the death of paternalism

I want to present something as an alternative to Alison Wolf's picture of the death of altruism - to invert the gender focus and talk about the death of paternalism. Re-reading her piece has given me slightly more respect for it, though I still feel she's very selective about the kind of social patterns she identifies - and presents a slightly contradictory picture of a 'sisterhood.' I don't want to rehash that particular critique but instead use the three main conclusions to suggest parallels in the development of male culture.

Wolf identifies three major changes: the death of altruism, the end of the sisterhood and a reduction in the emphasis on having children. Now, I complained (along with others) that this analysis completely ignores any role that men might play in those cultural areas. So, as a way of moving this discussion on a little, I want to address just that.

I think we might describe a cultural shift that starts in the 1980's - perhaps marked most strongly by Thatcherism - when Conservatism began to shift away from a previous ideology of paternalism. By this, I mean a male-oriented kind of 'noblesse oblige,' that men with money, privilege and power should exercise those things for some kind of greater good. To a degree, it's one of the moral imperatives behind the creation of a welfare state.

The 1980's and Thatcherism began to steer popular opinion away from that specific moral code, instead building the image of the independent, self-made man: the entrepeneur who takes risks and is rewarded by them. In the place of state welfare structures, we have a family oriented around a male authority figure: there is 'no such thing as society,' only local systems of social responsibility. A real man is a man who owns his business and can support his own family. That social model was crucially dependent on the (unmarked) presence of female labour within the home and in the raising of children; it was, and to a degree remains, a social contact so naturalised and commonplace that it goes unremarked.

However, in the 80's that emphasis on individual male responsibility and self-reliance was allied to a kind of capitalism of naked-profit; or more specifically, the re-ordering of social systems to be profitable, not least through the gradual privatisation of the NHS. I'm not saying that a moral paternalism was entirely replaced with a financial imperative, but rather that such a paternalism (which defined many generations of parliamentary politics) was in competition with a kind of economic pragmatism.

Against the backdrop, the shift that the spread of feminism represents is not exclusively female. If male activity and identity is defined in relation to what women do, a change in female activity and identity has some kind of reciprocal effect. So if more and more women are working, and fewer and fewer women are identifying themselves primarily through homes, husbands and children - it leaves male identity on challenged ground - or ground on which the borders of male behaviour have been moved.

I should add at this point, though, that male altruism is not dead and that altruist work has never been the exclusive domain of women. The role of men within religious and other voluntary organisations has a long history, not least in access to professional services which could only be traditionally supplied by men. e.g. the auditing of the books of a charity. There's also something to be said for the social necessity of a legitimating, responsible male presence in otherwise female dominated work.

However, the reduction in female responsibility for caring roles within the home and abroad (the supposed death of altruism) has not yet been strongly matched with a return to paternalism or the development of a new social obligation. The 'new man' continues to operate within a specific economic niche.

Instead, we've seen the rise of a generation of men whose status as men has been marked through the valorisation of their status as consumers. So great is this trend that we have now begun to approach traditionally separate masculine spheres through that discourse - we know exactly how much our football stars are worth, where they buy their clothes and what car they drive.

Okay, that's part one. Comments?

EDIT - Oh, and the next part is about the link between a culture of consumption and our treatment of male and primarily female bodies.

EDIT - for the sake of this particular argument, female bodies will have to wait. :)

the guardian on feminist bloggers

A feature in the Guardian dealing with feminist bloggers:

In the two years since feministing started, there has been an explosion of feminist blogs, including many that have a highly professional edge, and a large, loyal readership. The feminist movement has always produced plenty of meaty writing and lively debate: witness Sylvia Pankhurst's newspaper, the Woman's Dreadnought, in the 1910s, through the pamphleteering of the 1970s second-wave, and the vibrant 'zine culture of the 1990s' "riot grrrl" movement.

Prior to the blogosphere though, distribution remained local for all but a few major publications, such as Spare Rib, Ms, or, latterly, Bust and Bitch magazines.

Now though, the third wave (a movement often dismissed as a myth) has gone online. At feminist blogs you can find women writing on a bewildering range of topics, be it the perilously high caesarean rate in India, the dearth of abortion clinics in South Dakota, or the human rights record of the Philippines' president, Gloria Arroyo.

Some of the most popular blogs include Bitch PhD, the F-word, Pandagon, AngryBlackBitch, MindtheGapCardiff and Gendergeek.

Natalie at Philiobiblon also gets a name-check for the Carnival of the Feminists. Congratulations to all named: your traffic is about to go through the roof for a little while. :)

One thing slightly missing from the article, though, is a mention of the overlapping and growing community of commenters (and trolls) that I think gives the UK feminist blogosphere much of its personality.

On a slightly related note, has anyone had any contact with Emma or Emmy from gendergeek? The site hasn't been updated in a few weeks and I can't find their email addresses.

sex in the city actually fictional shock

Today's QuiteStupidStory is a small survey that shows that the sex lives of fictional, rich New Yorkers is not the same as actual women from Sheffield. This, of course, illustrates that:

Female liberation is a myth, delegates are told at the British Psychological Society conference.

WOMEN may well have come a long way since the sexual revolution of the Sixties and Seventies, but research suggests that the enormous strides that they have made in the workplace have not been matched in the bedroom.

The portrayal of complete female sexual liberation in television shows such as Sex and the City could be a myth, according to research suggesting that many women regard one-night stands and casual sex as wrong.

Could be a myth? A fictional TV programme could be a myth? Well, that is a surpise.

The Times is apparently unaware of contraception in various forms (including the pill) access to abortion, sex education and the criminalisation of rape within marriage. But aside from that, sex has been pretty untouched by the sexual revolution of the Sixties and Seventies.

Before we go any further, let's note that the study was based on the opinions of 46 women all from within the same geographic area of the north of England, with an average age of 48. We don't know anything about their economic class, which previous research has suggested has an impact on social attitudes; we also don't know anything about their religious upbringing.

Yet, regardless of those fairly specific limitations, the Times and others tell us we're expected to treat this as indicative of all attitudes - with the Times deciding that 'casual sex is a turn-off for the modern woman.' Hear that? Enjoy sex and you're some kind of slutty throw-back.

Sharron Hinchliff, of the University of Sheffield, said that the findings suggested that women’s sexual behaviour was still “problematised” by society, even though similar behaviour by men was accepted.

Irony, for table one, as a story about the cultural policing of female sexuality becomes... part of the policing of female sexuality. Now, ask yourself, is a rather shaky story like this more likely to challenge or confirm the unequal cultural rules for sex for men and women?

howard kaloogian and the case of the inconvenient truth

GOP candidate Howard Kaloogian was caught falsifying evidence of the success of the war in Iraq - using a picture of a prosperous market street that was actually taken in Turkey.

Having been caught out and supplied a 'not my fault, someone in my office got confused' style non-apology, it seems that Kaloogian's replacement picture (that does actually show an area of Baghdad) was taken nine months ago. From Boing Boing:

Later Wednesday, Kaloogian admitted the photo was from Turkey but denied he had anything personally to do with posting it on his site. He replaced that Turkey photo with a photo of what he said was Baghdad--taken from a distant hill. [...]

Update 2: David Roth sez,

Regarding the bogus photo which Mr. Kaloogian posted on his website, or rather its replacement:

The new photo which claims to show downtown Baghdad looks like was taken in July of last year. If you use the Unix/Linux command "strings" to strip out all of the text information contained in that photo, here are the first few lines:

JFIF
!7Exif
Minolta Co., Ltd.
DiMAGE 7i
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 Windows
2006:03:29 13:00:10
Picasa 2.0
PrintIM
0250
0220
0100
2005:07:13 19:50:27
2005:07:13 19:50:27
0100
JFIF

Applications which process images can embed helpful information in the files. As you can see, this picture was probably taken with a Minolta camera and cropped using Adobe Photoshop Elements. It's the two timestamps near the bottom that are telling.

Either Mr. Kaloogian has a computer somewhere whose clock is almost a year off, or this picture was taken (or processed) on July 13, 2005 at about 7:50 PM.

Another moment where you have to wonder whether someone is plain stupid or plain dishonest - and the stupidity plea doesn't look very likely at the moment.

This moment of blogger-driven expose reminded me of the case in the general election here in the UK last year (and one of the first things I wrote about) when Conservative candidate Ed Matts doctored a photo to reverse his apparent stance on asylum seekers.

Same old shit, brand new bucket, I think.

offered without punctuation

It's been a bit of a long day.

a suprising use for charles clarke

A fantastically, stunningly brilliant one-line argument to stop people from voting Labour: identity cards will be made compulsory if Labour wins the next election, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has said.

Hey, look, I found a productive use for Charles Clarke!

fight now in progress

Quick, everyone over to The Guardian - it's an article about rape that actually talks about male culture and slices up the weaknesses of the Home Office campaign:

But what lad culture has actually done over the past decade is to distance young men from real life by forcing them into an alluring straitjacket. It tells young men they can get all the girls they want - down some of this drink, spray on some of that deodorant, and watch the girls fall at your feet.

These magazines explain in detail how to work out what women think. Fingers, elbows, shoes and anything else pointy pointing at you? She likes you. She plays with her hair? Even better. She comes home with you? Result. She says no? She's playing hard to get. She says no again? She doesn't want to come across too easy. She says no a third time? What are you, a man or not ... take control of the situation, she'll love that. [...]

These magazines claim to give young men the confidence they need: an insight into the skills they require to navigate a path through their romantic lives and an understanding of the qualities that women find attractive. Instead, impressionable young men have been sold a distorted image of who women are and what masculinity is about - an image that does nothing but frustrate, degrade and humiliate them.

There's also someone in the comments fiercely manufacturing straw men, jumping to the conclusions that a) this is an argument that naughty pictures make men rapists and b) naughty pictures should be banned. Luckly, there are some rather more lucid commenters:

What Alok's saying is that young men too are being exploited and patronised. Admittedly, not all men will heed the messages thrust at them, but they're everywhere, it takes constant filtering to ignore it all. Both men and women's magazines conspire to make people anxious about their bodies and sexual prowess because it makes them BUY THINGS, that's how they are funded.

Wooo. I may even use this as the moment inaugurate my freshly registered commenting account over there..

EDIT - the comment form seems to be broken at the moment so I'll say it here in more detail. I think that Jha's optimism for the potential of the Home Office anti-rape campaign is misplaced:

For all the faults in its execution, the Home Office campaign does mark an interesting departure. While it is principally about protecting women, the principles behind it could help young men find a way out of a culture that requires an unchecked reliance on alcohol and machismo to have a good time.

I disagree: while the function of the campaign might be to protect women, the campaign itself is interested in threatening men, with prison or their own assault. It doesn't actually identify or discuss any recognisable situations or present an alternative, meaning that the capacity of the campaign to 'acknowledge some of the more shocking consequences of lad culture - to recognise that they are being sold down the river by the magazines they aspire to' is stunted.

I think that's maybe what the campaign should do - I just dont think that the exisiting campaign materials express anything like the idea that 'rape is a consequence of lad culture.' Instead, the Home Office has chosen to send a different message - that rape has consequences - which while true doesn't begin to adress the culture in which rape occurs.

shocking but not suprising

Despite what my posting here might suggest - and what the Daily Mail itself might argue - they somtimes end up giving voice to what sound like feminist positions:

A private school for girls ran an advertisement for cosmetic surgery in its annual magazine, it has emerged.

The glossy quarter-page spot featured a picture of an attractive young woman in a low-cut top with the words: "Your new look couldn't be in better hands." It offered a "wide range of cosmetic treatments" from "experienced consultant surgeons".

Simon Taylor, a parent at the school which he would not name, said: "I'm absolutely horrified. It's a scandal. My daughter is 17 so I suppose she is a prime target for this advert. It is a mirror of the cynical culture that we live in.

"There is such a pressure on these girls to have the right clothes and the right gizmos and this goes right to the heart of it.

"The school is a community for the girls to develop well-rounded, well balanced aspirations about their image and future and this advert goes against all that."

This isn't a situation where a cosmetic surgeon took advantage of a cash-strapped school but quite the contrary. Though the headline has the surgeons 'targeting the school,' a spokesperson for BMI Healthcare says that the school approached them.

This story arrives only days after the results of a (marketing) survey taken by Dove, they of the soap / 'real beauty' campaign:

Three-quarters of girls dislike something about their appearance by the age of 12, an alarming survey has found.

By the age of 16, one in four are even considering plastic surgery. While an astonishing 92 per cent want to change the way they look, the poll for Dove found.

This unhappiness with their appearance is holding a number of girls back in life. Nine out of 10 teachers believed it stopped them taking plass in class activities.

Girls in Britain have among the lowest self-esteem levels in the world. Almost a third of eight to 12-year-olds wanted to be slimmer and twenty seven per cent were unhappy with their hair colour.

The remarkable thing about this is how information like this is treated as unremarkable - that the idea that eight year old children have anxieties over their weight is somehow unsuprising: indicative of the culture we live in but no longer shocking.

And then we're back to the first story: of a company, encouraged by a school, that advertises cosmetic surgery to children - an explicit example of the implicit message in so much of our media, a relentless sales-pitch to improve your body through any means possible and where the next big thing is a non-surgical face-lift you can have during your lunch hour - where columnists can report with a straight (ha) face that botox is a 'girl's best friend.' It's a barrage against which the occasional celebrations of a eumphemistically 'curvy' body (held in contrast to accusations of anorexia) don't stand a chance.

The problem with the Daily Mail's expression of shock - in both the school and Dove survey stories - is that although the stories are indeed worrying, the Mail is unable to recognise its own role in creating the kind of culture where people don't feel happy in their own bodies.

Hmph.

There was also a big double-page feature from Joan Bakewell on Monday on the evolution of feminism and her continued support for it - it doesn't seem to be online. I'll see if I can scan and host it somewhere..

more on the reform of rape prosecutions

Further plans have been revealed for reform of rape law - with the notable suggestion that juries, not judges, decide whether someone was sober enough to have given consent. I'll be coming back to the plans (and semi-inevitable shit-storm) when the consultation document is actually available, and not just press-release published.

lost feminist found

Another discovery, a "female, feminist, childfree, software engineering undergrad, 20-something, agnostic/humanist, pro-choice, married, terrible driver, table thumper". What's not to like? :)

From the definition of her "own brand feminism":

For me (and that bit's more important than those two words would seem), feminism is:

Primarily, judging a person on their own merit rather than their biological sex, and having no preconceived ideas about what a person might do, can do, or is like, based on that sex.

Believing men and women to be equal in all facets of society – that is, of equivalent value, not necessarily identical.

By the above I mean believing in equality of opportunity, not necessarily equality of outcome.

Realising that women and men do tend to have different areas of strength, but that these are complementary; that the similarities are more numerous than the differences, and that there are plenty of women and men who don't fit a stereotype.

Seeing that those qualities that are seen as traditionally female are given an equal value as those that are ascribed to men.

Another feminist, another voice, another personal version of feminism.

reforming adoption law (and facing down bigots)

The Scottish Parliament has finally published the Adoption Act which - if it passes - will give unmarried and gay couples the legal right to foster and adopt children. While a similar change came into effect in England and Wales in December of last year, Scotland has lagged behind.

However, this hasn't stopped everyone's favourite Catholic, the Bishop of Motherwell, from producing dire statements about a thing that hasn't happened yet (story now archived):

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), which is partly funded by the Scottish Executive, has supported the moves by ministers to allow same sex couples to adopt.

However, Bishop Devine believes there is a growing feeling that, because adoption panels are frightened of being accused of discrimination against gay men and lesbians, they are being given preferential treatment over heterosexual couples.

That's preferential treatment in adoption panels that have not yet been convened. The same trick was also pulled by the Daily Mail, a mere six weeks after the law changed in England and Wales, in an opinion piece that failed to provide one single example of supposed bias because few (if any) cases involving gay prospective parents had even been heard.

The hopefully successful passage of this bill through the Scottish Parliament is an opportunity to squash some of the most ugly and persistent libels of gay people - such as the one voiced recently in the US by Tennessee State Rep. Debra Maggart (R):

"We ... have seen evidence that homosexual couples prey on young males and have, in some instances, adopted them in order to have unfretted [sic] access to subject them to a life of molestation and sexual abuse,"

This species of slur is entirely false. Homosexuality is no more akin to paedophilia than heterosexuality is; we don't treat the large percentage of male paedophiles who abuse young girls as evidence of a general defect in heterosexuals. Being gay is only slurred in such a manner because of the convenience of lumping all 'deviances' together.

Cardinal O'Brien - the head of the Catholic church in Scotland - has a track record of making similar (though slightly less repellent) shit up so I'm fairly sure he and his surrogates will repeat some of the following arguments in the next few months:

children of gay parents will be bullied at school

This may be true, but you don't cure intolerance and bigotry by running from it. It's also the same argument for keeping girls, Jews, Muslims, black people etc. etc. out of school. Children will only make each others lives miserable if they have been brought up to think that this is what they should do: in short, if anyone's responsible for homophobic bullying, it's the intolerance of the Catholic church and other socially retrogressive groups that makes it acceptable.

children of gay parents will have a 'distorted' picture of gender / they'll grow up gay

Behold teh powar of teh gay!!!omg!!?! *ahem* Though straight parents seem to have a poor track record in raising exclusively straight children, this argument pays homage to the amazing alluring qualities of queer. It is quite silly, not least because it thinks that children grow up in a cultural vacuum and will receive no education in the many forms of desire and desirability beyond that which they see at home.

While the cultural influence of parents can indeed be awesome, it doesn't quite extend as far as determining sexual preference (see before: teh powar of teh gay). If heterosexuality is indeed a natural normative biological state then I think we can rely upon the appropriate hormones to assert themselves. Despite what abstinence only education teaches, no amount of prayer can counter the biological earthquake that is puberty.

Will the children of gay parents grow up with more tolerance towards gay people? Yes, that's a good thing and that's also what bothers peple who share the values of Cardinal O'Brien. Apologies for the Catholic bashing, but only mild apologies - they're not alone in their opinions but O'Brien presents a very public face for acceptable intolerance.

The consultation process that led to the recommendations in the new adoption bill has an analysis paper here. There's also a mound of information and further reading guidance on same-sex parenting.

mothers and work: daily mail readers speak

Comments on the Daily Mail's story on "How society 'suffers while mothers are out working'" are about to break 50 - worth a read for the shape of the debate and to see how many female readers argue how work is frequently a necessity rather than some kind of frivolous pleasure.

A sample of the various views:

I think women in general tries to do what's best for themselves and their families given whatever circumstances they may be in. Nobody would choose to work full time if they had the money and support of a partner.

Working mums in our society are frowned upon and blamed for everything, whilst stay at home mums are looked down on by society and even their partners. No wonder some women choose to be childless. Surprise surprise, childless women are also pitied or said to be too selfish.

- Wendy, Norfolk, UK

Can't men be altruistic, then? Why should it be left to women to care for everybody? Who cares for the women?

Child rearing is one thing - but blaming women having to work for neglecting the old, the sick and the disadvantaged is just unfair.

- Sarah, Cambridge

I am not an historian, but whenever I read 17th, 18th and 19th century literature, there are many instances of women from poorer socio-economic groups working - on the land, in the factory, in the pub. Where has all this romantic notion of the angel in the home come from. Their was a brief period of posterity for the majority of people after the war which allowed/encouraged/forced women to stay home, but that has long gone.

- Trudie Lambert, Lincoln

Nobody seems to have mentioned the fact that going out to work is both rewarding and fun. Never mind the money issue - just getting out of the house and interacting with adults must surely be one of the reasons for being a working mother. I love my job - and giving that up would be really very hard. I know being a full-time mother has its own amazing benefits etc etc. But really...saying women must stay at home OR ELSE suggests that going out and having a great time at work is something you should feel guilty about.

- Anon, London, UK

This is a decision women made, so its consequences are also their own. This time I don't think you can blame men.

- Ryk, London

Now, really, to sleep.

home sweet home

I think I finally have everything where it should be now I'm on blogger. All old posts are still at the old site - and here are some handy links for the good ol' days when I still had working categories: posts filed under gender, censorship, politics, human rights, education and ID cards.

Time for bed.

a lesson in pornographic ethics - 'laurelin in the rain' weighs in

Laurelin in the Rain has the most detailed analysis of the Taylor piece on raunch that I've seen so far - far, far more so than my effort. She also doesn't pull any punches:

This ridiculous article completely ignores the very exploitative, violent and callous base upon which FHM and its ilk are built. Taylor is blind to the women suffering from the denigration of the female to a despised sex object and the behaviour of men who enjoy degrading them. Abi Titmuss registers with her; the rape survivor does not.

She clearly either knows nothing about the treatment of women as a result of this patriarchal ethic, or she does not care. But then again, she’s not likely to want to piss off the pornographers who pay her salary.

I haven't read her blog regularly enough before (shame face) - I will now, and I think you might want to as well.

mad dog (midday sun) foreign policy

Blair's foreign policy roadshow sets out to patronise or misrepresent critics of current American foreign policy:

Addressing the Australian Parliament, the Prime Minister said that he did not always agree with the Americans and that sometimes they could be "difficult friends". But he said that the danger today was not that the Americans were too much involved in international affairs. The danger was that they might decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage.

"We need them involved. We want them engaged," Mr Blair said. "The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them."

He added: "The strain of anti-American feeling in parts of European and world politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in."

Does Blair seriously believe that America will - in a fit of pique - withdraw from all involvement overseas because of the nasty protestors? It has historically been in the vested interest of America and its closest economic allies to remain involved - whether it be in Israel, Germany or Korea - and it will take rather more than the disapproval of European governments (much less citizens) to change that.

US foreign policy, both economic and explicitly military, is dependent on the US being able to demand a right to get involved whenever it sees appropriate - much as in British affairs for many generations. That claim to involvement isn't necessarily a bad thing - given the potential for humanitarian aid and economic support, but it is a discourse which has given rise to the cult of pre-emptive action. To be diplomatic, it is a potential cause of concern; we're certainly not so polite about 'rogue nations' who aren't our friends who behave in a similar fashion.

Blair's label of anti-Americanism covers a wide range of concerns people of various political backgrounds have with current administration policies: from foreign policy issues and the use of military force to the treatment of the environment, the role of sweatshop labour overseas and the handling of reproductive rights, to name only a few. Many of these concerns are well founded and describe legitimate grievances that should be addressed, not merely dismissed en masse as 'anti-Americanism.'

Blair's use of the rhetoric of nationhood allows him to infer that criticism of American foreign policy is 'anti-Americanism,' based in the assumption that the American people are somehow homogenously continuous with current and recent administration policies. It's the same reasoning that allows those who criticise Israel or Hamas be accused of anti-semitism or Arab-baiting. Productive discussion means we need to avoid this kind of hysteria and recognise that legitimate criticism of American policy exists, often with paralleled by anxiety within the US itself.

Blair also falls to differentiate between 'involvement', 'engagement' and unilateral action - which, at a minimum, recognises that the long term interests of America are not by any means always same thing as the 'long-term interests of the world'. They're not absolutely divergent, but you need a conveniently shallow grasp of global politics to think that they're the same thing.

bad citizen

The BBC picks up the Andy Burnham comments, where I see something I missed earlier:

He argued that an identity database was already in existence as part of the passport system and people had to prove their identity on a daily basis.

A National Identity Register with biometric details, such as fingerprints, would make people "more able to control access to their identities", he said.

More able to control access to my identity? What is this rubbish? How does an identity database protect my fingerprints, date of birth, iris pattern etc. etc. from being stolen? Doesn't it store all of those things in one handy central place? How does this stop my credit card or name being used? Answer: it doesn't and it won't.

I also heartily object to Burnham's grovelling authoritarian morality of proving yourself to the status quo:

"I take the view that it is part of being a good citizen, proving who you are, day in day out," said Mr Burnham.

I really don't know where to start with that crap: I'm a bad citizen if I seek privacy? I'm a bad citizen if I choose to have more than one social identity? I'm a bad citizen until I've been vetted by Burnham and the Home Office? Fuck that: fuck that entirely.

the truthiness of andy burnham

Home Office Minister Andy Burnham seems to be experimenting with brave new standards for honesty:

Asked on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme why Labour had not told voters that the cards would be compulsory. He replied: "Actually, we did. During the parliamentary process that the Bill went through before the General Election, we were absolutely clear on this point.

There was no doubt about the link with the passport. We said all along that the right way to proceed would be at the time when we introduced the biometric passport, when fingerprints were introduced into the passport, that would be the right time to introduce the clean National Identity Register."

It's such a pity that we had an election, then, when the Labour party did what it does best and offered a mildly self-contradicting statement which made no mention of eventual compulsion. From the 2006 Labour manifesto:

We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, and back up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.

This could mean both a) that a person can choose to surrender biometric data during the course of acquiring a new passport or b) if you renew your passport you will 'voluntarily' (i.e. involuntarily) join the national identity register - depending on your reading preferences. As the Register pointed out at the time:

The "voluntary" ID card returned yesterday with the publication of the Labour's Party's election manifesto, but it's once again rather difficult to find out what's voluntary about it. According to the wording: "We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports." So, what's voluntary here?

A Labour Party spokesman told us first: "It's voluntary. You don't have to carry it." This seemed doubtful to us, but we asked if, in that case, you were still going to be registered for an ID card when you registered for a passport. He said he'd call us back.

Later, he explained that ID cards would initially be "piggybacking" on passports, and that you would be offered an ID card along with your passport. Which, we suggested, you could always refuse? But you'd still be registered for an ID card, right? Possibly. He conceded that the data collected for passports would be pretty similar to the data collected for ID cards, but pointed out that "we're not at the stage of having worked out all the details of how it would work. But it would work at passport renewal."

Rather less than being 'absolutely clear', no? Even if we accept the parliamentary debate line rather than the election campaign language, there's still a difference between the sales-pitches of 'initially on a voluntary basis' and 'eventually compulsory.'

The other bit of wriggle room - illustrated in the Register story above - is over the meaning of the word 'compulsory': yes, you have to have an ID card but no, you don't have to carry it. Yes, you'll need it to access a range of services you've paid for through tax, but you can choose to inconvenience yourself or go without.

Labour didn't campaign for an 'eventually compulsory' card because they knew it would be unpopular, sensibly choosing the more voter friendly 'initially voluntary' line instead and hoping no-one would notice the gradual slide between the two - a slide that has continued despite a mountain of objections on the grounds of cost, effectiveness and liberty.

The sales-pitch for identity cards has never, ever been clear but has instead taken the shape of endless question dodging and distraction. To shamelessly quote myself:

Rule one of the PR handling of identity cards seems to be if you can't defend the substance of an issue, don't talk about the substance of the issue. This strategy is dependent on changing the subject - so if the cost is criticised, talk about security; if security is criticised, talk about identity theft, if that doesn't work, switch to benefit benefit fraud, and then you're back round to talking about security of the state without ever addressing any specific criticisms.

Devoted followers of Burnham (Burnhamites? Burnhamistas? Andy's Acolytes?) will remember that this isn't the first time when he has been caught stuffing himself with the porky-pies.. uh.. offering statements of questionable veracity. There's the time when Dame Stella Rimington (nee MI-5) pointed out that the information in the national identity register would be partly based on existing documents which are easy to forge.

Rather than explaining how this problem might be confronted, Burnham chose denial - arguing that the card will be totally secure because the biometric data will be used, and thus missing the point about initial identification.

Then there was the claim that identity fraud costs the economy £1.7 billion each year, shown by various people to be a largeish portion of fresh steaming horse shandy. The problem then wasn't so much the inflation of the figure but the apparent ignorance of why 'customer not present' and other credit card frauds will be largely untouched by the national identity register.

To describe any part of the ID card mess as 'absolutely clear' is either laughably delusional or grossly dishonest. The problem with Burnham is that it's hard to decide which applies.

sometimes we write letters

I almost forgot to mention the letters page in the Guardian collectively kicking the shit out of Kate Taylor's position on raunch:

Most modern feminists are not against women expressing themselves through, and enjoying their bodies by, wearing skimpy outfits. Our problem is with the way women's bodies are mainly represented in the media in "sexualised" form. We are particularly concerned with the message this sends to children and teenagers.

Kate Taylor is right. Feminists shouldn't lecture. But when you're faced with the breathtaking naivety of her thinking, it's hard not to. Taylor's idea is that women can do whatever they like and then dress it up (in a thong, maybe, or perhaps a crop-top?) as feminism is nonsense.

If you want to be a feminist, you need to take heed of other women - in this country and elsewhere - whose circumstances may be radically different to your own. Some women may choose to embrace so-called raunch culture; that's their prerogative - it's a simple matter of civil liberties. But don't try and suggest this is, in itself, feminist. Don't pretend it empowers other women. Don't pretend it advances anyone's interests except their own.

Kate Taylor argues that women are not exploited by the kind of photos which regularly appear in lad's mags because the women who feature in them are well paid for removing their clothes. This misses the point entirely. That individual models may be making good money by posing naked does nothing to alter the fact that such images reinforce the notion of women as sex objects to be judged on their physical appearance.

Very, very satisfying to read so many articulate and pissed off voices.

fire bad, tree pretty, columnist stupid

As if by magic, reductionist pap appears courtesy of Caitlin Moran:

Of course, while women doing anything is always discussed in terms of its moral dimension - be it working more, breeding less or considering the skittish wedge shoe for this summer, which could apparently endanger lawns — to advance a moral case against plastic surgery seems surreally nebulous.

The point isn't that surgery equals good, or surgery equals bad but that a) cosmetic surgery is primarily interested in reproducing a narrow set of body images ad b) it aint' free. To advance a moral case against cosmetic surgery might indeed be silly - luckily, feminist critics tend to advance a political argument, that having surgery doesn't make you a bad person but instead that it might have social consequences - including, say, supporting a narrow definition of what is desirable.

However, it's never as simple as saying "boob job bad," 'cos self-determination of body image is good news - providing you really do get to choose. Quite a lot of feminist arguments also address economic issues. You might say it's a tiny bit complicated - but still, on with the straw-man reductionism:

Obviously, if you think that women wanting to look pretty is an artificialconstructimposedonwomen
byapatriarchaloppressor™, the debate on plastic surgery does have a moral dimension. But from what I understand, there isn't a culture in the world where women don't spend their spare time trying to look a bit more like the Inuit/Arapaho/Zhong equivalent of Kirstie Allsopp

Okay, easy with the globalisation of western attitudes towards beauty. Not all beautification rituals are the same: not all are male-oriented, not all involve make-up or clothes, not all are secular and not all involve surgery. And again, the critique of plastic surgery is not conventionally or exclusively a moral one.

Just accept it - men like lighting barbecues, and women are obsessed with their own faces. It's not cultural, it's chromosomal. It could even be the difference between X and Y. I'm sure science will find out soon, and put us all at rest.

"me lady like lipstick / me man fire good."

Caitlin Moran's piece concludes by repeating some of the most tired straw-arguments: that all feminists have a problem with plastic surgery and that it's the same problem, characteristed as a reification of natural beauty over the artificial - which, I think, is a load of crap that wouldn't survive ten minutes in a room with more than one feminist. Ho hum.

another bad PR day for god

I'll keep it brief and say that the UK Life League are religious bigots who rely on fear and the threat of violence to convey their messages:

Anti-abortionists inspired by the militancy of the movement in America are adopting tactics associated with animal rights extremists in an escalating campaign of intimidation.

The latest victims of harassment by a group called UK Life League are the pupils and teachers at a Catholic girls school in Surrey. The head teacher of Woldingham School, Diana Vernon, has been accused of "child abuse" for providing sex education for her 14- and 15-year-old pupils as required under the national curriculum. Activists are being encouraged to bombard Ms Vernon with hate emails.

Abortion in this country is very, very legal. Anyone calling someone a 'baby killer' - as in the case of a gynaecology nurse at King's College Hospital who was targeted by the group - is trying to intimidate through inflammatory language. It's deliberate intimidation and harassment, plain and simple, and no amount of religious posturing can change that.

Fortunately, it's the kind of behaviour that will drive public support away from their movement instead of toward it.

feminism in the media: some recent trends

I want to try and add some flesh to the idea that has been bouncing around various UK blogs at the moment: that certain parts of the UK press are showing an interest in feminism that seems to have little understanding of what might pass for feminism but still isn't shy to describe contemporary events or women as being either a betrayal or contradictory to feminist values. The claim that feminism has 'lost its way,' is 'over' or being 'killed' is predicated on a scarcity of detail of what that 'way' might be.

So, I'm going to try to describe a few of the central themes that have become apparent in this kind of writing - centred around a kind of faux-economics of choice in both the broadsheets and the tabloids.

The central fallacy here is that people have the lives, jobs and families they have because - by and large - they 'choose' to have them. It's a remarkably ahistorical reading of social and economic patterns, instead choosing to argue that things are they way they are because.. well.. things are the way they are. It's a fallacy of distortion and oversimplification: I'm not claiming that people don't make choices, but rather that the force and range of 'choice' is specific to circumstance.

In a rush to distance themselves from social determinism, critics who make the 'choice' argument have managed to remove or diminish this recognition of class, age, sex, race or other any circumstance. Women work part-time for poor money because they 'choose' to, never because it's the only job available or the only one that will fit with running a home and family. It's an economic sacrifice that is freely chosen, even though men rarely seem to make that free choice.

Alison Wolf's much reported recent article in Prospect is a good example of the rush to abandon social history (or even worse social theory) in preference for an economics of 'choice'. I suppose I should mention that I'm not arguing for a balance between social and economic theories, rather that such a binary is misleading. Social and economic theories do not occupy separate spheres; a sufficiently sophisticated social history is also an economic history.

consumption, choice and class

The outcome for the broadsheets is that we're all middle-class now, or rather that a middle class / middle income and perspective is presented as a 'neutral' standpoint (both in terms of economics and gender) from which feminism is approached. The degree to which the middle income lifestyle is inflated is something to talk about for another day - though for now I'll point out that it centres on a rhetoric of consumption and choice: fashion, holidays, shopping, cars, property and health-care. The flip-side of this is that tabloids treat feminism as a kind of class / economic niche: as something that concerns middle class women and men i.e. not their readership.

There's also a level to the tabloid rejection of feminism which is to do with anti-intellectualism. It's a disdain for experts and theorists because knowledge and thinking is somehow seen to separate you from the 'real world' - part of the characterisation of feminism as something that happens to other people.

One thing that's unusual about this is that the tabloid rejection of feminism seems be a rejection of the broadsheets version of feminism, characterised as an obsession with middle-class oriented choices that do not concern their readership. I suppose I'm suggesting that the treatment of feminism in the broadsheets and the tabloids is a) self-generating b) reflective of existing, implicit culture/classdivides and c) frequently unrelated to feminism as it is practiced by theorists in the academy and women and men in their own lives.

"popular" feminisms

I'll finish by pointing out a few trends in the broadsheet and tabloid treatment of feminism in the last few months. By this, I mean the few issues which are explicitly identified as feminist, rather than merely appearing (for example) in the 'women's' section ( e.g. the Observer's "Woman" magazine, the Daily Mail's 'femail'). I'm going to emphasise two issues here that compliment this idea of choice - plastic surgery and raunch culture, both of which have recently been presented as oppositional to feminism. This positioning depends on feminism being presented as opposed to consumer-led forms of self-determination. I'm thinking here of articles like Decca Aitkenhead's piece on the supposed taboo of plastic surgery or Kate Taylor's recent defence of raunch culture, both incidentally from the liberal and thus supposedly feminist friendly Guardian.

Commonly absent from these kind of discussions is any substantial discussion of why some feminists might feel uneasy (or even that it's only some feminists who have concerns), only the report that anxiety exists. It's not unsophisticated analysis but more frequently a total absence of analysis, perferring the simplistic and misleading kind of line that runs 'Germaine's girls don't wear lipstick,' even though Greer might never have argued any such thing.

Curiously, the term feminism rarely emerges in discussions of contraception and abortion. Instead, we tend to get surrogates in the form of the Family Planning Association who are placed in opposition to charities like Life and conservative social value groups to create a highly polarised debate where discussion is replaced by a rhetoric that allows you to easily position yourself on the moral compass: are you in favour of killing babies, or not?

success story

In conclusion, here are a few thoughts about confronting this situation. First of all, in the UK we're living in a feminist success story and we shouldn't ever let people forget that. Equal pay legislation is a feminist success; access to health-care, contraception, education, voting rights and abortion are all feminist successes. The glacially slow reform of rape law is a minor feminist success, though we should remember it wasn't so long ago that rape within marriage wasn't recgonised as such. However, there's always work to be done to protect and enforce these hard won changes - work that is more important than a demand for 'brand recognition'.

I think that demanding that feminism be respected and identified coherently as such is only a priority for me when such recognition is functional. The issue of access to abortion is more important than recognising that reproductive rights are a feminist issue; while we're not in a situation where we have to choose one focus or another, we do need to think about how to employ our time and energy to the greatest effect - which, as most of you will know, is activism 101.

There are a couple of very good columnists writing in the media - but they are only a few. However, they do form important public voices, advocates and provocateurs who need our support. If there's a journalist or columnist you like, you need to write to their editor and to the letters page of their publication: support for their work means they get to keep writing and the idea is planted with the editorial staff that more of the same might be quite popular. I'm personally a big fan of Zoe Williams.

We can also refuse to let blatant distortions and lies sit unchallenged. Many of the major newspapers in the UK have opened up comment sections on their news and opinion pages: we shouldn't be shy to turn up in support or to challenge, because (as someone who reads the Daily Mail online), our opponents certainly aren't. It isn't about jumping on every slur (as fighting every moment of misrepresentation quickly becomes exhausting) but making an alternative voice heard.

I think this is why many feminist friendly blogs have explicit and determined comment policies: there are too many trolls under too many bridges whose main tactic is pointless, unproductive diversion. I treat my comment area like real world conversations: I'm friendly and polite but have limited patience for people who are rude in the hope that it will offend me. Ditto the hi-jacking of my own thoughts. The key - for me, at least - is to write or say something, even if it's one comment a week or a letter every couple of months (and clearly, we do.) However, there's more we can do - and that's something I'll be coming back to.

Okay, that's a very rough and ready analysis. Please feel free to jump in with thoughts and corrections; let me know if I should be reading something that I've missed. Oh, and make with the links.

(edited to add links)

daily mail reports all men dead in global tragedy

More rubbish on Alison Wolf's 'death of altruism' theory in the Daily Mail, who fail to recognise that her article was an opinion piece in a magazine and not an academic study or article in a peer-reviewed journal. In short, she could say whatever she likes, professor or not.

Once again, we seem to be living in a future where biological weapons have killed all the men - at least, there must be a reason why the role of men is routinely ignored:

Professor Wolf, a labour market expert and adviser to MPs on the National Skills Forum, warns that 'the old, unpaid female labour force is now otherwise engaged'.

On average, women spend just four minutes a day doing voluntary work, with millions devoting no time at all to good causes.

Selfish, selfish bitches.

As one commenter at the Daily Mail happily observes, in the style of Daily Mail:

If true, is it too much to ask then that MEN get off their behinds and start doing more?

Tra la la.

damn you, linear time

The Daily Mail today condemns a film that hasn't been released yet for failing to demonise Myra Hindley - because you know, there's a terrible danger that we'll get confused and think she's nice after all.

If the Daily Mail didn't have a time machine, they'd be open to accusations of mindless prejudgement. The moral code that applies in this situation is as following: making money from a film about Myra Hindley is morally indefensible; selling newspapers using relentless stories about Myra Hindley is the highest calling of journalism.

no-one expects the irrational inquisition

Oh, lordy, better get some mint-julip tea on for the poor bigots coming out of the closet:

When the Government decided to outlaw people being discriminated against because of their religion or sexuality, it hoped the move would guarantee equal treatment for all of Britain's increasingly diverse population.

But nobody in Whitehall foresaw the backlash that would unfold when hundreds of committed Christians who run bed-and-breakfasts were deprived of their right to ban gays, unmarried couples and people of other faiths from staying under their roof.

Hundreds of B&B owners across the country have been writing to ministers complaining that the new rules will force them to 'betray God' and their consciences by allowing 'undesirables' to enjoy their hospitality.

'We've had a lot of correspondence from Christian B&B operators who don't want to be forced to accept Satanists, Muslims, gays and even unmarried couples as guests,' said a Home Office official. 'Protestants have been writing in saying they shouldn't have to admit Catholics because they have an issue with their religion, Catholics saying they didn't want Jews under their roof and objections from followers of other types of faith.'

It's not just those pesky queers: it's those pesky Jews, Catholics, Muslims and Satanists too. Is no bigotry sacred? How has this once great country come to the point where you have to treat people equally because it's none of your fucking business what they do in bed or church? Lordy, lordy-loo etc. etc.

I smell an organised letter-writing campaign (not least because that's what I'd do): I think you'll also find similar outbursts in the press relating to a) the emancipation of women b) race relations acts c) news that the world is not flat. The answer, of course, for people who don't like living in a tolerant, liberal democracy is to move somewhere else.

Sometimes I think we're only ever about ten minutes away from a fresh blood libel, now featuring unleavened bread, AIDS and the deaths of kidnapped children - a kind of greatest hits of irrational bigotry from the dark ages to present. Plus ca change.

feminism dead again, apparently

The Observer adds to the pile of it's recent articles on gender, asking Young, successful, well paid: are they killing feminism?:

Chiara Cargnel wants to have it all: a high-flying career and a successful marriage. So far she is halfway there. At 26, she is an investment banker in London working over 70 hours a week and earning more than £80,000 a year. Cargnel, like many other young women, is excelling in a world many thought governed not by their rules, but by rules set and enforced by men.

So what exactly is Alison Wolf claiming?:

She argues that the meteoric rise of this new generation of 'go-getting women' who want high-powered, well-paid jobs has dire consequences for society. Wolf says it has diverted the most talented away from the caring professions such as teaching, stopped them volunteering, is in danger of ending the notion of 'female altruism', has turned many women off having children - and has effectively killed off feminism.

'[It is] the death of the sisterhood,' Wolf writes. 'An end to the millennia during which women of all classes shared the same major life experiences to a far greater degree than men.'

I'll turn to Philobiblon here, who points out that the cult of 'sisterhood' is largely a myth:

Women never were a "sisterhood", never were allowed to be a sisterhood - because their primarily allegiance was, or was supposed to be, the male to whom they were attached. In competing to get and keep a man, they were forced into opposition with each other, and societal structures pushed them to police each other to enforce "appropriate" female behaviour.

I'd also point out that Wolf chooses to almost entirely ignore class (or nation, or anything else) in her construction of female solidarity. What, exactly, makes the life experiences of a Victorian maid and her mistress the same? Even if she's talking about sex and childbirth, neither of those are universal or even experienced in a uniform manner. It's convenient, essentialist rubbish that refuses to recognise - for example - a minimum of social history, that some women had access to hospitals, doctors and nannies and others resolutely did not.

You might forgive me for being cynical but the 'death of altruism' sounds more like the death of women doing jobs for free or little money that no-one else would do. Nowhere in Wolf's analysis is the recognition that there has never been a cultural expectation that men make 'caring' a part of their everyday lives. Calling it 'altruism' is a way of justifying that expectation in women, reiterating a fantasy of the 'angel in the house' who lives to love, serve and care.

So, on discovering that hugging and wiping up other people's crap isn't genetically female, our society has changed - or more specifically, the division of our labour is changing. Quite how this marks the death of feminism is unclear: if anything, this would seem to mark certain feminist successes, such as the separation of domestic labour from narrow expectations of gender and the opening up of various employment sectors that were once exclusively (and unreasonably) male.

It's worth reading the article because, although it does headline Wolf's theories, it does for once manage to find some coherent critics. On sisterhood:

She is wrong on one point, according to Katherine Rake, director of women's equality group the Fawcett Society. Rake argues that 'the sisterhood' is very much alive and rejects Wolf's thesis that women of all classes no longer share the same major life experiences. 'Women are not a homogeneous group, but we never have been,' said Rake. 'We are a diverse group, but we still share experiences.'

Rake dismissed as 'an unfair portrayal' the idea that feminism focused overly on getting women into employment. She argued: 'The most interesting and radical strands of feminism value a whole variety of roles. It is about working on a balance between men and women and valuing unpaid work such as looking after the children.' She said women did not have a true choice about whether to take the larger burden of childcare because the pay gap meant it was often more economical for the woman to do it. She highlighted the fact that part-time work was often not available in the professions chosen by 'elite women'.

and then on employment:

Others argued that there was still a glass ceiling blocking the path of young professionals. Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, accused Wolf of 'painting a rosier view than exists of the realities of women's lives' and ignoring the difficulties many women face when trying to resume their careers after a break to give birth.

'Wolf completely misses the point on several key issues,' said Watson. 'She does not reflect the fact that this whole debate about work and family is no longer only about women and these days involves, for example, fathers' increasing desire to be more involved at home. Women experience a thin veneer of equality, but that veneer often cracks once they take on a caring role.'

The Observer's speculation that this discussion marks the death of feminism relies upon the Observer being dim enough to think that feminism is one set of global, codified strategies and policies which can be defeated. How very, very wrong.

selective emphasis

As another survey on drug use appears, let's see how our journalists cope. From The Telegraph:

One in five secondary pupils takes illegal drugs and the use of cocaine among schoolchildren has doubled in a year, one of the biggest Government surveys of its kind said yesterday.

From The Daily Mail:

One in five pupils has been lured into drugs

Lured by whom, threatening-passive-voice?

And then rather more specifically, but less excitedly, from the BBC:

One in five secondary school children tried drugs in the last year, figures from a national survey suggest.

Isn't selective emphasis wonderful?

I'm also slightly confused about the idea (which is inferred in several papers) that the situation is getting worse, given that Prof Denise Lievesley, chief executive of Information Centre for Health and Social Care said:

The survey illustrates that the levels of drugs, drink and cigarettes used by children aged 11 to 15 have remained constant for the past five years despite increased attention to such behaviour.

So the situation isn't getting any better, but it isn't getting any worse. I'm suprised that 'stability and slow but steady progress' isn't the spin of choice today. Instead, we have selective emphasis:

The Department of Health's response to the report avoided any specific reference to the drugs problem, concentrating instead on alcohol.

It said: "These latest figures show that progress is being made in reducing the number of young people who have drunk alcohol in the last week and the highest number ever, since these surveys began, say they have never had a drink."

Get the feeling that low expectations that both the government and the media have for each other might be taking its toll?

Notable by absence in the press is any mention of the role that parents or family might play in educating their children about drugs - though they're not shy about reporting the argument that it's entirely the fault of Kate Moss (and the government of the day for not putting her in prison).

This is, I think, one of the Daily Mail's most reliable rhetorical tricks: government shouldn't interfere with how people bring up their children, except when it comes to substance abuse, teen pregnancy, sexual health education etc. etc. and then suddenly it's 'government abandons tiny tots'. Ugh.

a little oversimplification

An unintentionally hilarious piece on the supposed death of manliness, which ends with the following thought:

The danger in our modern society, in Mansfield’s view, is that of unemployed manliness. Manly man has been replaced by the bourgeois. Men who behave according to the norms of this new society are accorded the highest honour: they are deemed professional.

Manly behaviour at work, the failure to resist the occasional impulse to punch someone, is regarded as the ultimate sin: “unprofessional”. If we try to eliminate manliness we risk a dangerous imbalance: a society that loses its capacity to protect, defend and even to regenerate itself.

Yes, if we went back to punching each other at work, it would be better - because if you don't punch the people who annoy you in social situations, your penis drops off and you are unable to drive a tank.

oh look, the daily mail opposes sex education (*yawn* edition)

This is getting too easy. The Daily Mail reports that the introduction of more nurses to schools who will be able to give advice on contraceptions and abortion is 'disgraceful'.

What are those crazy plans in full?:

The new guidance to primary and secondary school heads says that nurses will be able to "provide contraceptive advice to pupils and emergency contraception and pregnancy testing to young women".

It claims that nurses are the best people to provide this service because they are "able to assess need and prescribe appropriate medication/ provide specialist contraception advice for the future".

They can also help pupils who are concerned with "issues of sexual identity" for example if they are gay or bisexual.

Another booklet, described as a resource pack for school nurses, suggests they "support young women to access services to make timely choices about emergency contraception, pregnancy or abortion".

Oh no! Information and support!

You will actually be able to claim a small prize from me if you can guess who the Mail chose to approach for their usual balanced comment..

.. that's right. A woman who opposes confidential advice being given to children (and lost a court case on the issue thus ironically securing the right to privacy) and our old friends, the Catholic charity Life - who, as regular readers know, are fundamentally opposed to abortion and contraception and therefore probably a little bit biased. Woo! Informed debate all around!

Bonus marks go to the Daily Mail who use an academic to argue there's no evidence this plan will reduce sexual activity and to make his own unsupported claim that it will actually increase it.

Still, why bother waiting to see if this scheme will help if we can condemn it before it starts? Doesn't that let conservative moralists promote their agenda, which is what this is really about?

No, it really isn't.

(I've written about the sex education issue before - here, here, here and here for anyone keeping score.)

heroic

Sometimes, all you need is for a person to take direct action:

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed (by the signing into law of HB 1215, effectively banning all abortions in the state, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli). A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said… “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

(via Warren Ellis and everyone else)

scum

Nausea inducing comment spam of the day, which uses murder to sell dating advice:

Wait, I don't get it. Has OJ Simpson finally stopped looking for the person who murdered his ex-wife or what? I thought he would never stop looking until he personally found who did that atrocious crime. Hmmmm, maybe he's never gonna find the person like I wasn't able to find any information about how to attract beautiful black women. Oh well... how to attract beautiful black women

Profit through the suffering of others - how entirely loathesome.

tits out for the girls: feminism and raunch culture

Kate Taylor's defence of raunch culture (and an attack on feminists who criticise it) seems to misunderstand most of the debate:

Instead of desperately longing for the right to be seen as human beings, today's girls are playing with the old-fashioned notion of being seen as sex objects.

This is not terrible news. In fact, to me, this is the ultimate feminist ideal, which Levy would realise if she stopped shouting at MTV for a moment and thought about it. She proclaims that boob jobs and crop tops "don't bring us any closer to the fundamental feminist project of allowing every woman to be her own, specific self". But what if a woman's "own, specific self" is a thong-wearing, Playboy-T-shirted specific self who thinks lap-dancing is a laugh and likes getting wolf-whistled at by builders?

The problem with raunch culture isn't that it encourages women to have boob-jobs and wear thongs for men but that it supports a very narrow version of female desirability and sexuality. An appeal to male desire isn't the intrinsic problem: it's the use of fairly narrow and fixed images of the female body. Certainly, the appeal to male desire can be problematic - not least because it fixates on women's identity as primarily reflective of male interest - but the larger problem is in the specific images it uses.

Regardless of its intentions, raunch culture also reproduces retrogressive images which have not yet been abandoned. Though Nuts and Zoo make a shaky claim to the ironic nude, the imagery of porn frequently reduces its subjects to available, passive and consenting objects. You'll rarely - if ever - see a feature in Loaded with a naked woman who talks about her body but says she has no interest in sex with men (unless, of course, a lesbian subtext can be found).

The problem is that the thong-wearing woman raunchy woman doesn't also exist in her own, specific universe - she particpates in the creation of body images that might indeed be tremendously liberating for some and but yet crushingly unfair for others. Should she stop wearing her thong? No. Should we expect thongs to emancipate all women? Rather more emphatically no.

Taylor's call to enjoy for 'true feminism' to enjoy femininity and 'feel wonderful to have been born a woman' wholly ignores the fixed terms and conditions of that enjoyment through raunch.

Similarly, Taylor grossly oversimplifies the link between autonomy, money and taking your clothes off:

Does Bell have any idea how much money women make when they take their clothes off? How much freedom and independence these girls can earn in an hour?

Abi Titmuss and the new breed of totty generally own the copyright to their naughtiest photos, so with each publication they rake it in. Look at lads' mags from a different perspective and you see that what's being exploited are men's sexual responses, to give money to women.

It's freedom and independence but only if you have - or are willing to sell - what the market of male desire is interested in. While big-name models like Titmuss and others might own the copyright for their pictures (which we should recognise as a relatively contemporary move) their value is only retained until the next hot young woman arrives. It's freedom and independence with a fairly short shelf-life - and a diversion away from meaningful change that will support all women, not merely those who feel comfortable in a public expression of their bodies and sexuality.

I'm sure there are people who think this kind of feminist critique is little more than reactionary prudity. To those people, I'd point out that the 'freedom and independence' gained by taking your clothes off means little if you find you can't acquire the same while keeping your clothes on - and that's what makes many feminists uncomfortable.

ukip: not that bright

The Scotsman must be running low on news because it's been reduced to printing press releases:

THE UK Independence Party says it would consider demolishing Scotland's £431 million parliament building if it came to power.

The party yesterday pledged to shut down the existing Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Instead, Westminster MPs would all be made members of a new English Parliament, Scottish Parliament and Welsh National Council.

David Campbell-Bannerman, UKIP's chairman, said devolution had "created a serious democratic imbalance and the solution is cheaper and more democratic".

Given that UKIP has about as much chance as a cheese cracker has of winning a general election and re-designing our system of representative democracy, I'm confused why this is newsworthy. Are there any other groups who have no parliamentary seats and were crushed at the last election whose policies are slavishly reported? Or is it just that the image of the Scottish Parliament in ruins is particularly pleasing to the editors of the Scotsman?

The thing that makes this story particularly ludicrous is that UKIP apparently advocate shutting down the Scottish Parliament and destroying the building in order to replace it with... a Scottish Parliament, who will presumably then need somewhere to meet - a detail which seems to have escaped the cut-and-paste brigade at the Scotsman. Boh.

more confusion: blair on "terrorism"

There's some very lazy thinking in the first of Blair's speeches addressing his war critics, not least his most recent version of what terrorism is.

Mr Blair said terrorism "will not be defeated until its ideas, the poison that warps the minds, its adherence, are confronted at their essence, at their core".

"We are not 'the west', we are as much Muslim and Christian or Jew or Hindu," he said. We are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others to democracy, liberty and humanitarianism, administered by secular courts.

It will not be defeated until its ideas are confronted head-on, on its absurd anti-Americanism, absurd pre-feudal concept of government and its position on women and other faiths.

"The only way to win is to recognise this phenomenon is a global ideology, to see all the areas where it operates and to defeat it by values and ideas set in opposition to those of the terrorists."

Okay. Terrorism is a particular classification of the use of violence, not a set of fixed values or ideas. Blair has it back-to-front: terrorism doesn't have an agenda whose ideas can be defeated - terrorism is used as a method to forward a particular agenda. The idea that Blair seems to be fumbling around is of terrorism that doesn't regard itself as such, of a political climate where terror is a legitimate political tool. It doesn't matter one iota if people hate the UK or America, providing that they don't articulate their hatred through terror. Though we might not like certain illiberal, undemocratic ideas, they're not the problem. The problem is when proponents of those ideas rely on terror to further them.

Terrorism can be used to support any number of ideologies or regimes, not simply those which are repressive or non-democratic; when we use violence and the threat of violence to achieve aims in a democracy we just don't call it terrorism, normally because it's sanctioned by a recognised state. The term 'terrorism' is do with marking certain acts of (state sponsored or other) violence as illegitimate, as a means of policing and admonishing the use of violence.

Despite what Blair infers, terrorism is not the same thing anti-Americanism, even if a number of groups who use terrorism are opposed to America. Religious extremism is also not the same thing as terrorism, though recent history has certainly shown that they can be content bedfellows. Further to this rhetorical pile-up, describing terrorism as a political ideology opposed to western forms of democracy is to reverse the claim that there is no 'west' even as it is made. Terrorism is certainly a strategy abhorred by most European and 'western' countries, but it doesn't mean that we're completely above using it, or its close friend 'police action'.

Blair also repeats the following straw-man argument:

"We must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress, that if only we altered this decision or that, this extremism would fade away," he said.

The argument that it's useful to recognise our own agency in the current global political situation is discredited here through oversimplification: that if we pulled out of Iraq the terrorists would go away. The opinion that our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq might have raised the UK's profile as a potential target for terror (as expressed by the insanely well-respected Chatham House last autumn) doesn't resolve into anything like that kind of binary terror/noterror outcome; instead, it asks whether our current actions might be contributing to making our situation less stable and less secure.

Blair has to reject that kind of pragmatic logic because that would be an admission of error, a small chink in the claim that not only is our current course the correct one but that there's nothing he'd change if he had a second chance. It's messianic thinking and that frightens me.

ignorance is not bliss (more on the catholic church and abortion)

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O' Connor is pissed because someone in a Catholic hospital has, you know, admitted that contraception and abortion exist:

A Catholic hospital has been admonished by the leader of the church in England and Wales for referring patients for abortions and contraceptives. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O' Connor has asked the St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in north London to tighten up its code of ethics.

The private hospital says no abortions are undertaken or contraceptives prescribed on the premises. But it argues its doctors are obliged to refer people elsewhere for advice.

because they're a hospital, not a church.

In case anyone was wondering if this was related, in any way, to taking the power over their bodies away from women:

The hospital insists it has been doing nothing more than following rules laid out by medical regulatory body the GMC. But a spokesman for the Archbishop of Westminster said the hospital's own code of ethics needed to be set out in a clearer way so that even doctors who were not Catholic knew what their obligations were at the institution.

"A Catholic hospital cannot refer people for abortions - they can't say you can't have it here but there's a place just round the corner," the spokesman added. Equally it cannot carry out tests for foetal deformities if it knows the mother-to-be would have an abortion if the results were positive, he said.

Fortunately, all Catholics can see into the future and are able to determine the consequences of all medical results (if not the results themselves). *sigh*

There are a couple of situations which seemed to have been rolled together here. On the one hand, there's making a decision on treatment and referring a patient on elsewhere to receive it (which might well be seen as hypocritical) - and on the other, there's the referral of patients by doctors who feel unable to offer a certain kind of treatment because of their beliefs but recognise the obligation to inform the patient of this and inform them of their right to see another doctor.

However, rather than reading deferrals as a demonstration of faith and morality (a refusal to offer the morning after pill, for example), the Cardinal seems to think it's cowardice, or rather abortion by proxy. Of course, it's right and fine that the Cardinal should express what the teachings of his church require. However, we shouldn't expect him to also be a reliable touchstone for the standards of medical ethics demanded by professional bodies like the GMC.

We shouldn't expect the Cardinal to behave like a doctor, or the head of a hospital - but we should expect that behaviour of, well, doctors and hospital heads - particularly when their work is partially paid for by the NHS.

The other alternative to this piece-meal moralising is to have a big sign on the front of the building explaining that anyone who has had premarital sex is unwelcome for medical treatment, regardless of whether they broke their ankle by slipping from an altar or during an orgy.

If we're going to accept that the link between Catholicism and medical care is complex but rigid, maybe we need a legal waiver for in-patients to sign, agreeing to have information incompatible with Catholicism with-held even if it limits the medical advice or treatment available. If Cardinal O'Connor wants Catholic hospitals to be meaningfully, substantially, dogmatically different from any other kind in the UK, we need to make that difference explicit rather than implicit.

In short, this hospital has to decide whether it's going to continue to act like a hospital and meet the General Medical Council's code of practice - or merely become the latest outpost of the greater church of selective reading. Find yourself a Catholic and ask them this: who would you rather make decisions with about your medical care - your doctor, or your priest?

Of course, that's a false divide - you should be able to talk to both - but that's sort of the point. You should have all the information when you make decisions about your own health, not just the fragments that fit a particular creed and Catholic doctors know that, despite what Cardinal O'Connor threatens.

charles clark and the will of the people (coming to a cinema near you)

Comrade Clarke (nee Safety Elephant) speaks out on the latest compromise offered over ID cards:

Now Lib Dem peers have suggested a deal whereby ID cards only become compulsory for passport applicants from 2011. The peers' argument is that this would allow the issue to be part of a future general election campaign - while allowing the government to continue implementing the scheme in the meantime.

But ministers have said that while peers are trying to appear reasonable they are actually just trying to delay the legislation. On Thursday MPs voted by 292 to 241 to overturn the latest Lords defeat as the measure continues to "ping-pong" between the two houses of parliament.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told opponents to stop "frustrating the will of the people".

Yeah, how dare you allow us to vote on a compulsory measure we didn't agree to? I'm both shocked and disgusted of Tonbridge Wells.

Frankly, this man Clarke doesn't go far enough in making decisions on my behalf to protect my free will to have other people make decisions for me without my consent. As Corporal Hicks once observed, we need to nuke the whole damn settlement from orbit: it's the only way to be sure.

Ahem.

Seriously, Charles Clarke speaks for the will of the people? I laughed until I cried, at which point I was arrested for a crime that I'm apparently too dangerous to be informed of.

john reid: defence secretary and horse's arse

John Reid spent some time this weekend talking out of his fine, white ass:

Speaking on the BBC he appeared to suggest that those who argued that Iraq was on the brink of a civil war were siding with the terrorists.

He said: "You have a very simple choice. You can support the Iraqi democrats and the overwhelming majority of ordinary Iraqis who want peace, stability, a government of national unity and acting together to make sure there are more hospitals, there is a better life, there are fewer deaths.

"Or you can support in effect the terrorists by arguing that there is a civil war and that there is no democratic way of solving it."

Wow. That's gold-medal quality wing-nuttery, right there. Let's start with the idea that wanting a peaceful and stable Iraq is a thought somehow mutually exclusive to recognising current sectarian unrest. I wonder if Reid knows that he's accusing the former leader of Iraq (and America's first choice of Prime Minister) of encouraging the enemy:

Iraq is in the middle of civil war, the country's former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has told the BBC.

He said Iraq had not got to the point of no return, but if it fell apart sectarianism would spread abroad. The UK and US have repeatedly denied Iraq is facing a civil war, but Mr Allawi suggested there was no other way to describe the sectarian violence.

Oops.

The final bit of "logic" is the claim that recognising civil war is 'in effect' support for terrorists (as in, 'There is evidence that John Reid is, in effect, a horse's bobo') - and that recognition of current problems must also mean you've given up hope on democracy.

I love Reid's fish-eye-lens view of protestors - they are hopelessly out of touch with the needs and wishes of the average (Iraqi) person and but yet are also the main focus group driving insurgent policy: 'Today we shall bomb a police station because that has the indirect support of middle-class people, aged 24-36, in the Basildon area.'

To be scrupulously fair (and do let's be) Reid is mainly accusing protestors of undermining the UN, something which I imagine will come as a bit of a surprise to the.. uh.. UN, who might be thinking rather more of - ooh - how they were ever so slightly side-stepped by the US and UK when the war began.

Reid's theory seems to be that if anti-war protestors (who are actually protesting the war in its entirety, not merely the reluctance to recognise civil war) clapped harder and really believed in fairies.. uh.. a democratic Iraq, those nasty insurgents would go away. It's wishful thinking where anxiety over the domestic consequences of foreign policy (Reid worrying he'll take the blame for a situation out of his control) trumps actual foreign policy.

It's a tremendously arrogant way of treating the situation: where fighting over the names we use to describe what's happening on the ground in Iraq takes precedence over what's actually happening on the ground in Iraq, where the words we use in the English speaking western media are the only real measure of reality.

While thinking like this is not uncommon amongst our more fevered newspaper columnists, it's slightly more worrying to hear it coming so clearly from the horse's arse.. uh, Defence Minister's mouth.

britblog roundup #57

Britblog Roundup #57 is up - including the post from here about the new Home Office rape awareness campaign. Thanks to whoever saw fit to submit me. :)

baa baa bullshit (lies, more lies, the mail and the express)

There's nothing like a weekend away to revive your spirits - well, perhaps fresh evidence that the Daily Mail and Daily Express are staffed by lying sacks of shit also hits the mark.

The story in question is the most recent moralising 'political correctness gone mad' festival: baa, baa rainbow sheep. From the Express:



From the Daily Mail:

It has been a children's favourite for hundreds of years.

But 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' has again fallen victim to the drive for political correctness. Nursery school children are being taught to sing 'Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep' instead of the traditional rhyme.

Teachers at two centres were told to change the words to promote 'equal opportunities'. It is not the first time the rhyme has been altered - previous substitutes for black include 'green' and 'happy' sheep.

A small problem here is that only the smallest grain of this story is true, despite a 90 comment strong message board full of people clamouring for action and bemoaning the fall of a once great country. It's a big, fat, scaremongering lie and the people who wrote the story know that.

Go and read the story. It's a tremendous piece of sophistry, showing how you can get quotes from the person you are attacking (yes, the nursery is in favour of equal opportunities) report them acurately and still lie. So why is this story - at the very best - grotesquely misleading to the point of fiction?

Private Eye (no. 1154) - who need a proper website - helpfully point out that this particular story has surfaced in various versions since 1986:

For the record, the charity Parents and Children Together, which runs the two play groups at the centre of last week's outbreak, told the Press Association that "chldren at the two family centres sing a variety of descriptive words in the nursery rhyme to turn the song into an action rhyme. They sing happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, black and white sheep etc. This encourages the children to expand their vocabulary."

Curiously, this explanation went unreported by any of the national newspapers.

The list of lazy, dishonest hacks must on this occasion also include "journalists" on The Sun, Times and Mirror, who would rather make up stories about 'traditional values under attack' than notice that - for instance - nurseries can teach whatever songs they damn well please if the parents don't mind.

The BBC gets partial credit for reporting the nursery's full statement (as produced in Private Eye) but still deserves a mild slap for running with a '(anonymous) critics condemn..' lede.

Perhaps a few features on the old fashioned virtue of honesty would be timely, or would that conflict with the chance to sell a few more papers?

(cover of the Daily Express via Daily Mail Watch, whose comment section also picks up on this story)

alan moore on 'v for vendetta'

Here's a two part interview with Alan Moore, the creator of V For Vendetta who demanded that his name be removed from the film - and wants the same for the original graphic novel:

Moore: I said that's it I'm not working for DC again and also I still want my name off this film, if they don't take my name off this film, I will be taking my name off the books, because it means that much to me to sever my connection with this whole painful business.

The Beat: But, Alan, isn't that throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Moore: Well, I don't own the baby anymore, Heidi! The baby is one I put a great deal of love into, a great deal of passion and then during a drunken night it turned out that I'd sold it to the gypsies and they had turned out my baby into a life of prostitution. [...]

It’s not my book. It's their book, but the only reason they've my name on that book is it sells more copies, and it gives them a certain amount of integrity and credibility that I don't think they would otherwise have had.

Part one is here, part two is here (via BoingBoing).

I'm away for another weekend, so I'm turning word verification on to keep spam at bay. Back Sunday afternoon..

gah

Ugh.. I seem to on the receiving end of a flurry of comment spams, so if you see any 'anonymous' posts getting deleted that's the cause. I'm toying with putting the word verification thing back on - is it insufferable, or just very annoying?

new campaign to reduce forced marriage

The Home Office's Forced Marriage Unit has launched a new campaign:

A drive to reduce the number of forced marriages of British citizens is due to be unveiled. The campaign by the government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) is backed by actor and writer Meera Syal and former EastEnders star Ameet Chana. [...]

Home Office minister Baroness Scotland said was not solely an issue facing Asian communities, affecting those with links to the Middle East, western Balkans and Africa as well. "Forced marriage is a form of domestic violence and a human rights abuse. The victims often face emotional and physical abuse." [...]

Conservative home affairs spokesman Damian Green said they supported the campaign. "Forced marriages are a form of domestic violence that cannot be justified on religious or cultural grounds," he said.

There's no sign yet of a decision of whether or not to criminalise forced marriage - though the response from the consultation process apparently shows a small majority of opinion against criminalisation.

For anyone interested, I wrote a post in favour of criminalisation a while back.

a tragic waste of survey: MOD special

The Army released a conveniently self-serving survey ealier this week. Apparently, young men don't seem themselves as useless, feckless thugs:

The popular image of young men as hoodie-wearing yobs with Asbos is unrepresentative, a report says. Researchers for the Army who questioned almost 1,000 men aged 16-24 said they had "surprisingly traditional values".

Protecting their family and hard work came top of a list of what they thought defined a real man. Army recruiter Andrew Jackson said society "misjudged" young men. "There is a generation out there with huge potential," he said.

It's hardly a suprise that young men aren't filled with self-loathing, having accepted every tabloid story about ASBOs and having assumed they must be true.

There's also a little bit of misdirection here: in the lead question, the respondents were seemingly asked what they thought defined a real man, not what necessarily defined them.

It would be interesting to find out what the respondents were told during the course of the survey - if knowing that you were answering a survey for the army had any influence on emphasising protecting one's family. Similarly, would you be more or less likely to admit to wanting to take care of your appearance or having concern for your emotions to the MOD?

Another factor to note is that this survey used focus groups: is this about how men see themselves, or how they want to appear to each other? What role did peer-pressure play in constructing the results of this survey?

Wanton speculation aside, it's nice to see that the MOD is looking out for young men:

The Army's Andrew Jackson said the survey results showed young men were in need of something to "unlock their potential".

"They have more choice now than ever but without the guidance, care and structure they need to make the most of this they find themselves increasingly lost," Mr Jackson said.

If only there was some organisation that would offer struture to these happy, hard-working, family-oriented.. uh... lost boys. Hang on, where's the bit of the survey where men say they feel lost? And who's going to help them find themselves? Sadly, Mr Jackson seems to have been unable to help on that point - what a tragic waste of a survey.

The shorter version of this story, by the way, is 'media wrong about young men.'

from the Home Office: rape is wrong (because you might have to go to prison)

Winter Woods at the Mind the Gap points us towards one of the posters the Home Office is actually using for its anti-rape campaign:



A few thoughts:

1) A woman is not a 'place' you can enter.
2) Women have faces and clothes.

It's a ham-fisted attempt to confront the logic that says a girl in her pants is an invitation to sex, passing over the situation whereby most women who get assaulted are not standing around, shop-dummy like, in their clean white under-wear.

In fact, it's the sanitisation of assualt that worries me, a clean passive headless white body. WW argues pointedly that:

..this image objectifies women. This woman here is not represented as a person. She is reduced to her crotch, a nameless, faceless cunt which exists to be penetrated. How can we fight the objectification of women with .... the objectification of women?

It really does seem as though this campaign has little to do with women - not because it's aimed at men, but because it's aimed at keeping men out of prison. Respect for the person you want to sleep with has been ignored for scare tactics.

To that end, the second poster (pdf) works through the threat of homosexual assault: the image of a surly middle-aged man on the top bunk of a prison cell staring at the camera, above the slogan 'If you don't get a yes before sex, who'll be your next sleeping partner?' The message is clear: don't not rape because women are people too, but because you might end up getting raped by someone bigger and stronger than you are.

Remember how I said that my rationale for this campaign might be different from the Home Office's? A small understatement, I think.

WW also invites ideas for a for 'a less icky, less lazy, and more intelligent campaign.' How about something along the lines of a series of progressive posters: 'if you buy her a drink, no doesn't mean yes', 'if you buy her dinner, no doesn't mean yes', 'if you give her a lift home, no doesn't mean yes,' 'only yes means yes: rape is a crime'.

Maybe the tag line could be 'Respect yourself. Respect the one you want to be with. Always get consent.' - which could also be read to cut both ways about sharing responsibility when starting a sexual relationship.

Anyone else have any ideas?

french students fight here today, gone tomorrow contracts

Students in France are protesting over proposed changes to labour law:

French students and unions have vowed to keep up the pressure on the government with further action over the new law on youth employment contracts.

Riot police were used to evict 200 protesting students from Sorbonne University in Paris at the weekend. Student unions are now planning street demonstrations against the law on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The French prime minister has defended the law, saying it will help less qualified youngsters find work.

Speaking on French television, Dominique de Villepin said the First Employment Contract (CPE), passed by parliament on Thursday, would especially help those in the suburbs - where the youth unemployment rate is up to 40%.

It is a contract for under-26-year-olds which employers can break off at any time within the first two years, without explanation.

Ministers hope the flexibility will encourage employers to hire more young people, safe in the knowledge that they will be able to get rid of them - unlike most French contracts, which employers say make them wary of taking on new staff.

The intention is to make the prospect of hiring young people more attractive for small businesses in particular while reducing high employment in the 18-25 age group. However, it does so by offering deeply unattractive working conditions to those same young people. Would you accept a job where your employer could fire you with litle or no notice, and little or no reasoning? What if you have a young family to support?

While I think I'm going to have to read some French national press to get a better understanding of what's going on here, the bizarre thing about this story is that Villepin has presented it as a way of making young people's lives more secure.

UPDATE: DK thinks I've missed the point, though he's seemingly judging me on the absence of argument. In my defence (and to clarify my point) I'd argue that it shouldn't be the least suprising that some university students - who think that higher education was offering some kind of greater chance at job security - should be pissed. From their point of view, the rules of the game have been changed after they've committed time and expense.

In short, while large structural changes might indeed be needed in the French economy, you're not thinking about macro-economics if you're about to graduate.

abstinence only education (still) doesn't work

The Scottish Daily Mail is once more full of lies about abortion, starting with the claim that they had 'proved' new, more explicit sex education guides had lead to a rise in teen pregnancies. Of course, that particular crock of shit wouldn't be complete without a comment from a group who argue that only abstinence is safe. I don't think that anyone disputes that it's hard to get pregnant or contract an STI if you don't have sex but to pretend that we can drop the issue there is the most dangerously simple-minded nonsense.

So it's as good as time as any to remind that abstinence only programmes do not work. As I'm not the Daily Mail, I feel the need to support my assertions with one or two scraps of evidence - like a five year study looking at programmes across eleven US states:

Evaluation of these 11 programs showed few short-term benefits and no lasting, positive impact. A few programs showed mild success at improving attitudes and intentions to abstain. No program was able to demonstrate a positive impact on sexual behavior over time. [...]

Four evaluations measured long-term intentions to abstain. Three of four evaluations showed no long-term positive impact on participants' intentions to abstain from sexual intercourse. That is, participants' intentions either declined significantly at follow-up or there was no statistically significant difference in participants' attitudes relative to controls at follow-up. [...]

Five programs measured long-term impacts on sexual behavior. No evaluation demonstrated any impact on reducing teens' sexual behavior at follow-up, three to 17 months after the program ended.

Furthermore, one of the two state studies which compared abstinence-only education with comprehensive sex education participants found that abstinence-only students were slightly more likely to feel strongly about postponing sex but less likely to feel that their goals should not include teen pregnancy.

The problem isn't merely that abstinence-only programmes are ineffective - but that they've been shown to have a damaging effect on the health of young people:

Worse, they show some negative impacts on youth's willingness to use contraception, including condoms, to prevent negative sexual health outcomes related to sexual intercourse. Importantly, only in one state did any program demonstrate short-term success in delaying the initiation of sex; none of these programs demonstrates evidence of long-term success in delaying sexual initiation among youth exposed to the programs or any evidence of success in reducing other sexual risk-taking behaviors among participants.

Emphasising abstinence over honest, necessarily explicit comprehensive sex education in the UK is a stupid idea and a dangerous idea: it will not reduce the teen pregnancy rate and will more likely than not damage health.

red cross calls for end to gay blood donor ban

The Red Cross (and various other US blood transfusion services) are calling for an end to the life ban on blood donation by men who have sex with men:

Officials from the American Red Cross, speaking at a recent blood donation conference in Maryland, called for an end to the federal government’s ban on gay and bisexual blood donors, the Washington Blade reports. A Food and Drug Administration policy in place since 1985 bans donations from any man who’s ever had sex with another man—even one time—since 1977. Even gay men who’ve tested negative for HIV antibodies and those who are in monogamous relationships are barred for life from donating blood. Government officials, when launching the ban, said it was needed to guarantee the safety of donated blood in the country since gay men were significantly more likely to be infected with HIV than heterosexual men.

But the Red Cross is now joining with the American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Centers in calling for an end to the lifetime ban on gay donors.

"The AABB, ABC, and ARC believe that the current lifetime deferral for men who have had sex with other men is medically and scientifically unwarranted and recommend that deferral criteria be modified and made compatible with criteria for other groups at increased risk for sexual transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections," the groups said in a joint statement issued at the advisory panel meeting, reports the Blade.

I now need to work on getting this into the UK media cycle / campaign.

(found via Spectrum Bloggers group blog)

first, do no harm (stop reading the daily mail)

The Daily Mail relies on its readers being too ignorant or lazy to actually check their facts. Case in point being the scaremongering tirade against legislation that will allow people to establish living wills, giving them greater control over when life-prolonging treatment can be removed:

This is the legitimising of killing. And it is horrifically open to abuse.

What if patients change their minds about dying, but can't communicate? What if their representatives have ulterior motives for wanting them out of the way? How many ill, vulnerable people will feel subtly pressurised to give up, when the cashstrapped NHS needs their beds?

And it doesn't matter what doctors think, even though they are bound by their Hippocratic Oath. The guidelines say they must do as they are told.

So euthanasia comes to Britain by the back door. The moral and religious dimensions are brushed aside by a Government that forced this Act through on a three line whip, instead of treating it as an issue of conscience on a free vote.

So it is, in the sixth year of the 21st century, that Britain finally abandons the most fundamental principle of civilisation: the sanctity of human life.

It's almost as though they've never read the Hippocratic Oath, or don't know that in the UK it's been largely superceded by the Declaration of Geneva. The closest thing the popular US rewording of the oath gets to the Mail's version of the absolute sanctity of life is to avoid the 'twin-traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism' - which appears to counsel against both denying and prolonging treatment.

The Daily Mail's editorial staff are presumably holding onto the principal of 'first do no harm' - which sadly doesn't actually appear in the Hippocratic Oath. What does appear is a commitment to 'do no harm' and 'to please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death'.

Unsuprisingly, the oath makes no mention of the correct moral use of defibrilators to rescuscitate someone who has had a heart attack or the appropriate administration of morphine - because, while some its aspects are admirable and desirable, it's several thousand years past its maximum usefulness.

Things that do appear in the oath (which are abandoned in the Declaration of Geneva) are the worship of pagan gods, the advocacy of teaching of men but not women and a complete ban on abortion - very nearly an ideal set of instructions from the Daily Mail point of view. Fortunately, all of those things (and more) have been changed to reflect the fact that we no longer worship at the temple of Asklepios.

I'm also not sure that something going through Parliament with the full knowledge of the BMA, the BBC and various other international news organisations and newspapers can really be called 'back door' legislation. Never mind, eh? It's almost as though the Mail has no interest in an actual discussion of the issues and realities involved.

The simple solution to the Mail's concerns, by the way, is to cryogenically freeze all readers and journalists of the Daily Mail until a cure for death can be found. At the very least it would free up much needed shelf space in newsagents across the country.

crying tiny tears for bigots

Let us all join hands cry tiny, tiny sarcastic tears for bigots who would rather close down their businesses than serve gay men and women:

MINISTERS are to press ahead with plans to prevent hotel owners and landlords discriminating against gay customers in the wake of the case of a Scottish B&B owner who refuses to let homosexuals reserve double rooms. [...]

Tom Forrest, who refuses to allow gay couples to book double rooms at his B&B in Kinlochewe, Wester Ross, yesterday vowed to ignore the new law and predicted many small businesses in Scotland would close rather than comply.

Anyone holding a flame for his commitment to principle should wonder how attractive this would be if the word 'black' or 'Asian' replaced the word 'gay' in this story. You'll also forgive me for believing that Scottish business owners might be slightly more pragmatic and choose money over the fear of having to harbour the occasional queer.

Originally, the government had planned to outlaw discrimination against religious groups, but more than 100 MPs signed an early day motion calling for the measures to be extended to sexuality - a move backed by openly gay Labour peer Lord (Waheed) Alli of Norbury.

I love it when the religious freedom lobby comes to the indirect rescue of gay rights, not least because it helps throttle the 'good christians hate queers' meme. FYI, amongst the immoral, crazy and outrageous things this law will do is criminalise the refusal of medical treatment by a GP on the grounds of sexuality.

I'll be generous and say that our man Mr Forrest seems to be slightly confused:

VisitScotland welcomed the law. A spokeswoman said: "Scotland has a reputation as a friendly and welcoming place, and this law will help reinforce that." But Mr Forrest said Scotland's tourism industry faced "total ruin". He said: "How can I be discriminating against something that is unnatural? It goes against the values that I, and many others in this part of the world, were brought up with. [...]

He claimed to have received "considerable" support for his views from across Scotland and around the world, adding: "I don't having anything against gay people. These people can bonk to their hearts' content - but not under my roof."

Gay people everywhere heave a sigh of relief and, having received formal permission from the socially conservative community, get back to copulating. Fuck away, my brethren and sistren, suck and fuck away.

You might have noticed how Forrest finds gay people 'unnatural' and a 'peversion' and yet doesn't have anything against them. How big-hearted and entirely lacking in irony.

In Forrest's world, the tourist industry is going to collapse even though his moral code has substantial and widespread support throughout Scotland. Presumably it's the kind of support that doesn't translate into... well.. actually going on holiday in Scotland.

Given VisitScotland's desire to not have the country characterised as the natural habitat of unwelcoming loons, could it be they think that Forrest's views are more likely to damage the reputation of Scotland as a tourist destination than anything else?

Let's revisit the money-shot quote of 'I'm right because I'm right':

"Why should one group of people encroach on the moral values of another?"

Aside from being a line of argument that can also be used to defend racism, sexism and cannabalism, the response is simple: when those 'moral values' deny the freedoms of another group. Tolerance of other values does not extend to the acceptance of intolerance because that would be entirely self-defeating, like a speed limit that applies to everyone except those who drive very, very fast.

For anyone grasping for the symmetry of the situation (why should one minority be privileged over another?) the thing that separates people who want equality and people who prefer to discriminate is that equal rights lobby is not interested in denying the latter access to goods, services and employment - however attractive revenge might appear. The legislation applies equally: gay clubs and bars will be no more able to turn away straight people than Forrest deny a room to gay couple.

The Herald's coverage gives us further insight into the man with 'nothing against' gay people yet who attacks them whenever he's given a public platform:

The proposal comes after a bed-and-breakfast owner from Wester Ross caused nationwide controversy in summer 2004 by refusing to let homosexuals sleep together on his premises, calling one of them a "poof" and the other a "creature". Mr Forrest insisted yesterday he would not allow same-sex couples to share beds at his B&B under any circumstances and would rather go to prison than compromise his principles.

He said: "This is atrocious. I will never pay a fine and I will go to jail over this if I have to. I am a war pensioner and a cripple. I have started a petition against this and I will continue to campaign. It is my right to refuse to give someone a room. The only people who will benefit from this are those who want to run a male brothel, people with no moral standards or scruples."

He could also be the queen of Pluto, but that too would be irrelevant. Neither being a 'cripple' or a veteran gives a person a free pass to acceptable bigotry. Never mind, eh? It could have all been so simple: anti-homo bigotry was what we fought the war for - and people who are argue for equality have no morals and are only in it for the sexalicious bootie. Case solved, or perhaps not.

family of man

I spent the weekend in Leeds - and managed to catch up with Neil in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. This is his back garden:

(Courtesy of Barbara Hepworth)

fun with fones

There are a few details missing from the news coverage of Ian Blair's fondness for taping phonecalls, the first of which is the question of motive.

Blair was very specific about the calls he recorded - or at the very least, he's been very specific about which recorded calls he's admitted to. The Times reports that two of the calls were to members of the IPCC, the organisation investigating the shooting by anti-terror officers in July of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. The third was to the Attorney General on the subject of the admissability of ironic phone tape evidence.

The traditional reason for keeping convenient copies of information (or detailed diary accounts) is that an official is gathering material for his or her biography. The second most likely reason is that while Blair might have been willing to publicly take the blame for decisions made under his watch, he wasn't prepared to be fired for having acted on the 'best' legal advice available at that time ( i.e. something emanating not a million miles from the Attorney General's office).

The recorded calls are an exercise in gathering evidence that limits Ian Blair's direct accountability for police activity carried out in the war against terror - indirect evidence that the prevailing opinion of Downing Street and its surrogates is all that differentiates an illegal use of wire-tappng and necessary, if not noble, intrusion in the name of liberty.

With so much policy dependent on interpretation of regulations (interpretations which might disappear in the night and leave a certain police chief dangling in the wind) we can speculate that Blair wanted to nail the Cabinet's colours to the mast. Most entertainingly of all (though also perhaps most unlikley) is the prospect the Attorney General has been giving inconsistent advice: one line to the head of the Metropolitan Police and another to IPCC.

Rather brilliantly, none of the above has to be true for this little affair to have sprung into existence - only that Sir Ian Blair had suspicions that some of the above was true, suspicions strong enough to make him want to cover his back.

Entertaining speculation aside, the other question is as to how the existence of these recordings became public: at what point did Special Branch (or whoever) learn of the tapes and how? It's not illegal to tape a telephone conversation - only to reveal the contents of the conversation to a third party without prior permission of those you have recorded. Was Blair about to spill the contents of the tapes?

For anyone wanting to go that final tinfoil hat step, this is exactly what I'd do if I was being threatened by the contents of secret tapes - direct the focus onto the potential illegality of the recordings, suggest problems under the official secrets act or confidentiality legislation covering ongoing investigations to inquisitive journalists and force the person who made the recordings into a public apology. Even if the contents were eventually going to see the light of day, I'd try and see that they were discredited - or proof of the other person's treachery as much as mine.

prostitution and 'choice': godfrey bloom talks out his ass

This weekend we discovered that the difference between good prostitution and bad prostitution is whether you could reasonably work in Tescos instead:

YORKSHIRE Euro MP Godfrey Bloom has confessed to visiting brothels and declared that, far from being exploited, most prostitutes "do it because they want to". [...]

In the article, Mr Bloom – who came to prominence after famously joking that women did not clean behind the fridge enough and stating "no small businessman with a brain would employ a woman of child-bearing age" – also criticised the exclusive portrayal of prostitution as a trade exploiting the majority of women working in it.

"Terrified young women beaten into prostitution often from Eastern Europe... is only a very small aspect of the flesh trade," said Mr Bloom, who sits on the European Parliament's women's rights and gender equality committee. He added: "In short, most girls do it because they want to."

Last night, he insisted he was making a serious political point about proposals currently going through Brussels to "phase out" prostitution – and said attempts to impose blanket bans meant resources being directed away from women who really did need help.

"If they (prostitutes) wanted a job as a Tesco check-out girl, they'd go do that instead." And referring to the experiences detailed in the article, he said: "I did not say that I had taken advantage of a prostitute."

I'm not sure which bit of this is the most fucking stupid, though the non-denial is quite good, where he denies having said that he slept with a prostitute rather than simply denying that he has slept with a prostitute.

The claim to a 'serious political point' is a rather damp, beer-stained fig-leaf from a man who instead seems to be engaging in some rather serious wish-fulfilment. Any point about the effectiveness of a ban on prostitution takes second row to the idea that 'choice' will once more set us free.

It's more than faintly alarming that Bloom - who sees himself as a pragmatic businessman sort - truly believes that women in the sex-trade judge working in a supermarket (in a regulated, safe workplace) against working in a brothel where the reverse is true - and then decide, overwhelmingly, that the extra money and flexible working hours is worth that particular life.

Bloom shows no regard for any of the circumstances that surround the lives of sex workers, only a simplistic separation of good, free-market, 'for the love of the game' prostitutes and bad, beaten-into-submission hookers.

Are there women in the sex-trade who do it willingly? Most certainly. Is that an accurate description of the majority of women's experiences in the sex-trade? Ah, no. Just no. Just not at all.

To illustrate Bloom's utter vapidity, let's take a look at a recent UK study - so that at the very least we're dealing with a country that actually has a branch of Tescos a woman might 'choose' to work in:

39% of street prostitutes who participated in the survey left Local Authority Care at the age of 16 and it was these women who were most likely to enter prostitution at a young age. For other women homelessness was the trigger factor to their initiation.[...] 73% of respondents disclosed sexual, physical or emotional abuse at home.

These women live transient lives and very often do not access welfare benefits. 62% claimed to have left school before they were 16, with 24% being formally excluded. 33% were bullied and consequently self excluded. Employment prospects are thus very low.

Sleeping on different ''friend's'' sofas quickly becomes a way of life that means that these homeless women disappear, fall outside mainstream support systems and move further away from normal lifestyle choices of healthy young women. Inevitably they are surrounded by inappropriate role models, are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and do not have the luxury of personal safety.

Thus it becomes necessary to have a male "companion" as a harm minimisation strategy against repeated sexual and physical violence from strangers. Low self-esteem coupled with poor experiences of family life means that these women have a tendency to form relationships that are characterised by violence and abuse.

The women who secure tenancies can find that their homes are taken over by one or many men, who may then sell drugs or allow the property to become an "open house." If the woman flees from the tenancy she will rarely feel safe enough to report the reality to the housing provider. This means that rent arrears accrue due to non- payment of housing benefit and the woman is either excluded from the council and registered social landlords for this, or because she has been branded a "nuisance" tenant.

Many women who engage in prostitution have criminal convictions, often for thefts and car crimes. Short custodial sentences are common, entrenching these women in a cycle of custody and drug dependant homelessness. The accommodation they find themselves in is often squats or "crack houses" that are multi-occupied with up to 12 inhabitants.

The perceived advantage of prostitution is that it does not carry a custodial sentence and therefore drug users are not compelled to endure the dreaded "cold turkey." A woman can work to fund her and her partner's drug habits in return for his "protection" on the streets. Pimping is not new. It provides a way of sustaining a drug habit without losing your liberty. Consequently, women in mixed-sex hostels often find themselves the target of male attention because of their earning potential

.

I would add that this kind of report is not an isolated snapshot; I might also add that it doesn't even being to address the situation of organised sex-trafficking. So, given the kinds of lives women who work as prostitutes can end up living, how many do you think are likely to be offered a supermarket job? Would Bloom hire someone with past criminal record that included drug offences? Or would that represent an unwelcome financial risk?

Bloom's claim that the majority of women 'choose' freely to become prostitutes - clad in a claim that he's looking out for their interests - is more than nonsense. It's part of a dangerous fantasy that lessens the guilt of men who visit prostitutes (be they working on the street or in a brothel) and hides the reality of the lives of sex-workers:

Street prostitutes unanimously hate what they do and not a single street prostitute in Stoke-On-Trent believes that they have made a positive career choice. Life on the streets is not the fantasy portrayed in Hollywood movies such as Pretty Woman. 70% of women surveyed had experienced violence at work including knifepoint rapes and attempted strangulations. One woman has been murdered this year.

I wonder what Godfrey Bloom, prostitution expert, would have to say about that?

(title edited to minimise snotty emails, though sentiment remains)

wooosh redux

I'm back. Bizarrely, this one weekend of moderation coincided with my first bits of porno-spam. Lovely.

Did I miss anything?

woosh

Back Sunday - have fun.

more on consent

Some interesting discussion in the comments on the post on the Home Office rape/consent education campaign makes me want to clarify my thinking a bit.

First of all, it seems that what the Home Office thinks an emphasis on consent will achieve is different from what I believe it's capable of. The following is obviously speculative, but I want to present some kind of rationale for this new campaign - in the knowledge, obviously, that mine might be wildly different from theirs.

As Ithika pointed out, the briefing from the Home Office's spokeswoman (via the BBC) centres on the line that:

Men should make certain that a woman has consented to sex to avoid being accused of rape.

So the emphasis on consent is presented as a way of avoiding 'mistaken' accusations of rape: where the defence that it's thought a woman had agreed to sex will now rest on an explicit statement. This, in turn, seems to be based on an assumption that consent is not given and that the default, implicit answer is 'no' unless otherwise stated.

There's little detail on what the magic words might be - but I think that slightly misses the point: I think we're looking at presence versus absence of generic speech acts which defer consent. Simply put, you assume that a person doesn't want to have sex unless you think you can reasonably claim to have heard otherwise - which is, I think, the current position of the law anyway. Please, tell me if I have that wrong.

It's also important to remember that this campaign does not, in itself, represent a change in law: we're talking about raising awareness of how sexual assault cases come to pass. Despite what some of the Home Office language might suggest, it shouldn't be understood as a prophylactic. It will make minimal difference to the prosecution of serious violent sexual assault; it will not act to deter people who are setting out to rape people in the full knowledge that what they do is rape. It's also not an isolated measure intended to stamp out rape - so we need to be realistic about what it will achieve directly by itself.

It might, however, address cases where men have sex with women without obtaining consent but do not think that they have committed rape or sexual assault. An emphasis on consent is about helping to pre-empt the situations where rape and accusations of rape arise.

Concern over practicalities (dictaphone records of consent and the rest) is maybe then a little bit misplaced, given that this campaign is about clarifying existing law and promoting a change in attitude rather than demanding new or more stringent standards of evidence of consent. The hope is, it seems, that by getting people to think about consent as something that must be given (rather than taken for granted) the chance of sexual assault will diminish.

It's that consciousness raising aspect that I think is most useful, reminding people that sexual availability is not the same thing as consent - and perhaps on a wider point, while it might not currently be illegal to have sex with someone who is very drunk, it's a very bad idea (though the HO - in a project indirectly related to this specific campaign - does seem to be trying to clarify the law's position as to when a person is thought competent to give consent).

I suppose I'm describing a culture not so much of caution but of respect for the person you want to have sex with. It challenges a culture that thinks a scantily clad drunk girl has given consent in advance - where newspaper journalists explain assault can be reduced to a simple misunderstanding of the suggestiveness of a low-cut top.

I think it's a good idea.

away day

FYI, I'm heading away for a couple of days - so I'll be holding comments for moderation from some time on Thursday morning until I get back.

the daily mail and "the rape of common sense"

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the promised shit-storm, courtesy of the Daily Mail and timed conveniently for Blog Against Sexism. Apparently, asking that a man ask for consent from a woman before sex is contrary to all common sense and an unnecessary intrusion of the state into our bedrooms.

It's a Daily Mail special under the title 'The Rape of Common Sense?', where common sense apparently dictates that you should always assume that someone wants to have sex with you. The appeal to common sense is a cue to turn off your brain: why challenge what everyone already knows to be true?

Ruth Dudley Edwards' article performs a series of rhetorical somersaults, first castigating Amnesty for being so interested in rape when there's war, genocide and famine in the world (because, clearly, there's no connection between any of those things and the prevalence of sexual violence in places like Darfur and Bosnia) before moving on to decide that rape claims are mainly due to women being drunk.

In fact, there's no discussion of rape in Edwards' article that doesn't assume that a generation of binge-drinking ladettes have it coming: apparently, every claim of rape involves a Bacardi breezer at some point, even when a woman is assaulted at home during the night or on her way home from work.

Missing the idea that getting consent might not actually contradict the idea of men and women sharing responsibility, Edwards instead fixes on that special definition of 'sharing responsibility' where it's actually the woman's responsibility ( i.e. fault):

If a woman goes out half-dressed, exchanges raunchy sexual banter with eager young men, drinks ten large vodkas and Red Bull and snogs him enthusiastically, she should not be staggered if he gets the wrong idea.

The off-the-wall 'wrong idea' being that she doesn't want to have sex and that flirtation is not the same thing as an invitation to sex. Maybe Edwards is telling us that every man she's ever flirted with after a few glasses of wine has acquired free access to her body; maybe she just thinks that 'bad' girls have it coming.

Leaving aside the characterisation of rape claimants as naked drunks (and noting that neither nudity or drunkeness are the same thing as consent), I noticed that Edwards completely misses the point that a culture of asking for consent would help exactly this kind of situation. Think someone is sending out strong signals, but are unsure if that means they want sex? If only there was some method involving the power of speech to find out that would curb confusion.. wait! How about I ask? Heavens be praised for the evolutionary development of language skills!

Edwards also revisits the special rules that apply to rape and no other crime, that victims should feel apologetic for confusing those who assault them:

If a girl wants to dress and behave in a sexually provocative way, she should not be thunderstruck if an immature young man thinks she is behaving in a sexually provocative way. And both she and he should know that if they get drunk, there may be some nasty consequences.

Of course. Dressing in a sexually provocative manner (verified by an independent panel of asexual judges, of course) means that you consent to sex, and that the immaturity of a young man should be forgiven even if it does lead to sexual assault. Honest, your honour, he's only just got the learner's licence for his penis, he doesn't know what he's doing.

I was going to write something uplifting about the capacity of men and women not to treat each other like shit, but the fine columnists of the Daily Mail got there first and changed my plans. If your will is strong, you might also want to take in the comments section of the news coverage on the Mail site, where men have gathered to make jokes and argue that more should be done to protect men from the accusation of rape.

Happy International Women's Day.

consent is an active decision

To pre-empt a tabloid and blog shitstorm over this story, let's ask the question: why on earth is it a problem to check that the person you're about to have sex with actually wants to?

Consent is an active decision and not merely something that can be assumed as default, despite what last year's Amnesty survey revealed some people think about rape:

One in five thought a woman was partly to blame if it was known she had many sexual partners, while more than a third believed she was responsible to some degree if she had clearly failed to say "no" to the man.

race supremacy and free speech martyrs

At the moment, Leeds University is doing the right thing by refusing to fire Dr Frank Ellis, despite his palpably racist opinions:

In a row that has reignited the debate on the limits of freedom of speech, Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies, sparked anger after stating, in an interview with the university's student newspaper, that he was an 'unrepentant Powellite' who thought that the BNP was 'a bit too socialist' for his liking.

Ellis said he supported right-wing ideas such as the Bell Curve theory, which held that white people were more intelligent than black people. '[It] has demonstrated to me beyond any reasonable doubt there is a persistent gap in average black and white average intelligence.' Repatriation would get his support, he added, if it was done 'humanely'.

[...] But while the university called his views 'abhorrent to the overwhelming majority our staff and students', it said he had a right to express them. A spokeswoman said that there was no evidence his extreme theories had affected his teaching.

'The question of discrimination does not arise in student assessment. All work counting towards a degree in Russian and Slavonic studies is double-marked. Ellis has a right to his personal opinions, but he does not have the right to treat students or colleagues in a prejudicial or discriminatory manner. We have no evidence that this has happened, but we will look carefully at any such evidence if it is presented to us.'

It's the right thing to do because the first responsibility of a university is to protect academic freedom, which includes opinions that may offend or be rejected by the broader academic and student body. It actually ranks above educating students because it's the only guarantee that the education offered has any credibility. It's certainly unpleasant to find that you might be defending a bigot or a thug but that's tough shit.

You either defend the right to express all ideas or the principle is little more than a list of things you like. However - and this is important to remember - Ellis' right to hold any opinion (and the University's defence of that right) has no bearing on whether he's talking bollocks or not.

The defence Ellis offers is that he is merely speaking a politically inconvenient truth, supported by objective research. While some of Ellis' comments might fall into considered though flawed opinion (based in comprehensively discredited studies like The Bell Curve), other comments are rather more straightforwardly racist:

He was also criticised for an article on the internet in which he states: "It is considered politically incorrect to say so, but were one to take the 'white' and the 'male' out of science and technology, one would have no science, just witchcraft, third world squalor, misery and mega-incompetence."

Dr Ellis said he stood by the statement. He denied that his views amounted to racism, saying they were based on scientific evidence.

'Based on' is a wonderful phrase that can be used to justify almost any amount of fervent bigotry: it hardly needs to be said that supposed evidence of lower IQs is not evidence of a genetic disposition towards primitivism or poverty, and that both squalor and a belief in magic can be found in any number of caucasian communities. Such comments aren't about saying that there's a degree of difference in the intelligence of different groups but establishing the idea that such a deficit means primitivism, savagery and a lack of civilisation. It's about giving credence to white superiority - or supremacy, if you like.

Why is the nature of Ellis' defence important? It tells us he wants to be a martyr. Unable to prove his position with legitimate (peer-reviewed) evidence, he's instead looking for proof that the liberal elite Guardian reading establishment is silencing him. A conspiracy to silence him becomes proof that what he says must be true: cue book tour and fevered website.

If he'd stuck to saying that he believed there was evidence of a difference in IQ that was linked to race, he'd be a minor crackpot and fully employed. The jump to the rhetoric of wholesale racial superiority, where white men bring technology and culture to the savages, puts him into a different league - a kind of racism-denier who claims that everyone else is denying the truth.

Ellis may end up leaving Leeds but not because the university fires him for his beliefs. He'll be pushed out because his position will become untenable: students will picket and refuse to take his classes and staff will refuse to work alongside him. Though the management of universities might make tolerance a hardened principle, the people who study and work there will tend to exercise their own social selection.

While the university might defend Ellis' right to his opinions, his colleagues and students will most likely prove less forgiving. So he'll leave via the back door - not because there's a vast conspiracy to silence eugenicists but because it's almost impossible to get an academic out through the front door.

Though I find Ellis' arguments both flawed and repellent, his departure would still leave a sour taste in the mouth - because the only real way to address people like Ellis is to challenge their beliefs again and again: to point out again and again that a grain of highly disputed stasticial evidence cannot support a mountain of race superiority. If they claim academic working methods, we need to show our critical skills are stronger than theirs.

When racist and sexist arguments attempt to claim academic credibility, a need remains for such beliefs to be comprehensively challenged and, where flawed, dismantled. Ellis' ideas shouldn't be chased away but shown up for their intellectual paucity and unashamed racism.

the best idea I ever had (this evening)

I think the most appropriate response to 'no sex before marriage' is 'no religion before sex'. If people are going to try to regulate other people's sexuality, they should at least have some vague idea what they're talking about.

fay wheldon's lost generation

Fay Wheldon's account of a 'lost generation' of women gets quite far before it revives the 'feminism is responsible for our unhappiness' line:

Lost generation women find themselves starved of love, sex, children, and leisure - no time to stand and stare, fall in love, visit family. They are over-worked, stressed, tired and exhausted. Employment is no longer a matter of choice, but of necessity. One man's wages can no longer keep a family, as once it did.

Constraints of time, energy, and money stop her from having as many children as she would like - if any at all. And by forty it's a rare woman, finding herself childless and partnerless, who isn't deafened by the sound of the biological clock. How do I have a baby before it's too late?

The feminist revolution was abundantly successful. Overall, the lot of women today in this country is better than it ever was before: they have choice, freedom, dignity, wages, and control over their own lives. But there has been a painful emotional fall-out, especially for those who wanted it all, and were promised it all, and yet do not have it all. [...]

But why should today's man "commit"? Crudely, what precipitated men into marriage, pre-revolution, was the desire for sex, otherwise denied to them. Now that they can have it anyway, what does marriage hold? A working wife, too tired for sex, no time to cook, who puts the children first, requires you to do the washing and allows no peace in front of the TV when the football is on? Would you "commit" if you were a man?

The radical teachers, feminist mothers and all-persuasive media of the revolution failed to point out to its heirs that men and women would rather have domestic happiness than social justice.

Ah, the secret to getting men to commit is to demand less of them: give up your job, be eager for sex on demand, cook his meals for him and do all of the housework, put him before your children and sit quietly facing the wall when the football is on. Oh, and remain chaste until marriage.

Wheldon's idea seems to be that women are 'starved of love' because they have chosen to put themselves on a starvation diet; that the inability or unwillingness of men to enter into equal relationships is a problem with feminism and 'radical teachers' rather than those men.

The idea that there's a trade-off to be made between social justice and domestic happiness also presumes that one exists to the exclusion of the other - a logic that depends here on domestic happiness as a social model based on female domesticity.

The other consequence of feminism's supposedly flawed sales-pitch seems to be selfishness. While having children in your 40s is indeed far more difficult than trying in your 20s, Wheldon seems to think that choosing to have children later in life is simultaneous with man-abandoning, self-centredness.

I'm struggling to parse Wheldon's article as it shifts between changes in economic circumstances and perfidious feminist promises as the main reasons for unhappiness - but it seems to be based in a rhetoric of betrayal: women who were told they could have it all and have begun to find that they can't. While some of that problem is very much to do with social circumstances (not least of which is the ability to afford child-care, for example), much of the situation is to do with a continued resistance toward women's demand for equality and liberty in all spheres of their lives - a resistance Wheldon seems unwilling to address directly.

While the 'have it all' woman is seen as delusional or selfish (struggling to fit career, children and adoration of spouse into her life) Wheldon seems uninterested in considering the presumptive right of her male partner to have it all: a job, a family and a loving partner. Mrs. Smith's demand for all of the above is unreasonable; Mr. Smith doesn't have to demand at all becomes he assumes they'll be coming to him by rights.

My central problem with this article is that the balancing act of work-life demands that a woman must perform doesn't involve her male partner - even though the fear of becoming lonely, childless and starved of love is presented as her driving motivation. The image of women in their 40s as fearful of abandonment is matched by the image of men as faithless and selfish; consequently, the only role a man plays is in presenting demands which a woman must work out how best to manage. The happy, single and childless woman doesn't seem to exist.

Of course (and finally) this wouldn't be a post on the Daily Mail if I couldn't share some reader's comments with you. Amidst some interesting comments that include a discussion of the undervaluing of domestic labour, there's traditional argument number seven: 'women are stupid and sexist because I am stupid and sexist':

Women now have too much power. Women think 'equality' means absolute power over men. It is incredible hypocrisy. What would happen if all the men stopped working tomorrow? Would they fix their your own cars, plaster your own houses, dig your own roads?

Welcome back, pointless rhetorical questions.

schism, what schism?

A new round of dire warnings about a schism in the Anglican Church over homosexuality.

First of all, there's already a incredible difference of opinion between fundamentalist and conservative evangelical groups and everyone else. The first group thinks that queers should be banned from the priesthood, the Church - and on one occasion, the city of London.

Secondly, whle Archbishop Rown Williams might be trying to head off a public split between the faithful and the faithful-who-also-happen-to-hate-queers - to possibly foster some kind of compromise along the lines of the issue of women bishops - the conservative caucus has absolutely no interest in negotiation. That's sort of the nature of fundamentalist positions, of having arrived at a final and unchangeable opinion.

The best outcome would be for Anglicans in various regions to go back to ignoring what Anglicans elsewhere are doing: however, the rolling parade of 'it's not schism, yet' schism news means that method is no longer available. The next best solution - also unavailable due to duties as peace-maker, reconciler and hug-dispenser - is for the Archbishop to threaten the dissolution of the global church. Either the demonisation and exclusion of gay people is acceptable, or it's not.

However, we seem to be stuck with method three, the weak lemon drink of threats: which is saying that a schism (now in its third popular decade) would be a terrible thing if it officially happened. As I've mentioned before, it's convenience rather than Christianity which keeps the fundamentalist movement in the body of a broadly liberal Church: the only thing holding them back is the cost of new premises and changing the letterheads.

essential items

Some potentially good news:

Campaigners claimed victory today in their battle to slash the tax on condoms and other contraceptives such as the morning-after pill.

This morning a Whitehall source was reported as saying the chancellor, Gordon Brown, would cut VAT on these items from 17.5% to 5% when he announces his Budget later this month. HM Revenue & Customs refused to comment on the statement, but the high-street retailer Superdrug said it believed changes were on the cards.

The store has been running a 10-month campaign to have the tax cut, arguing that contraceptives should be taxed as essential items rather then luxuries, particularly in the light of the UK's high levels of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

A really very simple move in the right direction: if we want people to have safe sex and use contraceptives, then they need to be free or very cheap.

free press in kenya completely fucked

The Kenyan government has now confirmed it ordered police to raid the offices of a newspaper and its sister TV station:

Armed and masked men stormed the HQ and printing presses of the Standard group, owner of the Standard newspaper and the Kenya Television Network. Thousands of copies of the paper were burned, but the TV station is now back on air after being shut down for hours.

The newspaper has been critical of President Mwai Kibaki's handling of recent corruption scandals.The government has repeatedly accused the Standard of fabricating stories. Internal Security Minister John Michuki said the raids on the Standard group in Nairobi were designed to protect state security.

"If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it," he said.

Rolling coverageand information links over at boingboing.

double or bust

I'd like to pretend I'm suprised, or that I havn't been calling bullshit on the 50% into HE target but:

Universities in England today shared £6.7bn funding from the government for the coming year, but the extra 26,000 places to be funded are only about half the number needed to hit the government's target of 50% of young people in higher education by 2010.

"We would need an increase of about twice that to be on course for 2010," said Mario Ferelli, a senior analyst for the Higher Education Funding Council for England's (Hefce) annual funding settlement for universities.

You'll remember that funding for adult education was slashed last summer, drop-out rates for state school students at university has risen and that there's still no sign of a discussion of why 50% of people should go to university or - more importantly - what they will do when they get there. Simply saying that those 'with potential' should have access is only part of the picture.

reading list

It's World Book Day, which lets me tell you that you should find time to read:

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
GB84, by David Peace
Precarious Life, by Judith Butler
and anything by Iain M. Banks.

I'm almost finished with my stack of JTB novels: recommend me something?

tongue in cheek, presumably

Shorter Tim Worstall: you should ignore anything that's even indirectly associated with people I don't like.

The 'don't support things supported by "mad" people' theory has the same problem as the 'follow the "smart" people' theory: both avoid doing any thinking for yourself.

coComment

Lovely Neil recommends coComment, which lets me (and you) track various comment conversations I've been having on other sites. It appears as a tiny box below the 'recent comments' column, and may eventually replace it.

I've also managed to produce a way of doing categories in Blogger via technorati; the 'obsessions' links should work as technorati indexes the site.

tags: admin

more tabloid scum

I almost forgot to say an enormous fuck you to the Daily Star, for proving there's no bigot like a homophobic, tabloid bigot. I get to say that without fear of exaggeration courtesy of their response to this piece of research:

The researchers watched 168 hours of programming on BBC1 and BBC2, broadcast between 7pm and 10pm over a period of eight weeks. During that time, lesbian and gays, references to them, or related issues featured in just 38 minutes of coverage, of which 32 were deemed derogatory or offensive and just six minutes were deemed positive. [...]

Focus groups of gays and heterosexuals said that when homosexuality was portrayed in soap operas or dramas on the BBC, it was clichéd and centred on characters either in crisis about their sexual orientation or as promiscuous predators trying to seduce a straight person. Once their "coming out" or sexually orientated storylines were over, they were commonly written out, the report said.

This kind of research can be highly subjective (and it would be interesting to see more detail of the methods involved) but the basic argument is quite simple: when gay people appear on TV, they're unlikely to be presented in a positive light.

The Star, skipping happily past whether this judgment is justifiable, goes for the headline 'Eastbenders', alongside a mock-up of Grant and Phil Mitchell in pink shirts and eye shadow with a list of "Top 10 Gay Viewing", which includes Top Queer, Weakest Pink, Match of The Gay and Strictly Come Mincing. Laugh? I almost posted some anthrax. For anyone wondering what the fuss is about, imagine the same list with racial slurs.

Fuck you, Daily Star, for making life for very ordinary people a little bit more difficult this week. Fuck you for making intolerance a tiny bit more acceptable. In general, fuck you, and not in any of the nice ways.

Tags: mediahackery

osama bin whatever

FYI, it's not much of a suprise visit to anywhere if you've managed to organise a international press pack to come with you.

Frankly, that man talks so much bollocks I can scarce report his words: it's hard to be 'winning' in a country where militant violence has claimed more lives this year than any other since the 'fall' of the Taleban.

Oh, his polls have slipped to the low thirties.

Oh, and elsewhere in his grand tour of Asia: there was a time when only Jack Straw was welcomed that warmly.

Tags: politics

in pursuit of clarity

For anyone rushing over from here for a spirited defence of whatever, I think you'll want to read this - which was my argument in favour of making forced marriages illegal.

Some commentators seem to get confused when someone criticises a particular cultural practice and, on their way to crticising a perceived gross generalisation, proceed to make some of their own. To put it another way, I would have a problem with forced marriage if it was a tradition in the Church of England: race and nation have little to do why forcing someone to get married is a bad idea.

I understand that certain traditions - like forced marriage - are more frequently practiced in countries which have a religion or ethnicity that is different from my own and that banning them will have disproportionate effect on people from that group in the UK. However, saying that forced marriage is bad is absolutely not the same as saying Asian people are bad.

For a similar rhetorical structure, consider how criticism of the Israeli government is taken by many to be automatically anti-semitic. It's not that some racists don't attack Israel as a way of attacking Jewish people, but rather that the absolute connection between a religious or ethnic group and a particular government is their device, not mine. Similarly, full-throated criticism of the Palestinian Authority (or the actions of Hamas) are not the same thing - always and irretrievably - as anti-Arab racism or, by inference, an absoluton of the Israeli government. To use a favourite phrase of mine, it's a little bit more complicated than that.

Similarly again, I can consider the historical context of 9/11 and the role of the US in international politics preceding that event without saying that a group of people 'brought it on themselves' and somehow deserved to die, or exculpating the blame of another group by simply examining their motives.

I'm sensitive to the fact that other cultures - phrased in the simplest way - do things differently, but I won't have someone else's faux racial-concern foisted on me. To those confused commentators, please recriminate away, for all the good it will do you, but don't think that always assuming the simplest, most banal explanation for an event or opinion is going to get you very far.

And DK, an authoritarian? Please. While he might be more socially conservative than me (hell, who isn't?), he's a small 'c' conservative and would prefer government and the intervention of law to operate at the most minimal level: his loathing of the Blair government is frequently based in a criticism of wasteful spending and illiberal interference.

giant squid in central london

It's a post written mainly for the title:

Yesterday the most complete giant squid ever found was put on display at the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre in London. [...]

It has eight thick arms and two longer tentacles that stretch six metres (20ft) ahead, lined with suckers for ensnaring prey. A vicious beak, used to quickly tear apart its food, lies at one end of its dirty-white body and a huge dark eye - 25cm (10in) across and the largest of any animal - stares out blankly. Counting its body, the squid is easily nine metres long - not the largest ever caught but certainly the most complete.

To be fair, the blank look is probably due to a) being dead, b) being pickled in formaldehyde and brine and c) having to live and work in central London.

linda smith

She will be greatly missed:

Linda Smith, the comedian and broadcaster, probably best known for her work on BBC radio's The News Quiz and Just a Minute, has died of cancer aged 48. She was born at Erith in Kent, a town of which she said: "It's not twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham." She had no fondness for the place. Her father worked on the railway. Her family was hard-up and she very much enjoyed shopping when she eventually became comfortable, describing her spendinghabits as "working-class fecklessness".

I think I'll remember her most for her description of David Blunkett as "Satan’s bearded folk singer."

it's cold inside

It hasn't started to snow quite yet but it is fucking freezing in my flat - my flat which only has puny electric storage heaters. The BBC's coverage accidentally reports some rather harsh criticism of the frozen north:

She added: "By the time I get back to Aberdeen I will have been on this train for three hours going nowhere."

Consider this one of those open threads where people talk about whatever's on their minds - you might consider telling us what you're giving up for Lent.

the celebrity politics of accountability

For anyone worried that our politicians are not be held to account: Blair to be quizzed by Parky.

Does the Prime Minister have a new film coming out?