All this talk of rape

I am trying to decide how I feel about all this talk of rape at the moment. There is Justice Minister, Kenneth Clarke's unfortunate wording and Head of IMF, Strauss-Kahn's quite shocking incident in a hotel in New York. Then there is WikiLeaks Julian Assange's casual treatment of women supporters, who he seems to treat as sexual teddy bears, available for his personal pleasure when he stops over for a night.

I also can't help thinking that TV series coming out of Hollywood are somehow related, with really quite graphic scenes of sex and violence e.g. Spartacus, Game of Thrones. Spartacus disturbingly wraps sex and violence together by interspersing battle scenes where people slice each other with swords, with sex scenes where slaves have not quite consensual sex with their masters. Are these shows depicting metaphorical rape?

Then there is this whole wave of films coming out where murders are not just a gunshot, like back in the days when Hitchcock explored violent acts with a camera shot of a knife and then a dead person.. His most graphic scene that I ever saw was the struggle in North by North West where the intention of the scene is to show just how hard it is to kill a man. Last week I watched London Boulevard thinking it was a romcom and ended up watching murder after murder with hammers, knives, all sorts. What to do when you like a good yarn but all the good stories out there seem to be full of violence?

At the same time however, I have long had the view that if people live out their violent urges on screen, perhaps they don't live them out in real life. Is one of the reasons why we don't have as much violence in our streets because we see the goriness of it on screen? Could it be that the current extreme vocalisation of rape is a good thing? That it is a necessary outing of the issues that raises sufficient awareness of it for women to feel ok about reporting it and the number of prosecutions go up.

Perhaps Slutwalk and the Clarke and Strauss-Kahn situations are all part of the same progression forward, bringing the issues of rape right out into the open, onto the front pages, to be discussed and thought about. After all, the biggest surprise for me with the Strauss-Kahn attack was that people believed the maid quickly enough that Strauss-Kahn could be stopped and arrested shortly afterwards, as he fled to the airport. Now he has lost his job, before he has even been convicted. That's a pretty clear message.

When a juror is contemplating a rape case in the context of what has happened over the past few weeks. When they are asked to consider a woman's outfit as part of the defense - will they now have the courage to say, who cares what she was wearing, who cares what time of day it was, who cares that she had sex with him the previous week. If the answer is no, it is no. End of.

I'm all for women getting awards and accolades, the more the better, but I can't help wondering why people love Miranda so much. This is a BBC sitcom about a character called Miranda, "It doesn't matter what Miranda attempts in life, whether it's dating or simply dealing with her overbearing mother, she always seems to fall flat, quite literally". Why can't we have a comedy where the women are strong, powerful and funny, like the men are in The Thick of It. In The Thick of It, the best character goes around being absolutely monstrous to people, and everyone loves it. I wonder if that character would work as a woman, or are we only funny when we are being inept? As usual Channel 4 has the much more edgy female led show in Morgana. At times quite uncomfortable viewing, as you try and work out whether the joke is actually offensive, Morgana's comedy is sharper and insightful. I particularly like her drunk American lady who constantly belittles her husband while making a fool of herself. Maybe it's just that I connect with her more than with the inept ladies... Still, the BBC has my taxpayers money and I want more feisty women on please.

I am now 67 and I have done my time as a worker. I am a mother of children in their 30s and one 40 year old as well as a youngster of 25. By theolder ones' ages, I was a full-time working mother living in London with no family support as I had come to London in my 30s. The marriage suffered and divorce came after 20 years of marriage and 6 years in London so I was then a single working mother. How did I survive? How did the children go? I can honestly say I have no idea how I did it. In my view the children suffered from lack of family and friends contact. But they are now adults and they live their own lives and work out their own solutions. This blog is about feminism and here are my views from the viewpoint of the information above. I am very disappointed and surprised at the way women of today seem to be no different to the women of my early years. There still seemed to be, in the workplace where I was at least, a lack of self-confidence in the women when they discussed work with their male colleagues. The young women of my working acquaintance still seemed to talk with men as though they, the women, were privileged to be where they were in the working pecking order rather than they were there by right. Because of this they did not often challenge the status quo of male promotion to higher ranks that occurred regularly. To those of you who are women and who are in your 30's and who work in a male-dominated environment I ask these question. Why do you think this is? Do you challenge the way men think of themselves as superior to women or do you just accept it as part of your working life and think that it is of no consequence because you have made it up the ladder on a par with the men? I look forward to hearing from you. Mary Symons

An email comes round with best pictures of the decade. The pictures depict war, environmental destruction and, incongruously, celebrities. But the most stark impression from these pictures is the general absence of women. The men fight, die and celebrate football. In the few pictures of women, they collect water, pose and grieve./Headlines in the Guardian, Child Sex Trafficking on the rise. An abused child describes how she kept hoping that one of her abusers would rescue her rather than abuse her. As women, we are taught to stand on the sidelines and watch. Watch our brother play rugby, watch men play football, watch men make decisions on our future in government and in business. They also watch other women focus on their appearance, pretty dresses, worrying about boyfriends and relationships. While we have come so far over the past 50 years with women in the business world now, in government, playing a role in making the wheels of capitalism turn rather than at home raising kids, it seems like we are still on the sidelines watching. It's just that our vantage point is a bit closer to the action. How do we encourage women to get more engaged, to take ownership of their future, of our present. Feminists over a century have fought really really hard to get us to where we are today. We are in a position now where we can take control. It is there for us. British society accepts women as leaders, as agents of change. Sure we need to work out the childcare issue, but the battle for the minds is over. But we hesitate. We step back. We let men jump into the limelight. Why? Because they want it so much more than we do. Am I bovvered? It is stressful, being at the top, taking charge, taking the flak when things go wrong. It takes a special kind of person to stand up and at the moment they are mainly men. So why is this? How are we raising girls differently so that they do not hunger after responsibility and status like men seem to? Is this a biological issue? Testosterone? It seems to me that this last hurdle needs to be tackled urgently, otherwise we may slip back into the supporting role again. Remember that equality for women is historically a very recent phenomenon and distinctly Western. We need to be vigilant to keep our status in place. So let's go for it. Find some cahones and push at that final frontier. Starting with football.

Girl-illa action

With two young sons, I can't help but notice the amount of scantily clad women presented for their delectation on billboards 10ft high.  What does that tell them about women's bodies?  I'm all for nakedness, we were born naked, after all.  But sexualised, provocative nakedness, well that's another matter.

I'm not the only one thinking this...

http://www.openureyes.org.nz/blog/?q=node/1793

So how do we deal with it?  I wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority a couple of time a few years ago, but it seems like a drop in the ocean.  Maybe it would be better to take on this advertising directly.  I wonder what 'Girl-Rilla' and ex-Marine, Liz Carmouche thinks of these adverts...

Tags: thinking, women, advertising, action

Queens and Servants

Spending time with some fellas today, I thought to myself that the men at the table were used to women who are queens of the household. I know the partners of 2 of the men and they are definitely queens as well.

So that got me pondering. I know there are some women who are self-effacing and would probably not describe themselves as queen, they may even joke that they are the servant of the house. The question is, do we need more regality in the home, in order to raise lovely men who are sweet and respectful? Should we not even joke that we are servants, but instead act like queens? Every woman I know who is the queen of her house, has happy menfolk (even though people from outside cannot understand how the men could be happy there...)

I think of men as dogs and women as cats. Dogs like heirarchy, they like to know who is the boss and in a power vacuum, will appoint themselves as top dog. Cats like to do their own thing and not really decide one way or another on anything or anyone. So a cat needs to assert herself in a home with dogs in because otherwise the dog will assume a power vacuum. However since dogs are usually stronger, the cat must use regality to assert her power.

No doubt some cats are heirarchical and some dogs are regal, but you get my point..

I think my son might have swine flu.   I have heard that it is no longer recommended to give him Tamiflu so I have a look online to see what I should do next.  So I enter a Kafkaesque world, which feels more like something out of 1984 than the Britain I have come to know and love.  I am directed to a website where I complete an online assessment - the first question wants to know where we live.  Why should I provide that info first?  Surely that should come last, if at all?  Putting in fake location information as our address is NOYB, I find out that he may have it and I am now authorised to get Tamiflu.  There is no advice on what to do instead of using Tamiflu.

So now I look elsewhere on the web, trying to find advice on how to deal with swine flu without using Tamiflu.  Instead I find lots of information about the side effects of Tamiflu but the best advice comes from a mum in Mumsnet - bed rest and Calpol, monitoring them to see if they get worse.  Why couldn't there be some 'official advice' saying this.

Eventually I ring the helpline and there is just a recorded message.  I notice that there is another telephone number for the 'treatment' line so I ring that instead and there is another long recorded message.  I hang up when the disembodied voice tells me that I might be prosecuted for misuse of the system.  Where's a doctor on the end of the phone when you need one?   I can't help but wonder how capital = money infected the process for dealing with this epidemic...

My son tells me that icecream helps a lot too...

So Roman Polanski has finally been arrested for his rape of the 13 year old girl in America, now a woman in her thirties. Once again, the press emphasises his glittering record of filmmaking, providing just a passing comment about the rape itself. Just like Gascoigne, who has admitted beating up his wife but has not been dropped from the public eye, Polanski appears to be able to commit heinous deeds and still be feted. We will know that feminism has truly succeeded when crimes against women turn men into outcasts, rather than ignored if they are famous enough. Does the indifferent response to the aggressive behaviour of famous men like Gascoigne and Polanski reflecta similar indifference to the treatment of 'ordinary women' by 'ordinary men'? Well with one in 6 women experiencing domestic violence at some point in their life, it seems so.

On Monday 5th September, thinkingwomen met in Manchester to hear from Judith Kurutac on the issues of labour and birth in the UK. Judith's key message was that women, pregnant women, need to recognise that they are in control . They are the only ones who know what they want and they need to make sure they get it. Midwives and doctors (and mothers and friends) can advise but we must each make decisions for ourselves. However, there are real problems in achieving this. Women want to get to know the midwives that will be there during labour but there are not enough to go round. Women want midwives to be engaged in the birth (not passive present but 'active') but midwives worry that they will say or do the wrong thing. There has been a disconnect in responsibility where women are expecting the health professionals to tell them what to do rather than listening to their own bodies and telling the professionals what is happening and how to support them. We need to have more confidence in ourselves as active, fit, able, capable women who can get down to the animalistic reality that labour is - the grunting and panting and pushing, the poo, the blood, the fluid. And of course that wonderful moment when your baby sprawls out, arms outstretched, reaching for you, making it all worthwhile. Perhaps we need to have courses like the Haka (select 'Watch the Haka'), the New Zealand Rugby team's warm up dance, where we grunt and moan. Or do yoga, I suppose..! Top tips for Locating your power are: - Have confidence in yourself - Believe that you will get through it (because you will) - Be active, move about - Don't be afraid to ask for what you want (including changing midwives if you don't want the one you've been assigned) - Take each contraction at a time - Try to abstract the painful sensation - imagine it as shapes or colours A good session, heavily populated with pregnant ladies. Let's hope they located some of their power.

Inspired by Jonathon's response to my previous post, I thought I would share more of my anthropology MA. I'm hoping to do my thesis on the techniques people use to rationalise their decisions in morally ambiguous situations e.g. how do people who experiment on animals process their activities so that they feel ok about it. I have several challenges to think about before I settle on finding people to participate in my study. These are as follows: - I do not want to make a judgement myself on what is morally wrong or right. What impartial measure can I use to define when a situation is morally ambiguous (yeah, right, when is anything ever impartial!). I thought I might use Ethical Consumer's assessment of the FTSE 100 and choose companies at the bottom and approach people who work in them (e.g. Tescos). How/What else can I use to justify a morally ambiguous situation outside the context of my own subjectivity? - What are the different areas where people are particularly morally challenged? Military, multinationals (ha ha), WTO/IMF, politics, medicine, urban planners. I know we all are to some degree. - What if no-one wants to talk to me about this in the context of their job? What might incentivise them? Any opinions? Jess

I'm starting an MA in Social Anthropology in September which will hopefully lead onto a PhD. My current preoccupation is with the discontinuity between how our bodies are designed to live and how we actually live. We were designed to live in a hunter-gatherer society and we are forcing our bodies and our emotions to fit into a societal model that is only a few hundred years old. It may take another thousand for our bodies to adapt and the adaptations that are already taking place (e.g. obesity, unhappy daycare/latchkey children) seem only to be negative. There must be a way to take the best of modern life and adapt it to the physiological and emotional needs of our hunter-gatherer instincts.

Women@Work_ A major break through for British Council Pakistan British Council Pakistan wins cash pound 700 sponsorship from APNA Arts UK. Women@work, an exhibition of working women by the British Council Pakistan will be exhibited in Nottingham, UK during the month of March 2005 with the launch event taking place on International Women's Day. The first showing in Nottingham will be followed by a regional and a national tour with educational workshops within the UK. This dual language exhibition, English and Urdu, portrays Pakistani women in non-traditional areas of work and challenges outdated stereotype preconceptions about women's role in Pakistani society and the wider Diaspora. It was designed to increase public awareness of the positive contributions that women make in Pakistan and around the world outside of traditional areas of work. The posters focus specifically on women working in less 'traditionally' female professions, such as, engineers, judges, pilots, taxi drivers, politician's etc. The images demonstrate that women are often in positions of control and authority in their work environments. Similarly, they have line-management responsibility for the work of men as well as women. The posters are attractive and reflect working women of Pakistan background in a real life situation. Apna Arts working in partnership with other UK based arts and educational organizations would like to take the exhibition around schools and community organisations in Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester and Bradford areas, using the exhibition and an accompanying education pack as a catalyst to improve educational achievements among young British Pakistani children, who have traditionally under achieved. The British Pakistani community as a whole ends up in very low grade jobs and women still are under achieving in education and other progressive activities. These portrayals of women as positive role models will be used to encourage young children in schools as well as their mothers in the community to reach higher goals through improved confidence and new insights into wider possibilities for future employment. Apna Arts are also interested in linking the exhibition with 'Roti, Kapra or Makaan', an education pack being developed for key stages 3 and 4. To accompany the education pack a series of workshops with schools in Nottingham will be held over a period of six weeks. Experienced artists within the UK will be appointed to work with a group of 15-17 year olds in various schools using the working environment as the focus of learning. This is the first ever collaboration between British Council Pakistan, Human Rights Education Programme Pakistan, APNA Arts, the Arts Council of England and Nottingham City Council. The project has been evolved as a strong connecting future project addressing the issues of identity, changing places and achieving mutuality in full spirit. APNA Arts through support from the Arts Council of England and Nottingham City Council have given sterling 700 cash sponsorship towards the re-designing of the project so it is suitable to be shown in the UK. This is the first ever sponsorship British Council Pakistan has got directly from a UK based organisations. The women@work will be available for showing at other venues across the country and APNA Arts will actively promote its availability to regional and national galleries and organisations. Look out for more information on http://www.britishcouncil.org/pakistan

Should our society endorse lap dancing? If you purport to respect women, you don't go to lapdancing clubs because they treat women as sexual objects *only*. And to treat a woman as a sex toy only is not respectful and should not be endorsed by a civilised society. Men who go to lapdancing clubs should be offered counselling because they clearly have a disfunctional relationship with women.

Thinkingwomen in Manchester last night explored who is 21st century woman? Using words as mind joggers, we discussed the different challenges facing women today, from Western and developing world perspectives. The choice of words demonstrate our preoccupations, from water, education, children and business to prostitution, celebrity, frailty and responsibility. Our conversation kept returning to the interconnection of our planet, the impact of our behaviour on each other and the extent to which we are ignoring basic needs. As a society, we are making assumptions and imposing standards that seem distorted, focused less on what is actually happening and what needs to happen and more on what we think should happen. We stifle then under targets don’t seem to deliver what we really need. We celebrated women’s strength, both physical and mental and we wondered why the role models in our society are celebrities, feted for beauty and wealth. We considered whether we are raising our children with the values of equality and fairness that we demand from our adult life. We speculated that the one-dimensional nature of the media, feeding us stories on appearance and gossip, is filling a void left by the reduction of hardship. Is there an anti-intellectualism snobbery that prohibits discussion and entertainment in discussing the more serious issues of our planet’s future or what kind of society we actually want? Is there an expectation of authority or deep knowledge when someone speaks on a matter, rather than just an opinion. Are we too embarrassed to talk? Topics to talk about at future thinkingwomen in Manchester events: - Religion and spirituality and its role in government - Responsibility: to what and to whom? - Women in politics: are we there yet and if not, why not? - Basic needs: what are they and are they being satisfied? - What are our expectations of life? The structure of the sessions will be: an expert in a particular field will give a talk and then there will be a group discussion on the issues raised. Anyone is invited to submit suggestions for topics or experts, including themselves, if there is something they would like to share with the group. Most of all, we aim to have fun while we talk about these issues. It is possible to have a laugh and be serious at the same time! If you would like to know more about the Manchester events, contact jessicasymons@yahoo.com

Here's something to think about: On 19th April, thinkingwomen are asking Should the government regulate nudity in the mainstream press. Dr Petra Boynton, Sex and Relationship psychologist will outline her research into the effect of nudity in the press on men and women followed by a group discussion. We need to consider the parameters of the discussion: - Would it be easier to debate this issue if we focused solely on sexualised nudity i.e. nakedness that is intended to titillate? Where would the boundaries be? - Should we focus just on nudity in advertising (note that Page 3 is not advertising..) - 'Mainstream press' does not include bra and knicker clad models in Triumph adverts on the back of buses, should the debate cover nudity in the public arena, rather than just in mainstream press? Our challenge is to stay sufficiently wide to cover the issue - tits on display - and tangible enough to propose a clear practical framework for managing it/them.

The lack of philosophical identity at the core of our UK government is really starting to damage their rule. Their policies are totally contradictory. On the one hand they campaign against domestic violence, on the other they bomb women and children in another country, on the one hand they sign the Kyoto agreement and run campaigns on how to save the environment, on the other, they endorse the development of new runways and new roads (to "meet demand"). The hypocrisy makes me breathless - who are they to tell us how to behave? Who are they to act on their own interests and try to persuade us that they are doing it on behalf of others? I'm so sick of Tony Blair, David Blunkett, Jack Straw, Peter Mandleson, Ken Livingston - they are all so arrogant and they just don't listen. It's like being back in my father's household! I've spent some time thinking about the alternatives and they are as follows: - we campaign for a referendum on Europe and we circumvent British politics altogether, handing our fate over to the Europeans - we throw our support whole heartedly behind the Greens and try to raise their profile sufficiently to get elected - I leave for Australia (whoops, political regime not much better there) - we appeal to British women, persuade them that it is time that we took charge. Male dominated politics is sooo last century.

I was wondering if I had invented the phrase 'gender loaded' so I had a look online and found a few interesting sites, such as Electric Venom (very relevant to Sophia's blog below), a proposed new word to replace him/her (mafe) - I must start using that! A couple of feminist blogs, red polka dot org and wehavebrains (so they're thinking the same thing over the Atlantic then..) and a rather scary health report (PDF) about how adolescents look for gender loaded activities to help confirm their sexuality (such as binge drinking for men and dieting for women.)

A posting on the Demos blog recently (2nd Dec) got me thinking about gender loaded words. I think 'modest' is gender loaded. For me, it conjures up a 19th century Georgette Heyer heroine who smiles behind her hand. I think for a man to call a woman modest is patronising. Other gender loaded words are pretty, beautiful, stunning (all used for views as well..I wonder why ;) I didn't really challenge the blogger, because I didn't want to offend him (he's a nice fella). I can see now that women are turned off feminism because they don't want to offend men. And men are offended by feminism because they feel threatened by it. Apparently overtly feminist groups actually receive death threats. What are people so scared of? Surely exploring our language and behaviour in the context of gender gives us a greater understanding of ourselves. Where is the harm?

Hello I have a colleague trying to find films (preferably which would be on DVD) which show a strong portrayal of women undertaking leadership. Can anyone think of any? So far all we've thought of is Erin Brokovich; but would prefer cleaner language. Please send ideas to peter@futureconsiderations.com. THANK YOU!!

The Guardian are doing a 'public services consultation'. If you're quick you can put in your five pence worth. Here is mine: The government needs to decree as policy that they will give preference to not-for-profit organisations when considering tender bids for provision of goods and services. Somehow, the need for competition in a market has got confused with the need for profit. Profit oriented companies try to satisfy their shareholders first, not their customers. All excess money is creamed off rather than reinvested. Competition is necessary to ensure that companies do not become complacent and a monopoly certainly breeds contempt. But the incentive for an individual to do well in a company and therefore get promoted and paid a better wage, is sufficient for them to do a good job. They do not need to make a profit to satisfy an external market which is itself subject to the whims of individuals who have nothing to do with the industry itself. The coffee industry is just one of many that have been destroyed by the vagaries of the stock exchange, impoverishing people who are already disadvantaged. We cannot let our public services go the same way. For as long as taxpayers money is paid into the pockets of rich shareholders, the public will be dissatisfied with privatisation. Not-for-profit private sector provision of public services is the third way.