My very good friend and amazing feminist Dr Sue Tate has recently organised a retrospective of Pauline Boty's fascinating, challenging and exciting contribution to British pop art.
Boty died as a young woman in the sixties, but during her all too brief career she produced art that found a way to represent women's subjective sexuality.
She featured in 'Pop goes the Easel' and her work was exhibited alongside Peter Blake but she never had a full exhibition in her lifetime - or since. Until now.
I went to the exhibition on Saturday and I can only urge you to go. It is powerful, sensual, challenging and full of life, love and sensuality.
Sue has organised a symposium to discuss women in pop art. It's happening on 27th September and tickets are available.
Speakers include:
Dr Sue Tate
Kalliopi Minioudaki, PhD
Lina Džuverović on the The Makings of Critical Pop: Women, Socialism and Pop Art in Yugoslavia
Holly Crawford, PhD on The Expressionistic Aging Pop Art of Pensato
Lucia Gregorová on Girl Power: Jana Želibská in Context of the Sixties in Slovak Art
Guilluame Vandame on Yayoi Kusama as Global Pop Artist
Professor Anne Massey on The Mothers of Pop? Barbara Jones and Dorothy Morland
Catherine Ince on ‘Having Words’: Pop women in architecture and design
and
Althea Greenan
Book your tickets now!
And just go to the gallery to see the exhibition. You'll love it.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Thursday, 12 September 2013
The hypocrisy of calling for anonymity for rape defendants
TW for rape and rape apolgism
I don’t know how many more times I can write this blogpost.
But, unsurprisingly, the not guilty verdict in the Michael LeVell trial has led to more calls across the media to introduce anonymity for rape defendants. From Philip Schofield’s tweet to this frankly disturbing Peter Lloyd piece in the Mail, those who believe that those accused of rape should be afforded the same protection as victims of rape are out in force.
The formula is the same. A man’s life has been ‘trashed’ because – in their belief – a woman ‘lied’. His reputation is in ‘tatters’. In this case it’s the reports of drinking and extra-marital affairs that are the problem. The logic goes that if this girl had not made a rape complaint, no one would know about the affairs and therefore all rape defendants should have anonymity.
The hypocrisy of the press in this matter is astounding.
It’s the press that gleefully reveals the embarrassing personal details such as affairs and drinking, and then use the fact that this embarrassing information is out there as a reason to re-open the debate for anonymity for rape defendants. In the run up to the trial I saw gleeful headline after gleeful headline on the tabloids in my corner shop on alcoholism and affairs - the very stories that are now seen as reason to change the law in favour of men accused of rape.
As Glosswatch says in her superb blog, we don’t know what the motivations of his accuser were. But we know what the motives of the press were in reporting his affairs and drinking. And it wasn’t motivated by showing solidarity to the rape complainant, but a prurient delight in celeb bad behaviour.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It isn’t rape survivors or rape crisis centres of feminists campaigning against violence against women that are ‘dragging a man’s name through the mud’. We just want to encourage victims and survivors to feel safe and supported and for victims and survivors to have access to justice. And part of that involves naming defendants.
Despite the views expressed across the press today, and the increasing results of public polls on the issue, naming rape defendants works in the interests of open justice. It improves justice for victims and survivors. It simply does. The academic research bears it out – with research from Professor Clare McGlynn published in the Criminal Law Review making a comprehensive case for why naming defendants supports justice and encourages convictions for rape.
In her concluding comments, Professor McGlynn writes:
It isn’t just academics. Police and legal experts are also of the belief that anonymity for defendants will impact on justice for victims and survivors. Responding to the Stuart Hall case, Lancashire Police confirmed that naming the suspect helped survivors to come forward, leading to his conviction.
The cases like Stuart Hall’s bear out the argument for naming defendants over and over again. Rochdale, Worboys, Gordon Rideout are all cases where naming the defendant(s) has encouraged survivors to come forward, report and secure convictions. Without the ability to name these defendants, without women seeing the reports and feeling that finally, they are able to come forward, these men probably wouldn’t have been convicted. We all know, after all, how often the police knocked back women reporting Worboys, delaying justice as he continued to rape. How often the girls in Rochdale were ignored.
And I’m sure we can all agree that we are glad these serial rapists have been convicted and put into prison. I’m sure we can all agree that we would not have wanted anonymity for rape defendants in those cases – anonymity that may have prevented the cases progressing. And yet this is what those calling for anonymity are leading us towards.
But unfortunately it doesn’t matter how much research you quote, how many case studies you give and how many experts you refer to – the belief that anonymity for defendants is necessary sticks. Why? Well, the argument against naming defendants lies in the belief that a rape accusation ruins lives. But it is something else too. It is the belief that has developed that somehow false accusations are equal to being raped, and that false accusations are common. We know the latter isn’t true and in fact false accusations of rape are rarer than false accusations of other crimes. And, let’s face the facts. Being accused of rape is not the same as being raped.
Rape can ruin lives. It does ruin lives. It can lead to depression, PTSD, it can leave women with STDs that impact their physical health or their fertility. The impact of rape is far reaching, and can go on for years. Each woman or girl will respond differently to the violence committed against her and not everyone will feel the same long-term impact. But the fact is rape isn’t just a one occasion thing that happens and then is done with. And it is astoundingly, terribly common. The BCS estimates there are between 60,000 and 90,000 rapes in the UK every year. That’s 60,000 to 90,000 people every year who are living with the devastating impact of rape.
It simply is not equal to false accusations of rape. It certainly is not equal to being accused of rape. And let’s remember that most men who are accused of rape actually committed the crime. In fact, for the handful of cases that make it to court, 63% of defendants are found guilty (the conviction rate from incident to guilty remains at 6.5%).
Of course I know that to be falsely accused of rape can ruin lives too and I appreciate that. But – and there is a but – we only have to look at our popular culture that celebrates, lauds, welcomes and supports men who have been found guilty of rape or domestic abuse to know that men who abuse women aren’t automatically placed beyond the pale. It’s embarrassing just how much our culture is happy to boost convicted rapists and abusers, whilst hounding and attacking their victims.
The calls for anonymity ignore the reality of what rape is. It places making a rape complaint on the same level as being raped – suggesting that one is as damaging as the other. It argues that rape defendants are victims too, victims of women who have a legal right to make a rape complaint. They’re not. They are defendants. They have been accused of rape. They are not victims.
The calls for anonymity ignore the overwhelming and repeated evidence that naming defendants is good for justice. And that is what matters in the end. Justice. There is no convincing argument out there that supports anonymity for rape defendants. There isn’t. Each one of the arguments ignores the rights of victims and survivors and the voices of victims and survivors. And that isn’t good enough.
Rape crisis helpline: 0808 802 9999
I don’t know how many more times I can write this blogpost.
But, unsurprisingly, the not guilty verdict in the Michael LeVell trial has led to more calls across the media to introduce anonymity for rape defendants. From Philip Schofield’s tweet to this frankly disturbing Peter Lloyd piece in the Mail, those who believe that those accused of rape should be afforded the same protection as victims of rape are out in force.
The formula is the same. A man’s life has been ‘trashed’ because – in their belief – a woman ‘lied’. His reputation is in ‘tatters’. In this case it’s the reports of drinking and extra-marital affairs that are the problem. The logic goes that if this girl had not made a rape complaint, no one would know about the affairs and therefore all rape defendants should have anonymity.
The hypocrisy of the press in this matter is astounding.
It’s the press that gleefully reveals the embarrassing personal details such as affairs and drinking, and then use the fact that this embarrassing information is out there as a reason to re-open the debate for anonymity for rape defendants. In the run up to the trial I saw gleeful headline after gleeful headline on the tabloids in my corner shop on alcoholism and affairs - the very stories that are now seen as reason to change the law in favour of men accused of rape.
As Glosswatch says in her superb blog, we don’t know what the motivations of his accuser were. But we know what the motives of the press were in reporting his affairs and drinking. And it wasn’t motivated by showing solidarity to the rape complainant, but a prurient delight in celeb bad behaviour.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It isn’t rape survivors or rape crisis centres of feminists campaigning against violence against women that are ‘dragging a man’s name through the mud’. We just want to encourage victims and survivors to feel safe and supported and for victims and survivors to have access to justice. And part of that involves naming defendants.
Despite the views expressed across the press today, and the increasing results of public polls on the issue, naming rape defendants works in the interests of open justice. It improves justice for victims and survivors. It simply does. The academic research bears it out – with research from Professor Clare McGlynn published in the Criminal Law Review making a comprehensive case for why naming defendants supports justice and encourages convictions for rape.
In her concluding comments, Professor McGlynn writes:
‘First, there is no justification for singling out the offence of rape for special treatment. There are many stigmatic crimes: indeed that is one of the reasons for labelling an activity criminal. Secondly, while parts of the media may be irresponsible, this alone cannot justify limits on media freedom which may impinge on its ability to report issues of public interest and attempts to catch the public’s attention. Similarly, and thirdly, it may be that the difference between suspicion and guilt are not as apparent as they should be to some people. But this does not include all people, and it would be dangerous indeed if public debate could only proceed at the level of the least able. There is, therefore, no basis on which to single out the offence of rape. The final lesson, and perhaps the most important conceptual message to be drawn from the analysis in this article, is that privacy rights, the mainstay of justifications for reform, are generally not accorded greater weight than freedom of expression, when open justice and media freedom come into play. If the media are to be able to report matters of important public interest, such as rape cases, the choice of method of doing so, often likely to include the personal details of a defendant, is an important element of media freedom and open justice.
It isn’t just academics. Police and legal experts are also of the belief that anonymity for defendants will impact on justice for victims and survivors. Responding to the Stuart Hall case, Lancashire Police confirmed that naming the suspect helped survivors to come forward, leading to his conviction.
The cases like Stuart Hall’s bear out the argument for naming defendants over and over again. Rochdale, Worboys, Gordon Rideout are all cases where naming the defendant(s) has encouraged survivors to come forward, report and secure convictions. Without the ability to name these defendants, without women seeing the reports and feeling that finally, they are able to come forward, these men probably wouldn’t have been convicted. We all know, after all, how often the police knocked back women reporting Worboys, delaying justice as he continued to rape. How often the girls in Rochdale were ignored.
And I’m sure we can all agree that we are glad these serial rapists have been convicted and put into prison. I’m sure we can all agree that we would not have wanted anonymity for rape defendants in those cases – anonymity that may have prevented the cases progressing. And yet this is what those calling for anonymity are leading us towards.
But unfortunately it doesn’t matter how much research you quote, how many case studies you give and how many experts you refer to – the belief that anonymity for defendants is necessary sticks. Why? Well, the argument against naming defendants lies in the belief that a rape accusation ruins lives. But it is something else too. It is the belief that has developed that somehow false accusations are equal to being raped, and that false accusations are common. We know the latter isn’t true and in fact false accusations of rape are rarer than false accusations of other crimes. And, let’s face the facts. Being accused of rape is not the same as being raped.
Rape can ruin lives. It does ruin lives. It can lead to depression, PTSD, it can leave women with STDs that impact their physical health or their fertility. The impact of rape is far reaching, and can go on for years. Each woman or girl will respond differently to the violence committed against her and not everyone will feel the same long-term impact. But the fact is rape isn’t just a one occasion thing that happens and then is done with. And it is astoundingly, terribly common. The BCS estimates there are between 60,000 and 90,000 rapes in the UK every year. That’s 60,000 to 90,000 people every year who are living with the devastating impact of rape.
It simply is not equal to false accusations of rape. It certainly is not equal to being accused of rape. And let’s remember that most men who are accused of rape actually committed the crime. In fact, for the handful of cases that make it to court, 63% of defendants are found guilty (the conviction rate from incident to guilty remains at 6.5%).
Of course I know that to be falsely accused of rape can ruin lives too and I appreciate that. But – and there is a but – we only have to look at our popular culture that celebrates, lauds, welcomes and supports men who have been found guilty of rape or domestic abuse to know that men who abuse women aren’t automatically placed beyond the pale. It’s embarrassing just how much our culture is happy to boost convicted rapists and abusers, whilst hounding and attacking their victims.
The calls for anonymity ignore the reality of what rape is. It places making a rape complaint on the same level as being raped – suggesting that one is as damaging as the other. It argues that rape defendants are victims too, victims of women who have a legal right to make a rape complaint. They’re not. They are defendants. They have been accused of rape. They are not victims.
The calls for anonymity ignore the overwhelming and repeated evidence that naming defendants is good for justice. And that is what matters in the end. Justice. There is no convincing argument out there that supports anonymity for rape defendants. There isn’t. Each one of the arguments ignores the rights of victims and survivors and the voices of victims and survivors. And that isn’t good enough.
Rape crisis helpline: 0808 802 9999
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
On two dangerous and persistent rape myths
Trigger warning for rape and rape myths
I’ve been thinking about two rape myths today, and what they mean for our understanding of rape in and out of the courtroom.
The first myth is the idea that there is a ‘correct’ way to respond to being attacked, and that response is to scream. And the second is that a if the jury acquits a man accused of rape, the accuser is immediately guilty of the crime of ‘false accusation’ or perverting the course of justice – despite not being found guilty in the law courts.
The ‘she didn’t scream’ myth is a persistent one. It’s the belief that a woman or girl would always scream or fight back if they were attacked, and that if they didn’t scream or fight back, then there was no attack. It is based on the idea that ‘rape is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, and therefore a woman would do everything in her power to stop it’. Responding to this statement, CWASU writes on their rape myths page:
Many women assess their attacker, and make moment by moment decisions about their survival. In many circumstances, women being sexually assaulted fear for their lives. When rapists have a weapon, or threaten the victim, most will strategise for their own survival by not unduly alarming or aggravating their attacker; they follow his instructions in order to stay alive, and this may include not making a noise or resisting. Being raped is not worse than being dead or permanently injured - opting to submit is a rational decision, made in a context where there are very few choices or options.
Some women may scream and fight. Some women may freeze, from fear or because they believe it may keep them safe from additional, physical violence. No one should apply a moral judgement to either response. No one should tell a woman that she responded ‘the wrong way’. And yet, we hear this all the time. Women who scream may find themselves told they ‘put themselves in more danger’. Women who freeze are told they ‘should have fought back’.
One of the problems I see here is our skewed understanding of consent. We see consent as the ‘absence of a no’, not the presence of an ‘enthusiastic yes’. Freezing and not screaming is not an indication of consent. Consent does not rely on silence, and the fact we continue to believe it does leads to the rape myth that if she didn’t vocalise no, she must have meant yes. This myth then leads to women blaming themselves for not saying no.
When I interviewed TV writer Emilia di Girolamo about this issue, she said:
‘It was something that I felt had happened to me and I didn’t understand – I grew up thinking that I was in the wrong and that I should have fought and should have shouted no, and I didn’t. It was only when I started reading about freeze response that I realised that’s exactly what happened to me. That’s how I felt, I couldn’t move and I couldn’t shout or scream.’
Freezing and silence is not an indicator that no assault happened. It is a survival tactic and it is a normal response to being attacked. It should be respected and understood to be so.
Every time we repeat the myth that there is a correct way to respond to rape, then we are telling women who don’t respond that way that they are to blame, that they were in the wrong. As with every single rape myth out there, it moves the focus from the perpetrator’s behaviour onto the woman’s. It says that it is up to the victim to behave in an approved manner, and that her response is then ‘proof’ of her innocence or guilt. We ignore the responsibility of the perpetrator not to rape, we ignore that it is up to him to prove that the rape didn’t take place. It is his behaviour that should be under scrutiny and yet time and time again we return to the woman’s actions.
The CPS has started to challenge the defence that if a woman didn’t behave in a pre-approved manner, then it wasn’t rape. In their guidelines on rape myths, they write:
If she didn’t scream, fight or get injured, it wasn’t rape.
Implications:
• Invalidates the experience of the victim
• Discourages him or her from seeking help
Facts:
• the victims perception of threat influences their behaviour;
• rapists use many manipulative techniques to intimidate and coerce their victims;
• victims in a rape situations often become physically paralysed with terror or shock and are unable to move or fight; and
• non-consensual intercourse doesn't always leave visible signs on the body or the genitals.
The CPS is right. Accusing a woman of not responding in the ‘correct’ way to rape invalidates the victim, brings back trauma and tells them that they shouldn’t report because no one will believe them or respect their experience. And so the terrible cycle continues where reporting rates stay low, and those who do report risk being disbelieved, and the rape myths infiltrate the public imagination and the conviction rate stays low.
That’s what makes this myth so dangerous.
The second myth I want to talk about is on how when a man is found not guilty of rape, the woman is found guilty in the court of public opinion of making a false accusation.
Making a false accusation of rape is a serious crime which results in a jail term if an individual is found guilty. It is perverting the course of justice.
If you believe in the principle that everyone is innocent before proven guilty, then you MUST extend that right to women who make a rape complaint too. They are innocent of the crime of making a false accusation unless the courts prove otherwise.
Here’s an infographic of false accusations against incidents of rape:
It really seems to confuse people, the idea that the principle of innocent before proven guilty applies to women who make rape complaints too.
A not guilty verdict of rape does not equal a guilty verdict of false accusation. The belief that it does fosters the rape myth that false accusations are incredibly common and rape is rare. We know this is not true. According to Keir Starmer, in the period of 17 months there were 5,6751 prosecutions of rape, and 35 prosecutions for false accusations of rape. In the same period, there were 111,891 prosecutions for domestic abuse and 6 for false allegations of domestic abuse. Every year, according to the BCS, there are 1.2 million incidents of domestic abuse and 500,000 incidents of sexual assault – up to 90,000 of which are rape. False accusations are incredibly rare and rape is incredibly, terrifyingly common.
Last night I was talking with a friend of mine about these rape myths. We said we both believe that in the future, perhaps in the next generation, we will look back at society today in horror. We will be horrified that we were a society that allowed rape to happen. We will be ashamed that our response to rape was to find ways to blame and accuse the victim. It will be as ridiculous and embarrassing as witch burning or other historical disgraces. Our grandchildren will look at us and ask how we dared to allow this, how we dared to tell a woman that she should have screamed, she should have said no, that she is guilty of a crime she hasn’t been convicted of because she made a rape complaint.
I believe this will happen because things are changing, and they are changing because of feminists. Two years ago, when a group of men group raped a 12 year old girl and they got out of jail on appeal because the judge said she was sexually experienced and wanted sex, there was silence. This year, when a lawyer called a 13 year old rape survivor ‘predatory’ and the judge gave her rapist ridiculously low sentence, David Cameron got involved and action was taken against the lawyer. Feminists didn’t get any credit despite Everyday Victim Blaming leading the march on this case, but at least there was uproar. At least people said it wasn’t ok to victim blame a child.
Things are changing. Feminists are leading this change. We are having an impact. We are facing a helluva backlash as a result. But the day when we are ashamed of our attitude to rape and survivors is coming. It is coming.
Rape crisis helpline: 0808 802 9999
Sunday, 25 August 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, 1 August 2013
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
Saturday, 27 July 2013
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
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
Thursday, 25 July 2013
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)