Women's football - and women everywhere - deserve better than Richard Scudamore

It’s 23 days until the World Cup! Woo! So what good timing to have a row about sexism in football! Oy oy! 

As someone with very little interest in football, it seems the only contact I ever have with the sport is when a sexism or racism storm kicks off. As a result my view of the game is seen through a prism of dead labourers building a stadium in a country where homosexuality is illegal, sexist pundits, racist players, and rapist players. So you’ll forgive me if I struggle to see the beauty in this beautiful game. 

The latest sexism row to erupt in football features the Premier League boss, Richard Scudamore, who, among other things, swapped emails with others which referred to women as ‘gash’, and an ex girlfriend as a 'double decker' . Only, the word ‘personal’ is a bit of a misnomer, seeing as they were sent from his work account. Oops. He also talked about women being irrational:

'Scudamore started talking about China’s one child policy being a way to stop women becoming more irrational after having children. I thought, he’s had five children – he’s talking about his wife. How does his wife feel? His wife has been humiliated, so has his daughters.'

Thankfully, the guys (mostly men but some women) at the Premier League have been called in to sort this mess out. And sort it out they have. By doing exactly…nothing. Nothing. No disciplinary action. No censure. It’s business as usual and can we all just forget about how utterly dehumanising it is to refer to women as ‘gash’ now please? 

Scudamore has, of course, apologised, in a way that the term ‘mealy-mouthed’ was invented for. The emails, he explains, were ‘received and sent from my private and confidential email’ (they were from his Premier League address) and he argues that no one should have seen them except the recipient. However, Scudamore goes on to say:

‘I accept the contents are inappropriate and apologise for any offence caused, particularly to the temporary employee. It was an error of judgement that I will not make again.’

It’s not clear whether the error of judgement was in the view of women as ‘gash’ or that the view was written down in an email. 

You know what the problem is with this apology? It isn’t an apology. 

Scudamore, like so many men who express sexist views, seems sorry he got caught. Having been caught, he now accepts the ‘contents are inappropriate’. Before being caught, he clearly considered the contents perfectly fine otherwise he wouldn’t have written it. It’s quite simple – people who actually find sexism and misogyny offensive tend not to write emails dehumanising and mocking women. 

I know this from my own experience of dealing with online harassment. It’s AMAZING how quickly men switch from wanting to 'kick you in the vagina' to being snivellingly sorry when you tell them you know their full name and the town they live in, and will pass that information on to the police. Just like those men, Scudamore seems sorry the emails were seen – those ‘personal’ emails. He’s apologised not for being offensive, but for ‘offence caused’ to his employee. There’s a difference. A subtle one, but it is an important difference all the same. 

What this apology tells us is that it’s ok to be sexist and to dehumanise women and to think women are stupid and irrational, to exchange emails where woman are referred to as ‘big-titted broads’ and ‘joke’ about fending a female member ‘off their shaft’ – but only so long as it’s done in private where women can’t see it. The apology tells us that you can say what you like about women in your own personal time. The offensiveness only occurs when a woman hears it and calls it out. It’s like the tree that falls in a forest. If there’s no woman to hear you talk about ‘big-titted broads’, then it’s just ‘classic bantz’. 

Now, of course, this story has been met with the argument that they were personal emails and therefore Scudamore’s views don’t interfere with his role as boss of the Premier League. No one should be criticising the head of the Premier League – the man who is responsible for promoting equality in the league – because the story goes that you can call women whatever names you like in your personal life, it probably won’t affect your professional life. 

But this is just nonsense. 

If you think of women as ‘gash’, if you think women are ‘irrational’ or that women are just there for your sexual titillation, then you don’t wipe those views from your mind every time you step into your office. There isn’t a sexism-amnesia formula that misogynists can take every time they go to work – the effects wearing off just in time to let them send some personal emails packed full of their actual views of women. If you dehumanise women in your personal communications, if you reduce women to objects and orifices, then that will impact on your ability to see them as fully human in your professional AND your personal environment. 

Scudamore, as boss of the Premier League, is responsible for promoting equality in football. It’s up to him to support efforts to ‘kick out sexism’ from the game. How can he do this, when he holds such nasty and offensive views of women? How can a man who seems happy to join in with the utter dehumanisation women that the word ‘gash’ evokes be at all qualified to lead efforts to end sexism in football? 

You cannot be a champion for women’s equality in your professional life and discuss women in terms as big-titted irrational gash in your personal life. How can someone who thinks of women in these terms be trusted to promote equality in a sport where inequality between male and female teams is already such a huge problem? And it is a big problem. The Jane Martinson post on the Guardian reports that 2/3 of women employed in football had experienced discrimination. She explained that only £2.4 million has been invested in the new FA Women and Girls programme over the last two years – a sum roughly equivalent to Scudamore’s basic salary. She also quotes Sue Tibballs, the former head of Women’s Sports and Fitness Federation, who calls the Premier League’s support for women’s sports ‘nonsense’ and Scudamore a ‘dinosaur’. She explains: 

‘My own view is that the Premier League has taken very little interest in women’s football despite a huge opportunity to get behind them.’

Scudamore can clearly talk the talk about raising the profile of women’s football in front of the cameras. But his personal views of women betray him as seeing us as objects or fools. 

The word ‘gash’ literally reduces women to a hole. It’s a horrible, nasty, violent and disturbing word. A man who happily exchanges emails where women are referred to as ‘gash’ should not be in charge of promoting equality anywhere – let alone in an already grossly unequal industry. Women footballers – and women everywhere – deserve better than this. We deserve better than a non-apology. Women Premier League footballers and wannabe footballers in particular deserve a boss who sees them as fully human. They deserve better.

John Lyndon Sullivan, homophobic violence and why voting UKIP is a poor 'protest'

I was going to write about this last week, when it was revealed, but I was so angry everything I put down on paper became INCOHERENT WITH RAGE. So I’ll try again now that the sunshine has calmed me down somewhat. 

(Hmm, reading it back it’s pretty rage-y.)

On Friday I came across a quote from UKIP politician, John Lyndon Sullivan, saying:

“I rather often wonder if we shot one ‘poofter’ (GLBT whatevers), whether the next 99 would decide on balance, that they weren’t after-all? We might then conclude that it’s not a matter of genetics, but rather more a matter of education.”

The quote ends with a smiley face. Because shooting gay people is all the LOLZ AMIRITE??!!

Confusing punctuation and clear lack of research on the ‘gay gene’ debate aside, I am sure you can understand why this quote made me incandescent on Friday. 

My childhood meant I grew up with an understanding of homophobia and what hatred of gay people looked like in the lives of women and men. But I think the first time I really felt the true, intense fear of homophobia was after the nail bombing in Soho. I was 14 years old at the time, and identified as bi. As the news reported that a former BNP member had bombed a popular gay pub on Old Compton Street, I had a chilling feeling of realisation. I learnt that day how some people wanted to kill women like me. They wanted to kill people like my mum, and my family friends and family members. 

Two people were killed in that bomb attack. Two people were murdered by a homophobe who hoped that by threatening and destroying the lives of gay people, he would make them all disappear. Which is kind of what John Lyndon Sullivan is demanding, isn’t it? What would happen if we shoot one, he ‘jokes’. Then 99 more might decide on balance they don’t have to be gay. In his comment, he implies that through threat, they’ll ‘choose’ to be straight. Never mind that sexuality isn’t a choice. Never mind that no one asks why heterosexual people ‘choose’ to be straight. 

In recent years, we’ve been hearing more and more of the term ‘corrective rape’. This is when men rape a gay, lesbian or bi woman to ‘turn’ her straight. Put plainly, to ‘correct’ her sexuality. We have mainly heard the phrase ‘corrective rape’ in relation to South Africa, but just to be very clear, this violence isn’t confined to one country or to recent times.  

Corrective rape is the use of violence to try and erase gay women, to try stop women from being gay. In this, the term and the crime share a root with Lyndon Sullivan’s comment. Corrective rape is the brutal acting out of a belief that using violence against LGBTQ people will force them to renounce their sexuality or gender identity. 

A few years ago, I volunteered to co-run a campaign to stop the deportation of a young Ugandan asylum seeker, B. She is gay, and had been outed in the Ugandan press (even if she wasn’t gay, the fact that she had been outed in the media would be enough to put her in serious danger, but try telling that to the bloody Home Office). The young woman had been horrifically beaten and attacked by a group of Ugandan men – again in an attempt to ‘correct’ her sexuality. 

For as long as I live, I will never forget reading the internal report by the UKBA on her injuries, or the photographs of what had been done to her. Even just thinking about it makes me want to break down and cry. That anyone could commit such acts of terror on another human being because they hated her sexuality makes me feel sick to my stomach. 

Once again, the root of the attack on B is found in Lyndon Sullivan’s comment. When the gang of men beat B, they were acting out that ‘wondering’. They were putting into reality the conviction that all it takes is fear, intimidation and violence to ‘educate’ an LGBQ person out of their sexuality.  

The awful violence committed against this young woman happened not long after the murder of gay Ugandan activist David Kato. He was killed with a hammer. His life was violently taken away from him by people driven by hate, who hoped their hate would erase gay people. 

My point with all these examples is that Lyndon Sullivan doesn’t have to ‘wonder’ about the impact of shooting one gay person. Every day, LGBTQ people are being killed, beaten and raped simply for existing. He doesn’t need to ‘wonder’ about it, he can just open a newspaper. The murder of LGBTQ people is not the ‘joke’ of a UKIP politician. It’s the reality faced by millions of people in every country in the world. 

I cannot understand how anyone could say something that is not only hugely ignorant about the reality of violent homophobia, but that is basically cruel. How can someone sit there, and type a message imagining the murder of one person, in order to teach a wider group of people a lesson? How can he do that? How could he speak those words out loud? 

Since the Soho bombs, there have been real gains made for LGBTQ rights in the UK. Section 28 was repealed when I was in the sixth form. Around the same time came changes to the law allowing gay people could adopt. Before that, we saw the equalisation of the age of consent between men. Homosexuality became legal in the military. By the time I started university, civil partnerships were beginning to happen. This year the first marriages between same sex couples took place. In fact, at a (straight) friend’s wedding last weekend, I nearly shed a tear when the registrar announced that the UK law said marriage was a legal commitment between ‘two people’ as opposed to ‘between a man and a woman’.  

The vast, vast majority of the British public have welcomed these reforms. Men like John Lyndon Sullivan really are out of step with popular feeling on this issue, as are Farage and Roger Helmer. 

But some people, like the aforementioned UKIP-ers, have felt “threatened” by progress on LGBTQ rights. As a result, they have come out with reactionary and violent statements in their political efforts to roll back equality. 

Let’s be clear. No one is threatening the existence of homophobes. No one is beating or raping homophobes to 'correct' their views. One in six UK homophobes aren’t reporting hate crime. No one is even threatening their opportunity to air their toxic views – after all, UKIP seems to have had ample opportunities to freely express their nasty BS on the mainstream media. It isn’t UKIP-ers and the like who are threatened. No, it is LGBTQ people who are being beaten, raped and murdered simply for existing, and freely expressing their sexuality or gender identity. 

One wonders what it is going to take for people to decide that a ‘protest vote’ for UKIP on Thursday is a bad idea. How far will they have to go before everyone puts the ballot paper down and say, ‘hang on… Do I want to vote in protest for a party where men call women “sluts” and talk about “bongo bongo land”? Do I want to vote for a party where the leader talks about how he doesn’t want Romanians next door because immigration should be about “quality not quantity”? Do I want to vote for a party where a member says getting into bed with your boyfriend puts “reasonable expectations” in his mind, so if you get raped it’s your fault? The same man who says older people find homosexuality “viscerally repugnant”? Do I want to vote for a party where a member says he wonders if shooting one “poofter” would lead to 99 more changing their mind? Do I want to vote for a party with a councillor who calls the police because someone dared to tweet a list of UKIP policies?’ (they’re your policies FFS!)

John Lyndon Sullivan, across the world LGBTQ people are being raped, beaten and yes, shot, because of their sexuality. You should be ashamed of yourself for your nasty, violent, homophobic comments. You, your party, and your party’s supporters should be ashamed.   

Women of the Left Bank series: Having a drink with Janet Flanner

This post is part of my Women of the Left Bank series which started with this article on Gertrude Stein. 

(Apologies for not putting in correct accents on the French names - am having issues with Word)

I recently went to Paris to work on my book (seriously – my favourite phrase in the English language right now!) and to walk in the footsteps of my literary heroines through the narrow streets that open up into Church flanked squares and verdant parks of Montparnasse. Walking down Rue de Fleurus past Gertrude Stein’s house, along Rue Bonaparte and Janet Flanner’s pad, turning left down Rue Jacob to see where Colette (and Claudine) lived, and where Natalie Barney had her Temple d’Amities, on to Rue de l’Odeon where Sylvia Beach set up the original Shakespeare and Company, with Adrienne Monnier’s shop across the road. It was a wonderful week, soaking up a world of poetry, paintings and literary experimentalism.

‘If I could go back in time and have a drink with anyone,’ I said to a friend of mine when I returned, my heart still left somewhere in the Left Bank, ‘it would be Janet Flanner.’

‘But that’s such a hard decision to make!’ he cried.

‘If you had a drink with Janet,’ I explained wisely, ‘everyone else would turn up.’

She should need no introduction. But because she is less famous than many of her female contemporaries (who in turn are less famous than their male contemporaries), I’ll give you one anyway.

Janet Flanner was a writer who, in the early 20s, left her husband in Indiana and came to Paris with her lover, Solita Solano, to write. Like so many of the women and men expats who flocked to Paris in the 1920s, Janet arrived at the Left Bank determined to shape her own life – and to have the freedom to be a creative and sexual woman. She explained her reasons for coming to Paris as:

‘I was looking for beauty with a capital B. And I couldn’t find it in Indiana.’

Janet and Solita settled on Rue Bonaparte and started writing novels. But it is as a journalist where Janet found her calling, and where her real talent shines through. From 1925 to the outbreak of World War Two (during which she became a war correspondent with that other famous Left Bank alumni, Ernest Hemingway) and for the years after, she wrote the Letter from Paris for the New Yorker magazine, under the pen name ‘Genet’.

Her editor thought Genet was French for Janet, proving just how much The New Yorker needed their Parisian! Through her letters, Janet's prose style came to epitomise the tone of voice of the New Yorker, and her unique tone of voice has been a huge influence on journalists and columnists for decades.

Janet was at the heart of the Parisian expat community that created the artistic waves that are still loved by us today. She was a true Paris enthusiast, claiming that:  

‘When America was making candles, France was making Voltaire.’

Shortly after her arrival in Montparnasse, Janet became close friends with Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, and a much-loved member of their circle. Stein was at the cultural centre of the most cultural city in the world, and through their friendship, so was Janet. From her seat at Les Deux Magots, coffee and cigarette in hand, she recorded Paris’ activities with an insight and wit that transported her American readers to the City of Light’s dusty and buzzing streets.

Janet’s letters cover all aspects of creative Paris. She was there when Josephine Baker danced on the stage of the Moulin Rouge for the first time, when Paris’ streets filled with mourners of Isadora Duncan and when Kiki de Montparnasse first exhibited her own paintings. She wrote about art shows, about book publications, about the scandalous memoirs of Liane de Pougy and who the real people were behind the characters in The Sun Also Rises. Nothing happened in Paris without Janet seeing it, recording it and bringing it to life for a reader thousands of miles – or eighty years – away.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Janet knew everyone - which is why she would make such a perfect person to have a drink with. As such, she is a fabulously funny and sharp guide to the people of Left Bank Paris, introducing us today to the foibles and fancies of the women and men who have been mythologized in countless novels and films about the 1920s.

From Janet, we learn that Gertrude Stein had a laugh like a ‘roaring oven’. She tells us that when Gertrude laughed, ‘it was like a signal’, and everyone joined her. In a wonderful interview in the documentary Paris Was a Woman (watch this film – you won’t regret it!), she explains the influence Stein had on Hemingway as follows:

‘So Hemingway would write, "it was a nice day. It was a very nice day. It was a very nice day for fishing". Not that Gertrude was one for fishing, except at the dinner table.’

I would love to know what she means! It’s such a sharp remark, and it clearly means something to Janet, but we are left to wonder just what Gertrude was fishing for…

One of my favourite Janet stories is about Nightwood author, Djuna Barnes. She begins by explaining:

‘I was devoted to Djuna, and she was, in her own way, very fond of me’ 

(I love that – ‘devoted to Djuna’). Barnes had just written The Antiphon and was asking Janet for her thoughts. Janet confessed that she couldn’t understand it.

‘Oh Janet,’ Djuna responded. ‘I never thought you would be as stupid as Tom Eliot.’

Janet acknowledged that it was one of the best compliments she had ever received. In 1928 she was immortalised with Solita as the journalists ‘Nip and Tuck’ in Djuna Barnes’ Ladies Almanack. 

Another typical Janet quote is her assessment of Picasso, who she teases for always taking the same route home from Montparnasse to Montmartre. Describing his conventionality when it comes to walking the city streets, she remarks:

‘You’d think for a mad modernist he’d change the route every once in a while!’

In her essential guide to the women of the era, The Women of the Left Bank, Shari Henstock writes that Janet, like her friend Natalie Barney, was a happy and optimistic person who wasn’t given to feelings of shame or depression about her sexuality (unlike say, Radclyffe Hall). This is something I love about Janet – she was fun loving and funny, with an effervescence that bubbles through in her writing and her recorded interviews. You can almost tell what an awesome woman she was just from the women who loved her – Solita Solano was one of the most fabulous (and beautiful) women on the Left Bank and the pair had a non-monogamous relationship for fifty years. Then there was Noel Murphy, an absolutely stunning singer from outside Paris.

Janet’s letters weren’t just about the arts and fun of the Parisian Left Bank experienced in La Rotonde, Select, La Coupole, Le Dome and Lipps. She was a very incisive and insightful recorder of the rise of fascism in Europe, and on the Spanish Civil War. She understood that dark clouds were gathering, and what those dark clouds meant for her world. Her reflections and analysis of what was happening in Europe and her adopted country make up some of her best letters. She was one of the last Americans to leave Paris, on a boat, and from her new home in New York she reported on the war and its aftermath – including the Nuremberg trials.

Returning to Paris after the war, Janet went on to cover the Suez Crisis, the Soviet Invasion of Hungary and the troubles in Algeria. Whatever was happening in the world, you could trust Janet would be there, bringing the world of the crisis to her readers with her incredibly personal and intelligent understanding.

Janet Flanner isn’t well known today and I wonder if that is partly because the medium that she was working in, journalism, can have a shorter shelf life than the novels, plays, poetry or visual art that her contemporaries were creating. On top of the fact that our cultural legacy favours the male creators of the Left Bank over its women, it is perhaps of little surprise that Janet is not a household name. But throughout her career her letters were loved and cherished by thousands. She was made a Knight of Legion D’Honneur and awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Smith College.

When you look through her letters from Paris, Janet’s voice sings out as clear as a bell, despite the eight decades separating our time and hers. When you read ‘Genet’, you feel you are sat there, beside her at Les Deux Magots, as she updates you on who has published what and who is rivalling with who. She opens up a half forgotten world to you, until you can smell the sweat and excitement at the Moulin Rouge, until the wails at Isadora Duncan’s funeral are ringing in your ears.

You can read a selection of Janet’s letters in the Virago collection Paris was Yesterday. Whether you are interested in 1920s Paris, women’s history, or just want to read some damn fine journalism, I cannot recommend Janet Flanner enough.

Cheers, Janet. 

Sexual assault and why it's not me who should feel shame

Last weekend, my best friend and I met for brunch at a little ‘pop up’ place in Bristol where there’s a café and a bar and a shared portakabin of toilets grouped together. It’s a lovely spot, and a real example of Bristol creative entrepreneurship. I spent a great deal of time there last summer, as really this bar is best enjoyed under the hot, hot sun.

My friend and I were talking and she said she needed to go to the loo. I told her then that when I was here last year, this guy followed me to the toilets and tried to kiss me. Confused and angry, I pushed him away and told him he was in the wrong toilets. He laughed, and shrugged, and went away.

‘Was he embarrassed?’ my friend asked, even though she knew the answer.

‘No, of course not. I was embarrassed.’

‘These guys, they just think, well it’s worth a shot, and then don’t give it another thought, do they?’ she said.

‘Right. And there I was, feeling embarrassed, and ashamed. And he had no idea about how he had made me feel. And even if he did have an idea, he simply didn’t care.’

I’d met this man a few times over the weeks I was going to the bar. There were always lots of people around, and he was friendly and chatty, and because when the sun comes out I feel friendly and chatty too, we had talked a little bit – nothing much, just a ‘isn’t this great! What a lovely venue! What lovely weather!’ I was just being friendly, and I thought he was just being friendly too.

So when I found him in the toilets, it was a bit of a shock. And then, afterwards, I found myself reviewing all my actions. Had the fact I was chatting to him given the impression that I was looking for something more? Had the fact I’d said hello given that impression? Was it my general summery breezy attitude that suggested I wanted something else? I kept asking what I had done, to provoke this man into doing what he did.

When, of course, it was what he had done that was the problem. It was him that had behaved badly, not me. So why was I the one feeling embarrassed? Why was I the one feeling like I didn’t really want to go back to the bar again, in case I saw him again, and felt awkward? Why did I feel ashamed, and like I had done something wrong, when all I had done was follow the rules that a woman should be ‘nice’ and welcoming, and he had broken all of the rules and chosen to come into the women’s toilets?

On a rational level, I knew that it wasn’t my actions that had caused this. And yet, I was the one who felt in the wrong. I was the one who felt I had ‘led him on’ by being friendly and this was the result.

It’s no surprise I felt like this. After all, this is a message women and girls get bombarded with every day.

It’s one of the great contradictions in our skewed up attitude towards sexual assault. On the one hand, we teach girls from an early age that the most important thing is to be ‘nice’. We tell them that to be argumentative, confrontational, to stand up for oneself, is ‘unladylike’. And the message is that this is especially true in women’s relations to men. It’s why I have, in the past, found myself talking to men I really don’t want to talk to, because to tell him to go away, that I’ve got better things to do with my time than talk to them, is to transgress the rule that women must be ‘nice’ and ‘accommodating.’

At the same time, we tell women that if they talk to a man, and he then assaults her, then she is to blame. We ask women what they did to ‘provoke’ the assault. We ask whether she ‘led him on’, whether she led him to believe through her behaviour that she was ‘up for it’. We don’t talk about his behaviour. We don’t talk about the fact that talking to a woman isn’t a ‘free pass’. We tell women to be nice, and then we tell her that her niceness ‘led him on’. We find a way to blame her for any violence committed against her. It’s a pretty horrendous and dangerous double bind.

In the Guardian last month, there was an article by David Foster saying that projects like Everyday Sexism, and campaigns against street harassment, are trying to destroy flirting. It was the usual bluster that seemed to miss the crucial difference between mutual flirting, and harassment and assault.

No-where in the article did it consider how women felt. No-where did it consider that one of the consequences of experiencing harassment and assault is that it might make women feel a bit wary of a man flirting with her. Nor did it consider that if that is the case, then that’s not the fault of Everyday Sexism. It’s the fault of men who choose to harass and assault women.

My experience last summer means that now, when a man I don’t know is friendly and wants to talk to me, I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to joke about the weather or the music. I don’t want to fulfil my expected role of being ‘nice’ and receptive to a man’s attentions. Because I don’t want to risk another man deciding it’s an invitation. I don’t want to be put in the position – again – where me being nice results in me being assaulted, or nearly assaulted.

After all, this isn’t the first time this has happened. And I would prefer it to be the last.

It’s so messed up that I have been the one to feel shame and embarrassment  whenever incidents like this happen. That it’s me that is left to question my actions, whilst the men just don’t seem to care. It’s not ok that it was me who felt like I shouldn’t go back to the bar (I did, the following week, and I told my friend what had happened, a bit embarrassed, in case he thought I was over-reacting). It’s not ok that I was made to feel like that, because I hadn’t done anything wrong.

And it’s not ok that because of the actions of a minority of men, I feel like I have to change my behaviour. It’s not ok that because of the actions of a few men, I no longer feel happy or comfortable talking to men I don’t know.

Summer is nearly here, and I’m sure I’ll be back at the bar, wearing a summer dress with a pint of beer in my hand. But this time, I’ll just talk to my friends. And if any man tries to talk to me, I won’t care if he thinks I’m unfriendly, if he thinks I’m ‘not nice’. Because it’s not my fault that past consequences of being friendly have been painful.

The next time a male journalist or man on the street moans about feminism killing flirting, perhaps they should lay the blame in the right place. Because if I don’t want to talk to you, it’s not because I’m a feminist. It’s because too many men have taught me that the consequences of being friendly are simply too nasty to risk.

Why I support the campaign for mother's names on marriage certificates

Marriage. Whenever I say the word in my head, I hear it in the voice of Peter Cook, as the vicar in the Princess Bride. Mawwiage.

Marriage has been hitting the feminist headlines in the last week, with campaigner Caroline Criado Perez raising awareness of how when one gets married, one’s father’s name, and not mother’s, is added to the certificate. It’s another example of how women’s lives are undermined and made invisible across our culture. It’s another example of the erasure of women from public life. It’s another example of state-sanctioned sexism. And it is a reminder of how, historically, marriage was the exchange of property (woman) between two men (father and groom).

Whatever my own personal feelings about marriage are, I support this campaign wholeheartedly. It is completely wrong that in 2014, the mother’s presence in her child’s life is deemed as insignificant, and that women’s roles are erased on the legal documents that have a lot of meaning – both emotional meaning, and practical.

However, as with any feminist campaign, this new effort to achieve some greater marriage equality has been met with criticism. One criticism is that this is a trivial matter compared with other, bigger issues threatening women’s equality today. Other criticism is that rather than changing components of marriage, we should be focusing on overthrowing the institution of marriage itself.

Let’s deal with the first criticism first – that this is a trivial issue. To that, I refer you to the minutes of the International Feminist Committee meeting on January 1st, when we all agreed that the ONE campaign we would focus on this year would be mother’s names on…oh wait what? Did that meeting not happen? Is there no such thing as the Feminist Committee? And it is in fact possible to campaign on more than one issue at once, both as a movement and as an individual? Well knock me down with a swan feather from a bridal head dress.

Of course there are other issues facing women and feminists today. And of course feminists are able to campaign on both this issue and other issues at the same time. But we also need to think about how so many of issues around women’s inequality in a patriarchal society are linked. For example – the erasing of women on legal documents is linked to the general dismissing of women’s lives, the efforts to push women from the public back into the domestic sphere, and the overwhelming issues around women’s representation in public life. It’s all connected, and that’s why these ‘small’ battles are important. They create movement towards wider change, bigger change. It’s not ok that mothers are erased from marriage certificates because it is not ok that women’s contributions are ignored and undervalued. It is not ok that the state still colludes in this kind of sexism, and when they're questioned about it, they answer with a shrug of ‘tradition’. In short, this campaign’s aim has meaning and life beyond the immediate question of marriage certificates. It speaks to our battle to improve women’s representation.

The next criticism is that rather than trying to change marriage, we should do away with marriage all together.

I do have sympathy for this position, as someone who has always been rather ambivalent about marriage. But I also think it’s not going to happen any time soon, really, is it? And to many, many people, marriage means something important. There are arguments to be made about demolishing structures, but there also arguments to be made for taking those structures and campaigning for change within them. That is what this battle is about. It’s recognising the historic problems of marriage in the UK, pointing to where those problems still exist, and taking action to change it.

Similar arguments were mooted during the equal marriage campaign – that it was a distraction for lesbian and gay people to campaign to get married, that marriage was problematic and should be rejected. Again, although I have sympathy with the argument against marriage as a patriarchal institution that has caused very real harm to women for centuries, the arguments made by some people against gay marriage really upset me. Why? Because I felt that often they ignored the reality of many people who had experienced state-sanctioned homophobia, and campaigned against it (I should emphasise that this was not the attitude of all activists who argued against equal marriage on these grounds, just some of them). I grew up experiencing the impact of institutionalised homophobia, from having gay parents under section 28, to the impact on women I know of banning gay people in the military. Throughout my childhood, I grew up under a legal system that actively defended its right to blatantly discriminate against LGBT people and encouraged that discrimination. I grew up knowing what it was like for the state and society to deem your family to be ‘wrong’.

To me, the campaign for equal marriage was about challenging state-sanctioned homophobia, the continued insistence by the state to deem gay relationships as ‘second class’, and all the baggage that comes with that. That really matters. For the state to say that it would no longer accept this specific example institutionalised homophobia - this was an important step. Because whether you believe marriage is a damaging patriarchal system, or an expression of your love to your partner, it’s what we’ve got. And as long as we have it, I believe we can and should campaign to make it more equal.

Just as the exclusion of lesbian, gay and bi people from marriage was an expression of state-sanctioned homophobia, the refusal to allow mothers to sign their names on marriage certificates is an expression of state-sanctioned sexism. I want to tackle such sexism wherever I find it, even if it is in institutions I find problematic. And that’s why, as an unmarried, un-engaged, not-sure-what-my-plans-are woman, I support this campaign.

Sign the petition.

Street Harassment - a response to Paris Lees in Vice

It started when I was a schoolgirl. Standing alone at the bus stop, after my after-school dance class, in my school uniform. Then, the beeping horns would begin. Beep. Honk. Beep. Grown men, adult men, honking their ‘appreciation’ of a girl-child in school uniform. 

The first time I remember it getting violent was when I was about 16 or 17. I was walking down my road as a group of lads followed me, threatening to rape me in the ass. 

A trip to Paris where I was groped insistently on the Metro. Flashers in Farringdon. The men who screamed ‘give me a fucking blowie’ in my face. The men who chanted ‘bitch’ at me as I walked down the street when I didn’t oblige them by ‘dropping my knickers’. The men who pretended to mug me for a laugh. The man who grabbed me and tried to stick his tongue down my throat on the bus. The man who grabbed me and did stick his tongue down my throat in the club.

They’re all part of the dreary, depressing litany of shout, bitches, cunts, gropes, insults, threats that make up the pattern of street harassment that has been the wallpaper of my life and of every woman’s life that I know. 

Today I read Paris Lees’ Vice article about how she enjoys catcalls and wolf whistles, and I felt compelled to respond. This isn’t an attack on Paris – for the record I admire her hugely for her activism and for her writing. But I do want to challenge some of what she has written, based on my own experience of harassment. 

In the article, Paris argues that she enjoys getting wolf-whistled, that cat calling is a compliment, (‘One woman who emailed me in response to an enquiry I put out on Facebook[…]takes catcalling as a compliment, too’) although she does recognise that not all women feel that way, and that there is a power imbalance at play. She also differentiates between what she considers a compliment, and harassment – the latter being the more violent stuff, the former being called ‘princess’ or ‘hey beautiful’. 

To me, there isn’t a differentiation. Catcalling, wolf whistling, street harassment – whatever you want to call it – can never be to me, a compliment. 

Why? Because, sorry to say, but those guys that yell at you on the street? They’re rarely doing it because they think you are so stunning, so gorgeous, so super hot, that they can’t resist expressing that appreciation. 

They shout and whistle at you because it’s an expression of power. 

These men aren’t ‘brave because they’re just there in broad daylight, shouting down the street.’ Harassment is deliberate assertion of power to exclude women from public space. 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 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.

Of course, I can understand why some women choose to define a whistle, a shout of ‘alright gorgeous’ as a compliment and I do not judge their decision to do so. After all, we live in a patriarchal society that values women by their ability to pass the patriarchal-fuckability test and we all have to do what we can to survive in that society. As Ellie Mae O’Hagan says in Paris’ piece:

'“One of the ways patriarchy sustains itself is by convincing women that their worth is determined by the approval of men along a strict set of terms. Getting wolf-whistled at is a small confirmation that a woman is meeting the terms patriarchy demands of her.”' 

We live in a society where women lack power, and one of the powers we are allowed is a certain kind of sexual power (but not too much! And only for a short amount of time!). To feel validated by male approval can feel powerful. But what happens when the catcalls stop? What happens when you no longer pass the test? What happens if catcalls were never about your ability to pass as hot, but actually about male power over women in public spaces? 

In her piece, Paris argues that telling women that catcalls and wolf whistling is harassment is:

‘part of a culture that infantilizes women and teaches them to be constantly afraid. I wasn’t brought up that way, and I don’t feel frightened when some spunky dude comes and talks to me. I hate this idea that all men are rapists-in-waiting and that all women are victims-in-waiting. It’s patronizing and doesn’t help anyone. Many women are sexual and like to look and feel and be seen sexual. I’m one of those women.’

I’m sorry, but this is when I lost my temper. 

Not enjoying street harassment is not perpetuating a culture that teaches women to be constantly afraid. Not smiling and nodding along to catcalls does not infantilize women. In fact, I would argue the opposite is true. Living in a culture where a manifestation of inequality is men calling you a bitch on the street – THAT is what teaches women to be afraid. Existing in a world where men have a sense of entitlement over women’s bodies, that teaches us to be afraid. The knowledge that we are not welcome, that our presence in public spaces could lead to harassment, assault, violence, is what makes us afraid. 

But more than that, who says we’re afraid anyway? Why can’t we just be angry? I’m fucking furious with the men who have abused me on the street. At the time, when I panic that they will follow me, that it won’t stop with shouting, then I feel fear. But after that, I feel rage.  And that rage spurs me on to expose the harassment, to not put up with it, to raise my voice against it. Speaking out about harassment, raising my voice against it, is, for me, an empowering act. It claims my space back. 

Saying women don’t have to accept catcalls as a compliment isn’t casting us as a victim-in-waiting. It’s recognising that we have the right to live our lives free from hassle, free from shouts. We have the right to exist in public space. We are not passive objects to be commented on, to be judged by the shifting measure of the patriarchal fuckability test. 

And then we get to the sex comment. I too would consider myself to be a sexual woman. I too like to look and feel sexual, whatever that means. But to me, being told by a stranger that I’m ‘fit’ or by another stranger that he wants to ‘fuck me in the ass’ doesn’t make me feel sexually empowered.  It makes me feel disempowered, because I have been reminded once again that as a woman in public space, my body is no longer my own. It’s public property to be judged and approved or disapproved. That doesn’t make me feel sexy. It makes me feel worthless.

It feels like a real straw man argument to me, that accepting these compliments is part of being a sexual woman, with the implied judgement that those of us who rile against it are somehow 'non sexual'. But if the not wanting to be an object of the male gaze makes me uptight, then hell, I'm uptight. 

Moving on, we have the class argument, broached by Nichi Hodgson, who is quoted in the piece:

‘“There’s a sense of being sullied if an uncouth or lower-class kind of man—a white-van man, for example—heckles. But if it's a Roger Sterling type who can just about pull it off with a certain retro-sexist panache, the offense isn't experienced the same.”’

Well, I call bullshit on that one. I’ve been flashed by middle class university students, my friends have been groped by posh city boys in posh city bars, I’ve been hassled by kids in tracksuits and by drunk hipsters and by old men and by teenagers and I have hated every single experience. I haven’t looked at the cut of a harasser’s suit and thought, ‘hey, he totally just degraded me but wow, he’s kind of cute’, and then looked at another harasser’s trackie bottoms and gone ‘well, how dare he! Can’t he see I’m middle class!’. 

To argue that women don’t like harassment because of class is just another way of silencing women’s experience. It’s the kind of things misogynists say below the line on CIF – that women don’t mind being harassed if they find the harasser attractive. They only don’t like it if he isn’t pretty. That ignores the experience of women like me who simply don’t want to be objectified in that way by anyone, at any time. What's more, it suggest that women who don't enjoy being harassed are somehow snobs exercising their class privilege. That we should just suck it up, or be accused of being classist. 

Paris and Nichi argue that it’s a misnomer to link sexual violence with wolf whistling and cat calling. Again, this seems like another straw man argument. Of course no one would argue that men who harass women on the street are all rapists. And no one is arguing that. But I agree with Kat Banyard’s assessment of street harassment in her book, The Equality Illusion. She argues that the culture of entitlement over women’s bodies – which leads to a man calling me a ‘fucking bitch’ because I didn’t respond to his ‘invitation’ to take me home that night – is part of a culture that denies women their right to their bodily autonomy. Again, it’s about who has power in public space. Put simply, we live in a rape culture, and street harassment is part of it. 

So, I’ve gone on now for nearly 2,000 words and I’d better stop. But I want to make one final point before I finish. 

My views on street harassment are not to deny that Paris and other women truly do find it complimentary and feel affirmed by catcalls and wolf whistles. That is their experience. As I said before, I will not judge any woman on how they choose to define their experience. Although, as earlier, I would urge caution about what that kind of validity means, and what happens when it’s gone. 

But for so many women I know, and for myself, the experience is very different. I tried to explain how harassment made me feel in this post, back in 2012: 

‘But what he didn’t understand, what he didn’t know, is that as soon as a strange man starts shouting things at me on the street, I feel scared. I feel scared because since I was 15 I haven’t known whether that shout will be safe or not. Will it be someone just saying I look nice? Or will it be someone screaming that I’m a fucking bitch for ignoring them, or someone yelling that they’re going to follow me and rape me in the ass, or that I’m a cunt, or that I’m a bitch who needs to drop her knickers, or that I need to stop walking and give him a fucking blowie. I don’t know and so as soon as that voice is raised I can’t take the chance that it’s going to be a well-meaning compliment.’ 

I have grown up with street harassment. Since I was 14 I have lived with men beeping horns, grabbing my ass, calling me ‘beautiful’ and then calling me a ‘bitch’ for not responding, telling me what they want to do to me, what they want me to do to them. I have never felt like I’ve had a choice about being randomly objectified, or had a choice about how I respond to it, because in patriarchy every response is the wrong one. Fight back? You’re an angry, ungrateful feminist. Ignore it? You’re a bitch. Respond positively? You’re a slut.

Street harassment can be triggering, it can be frightening and it can be intimidating. And it makes me angry. I have a right to my experience of street harassment, just as Paris has a right to hers. And my response to it doesn’t make me uptight, or classist, or a victim. It is my response. 

Happy World Book Day! Buy my Book!

It's World Book Day! 

What a week. First pancake day, today World Book Day, Saturday is International Women's Day - all my favourite days in one week! 

But today has a special place in my heart as it is my first World Book Day as a published author. Woohoo! 

Yes, that's right, the first World Book Day since my debut novel, Greta and Boris: A Daring Rescue was published by Our Street books. 

So if you fancy treating yourself to a fabulous read, I would heartily recommend you get yourself a copy toot sweet. 

But what's it about, I hear you ask!

Well, it's about a girl called Greta. On the first day of the summer holidays, she wakes up to find her cat, Boris, has been kidnapped by the Rat King. Why? Because Boris is no ordinary cat. He is the Prince of Cats! 

The Kingdom of Cats know that Greta is the only person in the world who can rescue Boris, as she loves him more than any other living thing. But they also know she can't do it alone. So they send their bravest warrior, Kyrie, to help her on her journey. Together, the pair go on a magical adventure to rescue Boris from the Rat King's clutches. They climb the staircase of autumn leaves, cross the Milky Sea, end the war between the mice tribes and face the terror of the millpond of truth. 

Sounds good huh? 

Here's an excerpt to get you hooked: 

Swish, swish, was the sound that broke into the stillness of the night. Swish, swish, accompanied with scampering and scratching of claws and paws, rushing forward through grass and fallen leaves towards the palace. And if anyone had been awake to hear it, they would have heard that each scurrying paw-step was landing in time, in the rhythm of a march. A soft thud, thud, swish, swish, echoed through the sleepy kingdom, as only the moon looked down on the onward journey of an army that didn’t want to be seen.

The cats slept on, oblivious to the menace that was slowly surrounding them.

The pack of marching creatures started to head up the hill where the palace stood, imposing and magnificent. In the moonlight, the towering building looked even more beautiful and impressive. The rainbow-colored tiles glistened like tiny fairy lights, a blinding spectacle that illuminated the hills and villages below it. The army continued to advance. As the moonlight reflected off their furry backs, it became increasingly obvious which creatures of the animal kingdom were threatening the peaceful palace of the cats. And there could be no doubt at all, when one of the marching many kicked a stone and let loose a wild and pained ‘SQUEAK!’ before hastily being seen to and told off by the leader of the procession.

The moon could see the horrible truth below her now, yet from her lofty place in the sky was powerless to stop it. It was an army of rats. The rats had invaded the Kingdom of Cats. Under the cover of darkness, safe in the knowledge that every kitten, tom and queen would be sleeping soundly, they had made their cowardly advance, confident that no-one would be able to stop them.

I like it, but I wrote it. What do other people think? Well, journalist, broadcaster and writer Bidisha is a fan. She liked it so much, she wrote:

Greta and Boris is touching, exciting, cheeky and vivid, with wonderful characters, a strong narrative and sudden delightful details. It is an adventure that is both heartstopping and heartmelting, at once sentimental and comfortingly predictable. The story's sprinkled with sparkling details, with each location fully realised and a joy to traverse.

So, what are you waiting for? Treat yourself this World Book Day with a fabulous, feminist, fantastic, feline adventure. It's got cats, it's got peril and - most importantly of all - it's got two feisty female leads who will inspire your daughters and your sons. 

Buy now from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones, Blackwells, or download it for your Kindle. 

And one more thing...

Today is my friend's first World Book Day as a published author too! What's more, he's my publisher stable mate. So if a Dantean journey through Victorian London is more your thing this World Book Day, and you're a lover of beautifully written Gothic horror with a political edge, get yourself a copy of Ben Gwalchmai's Purefinder. Look, I reviewed it, so you know it's good.