I Can't Fly

Still can't bear PETA though

2008-08-18T15:35:00.003Z

In January this year, nearly a year after writing this-post (clearly, my 'ding' moments need that long to become my 'doing' moments), I eliminated animal products from my diet. I loved the taste of meat and cheese and fish and eggs and thought I'd miss them - I haven't. I also loved being able to dine out anywhere I wanted and thought I'd miss that - I don't. In fact, my love of eating out has been replaced by a love of cooking. I never thought I'd love cooking. I am even drooling over large kitchens on the telly. I LOVE COOKING AND I WANT A BIG KITCHEN!

I can't believe this is me saying it.

And I can't believe I ever thought anyone was impressed with my macho posturings when ordering steak: 'Blue please. Oh just bring the cow.'

Ah, the journey of life. From being an arse to becoming ever so slightly less of an arse.

Trans activism online

2008-08-13T16:59:00.014Z

I've just deleted a post I wrote yesterday because it was snarky. I hope no one read it because, well, because it was just snarky.

It was born out of concerns for what seems to be a huge chasm amongst feminists. I have no idea whether or not this is also happening offline, as I rarely encounter feminism offline unless I make the effort to go to a feminist meeting. I rant in pubs, but that's just ranting.

I am hugely concerned that women are being divided into two camps - pro trans and anti trans. This is ridiculous and totally missing the mark. Many feminists believe that the pressure of gender assignment has negative effects on every individual. I do not believe that one is born 'feeling' like a gender that jars with their body. Perhaps, as someone at the F Word posted, this makes me arrogant. But if I 'felt like a man', then there would be nothing to stop me living as one, except for societal prejudice against effeminate men or extremely 'butch' lesbians with realistic strap-ons. That is not something unchangeable. In fact, societal attitudes are the very things that need to change.

The thing is, I don't know what feeling like a man would be because I'm not one, and just because I'm an entitled, selfish, lazy, egocentric person, who isn't good at expressing their feelings, can parallel park, hates shopping and only has eyes for everyone with a pulse doesn't mean I have to rethink my body. Even in some sexual fantasies of mine I have a penis. It still doesn't mean I need to change my outer shell. It just means I have fantasies that involve me with a dick.

I am worried that the feminist movement is becoming preoccupied with trans politics, and the trans activists themselves do not seem to be reciprocating the support for women born women that they want us to provide for them. This is probably only on the internet, but I haven't seen many trans women who are concerned with women as a group - only trans gender issues.

Feminism should of course take all gender issues very seriously, and they do, but there are other things we are fighting for and against, too. If 'ciswomen' and trans women are to be allies, then it can not all be about trans issues. There needs to be some give and take and understanding of the needs of all women.

At the moment, all I am seeing is women being divided. There are those who think that the suffering of men who believe/ed themselves to be in the wrong body, should be discussed over and above other feminist issues that some trans women do not seem as bothered by. Abortion rights for example. Yes, trans women are subject to oppression and they have exactly the same resources to combat this as women have always had. (Ie not much! Make do!)

I am totally not of the opinion that trans people have it worse than women born women. Different issues - not worse.

I also find it interesting that the all the trans women I have read online support the sex industry. (Please, if a trans woman thinks the sex industry is harmful to women, let me know. I would appreciate your input.) I worry that some men transition to a female body in order to partake in the sex object role, which they may see as more powerful than their previous incarnation as a male - particularly if sex was a very big part of their lives and as a male they felt disempowered by it.

I just thought I'm going to get some angry comments about that last bit but I'll leave it there anyway. For now.

I hope women can make peace. Sometimes it seems as if women enjoy sparring. Well, we are all human beings, and we seem to make a mess of most things.

Focus people. It's not all about the male born.

Genesis: Does the bible depict the origin of patriarchy?

2008-08-05T10:23:00.003Z

I've had this theory in my head for a while now, so I thought I'd try writing it down to see how it looks. This will probably be too brief to make sense but I'm too lazy to make an essay out of it.

In Genesis, the garden of Eden is depicted as a perfect world (apart from Adam getting to name everything) where Woman and Man ate fruit and were nice to each other and didn't eat their furry friends.

My theory is that this is an allegory for the world before patriarchy. There are various other representations in Greek mythology where women were revered because of their capacity to create life and men and women didn't know about how sexual intercourse actually worked. Intercourse was probably just one of the many fun things they found they could do with their bodies when they got stange urges.

In the garden of Eden was 'The Tree of Knowledge' and Eve goes against God's wishes and eats from it. The snake tells her to.* Eve then shares the apple with Adam. This could allude to the discovery of how babies are made. Women probably did know before men and shared that knowledge with them.

Men, I believe, were a bit put out by it all, what with their previous reverence for women's amazing gift. They were producing life too and wanted some sort of credit for it. This could be what is meant by the 'Fall of Man', and the Original Sin was rape. Wars and all sorts would follow, with men trying to prove their fertility to other men and stealing their women.

God tells Adam and Eve that they will suffer for their knowledge. He tells Eve that Adam now rules over her and she will have pain in childbirth. All children will be born 'in sin'. In my interpretation, this means all children will be born into patriarchy, into a system characterized by domination and ownership instead of peace and respect. All children are now a product of the original sin and are all affected by it, as they are to be a part of this system from birth.

Adam and Eve are thrown out of Eden and that was that. They no longer lived the life God had intented. And it was all Eve's fault for opening her big mouth. No wait, it was the snake's fault. Well, whoever's fault it was, Adam was the victim. OK?

If you are a Christian, you will believe that Jesus came and tried to sort this shit out, to teach everyone about freedom from sin. He certainly preached against hierarchy of any sort, and appeared to be some kind of pro-feminist. So it should be obvious to you that the Second Coming will be in the form of a Radical Feminist Lesbian.

You heard it here first.

*I'm not sure how the snake fits into my theory; maybe it's some phallic symbol regarding the new understanding of penile function. This whole story was most likely concocted my men and they clearly thought a snake was the creature that most resembled their man bits. As opposed to, say, an earthworm.

Creative uses of the word 'significant'

2008-06-22T12:37:00.002Z

http://news.smh.com.au/national/no-real-harm-to-rape-victim-court-told-20080620-2tzb.html

Mr Haesler also said the 18-year sentence was manifestly excessive.
"The Gosling Park incident appears to take place over less than one hour," he told the court.
"There was no significant harm caused to the complainant. No significant physical injury."

I'm so pleased we can now use the word 'significant' in this way. I plan on thinking of many highly insignificant ways of harming a particular barrister. As long as it lasts for under an hour he couldn't possibly have a case against me.

Well, they couldn't have just called it 'Agents' now could they?

2008-06-22T12:19:00.004Z

Stop men from buying sex from women and children

2008-03-31T12:19:00.002Z

Millions of women and children in the UK are abused to satisfy many men's desire for 'sex'.

Prostitution affects how men view all women.

The average age of entry into prostitution is 13.

90% of prostituted women want to exit immediately.

All women and children have the right NOT to be prostituted.

Please visit this-page to see what you can do.

But women are the worst when it comes to criticizing women

2008-03-18T10:09:00.002Z

I don't think this statement is true (I've personally heard men say bloody awful things), but many women certainly do seem to police each others' appearance and behaviour - weight gain, weight loss, skirt too short, drinks too much - in such a way that men like to notice and point it out.

To me, this is symptomatic of an oppressed group. Low-level employees in a work environment, for example, will often focus on each other; how are they getting ahead? Are they making us all look bad? Why are they getting special treatment? Oh good, they've done that wrong too so I don't feel such a failure. Should I be different somehow?

And on. When the boss is out of earshot in a social environment, he/she will be the butt of jokes, slagged off and complained about. Some real and important issues will often arise, and there will be a sense of bonding between the employees with the boss absent.

When women relax and bond with each other in this way, complaints/jokes about male partners will regularly come into conversation, and there is usually much in common: He doesn't listen, he doesn't do enough, he doesn't empathise with me etc.

A lot of women don't realise that whilst in a way they are complaining about their individual partners, they are actually recognizing a pattern of behaviour in men that is inevitable in patriarchal society, where things are skewed in favour of men (although how much this benefits men is questionable) and so they feel disinclined to alter their behaviour & appearance. Therefore, women must change themselves if they feel something is wrong.

Best not question the 'boss', ie male-dominated society.

There are patterns of behaviour in women under patriarchy too, like policing each others' behaviour and appearance.

Round and round we go.

Thus, nothing short of a revolution is going to get rid of Heat magazine.

Should there by a law against deliberate stupidity?

2008-01-22T11:56:00.000Z

Here are a few choice comments on Catherine Bennett's article - Why-do-so-many-men-think-the-sex-trade-is-fine?

"It's genetics I'm afraid. Men have evolved to 'put it about' and women have evolved to withhold their favours. It's so blindingly obvious that it's amazing that otherwise-intelligent people could ever imagine that they could be the first to ban prostitution after its first million years of healthy existence."

"Banning prostitution because some street-walkers have been killed makes as much sense as banning taxis because some minicab drivers get killed."

"There are reliable reports of female chimpanzees accepting gifts of meat from males and reciprocating with sex"

"I just had sex with my wife, after agreeing to carry on with my marathon "fitting tiny LEDs in dolls houses" project. Three daughters, three dolls houses... But I wonder if this sequence of events, which wasnt' a contractual agreement per se, rather just part of the normal give and take of any relationship, might be illegal soon?
It's not just cash changing hands they want to criminalise lads - read the small print. *ANYTHING* that might have value...
Ever offered a dirty weekends in Paris? You're going down!"

"Do we ban driving because one petrolhead speeding kills pedestrians?"

"I feel, and it seems very cold of the feminist movement to be doing this, that they aren't talking enough about what could have been done to stop these women being killed and too much about the 'problem' of prostitution. If you have so much care for your fellow woman then looking at what to do to prevent this happening again is a good place to start. "

"I would love to work as a male prostitute offering my services to paying women. Sadly, I'm just not good looking enough."

"If this murderer had instead murdered 5 office workers, would that mean that you would be in favour of prohibiting women from working in offices? What nonsense."

"Men, however, must convince women to have sex with them. They must work hard at it, seduce, charm, impress with their `attributes`. Women choose, men are chosen.
There's a new, booming industry dedicated to seduction that is fuelled by desperate men who find it hard to connect with females."

"On my meetings with "paid-for-companions", I always make it clear that I dont want Her to do anything that she is not 100% comfortable with. Often, at the start of our date I challenge my companion to say "No" or to indicate dissent at some point, just to test me."

"Payment makes no difference, it is still two consenting adults. I would have commented on that, but could not be bothered."

"As for the viewing female as `people` comment, I think a lot of these men do. Doesn't mean they get anywhere."

Ahem. Please, if we cannot criminalise men who buy sex, can we at least criminalise them for disingenuousness?

Well, they're either that or they really cannot see women as human.

Even if they try.

Feminism is responsible for all of society's ills

2008-01-10T06:23:00.001Z

1: Divorce
Before women were able to divorce their husbands, none of them did. But when you give women choices, they make them. Nowadays, a woman may be able to leave if her husband strikes her, mistreats her, is unfaithful, lies all the time, or is simply unsatisfactory in any department. Feminism is therefore directly to blame for the breakdown of marriage.

2: Ladette culture
Before ladies were allowed in pubs, none went in (with the exception of ‘ladies of the night’, naturally). A woman was obligated to keep the gentlemen’s drinking habits in check, usually by ‘nagging’. Nowadays, young women have many of the same choices as young men, and almost as many will get drunk, frequently. Sometimes men will ‘ask them nicely not to’. It’s almost as if men and women are the same species. Feminism is therefore directly to blame for young women imitating, rather than curtailing, the drinking habits of young men.

3: Rape
Rape used to be a crime committed by a man against another man’s wife/daughter/sister/niece. Now, it’s considered to be a crime against a woman. No wonder reports of rape have risen. The definition of rape has changed so much it can even be applied to a man who coerces a woman he knows, into sex she doesn’t want. Rape in marriage was invented by feminists as recently as the 1990’s and can be cited as a case for divorce (see 1).

4: Trafficking for prostitution
Before women in the West had as many choices as they do now (which men kindly gave them without a single complaint), trafficking was rare. Now, because of feminism, women have to be coaxed into the sex industry. If that doesn’t work, they need to be forced into it, from poorer countries if needs be. Trafficking young women to meet the sexual demands of men would not exist if feminism hadn’t convinced many women that they were human beings.

5: Paedophilia
Feminists invented child sex-abuse by bringing it into the public consciousness. If it is on the increase, it’s because children aren’t as uppity as women corrupted by feminism. Feminists are also to blame for mothers being wary of strangers, which leads to child obesity.

6: Obesity
See 5.

7: Strain on NHS funds
Women have different bodily functions from men, which were pretty much ignored until feminism. Now, breast cancer screenings, pap smears and childbirth facilities are using up much of the public’s hard-earned cash, which could be going to none of those things. (Also, see 6.)

8: Teenage violence
Teenage behaviour is attributed to parental structure, and has nothing to do with wider culture. If the father is present, it is up to the mother to guide him as a parent. If the father is not present, it is up to the mother to bear all responsibility for every single thing that affects her child’s life. A feminist woman will expect a present father to interact with his son in a non-aggressive manner, which will lead to that son being bullied. It is also the fault of feminism to expect a non-present father to contribute anything at all. Feminism and single mothers are to blame for feminising boys to such an extent that they are called ‘faggots’ and get stabbed. Feminists are also to blame for encouraging war-games and introducing gun crime to the UK, although this is controversial and has yet to be proved.

9: Abortion
Since the appropriate stigma was removed from unmarried women who got themselves pregnant, many are open about their condition and some even seek advice from reputable medical establishments if they don’t want to go through with naturally painful childbirth. Feminism has even made this legal in some places. If a woman is pregnant it is her duty to bring forth life, whether she wants to or not. If the woman’s circumstances are due to rape, it is because feminists invented rape in the first place. (See 3.)

10: Single-parent families
(See 8 & 9)
Where the single parent is a father, this is an unfortunate by-product of feminism but also a man to be congratulated and treated like a hero.

Shooting fish in a barrel much?

2008-01-05T01:06:00.000Z

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=398998&in_page_id=1879

Ok, (by the way, this is not my substantial post) could anyone tell a friend of mine (via comments) who sent me this article in order to prove to me that feminism is croc, exactly why this article is quite simply pants? It's too feminism 101 for me to even begin. Someone out there may be more patient.

2008-01-05T00:52:00.000Z

Hello, if anyone reads this, I have been lurking about the blogs since my 'holiday'. I plan on doing a substantial post next week. This may or may not happen, but I thought I would give prior notice to anyone checking up. If the post appears, some of the points I may make are that many of the things some men blame feminism for are incorporated in the very things feminism is fighting against. Or, I may simply focus on the very topical issue of criminalising the purchase of 'sex'. I don't know. But I plan on saying something. I have much to say. Watch this space.

Break

2007-06-12T22:41:00.000Z

My blog is taking a little holiday. X

Infighting? I don't think so

2007-04-27T12:35:00.000Z

People who benefit from pornography have to work consistently, using every possible media, to persuade the general populace that it's all fine. Why? Because paying a person to allow the abuse* of her body, and offering more money the worse the abuse (and I'm talking about "consensual" porn here**) - all for the ENTERTAINMENT of men - goes against basic humanity. If you were suddenly dropped onto this planet from a place where society wasn't structured around dominance and oppression, it would be obvious.

That is why, when a group of people, no matter how tiny, point out the obvious, there are immediate attempts to dissipate it. That tiny group of people are right and that rightness could so easily spread because most people are humane. Porn can strip you of that humanity of course, so it is being marketed and normalised to younger and younger people - just in case that tiny group of people pointing out the obvious get in first.

There are very few radical feminists and anti-"sex industry" folk in this world, but they need to be attacked because they (we) are right. A new blog has suddenly appeared declaring radical feminists are more misogynistic than violent pornography, and has based this on utter lies about an anti-porn feminist forum (which I belong to so I know it's lies). That is so desperate it is almost funny. If it is trying to be a joke, it is certainly not funny.

You think that porn and prostitution are potentially ok and could even be liberating for women? You think you came to that conclusion with no input from people heavily invested in convincing you of this?

If you're "on the fence" dig a bit deeper into yourself.

It's obvious.

*I believe that allowing your body to be penetrated without your body and mind desiring it, is to allow the abuse of your body.

**As for rape/child/animal porn - well everyone knows that's wrong. Many pornographers themselves never tire of saying how wrong it is. Makes some porn look "good".

MAN: "...and anyway, I personally think women look a lot better without makeup..."

2007-04-27T11:27:00.000Z

It's terrible how in parts of Asia, lots of young women and men are having cosmetic eye surgery in order to give them a more Western appearance.

I mean, regardless of the pressures on systematically oppressed groups to further their social, political and economic position by emulating the dominant culture's definition of attractiveness, those slanty eyes are really cute! I LOVE slanty eyes.

Twisty Faster makes lots of sense...again

2007-04-25T10:27:00.000Z

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/04/24/why-merry-rapists-are-flocking-to-britain/

This is an absolutely brilliant post.

Hey, why can't anti-porn feminists and those who aren't so anti just forget their differences and get along?

Clue.

What feminism is really all about

2007-04-24T16:07:00.000Z

Sometimes I wear no make-up, and sometimes I wear lots of it, I grew out my leg hair then I shaved it off again, I like wearing skirts, I don't like anal sex but I do like being submissive and occasionally I like being dominant, I am not a vegetarian, I love fish-net hold-ups, I hate glitter, I can't dance, I think pole-dancing is ridiculous, I love flirting with men and women, I've just taken up knitting, I'm very lazy, I smoke and drink lots and enjoy it, I hate night clubs, I tend to stay out of "blog wars", I'm not mad about chocolate but I like the dark stuff, I'm always starting things I don't finish, I own a pair of red leather gloves, I'm bisexual, I can take or leave flowers, I enjoy being manually stimulated but I don't particularly like cunnilingus, I am slim and I weigh myself (8 1/2 stone at the moment), I like watching Deal or No Deal, I like my body, I have just dyed my hair red again, I like men who have an interesting dress sense, I love the "vamp" look and the "goth" look slightly less, I like Tori Amos, I, I, I, I, I............................................................................and anyone who has different opinions and tastes to mine hates me and is a big fat meanie, because feminism is all about meeeeeeeeeeeee! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(For anyone who doesn't know why I posted this...don't worry about it :) )

Rape and other fun and games

2007-04-18T09:16:00.000Z

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rapist-Number-1-Planet-Terror/dp/B000N3NU7O

Just when you thought toys couldn't get much worse, here's an action figure from the film Grindhouse.

Yes, an ACTION figure called "Rapist Number One". Oh good. For any boys secretly wanting to play with their sister's Bratz/Barbie dolls without appearing girly, they can get one of these and go about it in a more manly fashion.

It was only a matter of time. After all, promoting non-sexual violence in toyshops has been done to death. Where to go from here?

Gang rape box-set coming to Hamleys soon.

Just in case...

2007-03-29T09:19:00.000Z

...somebody who hasnt' seen this stumbles upon my blog. It deserves a repost. It is a report by a woman called Britta of an anti-porn conference at Wheelock college. From Heart

"I was at the [Pornography and Pop Culture — Reframing Theory, Rethinking Activism] conference from 9 am to 9 pm on Saturday, and 9 am to 3 pm on Sunday, and it was such an intense experience.
At the beginning of the conference, I was very interested but had no idea what I was getting into. Although I’ve been studying and living feminism for 10 years now, pornography was one feminist issue I had not studied much or thought much about. I naively thought it didn’t affect my life and therefore wasn’t relevant or necessary of my attention. I have been anti-porn for a while now, but only intuitively and mostly secretly. Most feminists I had come across, especially the ones close to my age (20s) are pro-porn (or at least, “pro free speech” to the point of being indifferent to porn) and are condescending to those of us who are against pornography - *especially* when someone, like me, is against porn because of her emotions and gut and has no educated, rational, research-backed reasons to give. Mostly I thought I’d better keep my mouth shut on the issue until I could defend my stance logically and intelligently. And yet, I never really got around to studying pornography, because I was too focused on what I thought were more pressing and relevant feminist issues.
Being at the conference was an amazing experience and I learned so much. For starters, I realized porn *is* relevant to my life - the industry is much bigger, and more connected to mainstream media, than I had realized. Also, the conference helped me understand and re-frame events from my childhood and adolescence. There were boys and men who sexually abused me, and debased women in general, and I now see that their attitudes, thoughts, and actions towards women were heavily influenced by pornography.The conference *did* give me rational, intelligent, research-backed arguments against pornography, but it also showed me that it’s also perfectly valid to oppose pornography because it makes my stomach hurt to see it, and that I’m not the only one who feels that way. After one particularly graphic, brutal, and disturbing slideshow presentation, the presenters invited anyone who felt so inclined to come up to a microphone and state how they were feeling. Dozens and dozens of women got up and spoke about how they were feeling deeply sad, full of rage, stupid, depressed, scared, and pained. Some women simply cried. I looked around, and plenty of women weren’t getting up to speak, but were sitting and crying, or clenching their fists, or holding onto each other tightly, or grimacing in pain. Before, I had worried that my emotional reaction to pornography was not a “good enough” reason to oppose it, but it was eye-opening to see *hundreds* of women having the same emotional response that I did… And our collective pain and trauma is certainly a good reason to oppose pornography. It’s even *enough* of a reason, regardless of those other rational, theory-based, research-backed reasons. How can anyone honestly believe/say that pornography is not harmful to women? We women, there in that room - and representing many, many other women who weren’t physically present with us - are clear proof that it DOES hurt women. It hurts US.
What was perhaps most shocking and eye-opening for me to learn was that violence in pornography is the norm, not the exception to the rule - previously, I had naively thought/hoped it was the latter. Robert Wosnitzer, Ana Bridges, and Michelle Chang gave a presentation on the research project they had done - analyzing the violence/aggression in 50 pornography films (selected randomly from a pool of the 275 most popular). Their research hasn’t yet been published so I’m not clear on whether or not I’m allowed to post the results of it here, the notes I took from their slides… but in summary, they counted over 3,000 acts of verbal and physical aggression in these 50 films, which averaged about 11 acts of aggression per scene. And 95% of the time, the recipient of the aggression (who was female 94% of the time) responded with neutrality or pleasure. They also searched for/analyzed *positive* behaviors in these 50 films, and found that positive behaviors were only present in 9.9% of scenes. There were about 2 caresses, 2 or 3 kisses, and about 5 compliments from a man to a woman. That is, they found that the most popular pornography films were overwhelmingly full of male aggression against women, and that positive behaviors from men were very, very rare.
I saw pornographic photos of women crying, grimacing in pain, screaming, wincing, and gritting their teeth in what’s supposed to be a smile but isn’t. I saw a naked woman on the floor, crying, with a toilet seat framing her face. Women tied, gagged, bound, hung up on walls, hanging from chains, bruised, and drenched in semen. What possible argument could anyone give in defense of this???
Even if it IS true that a very few women truly consent to allow men to do such things to them (in a patriarchal culture that offers constrained and fixed choices), Robert Jensen pointed out, it’s usually not possible to know *which* of the women a man is viewing has freely consented. And even if the specific woman he’s looking at freely consented, when he adds fuel to the pornography industry by buying/renting *any* porn DVD, it guarantees that more women will be hurt in the future.
And even IF (big hypothetical) the woman on the screen has consented to having 3 men simultaneously penetrate her vaginally, anally, and orally and then ejaculate into her eyes, even if she, herself, does not feel exploited, many, many women who see it DO feel violated, exploited, angry, and in pain. Do their/our feelings not count? There was a woman from the audience who stood at that microphone, crying, and spoke about feeling deep pain because she’ll never know if the man she’s having sex with loves her for who she is, or if he’s imagining her as a porn actress, wanting her to act like the women in his DVDs, and how *robbed* she feels because of that. Do her feelings and experiences not matter? What of the woman who stood in front of me, looked at me through tear-filled eyes, and told me that when a man raped her 5 years ago, gagging her with a pair of underwear and saying “I’ve always wanted to live out this fantasy,” she didn’t really understand it - until she saw that scene that day in the slideshow presentation? Does her experience not count?
Rebecca Whisnant gave a great presentation, comparing 2nd and 3rd wave feminists - 3rd wave feminism largely promotes individualism and choice, a “willful myopia to the effects of one’s choices in a broader culture of sexual dominance,” or, in the words of Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards in their book Manifesta, “Feminism isn’t about the choice you make, it’s about your freedom to make that choice.” This contrasts with the prevalent 2nd wave feminist knowledge that “women are a class, sharing a common condition,” and that the fate of one woman is tied to the fate of all women, whether she likes it or not. Thus, the question is not so much “Did she choose X?” as it is “Does X further the oppression of women as a whole?” In general, 2nd wave feminists embraced responsibility for the broader results of their personal choices…whereas 3rd wave feminists are so afraid of being seen as essentialist, and are “reluctant to speak in an assumed and potentially false solidarity.” But it’s not as simple as saying any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice, so long as she freely chooses it, for that ignores the effects our choices can have on *each other*.
Rachel Lloyd, herself a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation (her self-identifying words), and who has now worked with hundreds of domestically trafficked girls and women, spoke eloquently about the issue of consent. The average age of entry into the sex trade in the US is 13, and mostly girls of color, and girls growing up in poverty. MTV, and the pornified pop culture of today, primes girls, to the point where they start to objectify themselves and each other, to the point where it’s relatively easy for pimps and pornographers to approach a young girl and flatter her by telling her he “really sees something” in her and invite her to be in a video or photo shoot… That’s how it happened to Rachel. She went for what she thought was a straight modeling shoot, at age 14, and was taken an hour away, alone, to a man’s apartment, where he pulled out a collection of violent photos of naked women.
Many women who are prostituted, or do pornography, were sexually abused as children, are survivors of racism and/or poverty, were neglected or abandoned, ran away from oppressive situations and had no other options. Jenna Jameson, gang-raped as a teenager, was so desparate that when the pornographer she auditioned for told her she looked too young, she ran into the bathroom to take her braces off with a pair of pliers. Often women consent to do one specific sex act and the men coerce them into doing more, or they are tricked into it, or filmed secretly and against their will as they get undressed or go to the bathroom.
For all of these reasons, the issue of whether or not the women in porn “consent” to it is rather irrelevant to me. Marilyn Frye’s essay, “In and Out of Harm’s Way,” (The Politics of Reality: essays in feminist theory, 1983) is a powerful analysis of how women come to a place of seeming to consent to men controlling and abusing them, through being systematically broken. For example, if a man brutally and ceaselessly tortures and humiliates you for a period of time then varies the torture slightly, decreasing its frequency or intensity, the woman is now in a world of “distorted moral proportion” where simply a lack of torture, or something like being allowed to pee when she needs to, can be interpreted by the woman as kindness. Melissa Farley describes this as “protective denial” - it’s common for women who are prostituted to say that they enjoy it and freely choose it and it’s going well, when what they mean is, “I haven’t been beat up today,” or “I haven’t lost all my money today.” You have to keep saying you love it, or you’ll die (spiritually, if not literally). Most women don’t fully realize the emotional impact of it all until they’re out of the industry. And of the 854 women, men, and transgendered people that she interviewed, who were involved in prostitution, 68% of them had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Those who had pornography made of them while being prostituted had significantly more severe symptoms of PTSD than those who had not had pornography made of them. Pornography is worse in the sense that it stays forever - there’s no way to ever close the door to that traumatic experience.
Could anyone honestly say there’s no connection between the messages men absorb (as well as create and promote) through pornography, and the way men treat the women in their daily lives? As Gail Dines and others pointed out, progressive, leftist people argue *all the time* that media influences people and that “mass media is one site where the dominant class attempts to create and impose definitions and explanations of the world.” (Pornography is a left issue, by Gail Dines and Robert Jensen, ZNet Dec. 2005). So why the insistence that pornography is exempt from that analysis, and that it doesn’t (or even, might not) promote violence and sexism??
Patriarchy makes loads more sense to me now. The pornography industry makes $12 billion dollars a year, which is $3 billion more than mainstream movies earn annually, so it’s clearly a HUGE industry - e.g. just ONE child porn site, recently shut down, had 70,000 men who paid $29.95 a month for it. With that many men, consuming that much pornography - pornography that includes an average of 11 male acts of aggression against women per scene, with the women acting like they enjoy it 95% of the time… Is it any WONDER that men, as a whole, treat women like shit?? Why do progressive leftists accept that advertising influences people to act, but deny that pornography does (or that it’s advertising)?? PLEASE.
GodDAMN. I can’t think of a single damn pro-pornography argument that could possibly make any sense. Even if a tiny percentage of women consent… it doesn’t change the fact that many, many women do NOT, and it doesn’t change the fact that many, many women who see it feel horribly violated and degraded. Even if a tiny percentage of pornography is non-violent, it doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of it is violent and degrading, and that by supporting the porn industry at ALL, one is ensuring the future pain and degradation of more women. I don’t give a rat’s ass about men’s “right” to “free speech,” because as Robert Jensen re-iterated, free speech can’t exist without equality. How is men collecting $12 billion a year to literally choke and gag women and stuff their sorryass dicks down their throats “free speech”??? It’s quite literally PREVENTING *WOMEN’S* “free speech.” "
–Britta

Porn comes as standard

2007-03-19T10:20:00.000Z

Perhaps I am naive but I thought that to get porn on your mobile you had to, well, try. Seems I was wrong.

My phone broke recently and seeing as I was due for an upgrade anyway I went to my local Orange shop to get a new one. The guy asked what kind of phone I wanted and I said, "A free one that I can call and text people on preferably. I don't need any other stuff." He gave me a free Nokia which was a couple of grades up from my old one. You can't get new phones without cameras and bluetooth but I don't mind all that.

On the train to my mother's yesterday I was bored because I hadn't taken a paper, so I thought I'd browse my phone menu. One of the options is "Web" so I clicked on that. Having heard lots of stories about kids with porn on their phones, blue-toothing it to each other in class, I wondered how easy it would be to find some. It turns out you don't even have to look for it.

After clicking "Web" I clicked "Homepage", which was the first option, and then "TV & Video" which was the first option after that. Up came two pictures of naked women with ads for videos: "Thai Hotpot" and "Bikini Babes".

Shoving it in your face anyone? I scrolled down the main menu for TV & Video:

Top ten videos
TV shows
Music
Movies
Sport
Comedy
Cartoons
News & weather
Babes

Yeah, let's just slip "babes" in under the news & weather shall we?* So I clicked on it.
Two more naked women advertising their short films (£2 each) with text: "This housemaid loves to play around. Seems she is waiting for an audience", and "Watch sexy Susan get hot in the hallway", and "Watch me get red".

I don't know what "watch me get red" means. Maybe I should ask a ten year-old.

The categories below were:

Casino cuties
Hot housemaids
Best of the breast
Georgeous glamour babes
Girl of the week
Fhm & Zoo topless babes
Girls A-Z
Free alerts about new babe videos
Babes top ten
Sexy Collections

Each of these had around 10 sub-categories, and "Sexy Collections" had 17, including "Black beauties" and "Latino babes" (just in case anyone forgot that porn was racist as well as misogynist). Some of those sub-categories had sub-categories etc.

An underestimate would be that there are around 300-500 short "soft" porn videos on my phone. "Soft" meaning dehumanisation and degradation sans penis. I didn't acually check, what with not wanting to give my money to porn shits, but I assumed from the text used to advertise the films, and from the fact that "hardcore" porn would be too risky. Penises aren't suitable for children.

This kind of porn is NOT aimed at adult men who can easily go and buy some. It is clearly aimed at young boys who would then want to see some harder stuff or even, with the added bonus of their camera phone, create some harder stuff by bullying and blackmailing girls in the playground. Yes, it is happening (LINK). The porn companies are advertising themselves totally underhandedly - but what else is new?

Would the man in the shop have given me this phone if I was 12? Probably. He said nothing at all about what was on it. If he had I wouldn't have renewed my contract with Orange, which has been renewed for 18 months. I am angry that I am giving my money to a company that sells porn.

How many other people are unwittingly supporting the porn industry simply by owning a mobile phone?

I am stuck with this contract now. Is there any way out? Can I stop paying and take them to court?

Will porn soon come with everything we buy?

*Incidentally, I am a straight(ish) woman, so where's my "Blokes" category? I want me some beef! Oh yeah, silly me, men are people not entertainment.

Doh.

It's all about the menz here at I Can't Fly

2007-03-06T16:08:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxSADv2HVZI

This video is doing the rounds, and I too, want to pass it on. Fantastic and emotive poetry. First saw it at Newt in a Teacup (on blogroll). Cheers Newt!

Excellent post and comment thread - go read.

2007-03-06T15:59:00.000Z

http://martinhills.com/2007/03/02/rape/#comments

Penis

2007-03-05T04:21:00.000Z

Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=penis

Vagina

2007-03-05T03:49:00.000Z

I know that we've only been able to say this word out loud in recent history - which is progress of a sort - but since I discovered that the etymological origins of vagina meant "sheath" I've been niggled.

You see, this is what happens when men are allowed to develop language. We could have named our female attribute after words meaning 'life', or 'the beauty of birth', or 'passageway into the fullness of being', or 'warm, wet and wonderful guardian of the pleasure pearl of woman'.

But no. We get 'Penis-Cover'.

Thanks a lot.

What are the origins of 'penis' I wonder. Giver of life? Will look up etymology online and get back to you.

Personal message...

2007-03-05T03:10:00.000Z

... to the man who accused me of having no sense of humour. I am perfectly capable of laughing AT sexism. See the post below. I'm afraid the joke's on you.

Another imaginary pub conversation

2007-02-28T12:51:00.000Z

"The thing about women is, they're always trying to change you."

"Yeah, my wife nags me all the time. Not allowed to do this, not allowed to say that...."

"I know what you mean. Mine's always on at me to listen to her and be more considerate, and to stop making sexist remarks."

"God. What a castrating bitch."

"I got to try but it's bloody hard work. Why should we have to make all the effort?"

"Exactly. It's not as if there's an incentive like a few extra blow-jobs or something. Mine complains about me coming here with you lot but she's driven me to.....Hey! Check it out! Wouldn't mind having a go on her."

"Women aren't fair-ground rides you know. They're human beings."

"Oh shit mate. You're under the thumb."

Tuesday Cat Blogging

2007-02-27T16:15:00.000Z

Mrs Columbo & Ms Taki.

Because feminists' cat blogging has been irritating some MRAs, and that's as good a reason as any.

I love Columbo

2007-02-23T15:12:00.000Z

He be cute!

Britney

2007-02-20T09:37:00.000Z

Why is a woman shaving her head seen as self-mutilation, and a woman having invasive plastic surgery is not?

Answers on a postcard please...

How common is false accusation of rape?

2007-02-18T03:01:00.000Z

I put a somewhat baiting question on Yahoo answers. Some of the responses are rather disturbing if we are to view this as a representative question & answer site. If you have a Yahoo adress, please add your comment.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070215130044AAFEnQR

Radical feminism, porn and prostitution

2007-02-15T22:58:00.000Z

There seems to be some confusion about the terms "radical feminism" and "anti-porn feminism". They are not interchangeable. A radical feminist is anti-porn because she's a radical feminist. She is not a radical feminist because she's anti-porn.

Radical means root, and it is not possible to see pornography or prostitution as empowering women if you go to the root of the problem, which is the disempowerment of women through patriarchy. The disempowerment of women is the root cause of prostitution and pornography.

Our planet evolved through survival of the fittest; the strongest and most cooperative. Patriarchy invaded through dominance and combat, trying to twist evolution into survival of the most powerful/competitive. It is this that has caused the digression some scientists like to call "progress". In reality, patriarchy is destroying the Earth.

In this survival-of-the-most-powerful era, (which is estimated to be between 5 & 12 thousand years long/short) porn and prostitution have been marketed to women as empowering. More so now than ever, because less women are coerced through desperation. Many women who support these industries do feel empowered by it (and who doesn't want to be a survivor?), but this is at the expense of women in general.

The ability to buy women for sex was only made possible by disempowering women. This is still true.

Porn/prostitution is about as empowering for women as a chicken joining forces with humans to kill other chickens for human consumption (and maybe it's own consumption) is empowering for the chicken. In the end, there's nothing to stop the human eating that chicken. The chicken was never as empowered as it thought it was. In patriarchy, humans consume animals. In patriarchy, men consume women.

The hierarchy of "survival of the most powerful" is killing the planet and its inhabitants. Patriarchy is eating itself and most people are happy to go along with this for fear of conflict.

They aren't radical feminists.

From rapecrisis.org.uk The Verdict

2007-02-14T15:20:00.000Z

Through text message services the BBC are making money out of this show, and yet have refused to offer any donations to rape crisis groups. Please complain if you haven't already done so.

Bea has more links for complainers on her blog. Click on "Dead Men Don't Rape" in the list of blogs on the right. (You may need to scroll down to bottom of page if you can't see it.)

Justice For Women Statement on The Verdict
Another women's group has issued a statement on the BBC programme 'The Verdict'. Click to download the statement from Justice For Women and find out how you can also join your voice to the complaints already made. (Word doc)

Rape Crisis Advance Statement on “The Verdict” – 1pm Sunday 11th Jan.
Rape Crisis (England and Wales) are worried that the BBC are using a rape trial as entertainment even though they have placed it under its “Factual and Arts” category. Because they have refused to discuss this programme with us or let us see an advance copy (which they have given to other people) we have a range of concerns,
We do not understand why the BBC has refused to answer the questions that Rape Crisis and other women’s groups raised in advance of this show. We are particularly concerned that while they have asked barristers and the police for advice about the show, they have not found it necessary to talk with groups that support survivors. We believe that while this programme might increase awareness about what happens in court, it may also make women even less likely to report rape to the police. Most of the women who contact Rape Crisis Centres choose not to report to the police.

It is also very concerning to us that that licence fee money should be spent promoting the careers of people like Jeffrey Archer and Judge Dennison. Meanwhile, rape crisis centres are closed down every year because of a severe lack of funding. Our national branch, for example, exists on just £30,000 funding a year. How much did the programme cost to make? Are the celebrities getting paid to take part? We asked the programme makers (RDF television) to discuss with the BBC the possibility of making a donation to Rape Crisis groups but they came back and said they would make no donation. If they are asking people to register their mobile phone numbers for SIM updates does this not imply that they are making money out of the show?

We also have real concerns about Judge Dennison’s suitability for this show. For example will the audience be told that he previously sentenced a man to probation for a string of sex offences and that this man was able to go and commit further sex offences against children? (http://archive.thisishampshire.net/2000/12/22/80514.html)
And is this the same Judge Dennison who let a man walk free from the court after being found guilty of manslaughter of his wife and told him “you have suffered through no fault of your own …” ? (http://www.jfw.org.uk/ontrial.htm)
(for details of this and many other concerns about Judge Dennison scroll to the bottom of the following webpage - http://www.truthaboutrape.co.uk/4655.html )
Dr Nicole Westmarland, Chair of Rape Crisis (England and Wales) and rape expert at Durham University made the following comments:
“We really do not understand why the BBC has ignored the questions raised by Rape Crisis and other women’s organisations.”
“If money is being made out of text messaging, I think that this money should go to help fund rape crisis centres.”
To make a donation to Rape Crisis please e-mail info@rapecrisis.org.uk

Incredibly lazy blogging

2007-02-09T18:21:00.000Z

I love hairy women. I find it very natural and very attractive. Blokes I know feel the same so it's so sad that many women feel the need to conform with peers instead of giving the men what they want - curvy, natural and hairy instead of thin, cosmetic and hairless.Dan, Cambridge, UK

I found this comment here where comedian Shazia Mirza is speaking of her decision not to shave.

Anyone want to make a suggestion about why it pissed me off?

1 pt to you if you get it right
2pts to you if you make me think of another reason to be pissed off by it

Look! Snow! In London!

2007-02-08T12:19:00.000Z

I would go to the park with a sledge and sing Carly Simon at the top of my voice whilst hurtling down a hill at great speed but I haven't got a sledge. So I'm just gonna sit here and sulk.

You're So Vain

2007-02-08T12:06:00.000Z

You probably think this post is about you
You're so vain (you're so-wo vain)
I bet you think this post is about you, don't you, don't you, don't you?

Notes On A Scandal

2007-02-06T14:13:00.000Z

No, I'm not going to do a review of it, nor do I especially recommend it. (Anyone who wishes to explain what the hell that film was all about, why it got such good reviews, or indeed what the point of it was is warmly invited to do so in the comments section.) A trailer that came before it was what caught my attention.

Soon we are going to be graced with a film entitled "Becoming Jane". We have also had "Iris", "Sylvia", "Miss Potter" and "Frida". Who are these unassuming sweet-sounding ladies? They almost want exclamation marks by their names like on the front of lads mags.

Would we have a film entitled "Becoming Oscar"? Well, no, we already have a film about him - it's called "Wilde". We also have "Capote", "Pollock" and "Finding Neverland". Yes, that's "Finding Neverland", not "Mr Barrie".

So who decides not to call a film about a respected poet "Plath"? Why do they suppose it would put people off?

And on the other side of the coin, why would a film about Thomas Hardy entitled "Becoming Thomas" or "Mr Hardy" seem absurd? Perhaps those titles sound a bit disrespectful. A tad overfamiliar. Infantalizing even.

So does the film industry believe that in order to make a successful film about a gifted woman, they have to make her sound more like your cute little sister than someone to be revered? (Not that one shouldn't revere one's little sister, particularly if she's cute.) Would a film called "Austen" be deemed too threatening for people? Or is it just that it would sound boring?

After all "Austen" would sound like a film about a writer, and we don't want to see women in films about writing. We want to see women in films about sex, because, you know, women = sex. We want to see films where men treat clever women badly. We want to see talented women cry for a good half of their screen-time. Just like in "Sylvia". If I had watched that film not knowing who she was, I wouldn't have got the impression she was a prolific writer. Just an ordinary, put-upon, neurotic mess who also enjoyed baking.

So in calling the new film "Becoming Jane", the audience does not feel it has to respect the subject. It can just watch a vulnerable young girl getting into romantic scrapes. We don't have to know she wrote books or whatever it was the pretty young thing did in her spare time.

Break

2007-01-11T10:57:00.000Z

Off to Thailand for two weeks. Bye bye x

Fictional story that has nothing whatsoever to do with fox hunting

2007-01-08T13:55:00.001Z

I was talking to two French people in the pub and the one with the hat on said, "Well you know, the British love their fox hunting."

I was outraged!

"But...but, but I don't hunt foxes!" They looked at me like I was a bit stupid. "We never said you did hunt foxes."
"You said the British love their fox hunting!"
"I didn't actually mean every single British person," said the one with the hat on.
"Why didn't you say that some British people love their fox hunting then?"
"Umm, it didn't seem necessary. If I meant "all" I would have said "all". I just meant that fox hunting is mainly associated with Britain not that all Britons do it. Seemed obvious if you don't mind me saying."
"I happen to hate fox hunting actually."
"We never said you didn't," said the other French person, who was not wearing a hat, "So, do you protest against it?"
"No."
"Why not if you hate it so much?"
"It's not really an issue that affects me."
"It seems to upset you that we associate it with Britain."
"Of course it upsets me. I'm British. It's embarrassing that that's what people think of us!"
"Perhaps you should do something about it then?"
"It's really not my problem. I'm just saying that I don't hunt foxes and perhaps you should not think all British people hunt foxes. You're making all British people look bad."

They began to look quite frustrated at that point.

Nicking Dworkin off of Lucky

2007-01-04T02:43:00.000Z

Anyone who's anyone read this

Bed now.

2007-01-04T02:00:00.000Z

By the way, this blog is on American time and I am in Britain. Just in case anyone's confused. I have no idea how to change it.

Trying to adjust body clock by staying awake and blogging whilst drunk

2007-01-04T01:19:00.000Z

Ok, I think I've just added "From Anger to Activism" (Nectarine's blog) to my blogroll, but can't be sure. Anyway, she did a National Drogging while Blunk Day on the 29th Dec, and I'm hijacking the title for now. Whatever day this is.

So. On Christmas day I am at my parents' house and it is custom in the morning to go to the church I grew up in. It's a good church; the people are lovely and mostly women are treated as equals (but differents, natch). The service on Christmas morning is very informal and children are invited up to show what presents they received in their stockings.

I liked a few of them: a cool pink guitar which I tried to tune before she went "on stage" was my favourite. But then there was the inevitable plastic sword for a five/six year-old boy, followed by some make-up for a girl of the same age. Planted fury in my brain cells I tell you.

I threw a right wobbly that evening about swords/make-up etc and my poor dad bore the brunt of it. The next morning he said he could see where I was coming from but my delivery could have been better. Thing is, this particular church is going in the right direction in so many ways but is blind to the damage of gender roles. It wants to end conflict in the world, but doesn't see that the biggest influence could be how we condition our children.

The night before (yes, I went to church twice over the christmas period), a speaker said a prayer for the murdered women in Ipswich. It was a heartfelt prayer, but I couldn't help but feel that he would not have said, "let us remember that they were women first and foremost", if the women had not been prostituted. It seemed to draw attention to their "bad choices" whilst the speaker was seen as compassionate and non-judgemental. Pissed me off.

Morning after Boxing day, I wake up in a rage about a carol. The line, "Lo, He abhors not the virgin's womb", from O Come All Ye Faithful.

So "He" abhors all other wombs?

Vera Venom...

2006-12-21T11:57:00.000Z

...is fab. So are men insecure?

Read Part1

And Part2

Looking forward to Part 3 Vera.

From the Guardian

2006-12-19T14:11:00.000Z

Chess star's father cleared of rape
Press Association Thursday December 14, 2006 4:28 PM

The father of a teenage chess prodigy who fell to her death from a hotel window has been cleared of repeatedly raping her when she was still a child.
Ian Gilbert denied his daughter Jessica's claims that he forced her to have sex with him in her bedroom at the family home in Woldingham, Surrey, when she was just nine years old. She told police that he raped her repeatedly until she was 13 years old.
Jessica died this year, aged 19, when she fell from an eighth-floor hotel room in Pardubice, 65 miles east of Prague, in the Czech Republic where she had been taking part in an international chess tournament.
A jury took 15 hours to find the 49-year-old not guilty of all charges of rape of Jessica while she was under 16. They also cleared him of two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault on other people.
Gilbert remained impassive as the verdict was read out. His new wife Sally was in court to hear her husband cleared. The four-man, eight-woman jury listened to more than a month of evidence at Guildford Crown Court, in Surrey.
They heard that Jessica, a very talented chess player who represented Britain in the game, was a troubled, anxious child. Family members, including her grandfather Alan, said that they found the exceptionally clever youngster "detached".
But after he and Jessica had a row about him using her laptop, Mr Gilbert's relationship with Jessica's mother collapsed and they divorced. It was only after her father finally moved out of the family home that Jessica told her mother that he had raped her.
Mr Gilbert denied all the charges against him and said he had no idea why his daughter would hate him enough to make false rape allegations. He said she had been playing a "game of chess" against him and carefully plotting a "battle strategy" to take revenge against him after they fell out over the laptop. He told the jury that he found the accusations "disgusting" and had never had sexual thoughts about his daughter.
On a New Year's Eve night out at the end of 2003, she went out with friends and got drunk. She climbed a wall at Croydon's clock tower and threatened to jump off before her friends dragged her down. It was then that she told them the reason she wanted to die was because her father had raped her. The following year she got very drunk and again told friends that she had been raped.
This time her friends took her home and told her mother what Jessica had said. She then confronted her daughter, who said it was true. The following day she took an overdose of paracetamol but later recovered. She fell to her death in July this year, shortly before her father's trial was originally due to start, having been postponed from an original January start date.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved

More injustice. And what other people?

"Hell" isn't a strong enough word for what I wish the rest of his life to be.

Book tagged.

2006-12-19T12:14:00.000Z

By Sparkle*

I'm reading Carol Shields' "The Stone Diaries". It's good, but I preferred "Unless". If you like fiction, read it.

The unfairness of this - that a single dramatic episode can shave the fine thistles from a woman's life. But then the world is bewitched by the possibility of sudden reversal, of blood, of the urgent need to reframe simple arrangements. Daisy Goodwill Hoad's honeymoon tragedy, so strange in its turnings, so unanticipated, blurs the ordinary outlines of her ongoing life which, if the truth were told, is quiet, agreeable and not all that different from the next person's.

I tag Anji (Shut Up, Sit Down), Witchy-woo (Well, I'll go to the foot of my stairs), and Bea (Dead Men Don't Rape).

The instructions:Find the nearest book.Turn to page 123.Go to the fifth sentence on the page.Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.Name the book and the author, and tag three more folks.

Westminster's anti-drunk women campaign gets a doctoring courtesy of Jo22

2006-12-19T12:01:00.000Z

Do you hate men or something?

2006-12-13T14:13:00.000Z

STOP PRESS!

THE DEAD BODIES OF FIVE YOUNG MEN HAVE BEEN FOUND IN SOUTH LONDON. THEIR CLOTHES HAD BEEN REMOVED. THE KILLER IS PRESUMED TO BE A WHITE WOMAN WHO HAS BEEN LET DOWN BY MEN IN THE PAST.

Seen this headline lately?

No?

Then take your accusations of hatred elsewhere, fuckwit.

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2006-12-09T15:05:00.000Z

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Women can't play chess

2006-12-07T15:09:00.000Z

"Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes.' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.'" - Clare Boothe Luce

I found this quote on Shut Up Sit Down (I shall add it to my blogroll forthwith!) were Anji has compiled a list of wonderful women's quotations.

It reminded me of every Tuesday evening, when I play chess with various people at a local pub. I am nearly always the only woman playing. Every time I play a newcomer, or when men (they are usually men) are watching my games, I invariably feel an intense pressure not to lose and it's not because I am a bad loser. Well, actually, I can be a bad loser but that's not the point I'm raising.

The pressure I feel is that if I lose, my opponent or the people watching won't think, "she can't play chess", but "women can't play chess". It's a very uncomfortable pressure and it annoys me that men don't have to experience it.

Perhaps the men have a certain pressure when they play me, like, "I can't be beaten by a girl", but, ya know, diddums.

Last Tuesday a guy I beat said it was like being hit over the head with a feather duster. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

Birthday present

2006-12-05T14:43:00.000Z

Got camera.

Here's Mrs Columbo and Ms Taki (the one with the tash).

I think they're being affectionate...

Language and the clitoris

2006-12-01T11:22:00.000Z

I was having a conversation last night about the plural of "clitoris". I know what the plural of "penis" is - penises.

Is it "clitorises"?

I then began thinking of all the names there are for the penis: cock, dick, knob, willy, rod, bratwurst... :)

What are the alternative names for the clitoris? Are clitorises (?) mentioned in literature and porn? According to etymology online a male anatomist claimed to have discovered the clitoris in the 16th century and called it "the love or sweetness of venus" (bit long-winded). Women knew about it before of course, but what did they call it? Does anybody know?

Language as it exists now developed under patriarchy, and as such words for the clitoris seem to have assumed little importance. There is not even a word for the act of the clitoris being stimulated manually by one's partner. "She/he masturbated me" doesn't seem quite right when you've got "a hand-job" for the almighty penis. (Blow-job. Hand-job. "Jobs". Did these terms originate in prostitution?)

There are plenty of words for the vagina as we all know, sadly. Things like "slit" and "gash" come to mind as some of the worst offenders. Words for the vagina are used with abundance in porn and literature but what of the clitoris? I've heard "button" (bit functional) and "jewel" (bit sentimental). Any more?

The clitoris is of little importance, and as such has few alternative names because, unlike the vagina, men have no use for it.

So, what do you call yours? I'm still trying to think of a nice name for my vagina.

Showdown at Newsagent's

2006-11-23T12:08:00.000Z

Gah! Just had a (civil - I hope) row with my local Newsagent. We can call him Raj.

I have discussed with him previously the positioning of the lads mags (next to the sweets) but to no avail. This morning I noticed that Loaded had a 18 cert DVD attached to it and asked him if he would sell it to children. "Yeah, cos there's no age restriction on the magazine".
"But the DVD has an age restriction."
"Doesn't matter because it comes with the magazine."
"So you'd sell it to a five year old if they wanted it."
"Yeah. Would have to innit?"
"Um, no."
"I've got to make a living."

Legal issue: What the fuck is going on here? Talked to MWABH about it and he said legally it is no different to sticking a cigarette packet on a lollipop and selling it to under 16s. It's stuck to a lollipop so that makes it ok then.

18 cert (um, porn) DVD footage is being sold to children and it is sanctioned by law.

People! Get complaining! This is NOT ON. Loophole or what?

Raj then started muttering about women making lots of money from these mags and choosing to pose for them on their own steam, and basically it's all their fault that these mags exist. NO. Whether some women choose to take advantage of the demand to see them naked is NOT THE POINT. Men are making so much money from it and gain so much control, as a group, over women from it, that if no women chose to be in the mags, some would be FORCED to.

Parting words from Raj: "People like you in the minority though innit?"

Don't we fucking know it.

29

2006-11-22T12:24:00.000Z

Happy birthday to me
I sat up a tree
I saw a hairy-legged feminist
And she looked just like me

It is also Wednesday when Witchy does her Wows and I thought I'd Wow one of her own posts. In this comment thread a guy called Stuart is in a muddle. He says he likes porn because it degrades women and he "uses prostitutes" in order to do the sex acts he sees in porn. Then he says he doesn't want to see women abused - in fact it is a turn-off! Then he is asked if he knows whether or not the prostitutes are trafficked and he responds with "I didn't ask them. Do you ask whether or not your clothes are made in sweat-shops?" (Paraphrased).

Most clothes are made in sweat-shops so maybe he should think about that.

Really, it's worth a read. Straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.

Counting games

2006-11-09T12:41:00.000Z

To people who say "we're all equal now" or "women have won the fight - in fact the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction!" (what sodding pendulum?), shut them up with the result of your fantastic counting games.

In a Sunday paper a few weeks ago (I think it was the Times) I counted the pictures: around 250 men and about 50 women.

In today's Guardian I counted 55 men and 13 women. Of those 13, one was Uma Thurman advertising a watch, one was Kate Moss wearing underwear, and one was dead.

Counting on TV. Flick through channels of an evening and count the men and women you see. Then count up how much talk time the men have compared to the women. Also note what they are talking about.

At the moment I'm watching "Loose Women"; four women chatting in front of an audience, which is hardly typical. They're talking about fashion models though.

Get counting and tell everyone the results!

(Please note, you can also play counting games with race, thin/fat, young/old or whatever is bee-ing in your bonnet.)

PLEASE READ: Woman jailed for a year for accusing her husband of rape

2006-11-06T12:00:00.000Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1939283,00.html

Sally Henderson has been named, shamed, and jailed for "falsely accusing" her husband of rape. She still insists she is telling the truth. The evidence that she is lying? She also claimed her ex-boyfriend raped her. Neither man was charged because they simply did not believe her.

As there is no evidence that she is lying, she could well have been repeatedly raped and jailed for it.

And this won't deter rape victims coming forward how?

Rape

2006-10-25T09:54:00.000Z

I'm reading Dworkin's Pornography at the moment and a quotation she uses jumped out at me.

If we think talking it all out has brought us [men and women] closer together in the last few years, we have only to broach the subject of rape. Men seem incapable of understanding what rape means to a woman - the sense of total violation, or the mere threat of rape as a lifelong shadow over her freedom of movement....
The central division is between the sense of rape as an act of hostility and aggression, as women see and know and experience it, and rape as an erotic act, as fantasized by men.
(Film critic Molly Haskell, at the end of a decade of vigorous feminism in the US.)

The reason this statement jumped out at me is because in every conversation I've had with a man about rape, sexual harrassment and molestion, he will always say SOMETHING that confirms it.

Brick wall, meet head.

From inferiority to superiority and what it means to be male

2006-10-17T10:18:00.000Z

Boys are given the impression very early on that they are supposed to be superior to girls. Comments like "you're crying/throwing/acting like a girl" which are used to insult are commonplace. All around them they see more men than women in positions of power. They associate these things with their own maleness and what it means to be male.

When it comes to interaction with girls, the vast majority of boys realise they are not remotely superior to them. This must be confusing. But instead of thinking that there must be something wrong with society, that women are being held back or oppressed in some way, they think there must be something wrong with them. They start to feel inferior. An unconscious thought process might go something like, "I'm a boy so I'm supposed to be superior to girls, but I'm obviously not. Therefore I must be like a girl and that is bad."

In order then to feel properly male and unlike a girl, the boy needs to find ways to feel superior. This often translates as "getting one over" on the girl, and carries on into adult life. An example of this is the way teenage boys boast about how many girls they've managed to shag. They will then show off about how they got the girls into bed, sharing tactics with each other. Magazines aimed at them, such as Nuts and Zoo exploit this insecure behaviour with articles such as the one explaining how to "trick" your girlfriend into having anal sex. The key word in the article is "trick". It is getting one over on her and feeling superior to her that holds the appeal.

In adult life, many men continue to believe they have to keep getting one over on women to feel that they are a real man. Pornography is so popular precisely because it shows male dominance over women. There's an added bonus if he lies to his partner about his use of pornography; he is getting one over on her. A married man who tells his girlfriend he's about to leave his wife in order to keep her around is getting one over on TWO women, and is therefore very superior and manly.

Often men need to lie about something, however small, in their relationships with women. Perhaps they put a bet on a horse (which puts me in mind of Fawlty Towers! I digress) when they know their partner doesn't like it, just to have a secret from her. Or they go to the pub and tell her they are somewhere else, seemlingly for the sake of it. The deceit is all that's needed to feel superior.

When a man's identity is so tied up in proving his superiority over women (this applies to gay men also, but it manifests in different ways) there will never be complete trust between the sexes. It is also one of the factors that reinforces the subordination of women. We're trapped in a loop and the only way of changing it is through educating children about the real reasons for womens' inferior status in society. Educate them about that thing called patricarchy.

Parents have a particular responsiblity. A friend of mine recently overheard a man say to his son "you're crying like a girl".

Stop it. Just stop it.

Pro-feminist man = gay?

2006-10-16T10:20:00.000Z

I was talking to a female friend of mine recently who is single and looking. She may well be coming to the Reclaim The Night march and I said, "Well, it's unlikely you're going to randomly meet a decent guy in the pub or in the street, but there might be some at the RTN rally." She said something like, "but won't a lot of them be gay?"

During a conversation with a feminist friend of mine and Man With A Bald Head, I was joking about organising his social life around feminist events and he came out with, "I'm a gay icon!" Feminist friend and I were like, "whaddy'a mean gay?"

MWABH has since stated that his proclamation had nothing to do with the conversation, he just likes the term "gay icon". Ok :) Nonetheless, it is a common assumption that pro-feminist men must be homosexual. Take the following extract from Jackson Katz's "The Macho Paradox" (highly recommended by the way), where he is demonstrating against a misogynist comedian outside the (packed) venue:

"As we carried our homemade picket signs outside the arena, some of the young men on their way into the show shouted and taunted us. Some were clearly drunk. "Fucking fags!" "Fucking homos!" are among the more articulate epithets I can recall. AFter I heard that screamed for the umpteenth time, I finally realized its significance. Those guys were saying, in essence, that because we care about women, we must want to have sex with men. At one point I was holding a sign that read, "Love women, don't hate them." It was a rather prosaic slogan. A man walking into the concert saw my sign and stopped about ten steps away. He made a contemptuous face at me and shouted, "I hate women, you faggot!" It was an unintentionally revealing pronouncement. What does it mean that large numbers of people - men and women - question a man's heterosexuality if he is overly concerned about men's violence against women? Most importantly, what does it say about their expectations of heterosexual men? If a man has to be gay to care about women, then heterosexual men must not care about women."

As Katz points out, this is an effective way to silence men who are concerned about women but don't want to be thought of as gay. But what is the implication for heterosexual women?

If heterosexual men must not care about women, how then must they view their relationships with women? How must they view heterosexual sex?

Women take to the streets in India

2006-10-12T09:45:00.000Z

http://feministing.com/archives/005841.html#comments

Thanks to Finn from London Feminist Network for calling attention to this. I have added them (Blank Noise Project) to my blogroll. Check it out.

Jack veils the issue

2006-10-06T09:08:00.000Z

Jack Straw's column which prompted debate about the veil has been published in TheGuardian today. Now, I am not going to argue whether or not he has a right to ask women what to wear in his presence (who is he anyway - the Queen?), or whether his concern that wearing the full veil "makes relations between the two communites more difficult" is valid. No, I am going to say that he has his head so far up his arse that he has overlooked the most important point.

In the middle of his article he says he had a "really interesting debate" about veil wearing with a "lady". He was surprised, he said, to discover that she wore the veil of her own accord and it had nothing to do with her husband. He says, "She explained she had read some books and thought about the issue. She felt more comfortable wearing the veil when out. People bothered her less."

People bothered her less. Interesting use of language Jack. Not trying to be controversial or anything but, knowing what some of us know, I think we could safely substitute "people" for men, and "bothered" with harrassed. If she feels "more comfortable" (safer?) wearing the veil, and is harrassed (and blamed for the harrassment) without it, how can we say the choice to wear the veil is a free one? It isn't. It's just a better alternative.

Jack Straw, stop telling women to remove the veil in order that you feel more comfortable. Stop telling them they're responsible for creating conflict in the community. Next time you have an "interesting debate" with a woman, how about listening to what she says? Open your eyes and target the "people" who are responsible for "bothering" unveiled women.

At the end of the article he says, "My concerns could be misplaced. But I think there is an issue here."

Yes they are Jack. And yes there is.

Reclaim The Night

2006-10-05T10:13:00.000Z

I think that instead of, or as well as, blogger badges, it would be best to arrange a meeting place for bloggers before the march starts. Obviously can't do this until the main meeting place has been confirmed but hopefully it won't be long now.

By the way, a feminist singer/songwriter I am very intimately acquainted with is doing a number or two at the rally ;)

Pickle

2006-10-05T10:11:00.000Z

The lid has been taken off the jar of pickle. It is time for the pickle to rot.

And rot it will. Woo-hoo!

I am...

2006-10-02T11:03:00.000Z

...in a pickle. I don't want to expand, I just wanted to say it. I AM IN A PICKLE! I may even be in a jar of pickle.

The shortest personality test in computer history

2006-09-30T16:46:00.000Z

I blame witchy-woo

Your Blogging Type is Pensive and Philosophical

You blog like no one else is reading...You tend to use your blog to explore ideas - often in long winded prose.Easy going and flexible, you tend to befriend other bloggers easily.But if they disagree with once too much, you'll pull them from your blogroll!

What's" Your Blogging Personality?

Women only?

2006-09-25T14:15:00.000Z

I discussed with a male friend of mine the forthcoming Reclaim The Night march and he wondered why it had to be women-only. I muttered the importance of "safe spaces" etc. and directed him to the London Feminist Network website which explained it all, but his point was that it would be more effective if men marched alongside us.

If 1000 men marched through London campaigning against being sent to war, would they be told that a few women on the march would make it more effective? Would it be a more effective march if it were 500 men & 500 women? I don't think so. I won't go as far as to say it might be seen as less effective that 1000 men...

A women-only march is seen as needing male support to add "weight" to the cause. It is as if we don't matter in our own right and are not taken seriously without men to back us up. Damn shame for half the population who've already achieved "equality".

It is this belittling of women and the We've-Got-Our-Fingers-In-Our-Ears-La-La-La response to sexual violence that needs to change.

In the meantime, let 1000 women (hopefully) march through London in November all by ourselves and see how effective we can be!

A short post on violent film/violent porn

2006-09-18T16:44:00.000Z

A lot of people are asking why, if we are to ban violent pornography, why not ban violent films/games etc.

Although a lot of violent films, especially horror films, are extremely misogynistic and should be looked at in the context of womens' position in society, they differ from violent pornography in one crucial way. They are not designed specifically to cause arousal. Or at least they do not market themselves as such.

Pornography has a sole purpose and that is to arouse the viewer. There is no other reason for it to exist. When the pornography is violent, the violence is intended to arouse the viewer which in turn causes the viewer to associate violence with sexual pleasure.

Even if people are aroused by violent films and video games, their pleasure is not validated in the same way as with violent pornography. With the latter, they know they are supposed to feel pleasure when viewing the violence - as opposed to becoming accidentally turned on by a woman running around half-naked screaming, while a man in a mask chases her with an axe.

This validation of pleasure when viewing violence is particularly dangerous for someone who already has tendencies towards violent behaviour. Much more than in horror movies, pornography justifies and condones these tendencies as natural sexual impulses that should be gratified. How can this be "harmless"?

Poem

2006-09-15T11:00:00.000Z

I can post this without fear of becoming a poetry blogger* as i have only written one poem.

You came to me, I said you could
You said the things I knew you would
Extracting aims and dreams from me
And hoping you could treat my freedom
Like a toy to tangle with
Aren't hands enough to strangle with?
You blew me out, you shut me in
If you dropped dead, I'd hear the pin

*Not that there's anything wrong with poetry bloggers, just that I ain't a poet.

Women and mental health

2006-09-11T10:23:00.000Z

Many women who blog on the subject of sexual violence and abuse have had some experience of it in their own lives. A lot of these women have suffered or still do suffer various mental health problems, from depression to panic attacks, personality "disorders" and severe mood swings, often directly linked to their experiences.

In some cases of domestic violence, a woman's mental "illness" is used against her in court, despite the illness being caused by the violence itself. If a woman who reports her rape has mental health or drug-related problems, this is used as evidence against her reliability as a witness, despite the fact that rapists often target these women specifically.

Depression, anxiety, mood-disorders and other issues can all affect womens' ability to work, study or simply get on with life, and women are consistently penalised for this without the root causes being looked into. The very things that can help women are being prioritized against, such as Rape Crisis Centres; there is now one, compared to over twenty in the '70s. These have been replaced by Sexual Assault Referral Centres, which, while better than nothing, are affiliated with the police and encourage women to report the crime - despite the obscenely low conviction rate and the fact that women are even more traumatized after a trial in which they are not believed.

When looking at these facts and considering the light sentences that most child-abusers and rapists get, if they are sentenced at all (the heavier sentences go to those who have offended numerous times, and the vast irreparable damage is already done), points to a society that sanctions the abuse of women and children to it's own ends. Under patriarchy, it serves men well to keep girls and women controlled and frightened and out of the workplace - unless that workplace happens to be prostitution or pornography.
And I don't think I need to point out how the majority of girls and women get into prostitution and pornography.

There are some organisations that will happily employ women (and men) with emotional or mental-health problems, realising that they can be flexible enough to accomodate and cultivate individual talents - but most will not. Until the stigma is gone, and more information about mental illness is available, women will continue to suffer at the hands of a society that feeds and waters their abusers; the very people who caused or contributed to their "illness".

And that folks, just ain't fair.

Class and race

2006-09-04T11:24:00.000Z

The specific part of London where I live seems predominately white and well-off. Despite there being several housing estates nearby, the people who live there are practically invisible unless the kids are making a noise, and then they only attract negative attention. The local shops which we are so keen to keep in business (a butcher's, green-grocers, cheese shop and delicatessen) are quite simply unaffordable to half the people on the street.

I am personally poor (claiming benefits - cheers Soopermouse) but live in this area with someone who does earn decent money. Despite going to the Jobcentre I don't feel I belong with the poorer community, and it isn't just my living arrangements; it's a mentality. Because I didn't grow up in a council house but with well off parents in the country, I feel I belong more with the richer people in the area, buying things I can't afford being one of the consequences. In this way, class divisions are much more than just personal circumstances. The snobbery I feel (and I do) towards people of a "lower" class is a direct result of my upbringing, and no amount of Jobcentre visits will make me feel like "one of them". It's hard, but I hope not impossible, to shake these attitudes off.

Speaking of lovely Jobcentre visits, I would say that over 90% of signers are people of colour. Also, of the people who work there, only about 10% are white. This JC is just at the bottom of the road in the area that I described as "predominately white". The same colour ratio is seen on buses, which are still considered a poor form of transport.

I haven't thought enough about class as it pertains to people of colour, probably because I'm white, but I found this link about whether or not there is a rising "black middle-class" and whether or not it matters anyway. I know one black man who indentifies himself as "middle-class", and he appears only to associate with white people. Funny though, most white people I know do not like describing themselves as middle-class. People are keen to get rid of labels, which is a good thing, but whatever we call ourselves the underlying structure will remain.

I haven't come to any conclusions here; this post is observational. I hope to think and learn more about these issues by listening to people, reading, and examining my attitudes and behaviour. I'm looking forward to reading the other posts (Listed at http://pippiblog.wordpress.com/).

Feminists For Pornography

2006-09-01T15:49:00.000Z

Feminist porn, porn made by lesbians for lesbians, woman-friendly porn, yadda yadda etc...

NONE of this will advance the feminist movement. It gets lost amongst mainstream porn, reaches far wider than the target audience, and as a result makes no statement at all. It will not make the slightest dent in sexist society.

I used to think that porn would never go away (hmm, still inclined to think that actually) and so the only way forward would be to have more women involved in the making of it. It's bullshit. Women involved have generally had to conform to the abusive nature of most porn to make any money. The appeal of porn is that it DOES involve abuse or depict degradation. Same goes for lesbian and gay porn. (In most gay porn, the feminisation of the man is what makes him fit for degradation.)

Trying to use the medium of pornography to further a movement designed to end oppression simply won't work. Pornography is both made from, and feeds off oppression in all its sexist, racist, and homophobic forms. It IS oppression.

Of course people should have the right to view anything they want in the privacy of their own home, but you can only prioritise this in a society where actual abuse doesn't take place. We do not live in such a society and consensual images are indistinguishable from non-consensual ones.

Give it up Feminists For Pornography. Focus on human rights, not human "needs".

Excellent news

2006-08-31T09:43:00.000Z

A bill will soon be introduced outlawing possession of violent pornography. This is making me quite happy. However this will be policed, the message this sends is that viewing such material is unacceptable, and that's definitely progress.

Some groups such as TheSpannerTrust are upset because they're worried that innocent people could be criminalised. They fight for the right to physically hurt people during sex if it's consensual. Why is it so important to them? And why should this bill directly affect them unless they're in possession of violent pornography, which they don't need to be in order to carry on what they're doing?

The government haven't made any plans to stop people from doing what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms, but still some groups are worried that they won't be allowed to film it. I say, so fucking what? Do what you want but why the need to film it?
It's all about making money under the disguise of freedom of expression, and it's money made at the expense of people like Jane Longhurst and her family.

And he is still walking free

2006-08-29T14:10:00.000Z

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/08/accused_skinhea.html?p1=MEWell_Pos4

I thought being taken to museums was part of one's education, not the punishment for racially insulting and beating up two 17 yr old black girls in a subway.

Exposing the violence

2006-08-29T11:19:00.000Z

Let's hope that the next time an unemployed woman is offered "lap-dancing" at the job centre she gets the full job description.
Extract copied & pasted from here

One hundred percent of the eighteen women in the survey report being physically abused in the stripclub. The physical abuse ranged from three to fifteen times with a mean of 7.7 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the eighteen women in this study report sexual abuse in the stripclub. The sexual abuse ranged from two to nine occurrences with a mean of 4.4 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the women report verbal harassment in the stripclub. The verbal abuse ranged from one to seven occurrences with a mean of 4.8 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the women report being propositioned for prostitution. Seventy eight percent of the women were stalked by someone associated with the stripclub with a range of one to seven incidents. Sixty one percent of the women report that someone associated with the stripclub has attempted to sexually assault her with a range of one to eleven attempts. Not only do women suffer the abuse they experience, all of women in the survey witnessed these things happen to other strippers in the clubs. The overwhelming trend for violence against women in stripclubs was committed by customers of the establishments. Stripclub owners, managers, assistant managers, and the staff of bartenders, music programmers or disc jockeys, bouncers, security guards, floorwalkers, doormen, and valet were significantly less involved in violence against the women. According to the women in this study, almost all of the perpetrators suffered no consequence whatsoever for their actions.

Physical Abuse
Customers spit on women, spray beer, and flick cigarettes at them. Strippers are pelted with ice, coins, trash, condoms, room keys, pornography, and golf balls. Men pitched a live guinea pig and a dead squirrel at two women in the survey. Some women have been hit with cans and bottles thrown from the audience. Customers pull women’s hair, yank them by the arm or ankle, rip their costumes, and try to pull their costumes off. Women are commonly bitten, licked, slapped, punched, and pinched.

Sexual Abuse
Stripclub customers frequently grab women’s breasts, buttocks, and genitals. Customers often attempt and succeed at penetrating strippers vaginally and anally with their fingers, dollar bills, and bottles. Customers expose their penises, rub their penises on women, and masturbate in front of the women. Women in this study consistently connected lap dances to the sexual abuse they suffered in the club. "That’s the first thing men try to do when they get close to you and always in a lap dance." Stripclub owners, managers, and staff also expect women to masturbate them and some have forced intercourse on strippers. Table 2 - Frequency of Sexual Abuse

Verbal Abuse
Customers, owners, managers, and staff alike engage in harassing namecalling. Women are continually called "cunt, "whore", "pussy", "slut", and "bitch". Women in this study charge that men in the stripclub called them other demeaning or degrading names like ugly, looser, fat, pregnant, boy, stupid, crack, slash, snatch, beaver, dog, dyke, lezzie, brown eye, hooters, junkie, crackhead, and shit.

Forty four percent of the women report that men associated with the stripclub have threatened to hurt them physically. These women report from three to 150 threats during their involvement in stripping. Threats range from verbal threats of slaps, ass whippings, and rapes to physical postures of punching and back hand slapping. "When I wouldn’t let a customer grab on me, he would call me a bitch and threaten to kick my ass or rape me." "When a customer grabs and the woman and the girl takes action, they threaten".

Stalking
Men associated with stripclubs repeatedly attempt to contact the women against their wishes. Strippers are followed home and stalked by stripclub customers. Customers telephone, write letters, send gifts, and follow the women around against their wishes. Women recount stories of catching customers following them to fitness clubs, parks and lakes, day care centers, and even lesbian bars. They describe times when customers have broken into their homes and taken underwear, hairbrushes, and family photographs. Women say that other customers have used their jobs at the telephone company or within the criminal justice system to target the women. The women complain that customers also have followed them home masturbating while driving in the next lane. Women who travel the strip circuit to rural areas report that customers and stripclub owners, managers, and staff alike follow women from city to city and state to state. Furthermore, local men in small towns harass the visiting women by calling and knocking on the doors of the motel rooms and have been caught peeping in the windows of strippers’ motel rooms.

Twelve percent of the women who reported being followed to their cars further reported that they were robbed (5.6 %), beaten (11.1%), threatened with a weapon (5.6%), verbally sexually harassed (66.7%), and sexually assaulted (16.7%) by customers. A customer who claimed he was in love with the woman followed her to her car, called her a "fucking cunt" and strangled her hard enough to cause blood to squirt from her neck.

Sexual Exploitation
Only a minority of women report that they were asked to perform sexual acts on men associated with the stripclub in order to return to work (11% by owners); as a condition of being hired (11% by managers, 11% by owners); in order to continue working there (17% by owners); in order to get a better schedule (6% by owners); or for drugs (17% by customers, 11% by managers, 22% by owners, 11% by staff).
A majority of the women, however, report they were asked to perform sexual acts on men associated with the stripclub for money (100% by customers, 6% by managers, 17% by owners, 11% by staff). Customers and pimps constantly proposition women (Boles and Garbin 1974; Forsyth and Deshotels 1997; Ronai 1992; Ronai and Ellis 1989). Fourteen (78%) women from the survey report they are propositioned for prostitution every day by customers, three (17%) every week, one (6 %) every year. Women comment that customers ask them "Do you date?" all night long. "Infinite…too many too count." Women say that prostitution is influenced and suggested by management. One woman new to stripping was dumbfounded at how little money she was making taking her clothes off, so she asked the manager for his advice on increasing tips. He suggested turning tricks and said he could help her set up dates. Management sets up tricks, says it is good for business, and obligates women to turn over money from prostitution to the club. Women say prostitution is promoted even though owners tell women they would be punished if they turn tricks. Some stripclubs are notorious for promoting prostitution. "You have to be a ‘ho to work there".
Women disclosed that they were recruited into prostitution through stripping. Although the strip industry markets stripping as something other than prostitution, some women consider prostitution an extension of stripping and stripping a form of prostitution. Pimps season women first with stripping and then turn them out into brothels or escort services for more money. Tricks, sugar daddies, pimps, and drug dealers in the stripclub seek to engage women in prostitution. Another young woman said that soon after she became involved in stripping, a pimp who posed as a customer in the stripclub manipulated her into an escort service by promising that she could make more money in less time simply by accompanying businessmen to dinner. She agreed in order to feed her crack addiction and as her addiction increased she slid down from gentlemen’s clubs to escort service to brothel to street and crack house prostitution.
Not only are women in stripping pressured by customers to perform sexual acts on them, owners, managers, and staff pressure the women to perform sexual acts on them, their relatives and associates, on vice officers and police officers. Women explain the pressure could range from being coerced into dancing for the intended with an expectation to put on a real good show with special treatment, extra time, and sexual contact, to engaging in prostitution. Strippers, like other subordinates in worker-management relationships, respond with obedience to directives from management and others with authority (McMahon 1989).

Where it all starts - identifying as female

2006-08-29T09:28:00.000Z

When my sister was born, my brother (then 5) and I (3) were bought presents from our parents to mark the occasion. My brother got an Action Man and I got a red washing-up bowl with multi-coloured clothes pegs. Not kidding. My parents have since apologised for this atrocity. But I knew then I was different from my brother.

We went camping in Italy in the same year. My brother and his friend (10) dressed me up as Wonder Woman (I didn't mind - I liked Wonder Woman) and put apples on my chest and tin foil around my wrists before showing me off to mum and dad. Everyone thought it was wildly funny (something to do with the apples) and I remember feeling for the first time what felt like humiliation. My brother and his friend didn't dress each other up as anything for our parents to laught at.

At primary school, it was easy to identify the boys from the girls despite our bodies being similar shapes. Girls invariably had long hair and boys short. Girls had to wear dresses or skirts and boys trousers. In the playground, boys called each other "a girl" as an insult. I expect this must have come from a few of their fathers warning against "throwing like a girl" etc. Girls knew who they were and knew they were seen as inferior.

A tomboy at my primary school was the envy of all the other girls because the boys liked her. We believed the boys were somehow better than us and so we needed their approval, and she got it. She played football with them and they all raved about how great she was. This changed in the final year of primary school when the boys liked the girls with budding breasts - but it wasn't quite the same sort of "like". It was more a bra-pinging, teasing sort. The tomboy fell out of favour because as the boys' sexual interest in girls grew, she was found wanting. They dumped her basically, because she wasn't even a real boy and they didn't fancy her either. In their eyes she became nothing.

I've watched children playing in the park with their fathers and the sons are taught to throw completely differently to the daughters. I've seen a father demonstrate an overarm throw to his son, and an underarm throw to his daughter. She knew she was different from her brother.

As an adult, wanting to treat children of different genders the same, I find myself falling into traps all the time. A few months ago, I was playing chess in the garden of my local pub and a girl of about 8 years old was watching intently. She was wearing a very pretty dress. I nearly said, "what a pretty dress" and stopped myself. If she had been a boy, no matter what he was wearing (unless it was a spiderman costume or something) I would have said, "do you play chess?", which was what I ended up saying to the girl. If I had commented on her dress instead of her obvious interest in the game, I would be reinforcing her belief that her appearance matters more than what's in her head. (I am making an assumption by using the word "reinforcing", but I remember being 8, and I remember my friends being 8, and we always talked about being "pretty". It was important.)

I really wonder what the solution is for parents. At a recent wedding there were a number of toddlers; the girls sitting around in impractical frilly dresses and uncomfortable-looking shoes, the boys running around in trousers and trainers. The parents could have put all their children in comfortable clothes, but I would put money on some of the girls wanting to look frilly... like a princess. So, stop reading them fairy-tales? Don't let them watch adverts on TV? Never buy any child of either sex any type of doll at all? Let your son wear a dress if he wants to?

I am childless, but a friend of mine recently said about her 1-yr-old, "he's a real boy."
Whatever did she mean?

Dress sizes

2006-08-24T12:38:00.000Z

What is with the dress sizes in this country? Why do women's clothes go up two inches at a time? Size 10 = 36 inch hip (I think); size 12 = 38. Where did the 37 inch hip go?

Same with bras: 32, 34, 36 etc.

All my measurements are odd numbers because I am a non-conformist. I also find it difficult to get clothes that fit properly. I went into a shop a while ago and tried two different sized trousers and neither pair fit. So I asked the girl working there if they had a size 11. She laughed and said, "Yeah, it's annoying isn't it? I'm a size 9."
Another rebel.

Models have only even measurements on their busts, waists and hips, eg 36, 24, 34 or some such. This is to do with their genetic codes.

When it comes to buying a dress (if you do that kind of thing), what if you are a size 14 on top and 18 on the bottom? How many of us are the same size all over? Is this why not many women wear dresses? Or is feminism why not many women wear dresses? So many questions...

Out of necessity I tend to go for the top and skirt option. But in the winter I need tights or hold-ups and they are expensive and don't last very long and I have to keep getting new ones and the whole thing is pissing me off.

Snap judgements

2006-08-24T09:30:00.000Z

Arguing with the man in my life is a habit we're both trying to kick. The other day we were talking about the way you appraise someone within a second of meeting them and decide subconsciously or otherwise whether you like them or not. Now, he said this is an animal instinct and unchangeable. I don't know if he still thinks this because I haven't brought it up again in case we argue which we're trying not to do.

I believe that our "snap" judgements are firmly rooted in the prejudices that are instilled in us through socialisation. Personally, I am somewhat lacking in animal instinct; I can't smell an arsehole when he walks in the room. (Although I might think he's an arsehole if he smells.) I remember once meeting a woman who I assumed immediately was unintelligent because of the way she spoke and her hoop earrings. When she started talking about the degree she was doing at Cambridge University I felt a bit ashamed of myself.

When I was very little, my dad was driving the family to some evangelical worship thingammy-jig in London and we drove through Brixton. I think I had only seen one black person before and suddenly everyone was black. I asked my dad why this was and although I can't remember exactly what he said, he started taking the piss out of their accents. Even though I was young, I knew that taking the piss meant feeling superior. I learnt that we were superior to black people. Without realising it, as I became older these feelings were affirmed by unfair representation of black people in the news and mainstream media.

I was unaware that my snap judgements on seeing people of colour were negative - I'm not racist, blah blah blah, I'm lovely me - until I took the race test here .

I took that test a few weeks ago and the results indicated I had a strong preference for white over black. More recently I took it again and it indicated a slight preference. I don't know if this is whether I've been thinking about things or whether the test results are variable.

I believe we can change our first impressions of people, by analysing ourselves and our deep-rooted prejudice, acknowledging the roles that parents, friends and the media have had in creating and reinforcing our attitudes. I still have feelings of superiority over women with hoop earrings and "common" accents but I'm working on it. Perhaps I'll join some fellow bloggers with a post on class on September 4th.

(Disclaimer: Some scientists dispute the validity of the Implicit Association Tests. But they made me think, which can only be a good thing.)

I Tag...

2006-08-22T16:31:00.000Z

...anyone reading this who hasn't already done it (the book meme). I know this is lazy but all the blogs I read have done it already and I started going through the ones I don't read, and they'd done it, so I gave up.

2006-08-22T12:46:00.000Z

I've been tagged by Pippi

1. One book that changed your life. Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevski. Not so much the book itself but the situation in my life whilst I was reading it... but that's a long story.
2. One book you have read more than once. Quite a few, but Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman I had to read again because I didn't understand much the first time round.
3. One book you would take on a desert island. A book of Guardian Cryptic Crosswords should keep me going.
4. One book that made you laugh. Gary Larson's Far Side collection.
5. One book that made you cry. Frankenstein.
6. One book you wish had been written. How to become a chess GrandMaster in five minutes.
7. One book you wish had never been written. Whatever it might be, I haven't read it.
8. One book you are currently reading. Outlaw Culture by bell hooks don'tcha know?
9. One book you have been meaning to read. Still haven't finished Wuthering Heights.
10. Tag five people. I'll get back to this one.

Let's talk about sex

2006-08-18T12:12:00.000Z

"sexist men must undergo a process of feminist revolution if they want to be capable of satisfying the needs of feminist women who experience our most intense sexual pleasure in an oppositional space outside the patriarchal phallic imaginary. It is this feminist vision of liberatory heterosexuality that seems to terrify men.

"No wonder, then, that women who want to be sexual with men are perversely reinventing feminism so that it will satifisfy patriarchal desires, so that it can be incorporated into a sexist phallic imaginary in such a way that male sexual agency as we now know it will never need to change." bell hooks (Outlaw Culture, p91)

Being sexual with a man myself I sometimes find it difficult knowing what I want. In the past, my biggest turn-on was being dominated because I found - and still find, sometimes - the submission of women erotic. What I also noticed however, was that whilst being submissive I felt I was watching, rather than experiencing it. I would then use that imagery as an aid to orgasm.

The feeling of being in the moment during sex has therefore been elusive. I have also noticed the same thing affecting men - ever get the sense that they just aren't "there"? The eroticisation of power and domination that I have seen all around me is extremely hard to shift; it invades my sexuality and stops me identifying my real desires.

When we do not analyse these things, when we just accept our desires for what they are instead of wondering what they would be in a non-sexist society, we send mixed messages to the world. Do we want men to be our equals, or do we, deep down, just want brutes? This question sends most mens' heads spinning and therefore the only change they welcome is no change at all.

Jesus Was A Feminist

2006-08-17T13:14:00.000Z

http://www.godswordtowomen.org/studies/articles/feminist.htm

Thought so. Written by a Catholic no less. Funny how I never heard any sermons on this despite going to church twice a week for 18 years. No, the Christians of the Patriarchy seem to prefer the writings of the "apostle" Paul.
Be done with it and call yourselves Paulians!

Happy Hookers Sitcom

2006-08-17T10:57:00.000Z

Oh goody, a new sitcom set in a brothel. Much hilarity to be had by all. Yes, apparently Channel Five will be broadcasting this fluffy feel-good show in a couple of weeks, which revolves around the lives of four prostitutes and their madame, working to pay for things like shoes and make-up and having a jolly nice time of it.

In the midst of news about trafficking and "slave auctions", isn't this just a little bit sick?

Queen of the Jungle

2006-08-15T13:28:00.000Z

Why are female lions called lionesses? Why not just "lions"? Is it because they can't be the King of the Jungle?

We should at least be consistent; how about "pumette", "pantherina", and "cheetahrita"?

Squabbles

2006-08-15T12:59:00.000Z

"Again and again, I have to insist that feminist solidarity rooted in a commitment to progressive politics must include a space for rigorous critique, for dissent, or we are doomed to reproduce in progressive communities the very forms of domination we seek to oppose."
bell hooks (Outlaw Culture, p78)

I have just started to delve into bell hooks' writing simply because I don't think enough about race and how I'm affected by white privilege. Quite a bit it would seem, as sometimes I think she goes over the top in how black people are victimised by white people. And then it's.... shit! That sounds familiar! What is it men keep saying about feminists again? So I go back, I read again, I try to tackle the prejudices that I must have learnt almost unconsciously and I analyse my thought processes. It's hard but it's necessary. I am a hypocrite if I ask men to question themselves on sexism if I refuse to see my own racism.

The quotation above however, made me think of some arguments in the feminist bloggy-land. The most obvious being the one between porno women and porNO women. As it would be disrespectful for me to go to a pro-porn blog and tell them to change their mind, so would it be disrespectful of someone to come here and tell me to change mine. So we should leave each other be on that topic and assume we came to our decisions all by our pretty little selves. This should leave space to discuss the things we DO agree on, and if we need information on the other's standpoint regarding pornography and prostitution, we ask. As bell hooks says above, we need different voices in this movement. Ostrasization is a way of censoring dissenting opinions and I believe in freedom of speech.

(But not the kind of free speech that involves slapping someone about on camera. Did someone say something?)