if I’ve heard, if I’ve felt? 

There are two further points I want to make here. The first is that we need to take more care when we talk to each other online. We need to understand and respect context, so that when we start commenting back or accusing people, we know what they’re responding to in the first place. And we need to think more. Think about what that person might have experienced. Think about where they might have come from and consider whether our retort – perhaps witty or wise in our heads – could actually hurt, or trigger. I need to do this too. I’ve spoken out and regretted it later. We all need to try harder. 

But my final point is that I’m still not going to apologise for calling out the fact that the people who committed the crimes in Rochdale were men who chose to rape and sexually exploit girls. Because that’s what happened. And of the 80,000 rapes against women and girls in the UK every year, the one thing that the perpetrators have in common is that they are men who chose to rape. They didn’t have in common ethnicity. The common factor wasn’t that their victims behaved in certain ways, that they wore short skirts, or were outside, or inside, or drinking or wearing jeans. They are men who choose to rape. 

And speaking this truth that doesn’t mean I don’t care about male survivors. It doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about low reporting rates triggered by worries of homophobia, not being believed, being thought ‘unmanly’. Or that I don’t think we need a drastic re-assessment on ideas about masculinity to ensure that no survivor feels this way. It doesn’t mean I don’t find prison rape jokes abhorrent, or demand to know why rape in prison is so widespread. It doesn’t mean I don’t think men survivors need support and helplines and care. 

It doesn’t mean that I don’t count the woman in my list of ‘unwanted sexual contact’ incidents. 

But it does mean I understand that when we talk about rape culture and victim blaming, we’re overwhelmingly talking about male violence against women and girls. These are the crimes where we seek to lay blame on the victim and survivor, whilst the perpetrator is safely ignored. It’s when we talk about women that we demand curfews on our freedom, it’s women who are forced into a life of fear and it’s women who are blamed when violent crimes are committed against us. The fact that when we try and talk about this we are instantly made to talk about something else just shows all the more how we as a society are refusing to recognise that male violence against women and girls is endemic.

So next time you decide to take it upon yourself to explain to me that men are survivors too and women are perpetrators too, don’t. I know it. 

Men who hate women

This is a quick post on the conviction of nine men jailed for raping, trafficking and sexually exploiting girls in Rochdale yesterday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/09/rochdale-gang-jailed-exploiting-girls?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

The nine men convicted yesterday of trafficking, raping and sexually exploiting girls as young as thirteen did not commit their crimes because they were Asian, as some parties or news outlets would have you assuming.

They committed their crimes because they were men who chose to traffic, rape and sexually exploit children.

Contrary to the reporting in the Guardian of judge’s statement yesterday, it wasn’t that ‘ in some cases "those girls were raped callously, viciously and violently".’

Because all rapes are vicious, callous and violent. 

These girls weren’t raped and sexually exploited because they had ‘chaotic lifestyles’ including being in care. They were abused because these men chose to abuse them. 

And these girls continued to be abused because when, four years ago, one of them came forward to the police to report the crimes she had suffered, she was deemed ‘unreliable’. The police and the CPS didn’t pursue the case. How many girls were harmed in the remaining four years? How many girls were harmed because the system refused to believe the testimony of a young, abused and traumatised girl? 

This case is not about ethnicity. This case is about the men who choose to abuse women and girls. Those men are identified not by the colour of their skin, the country they were born in, their class or job or status or family or wages or music taste. They’re identified by the fact that they are men who hate women, men who choose to exploit and harm and rape women and girls. 

We need to change the conversation when we talk about cases like this. We shouldn’t be talking about race for starters. We should be talking about how we live in a society where violence against women and girls is endemic, is increasing and is ignored. So far this year 3.3 women have been murdered every week as a result of violence against women and girls. Rates of domestic violence have increased since 2010 (http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/domestic-violence-soars-25-in-first.html) and on average 80,000 women and girls are raped every year. 

These men raped and exploited these girls because they hate women. And because they could. And because, for so long, we let them.