melanie phillips: these molehills present a dire threat to our mountainous way of life

Small apologies for so many Phillips posts in such a short time, but couldn't resist a small demonstration of how - in the hands of an experienced columnist - every detail can be packed with alarm:

Householders stagger round their flower beds with relays of brimming watering cans in the desperate attempt to save their plants, with the outcome that doctors are reporting an upsurge in shoulder injuries.

Note the emphatic language: stagger, brimming, desperate, upsurge. It's not just a heavy watering can, it's an attack on our way of life:

Those same householders are being subjected to a regime of hydration harassment, with neighbours turning into water vigilantes as they listen for the incriminating hiss of the hosepipe and report their friends and neighbours to the water companies for breaching the ban. What to do if one spots a neighbour sneaking out at dead of night to turn on the hosepipe has become one of the talking points of the summer.

The hydration Gestapo! Flee! Flee!

I must have missed the particular story about a spike in watering-can related injuries - or perhaps, and I don't want to accuse anyone of just making stuff up - no such story exists.

Apologies for the recent lack of posts - I've suddenly started a large freelance project (on top of over-time in my regular job) so will be posting only a couple of times a week for the rest of August.

freedom of speech and religious bigotry: redux

Still on the case of the complaint against the GPA (Gay Police Association) discussed last week, Mediawatchwatch provides extended coverage of the hypocrisy of Christian Voice. From the Pink news, via Mediawatchwatch:

The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association called [Christian Voice's complaint] “hypocritical,” a spokesman told PinkNews.co.uk: “A few weeks ago Christians were complaining about Iqbal Sacranie (former head of the Muslim Council of Britain) and Lynette Burrows (author) being questioned by the police for making anti-gay remarks. They claimed at the time that it infringed their freedom of speech. We agreed with them.

“But now they are celebrating because gays are being investigated over supposed ‘Christianophobic’ allegations. It seems the ultimate in hypocrisy, but this is the way it seems to be going. Christians must have the right to defame and insult gays, but we mustn’t answer back or its blasphemy and persecution. It heralds a new front on the war that religion has declared against gay people.”

On a similar issue of free speech - even for people you don't like or disagree with, which is something certain groups seem to forget - we see the ACLU defending Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church for their right to picket in front of the funerals for soldiers killed in the Iraq war. Andy at towleroad points out that Phelps' insanity has actually rallied families and veteran groups against his "message":

The ACLU is right to argue for freedom of speech, be it the Phelps clan or not. Fred Phelps' message — that the U.S. is incurring God's wrath because of its tolerance towards gays and lesbians — is a message that should be heard if only because it shows the world the kind of irrational bigotry the gay community faces on a daily basis and enshrines Westboro Baptist as a group of certified nutjobs.

For anyone unfamiliar with Fred Phelps - he's the man who thanked God for the London subway bombs. Enough said.

he writes letters

Following the recent round of "debate" about stem cell science, Ithika writes to The Herald:

Recently I’ve been taking an interest in the various arguments which are used by right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the US. It is quite remarkable how many of these arguments eventually make it across the pond even after they’ve been soundly refuted.

The most recent argument of that type is Mr Conti’s claim that “No treatments exist using early embryonic stem cells, in contrast to no less than 65 treatments already in existence using adult stem cells”. This is utter nonsense. [...]

I recently noted that the arguments used by the Christian right seemed to pander to a 1950s B-movie understanding of science — full of the horror of genetic mutation and clone armies. At the time I was happy that things were a bit more sensible in this country but it appears that I was too quick to judge. The tactics of deception are the same the world over.

The paucity of understanding of the science involved leads to this note in Slog (lifted in its entirety) which highlights the hypocrisy of the "moral" case for protecting "life":

So far, according to Newsweek, only 128 of 400,000 frozen embryos stored in medical facilities around the country have been “adopted,” resulting in pregnancies. Thanks in part to Bush’s veto of legislation expanding federal stem-cell research last week, the vast majority of these embryos will be thrown away instead of being used for potentially life-saving research—research prominent scientist Steven Hawking, who suffers from incurable motor neurone disease, called “morally equivalent to taking a heart transplant from a victim of a car accident” in a statement to the Independent this week.

Not only is a minority moral code being forced onto a majority, but the minority have little interest in matching their rhetoric with action.

Will pro-life groups now uniformly and collectively condemn IVF because of the high "death" rate from failed implantation and fertilisation attempts, or will they be turning a blind eye?

the false issue of gay marriage

There's been a move to pour mre money - and more political capital - into the issue of gay marriage as the defining issue of gay rights in the US:

Three major gay-rights groups are taking out full-page advertisements starting Tuesday in 50 newspapers nationwide declaring their determination to keep fighting for same-sex marriage rights despite recent court setbacks.

The media campaign will cost $250,000; its organizers said it was the largest-ever purchase of print advertising space by gay rights supporters.

I'm fairly uncomfortable about this move, particulary given that there are far greater opportunities for promoting social change and defending the rights of gay people - such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would outlaw anti-gay job discrimination.

It also goes beyond a criticism of trying to be "normal" (discussed here before in various forms, as well as in further detail at air pollution) to realising that the focus on marriage is as much a product of the religious right as anything else, who have proved remarkably adept at turning a small piece of religious doctrine into secular received knowledge.

Trying to persuade the socially conservative that allowing gay people to marry doesn't mean giving up a a part of their religion or lifestyle is a losing game, not least when the majority of voices arguing that are outside of their religious or cultural mainstream and those within that same mainstream are arguing the reverse.

In particular, it's a waste of time and energy arguing civil liberties with someone who is holding the trump card of religious dogma. The issue of gay marriage is one that can be won, but it's a long, slow game that will benefit from other more directly productive changes - which, not incidentally, will assist those who have no interest in marriage.

melanie phillips: marriage and the common sense of cruelty

Melanie Phillips found time last week to climb on the Mail's self-generated outrage bandwagon to attack Alan Johnson:

Twice-married Mr Johnson, who was himself raised by his sister after his father walked out and his mother died, sneered at the image of mothers in 'frilly pinnies' and fathers dressed in shirt and tie for Sunday lunch during the Fifties as a damaging stereotype.

That era, he said, concealed discrimination against lone parents and children born outside marriage. Marriage could provide stability, but it wasn't for everyone. The focus should not be on marriage, but on the welfare of the child and the quality of the upbringing.

Note how Phillips can report with a straight face that Johnson supported marriage but still characterise his words as an attack. How dare he put children first?

What an astounding display of ignorance, prejudice and muddled thinking — and from an Education Secretary who has a duty to safeguard children's interests, what gross irresponsibility.

For a moment there, I thought Phillips was describing herself - but no, it's a bravado display of misdirection.

Ridiculing marriage as a Fifties caricature is a cheap and dishonest substitute for argument. The fact is that far from being outdated or confined to that period, marriage remains the bedrock institution which holds a society together.

Once more: he didn't ridicule marriage. Instead, he merely pointed out that a narrow image of marriage and family from the 1950s does not match either marriage or family today: something which happens to be true whether you love or loathe marriage.

Johnson appears to have argued that such polarising caricatures are unhelpful because not everyone is able (or indeed wants) to raise children in a nuclear family environment. The fact that the Mail has immediately pounced on this rejection of polarising stereotypes in the most polarising way possible has cause the dial on my irony meter to spring off entirely.

Phillips' tirade is a tremendous display of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, she describes a social landscape where marriage's supposedly rapid decline ("mass fatherlessness" and "the social catastrophe of family disintegration") is the fault of the government. On the other, the decline of marriage is characterised by the failure of individuals to commit:

Of course there are lone parent households who do a magnificent job in raising secure and thriving children, but increasingly there are households where a man plays no role whatsoever.

Indeed, it emerged this week that in one in five cases examined by the Child Support Agency (CSA), no father was registered on the child's birth certificate.

Similarly, Phillips argues that the government has failed to assert moral authority: that their central failing has been a lack of leadership. Yet in this tortured logic, Blair's government is simultaneously guilty of interfering too heavily in our lives:

the state takes draconian control of our lives, parents are radically disempowered, freedom is grossly undermined

and not interfering enough. He's an authoritarian telling us how to raise our children but also a libertine giving licence to the desires of "irresponsible" adults.

Since Mr Blair was first elected — and found himself facing within Labour's ranks an assortment of radical feminist man-haters, serial adulterers, cohabiting partners who thought marriage was irrelevant and gays — this Government's whole family agenda has been about putting the desires of irresponsible adults first and then crying crocodile tears over the human tragedies left in its wake.

Ah, the queers and man-hating feminists - even though you have nothing to do with marriage, you are still somehow responsible for its decline.

It's an argument that mirrors Phillips' own attempt to balance the pretence of liberty with a strong streak of authoritarianism: people should be allowed to run their own affairs providing they do what I say. It's an appeal to moral authority that assumes people can only be moral if someone is telling them what to do - it's free will, providing you don't use it, because that would be "irresponsible."

Finally, the outrage directed against the idea that marriage might not be universally applicable also reveals a rather less pleasant attitude - the assumption that unmarried mothers have it coming:

Yes, the stigma that was once attached to unmarried mothers and children from broken homes was often cruel.

But what Mr Johnson decries as prejudice was, in fact, society's way of protecting the most vulnerable and enforcing rules of behaviour that upheld the sense of commitment and duty to others that binds us together as a civilised society.

Once more demonstrating that killer lack of insight, Phillips is able to write a column about the aweseome threat of single parent families to our culture - and still refer to the stigma of unmarried mothers in the past tense.

Society's method of protecting the most vulnerable was, in Phillip's world, to attack the most vulnerable - it was cruel, but a justified cruelty because it terrrorised other people into doing "right." It's not enough that the government focus on marriage because it's "the best way of focusing upon the welfare of the child and the quality of its upbringing": single parents also have to be hectored and accused of failure, for fear that anyone else gets the idea that they're not universally bad people.

I wouldn't have known how outraged I was if you hadn't called me up and explained how outraged I was

The War On Family takes a turn for the unconvincing in today's Mail:

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has launched an outspoken attack on marriage and the two-parent family.

And what form does this outrageous attack take?

He [...] undermined marriage, declaring it "not for everyone".

Wow. Amazing: the idea that not everyone is suited to a long-term, monogamous relationship is truly terrible.

Actually, let's take the quote in full and see what Johnson - for all that he's a Labour minister hellbent on destroying the fabric of our culture - actually said:

We have to recognise that the modern family is not always a married family. Marriage can provide stability, but it's not for everyone. Our focus should not be on whether people marry or not, but should be on the welfare of the child and the quality of the upbringing.

Notice how Johnson actually praises marriage before admitting that not everyone chooses it - and then says the most important thing about families is how they treat their children. His comments are almost entirely devoid of scandal - unless, of course, you're in the tiny minority that believes all unmarried couples should be stoned in the village square for raising bastards out of wedlock.

The Mail's reporting is quite amazing: totally stripped of irony, as though it were written near some kind of very specific black hole from which no scrap of self-awareness can escape. For example, take the outrageous Mr Johnson:

"When we discuss the trends affecting our home lives, the highly-charged polarised terms 'traditional family' or 'modern family' are often used" he said. [...] "Now more than ever before, it's impossible to stereotype 'the family'."

If you're quoting something like this, you'd probably want to avoid the charge of using such unthinking polarised terms - unless, of course, you're the Daily Mail and a man describing the problems of stereotyping human relationships can be accused of presenting.. caricatured stereotypes:

[F]amily campaigners last night condemned his "pathetic" caricature [of the 1950s nuclear family] and accused him of undermining marriage.

For the short of thought: Alan Johnson deliberately used a narrow 1950s-style caricature of the family to argue that a simplistic bun-fight over the "traditional" is unhelplful and, at the very least, does not describe real, contemporary family lives. The point of using a caricature was to demonstrate how caricature is unhelpful.

Quite how pointing that not all families are the same amounts to undermining marriage is unclear, unless you think that wishful thinking is the best source of social cohesion. This is, by the by, a standard Daily Mail phone-for-outrage job: pick a speech, any speech, and then call around the usual socially conservative suspects - Family and Youth Concern and the think-tank Civitas - for pre-packaged and delightfully one-sided outrage.

Unable to find anything outrageous in his comments, the Mail accuses Johson of "sneering" at the traditional family - even though a cursory reading of his remarks reveal that he believes "marriage can provide stability."

Hey, why not cut straight to simultaneously accusing the government of interfering in our personal lives ("[Campaigners] have accused Labour of extending the reach of the "nanny state" further into family life than ever before") and then arguing that the government isn't interfering enough?

"The Government has already been attacked for undermining marriage by characterising it as a lifestyle option and stripping away tax incentives to marry."

So, is government interference a good thing, or a bad thing - or does it just depend on whether it serves a particular social agenda?

Despite its libertarian posturing, the Mail's editorial stance craves traditional authority: despite a rejection of social engineering and the nanny state, the Mail would quite like to see certain people told what to do. For anyone else, this kind of article would be a case-study in hypocrisy and muddled thinking: for the Mail, it's business as usual.

religious prejudice is still prejudice (part 94)

More on the GPA (Gay Police Association) ad that is being investigated as a "faith crime," courtesy of pink news:

[G]ay campaigners say the information is based on facts, Ben Summerskill chief executive of gay charity Stonewall said: "The advert is based on robust evidence, we currently know of a number of cases where the motivation is clearly based on someone’s beliefs from the Bible." [...]

The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association claimed that Christian groups made the complaint, secretary George Broadhead wrote a letter to the GPA backing their stance, he said: "It is outrageous that Christians should suggest that complaints about their homophobia amount to an attack on their 'religious freedom'. It increasingly appears that 'religious freedom' amounts to a freedom to attack and insult gay people.

In a wonderfully Orwellian loop, the incitement of hatred toward gay people could be protected by legislation intended to protect against incitement of religious hatred - where "incitement" is equivalent to pointing out not only what is obvious, but proudly celebrated by certain communities of "faith."

For a refresher of related objections to the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill - see last year's colourfully titled get your fucking hands off the statute books, so help me.

blue sky

Light posting today as I'm working on another online project for some friends.. it's also looking like another day of fantastic sun here in Edinburgh, so I'm going to try to get out into it. :)

the amazing disappearing tale of new orleans

The Telegraph reports Bush's frosty reception at the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) - then tries to frame it as irrational petulance:

Most American observers say that Mr Bush's far-Right image among blacks is unfair. He has appointed two black secretaries of state, including a woman, and has shown a greater willingness to hire black Americans than some of his Democratic predecessors.

Leaving aside the fact that "most" American observers agree on nothing at all - and certainly not this - the hiring of two upper-middle class black people (even when one *gasp* is a *gasp* woman) does not amount to much if you're beholden, for example, to the demands of the religious right.

It's fairly revealing that Bush - in an attempt to remind his audience of their link to the modern Republican party - had to recall the emancipation of the slaves, as if gratitude for that historic act should translate into electoral support many generations later. The link between Abraham Lincoln and George Bush is, to put it politely, uncompelling.

It's also very telling that The Telegraph's Washington correspondent could write about NAACP's discontent with the Republican party without mentioning New Orleans. Anyone in the Whitehouse press corps remember that?

when "faith" motivates hate crimes: updated

Looks like we're finally having that conversation about certain religious beliefs and hate-crimes:

The Gay Police Association (GPA) is being investigated after it claimed a rise in homophobic attacks was due to religious belief.

An advert, showing a Bible next to a pool of blood under the heading "in the name of the father", appeared in a national newspaper's supplement. Scotland Yard said the inquiry "centres on whether the advert constitutes a faith crime." [...]

It stated: "In the last 12 months, the GPA has recorded a 74% increase in homophobic incidents, where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator."

We now face the prospect of the advert being found to be both totally accurate and a "faith crime" (presumably a "thought crime" where you don't have to think). I would very much like to see the research that supports the GPA's claim - though I expect it's currently being closely scrutinised by the complaints authority.

It would also be exceptionally interesting to hear exactly on what grounds the one person who complained objected - after all, the advert most certainly didn't claim that all people of faith are violent homophobes.

While all the usual suspects are screaming for heads to roll, they fail to recognise the basic problem: while not all people of faith are homophobic, a large number of homophobic people feel their behaviour is justified by their faith. While other members of the faithful might not like it, that particular claim of justification shouldn't be at all surprising. In fact, it might even be familiar - given that it's been used so often and for so very long.

As I argued a few days ago, it's fairly uncontroversial to recognise that in certain small corners of faith, homophobia and religious conviction are the same thing. You don't need special skills to detect this: you just have to read the catechism.

So while various churches might not like this association made so public, it's something they have to deal with: if you invest time telling your flock that a certain group of people are less than fully human, then you need to be aware of the possible consequences.

Notably absent is the claim of "political correctness gone mad" that normally emerges when the roles are reversed and a single gay-positive person triggers an enquiry into potentially homophobic remarks - as in recent radio debates about adoption. Funny that.

Updated: The ever useful Mediawatchwatch has the full text of the advert and points out that "if this results in a prosecution, it will mean that it is illegal to suggest that religious belief can sometimes lead to violence."

an end to compulsory school worship

Church leaders demanded this last month:

The churches' joint letter, calling on Mr Johnson to restore "an important part of pupils' entitlement in school", said daily collective worship "provides experience of meditation, reflection and prayer as spiritual resources".

By law, schools in England must organise daily acts of worship, which are "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character". While primary schools usually fulfil their duties, often with whole-school assemblies, many state secondaries do not, the churches said. [...]

The churches expressed concern at the high level of non-compliance with the law on collective worship in secondary community schools and the lack of engagement with the issue.

Having raised the issue of illiberal compulsory worship, they have been given this:

School pupils aged 16 and above are to be given a legal right to absent themselves from collective worship. [...]

Now education minister Lord Adonis has adopted an amendment brought by the Liberal Democrat Baroness Walmsley.

Baroness Walmsley argued 16-year-olds could pay tax and get married, yet could not refuse to worship. She moved the amendment during the Education and Inspections Bill's Lords committee stage.

"There is no justification for forcing young people to take part in a religious service with which they do not agree. Freedom of worship, or non-worship in this case, is a basic part of our rights as citizens of a free country," Baroness Joan Walmsley said.

Probably not quite outcome they were looking for.

the moral fraud of the stem cell veto

Scott Rosenberg from Salon (lifted entirely from Boing Boing):

Here is why Bush's position is a joke: Thousands and thousands of embryos are destroyed every year in fertility clinics. They are created in petri dishes as part of fertility treatments like IVF; then they are discarded. If Bush and his administration truly believe that destroying an embryo is a kind of murder, they shouldn't be wasting their time arguing about research funding: They should immediately shut down every fertility clinic in the country, arrest the doctors and staff who operate them, and charge all the wannabe parents who have been wantonly slaughtering legions of the unborn.

But of course they'll never do such a thing. (Nor, to be absolutely clear, do I think they should.) Bush could not care less about this issue except as far as it helps burnish his pro-life credentials among his "base."

A recent study put support of embryonic stem cell research at 67% of the American public, cutting across religious, political and socio-economic lines: I can only presume that Bush is banking on the fact that few of them will ever vote in an American election.

sex education for the over-50s

As much as social conservatives like to frame the rise in STI cases as proof of general moral decay in our society (marked by the supposed death of the family life), the truth is that good sexual health is linked to levels of education and not just sexual activity in general. As a result, previous generations whose upbringing was marked by more conservative social expectations are discovering that a traditional upbringing isn't proof against disease:

THE NUMBER of over-50s contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases has more than trebled in the last five years, it was revealed yesterday.  

Experts have found infections such as chlamydia and herpes among senior citizens are among the most rapidly rising in Scotland. Health workers are concerned that older couples are not heeding the safe sex message.  

The rise in STDs has been put down, in part, to the increasing numbers of older people beginning new sexual relationships following a divorce or the death of a partner.

Notice the almost deafening silence from those would recommend abstinence to young people but dare not try the same bullshit with adults who have discovered that sex can actually be good, guilt-free fun.

A large part of this particular problem owes to the fact that safe sex is almost universally discussed in terms of either school level sex education or the context of teenage sexual activity - the reasonable theory being that early emphasis will create lifelong habits. However, the paucity of comprehensive sex education received by earlier generations of sexually active adults means that it's a habit that needs to be broken.

the "gifted and talented" student scheme: engineering the future middle class?

The government's register of talented and gifted pupils has been a source of some confusion, not least because talented and gifted mean the same thing. Today's Independent helpfully sets out exactly what the Department of Education means when they use those words:

Children who achieve outstanding results in their traditional school subjects will be identified as "gifted" by their teachers. Staff have also been told to look out for pupils who excel in art, music, drama, dance or sport who are labelled as "talented".

A detail I hadn't seen before is the expectation that a certain quota of the gifted/talented must be identified in each school:

Every school is expected to identify between 5 and 10 per cent of their pupils as gifted or talented. Of course, this means that a wide variety of abilities will be represented on the register - the top 10 per cent from a grammar school will be very different from the top 10 per cent at England's worst performing comprehensive.

This expands the early version of the scheme as it appeared in the media - which was that it would target (potential) excellence - to describe something which is a far wider attempt at social engineering.

Finally - and in a seeming attempt to manage the knowledge that social background has an enormous impact on school achievement, "the letter that will be sent to all secondary schools next week will urge them to ensure that the social mix of the children put on the register is representative of the overall social mix of the school." Quite how this requirement will be brought about in practice - or scrutinised for the ever elusive fairness - is unclear.

This apparent attempt to stop the system from being swamped by high achieving middle-class children (and, perhaps more significantly, their pushy middle-class parents) is slightly countermanded by the plan to siphon off the top percentage of this chosen few - who are proportionally more likely to be the chidren of middle-class families:

The top 5 per cent nationally are also made members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented.

Labour appears to be trapped between two competing priorities: educational achievement in our current culture is slanted towards middle-class families, which is a good thing (hard-working middle-class families should enjoy the benefits of their efforts and most certainly shouldn't be punished for their success) and a bad thing (they dominate the system and make it harder for less "successful" families to move forward and develop their own success).

Labour wants to affect social change, but also know that supporting gifted/talented pupils will often mean giving further support to middle-class families - who, critics argue, are best placed to take the most advantage of the educational system anyway.

The most interesting part of this project may then be to see how (and if) the experiences of the few who gain the benefit of summer schools, early exposure to university study and the rest will be fed back to benefit the rest of their school community - which has been the key argument presented against the claim of divisiveness.

Given Labour's recent and relatively ham-fisted attempts to introduce other educational reforms, this programme is worth watching very closely.

the problem with raunch isn't a lack of "respectability"

It's deeply annoying that critics of raunch culture are still being framed as prudes, as in Natalie Bennett's contribution to CiF:

[B]eyond all the expressions of concern for the fate of young women, about their apparent "degradation", sneakily hidden but unmistakable, are tones of voice, twists of mouth, that remind me of a mean and pinched, middle-class "respectability" of my suburban childhood.

I think this objection almost totally misses the central objection to raunch being voiced by many feminists: that raunch supports an exceptionally narrow version of desirability which never questions the quality of a kind of empowerment that can't be reproduced without taking a few pole-dancing lessons and buying a g-string. It's an empowerment that - at the very least - is deeply conditional.

Bennett claims that it's a generational issue - ignoring how that a far more compelling factor might be class, or money - and unintentionally reinstates a binary madonna/whore logic: are you a covered-up prude, or a belly-flashing liberator?

But now those women are reaching the age of those disapproving grandmothers. (I'm not that far off it myself.) They've forgotten their mothers' tales of the horrors of community repression, if their mothers didn't try to spare them by not even telling them at all. And their daughters, in the way of woman brought up in a second generation of freedom, are pushing the boundaries, enjoying their bodies, pleasuring in their strength and possibilities - belly-rings to show off, torsos to flaunt, legs to display. And their mothers are horrified, bring back those cultural echoes of "respectability" whose dangers they've forgotten.

Being able to wear what you want, when you want, how you want is an important freedom - a basic bodily freedom. More than that, it reflects society's being open and honest about the body.

The key objection to raunch is that the forms of body and desire it celebrates are not resolutely not free - and far from open or honest. Merely demonstrating that images of male-oriented desire can be mastered does not demonstrate autonomy: at worst, it means you've just learnt how to jump through a particular kind of hoop. Mindless eroticism is not better than mindless prudity, particularly not when that version of the erotic celebrates only a certain vision of the body.

At the very least, a lack of interest in matching raunch's version of desirability is not the same thing as repression; to claim so is to enforce a whole new standard for being a woman even as the flag is flown in the name of freedom. The claim on bodies, "there on equal ground, with equal power" has to include the prospect of women who are respected, powerful and human regardless of whether they see pole-dancing as liberational or not.

manchester pride to charge participants: the queer politics of profit

Pride's shift from protest march to carnival celebration hasn't passed without comment - and claims that the event has become more about profit rather than political action or community are about to get a huge boost:

Next month's 10-day Manchester Pride festival, now in its 12th year, is expected to attract 100,000 people to the city centre. But for the first time, organisers are insisting that the costs of crowd control and additional policing, which have grown with the event, demand that individuals or non-commercial groups on the event's march through the city must pay.

In the past, the measure of a successful march was the political and social consequences; now, a successful Pride is one that is financially responsible, shifting the nature of success away from political activity towards the praise of management skills.

Part of that movement is the drive by professional, career-minded event organisers to run the "biggest and best event in the world," regardless of how that might serve the interests of the GLBT community.

Manchester now organises the most commercial and least free Pride in the UK where you have to pay for the privilege of taking part:

[T]he £50 charge, which comes on top of the £15 entry fee to the gated site on Canal Street, where the main three-day festival known as the Big Weekend takes place, is out of keeping with the "village", according to many who have attended from the start.

That the presence of commercial enterprises cannot be used to cover the cost of individuals who want to march tells you where the balance has been struck - rather individuals pay to march than the presence of corporate floats be threatened: they are the "community" now.

Let's be clear: it's not about breaking even or covering costs, but about making money for the businesses which are involved. The idea that a smaller and less expensive event (which would not require such sponsorship) could be as effective, enjoyable or successful doesn't ever appear.

I'm not arguing for a false dichotomy between partying and politics - or that Pride should "go back to the way it was" - as some Pride organisers have shown that the change from the straight forward protest march format can be productive. Brighton Pride, for instance, actively uses its free parade (and a series of other events) to raise money for its trust - which in turn funds charities and educational work which directly impacts the local community.

In contrast, the form of activism-through-visibility offered by Manchester and other commercialised Pride events is become progressively narrower. In particular, commercial Pride becomes part of a social contract: prove your status as a good queer subject by behaving like a good straight subject and spending your money. Queer citizens, it seems, are only legitimate insofar as they are queer consumers.

As a result, anyone who won't or, perhaps more significantly, can't pay finds themselves on the sidelines. In Manchester, Pride participants are no longer linked by a mutual experience of oppression but by a mutual line of credit - a move which creates fresh social margins where such margins are supposed to be under attack.

more organic stupidity

A very silly junk food versus organic article, which misses the main point - that just about anything is better for you than a diet of ready-meals.

It's particularly stupid because it frames eating healthily as something only available to middle-class families who can afford organic produce from upmarket stores ("First stop was Waitrose - where I found it surprisingly easy to buy organic versions of almost everything") when buying even (*gasp*) non-organic fresh fruit and vegetables and then preparing the meal yourself is going to save money and be healthier than the prepackaged version.

The article also repeats some of the more popular and unproven pro-organic myths:

William and I then spent about 15 minutes arguing about whether to put the plastic tray in the oven as it advised on the instructions. You don't need a degree in chemistry to realise something from the plastic must leach into the food when you're heating the whole thing up to 180c for 30 minutes.

You also don't need a degree in chemistry to recognise junk-science when it's being reheated - though it sounds like a little education wouldn't be a bad thing.

on justifications for the use of force

The justification of the use of force has long be framed by proportionality - that the scale or form of a military response matches the scale or form of its provocation.

The first deviation from this rhetorical pose was the pre-emptive use of force, where action is proportionate to the supposed threat posed. That in turn has been overtaken by the sense of the "1% doctrine," where the smallest threat has to be treated in the same manner as the greatest likelihood. Of this trend much had already been written.

However, I'm not sure the current crisis in the Middle East hasn't moved the rhetoric of force further still - where the disproportionate use of force is defended by its comparison to other disproportionate applications of force. As Melanie Phillips writes of Israel's actions in Lebanon in today's Mail, "in my view this is no more 'disproportionate' than, for example, Nato's bombing of civilian targets in Serbia to force it to withdraw from Kosovo."

The fairness of that comparison aside, I don't quote the largely pro-Israel Phillips in order to suggest that this rhetorical position is occupied by only one camp. It's rather to suggest that a logic of overwhelming retaliation (that argues that only disproportionality is appropriate) is becoming a more frequent element of our understanding and justification of the use of force. Charles Harb, arguing contra-Phillips that Israel's use of force was disproportionate, writes in today's Guardian that

Israel's immediate reaction broke the established rules of the game by bombing civilian structures across Lebanon, imposing a land, air and sea blockade, terrorising the population, and killing more than 100 civilians in a disproportionate display of power not seen since 1982.

Hizbullah then retaliated by bombing northern Israel, in line with the "balance of terror" equations, and the escalation of the conflict has spiralled.

The question of what might or might not be a proportionate response (or how a balance of terror is a sustainable balance at all) is superceded by the spiral of retaliation: proportionally disproportionate tit for tat, a logic which can only guarantee acceleration.

100 most (abitrarily) powerful media

Another list of 100 most powerful people - this time in the media (free registration required). As ever , "there are just 18 women in the MediaGuardian 100 - three more than last year" - though five of those are in the top twenty. The man at the top of the heap is Mark Thompson, BBC director general. It's worth a look for a couple of interesting profiles (including Helen Boaden, the head of BBC news) as well as a general sense of who is supposed to be sucking up to whom.

daily mail persists in MMR scaremongering

Rather than quietly admit that they were almost entirely wrong about the risk of MMR jabs, the Daily Mail has decided to gift Dr Wakefield - the researcher at the centre of the scare - with the status of a martyr. Yet however badly the BMA might handle disciplinary proceedings, the science remains the same: the triple jab is safe.

Equally unchanged is the Daily Mail's willful muddying of the issue:

Research at the Royal Free Hospital in North London by Dr Wakefield and 12 other doctors, published in the Lancet in 1998, caused an international scare over the safety of the triple jab. Thousands of parents boycotted the vaccine, and with immunisation rates slumping, cases soared of measles, mumps and rubella - or German measles. [...]

Dr Wakefield's small-scale study was called into question when various larger surveys failed to find any evidence of a link between autism and the vaccine.

Last year, an analysis of 31 MMR studies by the respected Cochrane Library found no association between the jab and the condition, and the Government has repeatedly assured parents that it is safe to vaccinate their children.

However, the idea has refused to go away. Last month a study by doctors in North Carolina reported finding measles in the intestines of children with a form of autism. And last week, it was revealed that autism is at a record high with more than one in 100 children affected.

The surprise that the idea "refuses to go away" depends on a selective ignorance of the yards of misleading reporting found in the pages of the Mail and other papers - that despite extensive research showing the safety of the triple-jab, reporters juxtapose autism statistics with specific research papers (as above) to suggest a link that is far from proven. In fact, scientific evidence suggests the contrary and that no such link exists.

Though measles may be found in the intestines of children with a form of autism, we're left without any detail - how does compare to children without autism? is it a common form of autism? is this evidence of a causative link, or is it merely correlation? - which leaves people to assume the worse: autism is increasing, so maybe it is the vaccine after all.

However Wakefield's actions might be framed as defensible - that he was doing it for the kids - it doesn't change the underlying scientific consensus which (despite the Mail's determination to scaremonger) finds no association between autism and the vaccine. While further research may contradict this consensus, the Mail's current position is based on speculation which serves its own editorial position and weakens the confidence of families in seeking vaccination for their children. The implicit claim to be acting in the best interest of families is a sham, and the pretence of balance in reporting "both sides" of the story is misleading - if not outright irresponsible.

risk, gender and cancer awareness

The BBC reports that "most female students worldwide know nothing about the lifestyle habits that can influence breast cancer risk":

Just over half of those questioned were aware that genes could play a role in influencing breast cancer risk. Awareness of genetic factors was particularly high in the UK and US.

But awareness of the potential significance of lifestyle factors was much lower.

Special attention is also being given to the finding that women are no more aware of the impact of lifestyle factors (including exercise, obesity and alcohol) on breast cancer risk than their male counterparts. I am a little worried that the reporting seems to focus on risk without sense of proportion - without any real indication of how influential these factors can be.

However, and given the inference that women should be more aware of the "gendered" threat of breast cancer, it would be interesting to see comparative levels of knowledge about prostate cancer - not least because there is a similar link between diet and risk.

A diet high in animal fats and proteins may increase the risk of developing prostate cancer; prostate cancer is also twice as prevalent amongst African Americans as compared to white males; the strongest risk factor overall is age (see Prostate Cancer Risk Management, pdf). Despite a link between prevalence and family history, there are no definitive guidelines for screening in high risk families in the UK; unlike breast cancer, there's also no national screening programme.

My point? I'm not arguing that breast cancer shouldn't be a focus of attention, but that a study that draws attention to an apparent (gendered) ignorance on the issue should also point towards a paucity of public (gendered) knowledge about prostate cancer. Cancer often only gains a foothold because of ignorance or embarassment - and, to keep with a gendered reading of the issue, that's currently a problem which seems to be more often male than female.

spain broadens sex education, ignores vatican, oh happy day

Another moment where the press has managed to internalise the Vatican's propensity for bigotry when it comes to gay people so that it's no longer even slightly remarkable:

The gulf between Spain and the Vatican deepened yesterday when it was announced that pupils in the Catholic country are to be taught about same-sex relationships. Only days after the Pope's visit to Valencia, the socialist government unveiled plans for homosexuality to be part of a new school curriculum.

Pupils from the age of 10 will be taught about tolerating and respecting the diversity that exists within society.

Apparently, teaching people to tolerate and respect one another now is a deliberate slight against Catholicism - formerly the religion of universal love and compassion, now the religion of love, compassion and no homos.

It would be very interesting to see how this issue is covered in the Spanish press - because from the outside it looks like the progressive (if not slightly gleeful) dismantling of a state religion:

The government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has infuriated the Catholic hierarchy in Spain and at the Vatican by bringing in marriage and adoption rights for homosexuals and relaxing divorce laws. It has also announced an end to mandatory Catholic education in schools and chipped away at state funding for Catholic clergy.

Losing the state funding? Wow, that's got to hurt - even for a religion with the largest collection of priceless art in the world.

Scotland dealt a similar "blow" to Catholic orthodoxy a few months ago, when education bosses here also decided to include same-sex relationships in sex education - see scottish sex education reformed. It's alll good.

because homeopathy doesn't work

The frauds who sponsor homeopathy should not be humoured as gentle practitioners of "alternative" medicine, which is either not alternative or not medicine. Why, beyond the usual claim to sanity?:

Doctors and scientists have warned holidaymakers not to use homeopathic remedies for malaria and other serious tropical diseases or their lives could be put at risk.

Because homeopathy doesn't work.

Dr Ron Behrens, director of the travel clinic at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: "We have treated people ... who thought they were protected by homeopathic medicines and contracted malaria."

Because homeopathy doesn't work.

In 2005 the Health Protection Agency issued a warning because of people falling seriously ill when using homeopathic remedies. Its advisory committee on malaria said: "Herbal remedies have not been tested for their ability to prevent or treat malaria and are not licensed for these uses ... There is no scientific proof that homeopathic remedies are effective in either preventing or treating malaria."

Because homeopathy doesn't work.

A statement from Helios [an alternative health clinic] said: "We give advice on traditional homeopathic remedies which have been used by people for many decades in their attempt to avoid conventional treatment for malaria. There are many bibliographic references to the use of these remedies."

But homeopathy still doesn't work.

Why are the charlatans of homeopathy allowed to make promises and prescribe treatments that would see a real doctor sued and found guilty for negligence?

police force offers fashion tips to potential assault victims

It seems that personal safety advice for women also has to be a reminder to stay attractive - even if only for would-be rapists:

Suffolk Police's Safe! magazine carries a reminder for readers "intent on getting ratted", alongside a picture of a scantily-clad woman on the floor with the caption "if you've got it don't flaunt it".

It reads: "If you fall over or pass out, remember your skirt or dress may ride up. You could show off more than you intended - for all our sakes, please make sure you're wearing nice pants and that you've recently had a wax. Better still, eat before you go out, think about how much you're drinking, pace yourself and drink plenty of water in between bevvies or better still, don't get in this sorry state - it's not nice."

Why the fuck does the suggestion to eat, drink more water and less alcohol have to be accompanied about some dreck about underwear and body-hair? As if the one thing worse than being raped is being raped while hairy and in washing-day underwear?

The only way that this advice can be received as "tongue-in-cheek" (which is supposedly the defence) is if you buy into the idea - at some level - that an unconscious woman is an implicit invitation to sex. Anyone thinking that objections to this kind of "irreverent" attitude represents a sense of humour failure needs to explain why being molested while unconscious is so fucking hilarious.

And this is from a police force.

on civility and pro-life foolishness

DK points to the latest bit of pro-life insanity that's been at the end of universal mockery in even loosely reality-based blogs: a man who mistook a satirical column in The Onion as the actual testimony of a woman who'd sought an abortion.

Having spent several days trying to claim that his original post was some kind of elaborate satire (demonstrating along the way that he doesn't know the difference between satire, sarcasm and a hole in the ground) he's now closed off all comments on his blog, having apparently had his personal details posted. I really wish that this wasn't the current chosen tactic of hot-headed idiots: it's intolerable, whenever and whereever it appears, however much we might disagree with each other.

On a related note, I have a grudging respect for Life - who, though I oppose them almost entirely, seem to know where to draw the line in their rhetoric for the sake of civil discourse, stopping short of the claims of murder and butchery (and accompanying disclaimers of responsibility for the consequences of the such language) favoured by the UK Life League.

However, on this occasion, the closure of comments does make it much easier for this particular blogger to continue propagating his favoured line of nonsense - and it is nonsense, regardless of whether you are a member of the "intellectual left" or not, which seems to be a recurring blanket rebuttal to anyone who challenges pro-life lies and misdirection. Pointing out that someone is a palpable idiot does not imbue a person with left-wing sensibilities - as I'm sure DK will attest.

The current line of whack focusses on embryonic stem-cell research and favours the Melanie Phillips school of fantasising impending catastrophe:

In the beginning they will ask permission from the parents of these embryos (maybe), but in the end they will figure out how to seize them. Fertility clinics will also come up with new contracts which will guarantee their right of ownership after a successful implantation. Then they will sell left over humans for a hefty fee.

That none of the above has any basis in reality is absolutely fine: it is, in fact, the main qualifying criteria for inclusion in such tracts.

Fact fans will also know that the embryos in question are fertilised eggs fewer than six days old, known more commonly as pre-embryos (not least because they haven't implanted yet). However, that little detail means nothing if you think that life begins at fertilisation - which, in its propensity to disgard the majority of fertilised eggs, makes Nature the biggest abortionist of them all.

"objective disorders" and more on gay adoption in the uk

None so blind as those who cannot.. ah, crap:

In a critical official submission, the bishops said that unless the Church was given exemptions from the proposed regulations, the agencies would be penalised if they refused to place children with gay couples.

They argued that draft regulations failed to distinguish between homophobia and religious conviction, and warned that the regulations would also have a detrimental impact on a range of Church organisations, from schools to parishes.

That's because in one small corner of Catholicism, homophobia and religious conviction are the same thing. It's really not that complex - you don't need any special training in gender politics or religious doctrine. A religion that teaches that the state of being gay is "objectively disordered" - to quote from the Catholic Catechism - doesn't really have much wiggle room.

Fortunately, only the most "objectively disordered" bigots believe that such prejudice is the cornerstone of Catholicism, without which the faith would collapse: it's just a shame that they seem to be in charge.

Also see polite fundamentalism is still fundamentalism for rebuttals of some of the most common arguments against gay adoption.

melanie phillips: a load of balls

My cup runneth over - Melanie Phillips brings us news of the threat of male extinction:

Sorry to tell you, men, but you are shortly to be declared redundant, superfluous to the requirements of the human race, written out of the reproductive script. Cheerio and please close the door behind you on your way out of history.

At least this is the prospect laid out before us by the latest lurch into the brave new world of medical research.

In the attempt to find a cure for male infertility, a Newcastle University biologist, Karim Nayernia, has succeeded in using artificially produced sperm to fertilise mouse eggs. [...] Professor Nayernia believes his work offers hope to men whose lives are blighted by their inability to father children.

If you're wondering why a highly experimental treatment which would offer hope to a small minority of infertile men is a bad thing, then you're clearly not thinking clearly:

However, the rest of us might wonder whether he is sounding the death knell for fatherhood altogether - and, more to the point, threatening to undermine the very basis of what it is to be human.

In order for her fantasy of extermination to work, Phillips reduces fatherhood to sperm - a cultural belief far more damaging to men than the introduction of fertility treatments:

This would mean there would be no genetic connection whatever between 'father' and child.

Moreover, such a process could mean the eggs being fertilised might not even come from the mother of the child being produced. Instead, spare eggs donated by another woman could be fertilised by the artificial sperm.

As a result, there might be no genetic connection with either parent. This could mean courtship and sexual love would be replaced by the mating dance of test tubes.

Uh.. how did we get from highly specific fertility treatments, tailored to specific circumstances - to the claim that children will spew parentless (and seemingly without the intervention of a womb) into the world? By taking a massive shark-tank leaping jump:

Test-tube mating could deliver a terminal blow to the pulverised nuclear family.

Yes, complex and invasive medical procedures undertaken by dedicated couples desperate to have children will spell the end of human relationships. This is the high end of crackpot fantasy: that IVF paves the way for children produced in a lab by the state.

Phillips tries to argue that men will only stick around if they're protecting the future of their sperm - that fatherhood is primarily biological selfishness:

Fatherhood, however, is altogether trickier. Since human babies take years to become independent, they need prolonged care. It is difficult to furnish this while simultaneously providing subsistence and protection.

That's why the human male is essential, to protect and nurture the mother and child. But the male needs a certain amount of cultural coaxing to stick around. And essential to that bargain between the sexes is his certainty that he is the father of the child.

Uh.. I think that any man who has agreed to have children via an experimental procedure which grows sperm in a lab and then transplants that sperm into his testicles probably knows what he's letting himself in for. At the least, the testical implantation thing would be difficult to ignore.

Once more, Phillips exercises her famous ability to believe that because things are possible then it also means that they are likely - in fact, so extremely likely as to spread like a plague across our land and replace all other forms of living. The fact that the vast, vast majority of people have fun, working genitals for having children with - and that only a tiny minority seek medical assistance - disappears under waves of paranoia.

the metrosexual is dead: long live manliness, apparently

Hurray! Another list of things that will make you manly, or not, courtesty of the Daily Mail written with apparent seriousness.

As ever, it's the fault of feminism for stamping out these attributes even though men still hold the majority of positions of power and cultural influence and have done so for the last fifty years yada yadda yadda:

Years of feminism, which insists on the absolute interchangeability of the traditional roles of man and woman, are giving way to a reassertion of the male attribute of machismo, it is claimed. The metrosexual, that urbanised, sensitive, emotionally and physically androgynous model of 21st-century manhood, is dead.

I love it when newspaper columnists make global decisions about gender and identity. Send out the heralds! Sound the trumpet! Metrosexuality is dead! Make way for the new (old) manliness!

Once more, we're making lists of qualities which are the essence of manliness - even though having those qualities isn't the absolute mark of being a man. We're also oversimplyfing or inventing feminist arguments because we don't understand what's happening:

Manliness is not braggadocio. It is stoicism, self-respect, decisiveness, assertiveness. Of course, advocates of the Menaissance may argue that we shouldn't be too concerned about what kind of a man women want these days. Isn't that, they would say, the way we arrived at simpering metrosexuals desperate to please their other halves?

First of all, these new traits are not exclusively manly: there's nothing to stop anyone - male or female - from acquiring a sense of self-respect, so I'm not sure how this contradicts the deconstruction of traditional roles.

Second, the "simpering" metrosexual (easy on the coded queer-bashing, BTW) was an economic subset of middle class masculinity - very, very few men ever identified that way. But still, please continue to make gross, contradictory generalisations:

It is the atavistic desire to provide for those you love that forms the basic building block of manliness. It has existed since the physically stronger sex travelled the plains in search of meat for the family and it continued until the rise of feminism in the 1960s, a movement which would have us believe that men and women are biological and emotional clean slates, each possessed of identical and interchangeable faculties when it comes to work, life and family.

Ah, welcome, straw-feminist - damn you for interrupting the noble act of meat-gathering which formed the basis of our social units right up until the second world war. Of course, the claim that women can work outside of the home means that they are biologically identical to men: time to throw away those pills. Ah, crazy, kooky, non-existent straw-feminist..

It's also entirely unclear why feminism would oppose "providing for the one you love"; what Newland seems to mean is "provide for the one you love a traditional way." Newland also either ignores (or fails to understand) that while difference between men and women might exist, it's not the same thing as the difference encoded in traditional gender roles. It's also not continuous: not all men are different from all women in the same ways.

Yet the claim on a pure manliness persists - a claim which once more points out that no such thing exists:

Up and down America, feminists bearing torches and pitchforks are on the trail of Harvey Mansfield, a Yale University professor whose book, Manliness, laments: "We are in the process of making the English language gender neutral, and 'manliness', the quality of one gender, or rather of one sex, seems to describe the essence of the enemy we are attacking, the evil we are eradicating."

He continues: "Feminism needs to come to terms with manliness. I think women are confused about what they want men to be and that leads to male confusion."

On the contrary, it's Mansfield who seems to be confused - writing in the Mail last April, he chose fictional examples of manliness over real world men and dithered between manliness as exclusively male... and a loose collection of traits which women can also have.

Newland's argument is also almost identical to Mansfield's - particularly in the presumption that masculinity is the same thing to all men (and women) in all classes, in all cultures. It imagines a golden age of manliness that didn't really ever exist - captured perfectly in The Dangerous Book For Boys, which in its introduction says that "in this age of video games and mobile phones there must still be a place for knots, tree houses and stories of incredible courage".

In general, feminists don't have a problem with either knots, tree houses or courage. They do have a problem, though, with someone telling a child that they can't play up a tree because they happen to be a girl. In Mansfield/Newland logic, refusing a strict association of gender is the equivalent of banning tree climbing. It's palpably ridiculous, as if women's ability to be traditionally masculine prevents men from acting the same way.

Though Mansfield and Newland don't admit it, they're arguing that without strict boundaries - without women who agree to be women - traditional masculinity starts to lose its cohesion. It's a fantasy that stops working when one half of the act gets bored and learns to drive and vote.

The main problem with their response to this kind of argument - aside from the confusion between essential and cultural forms of manliness - is that the only solution they offer is for women to return to their traditional roles. While masculinity is essential and inviolate, it's apparently unable to reform or evolve to match change in the lives of women - so any claim on manliness has to be framed as a critique on feminism for having gone "too far."

The other part of the Mail's argument for traditional gender roles is that women who form relationships with non-traditional men are doomed to unhappiness: see the self-generated debate over "gamma men," initiated by the Mail last week and discussed here.

The unseen part of this "debate" - and I have a friend to thank for forwarding this fishing expedition email on behalf of the femail - is that the Mail is determind to frame women who work as selfish bitches:

WANTED a man who's suffered at the hands of ambitious, career woman either in relationship or marriage. What's it like living with somebody who's a workaholic, earning a fortune but with no time to spend nurturing others? Interview and photograph, good fee paid.

How enormously fair and balanced. Expect to see that article in the coming few days.

brain empty, send words

I've submitted my thesis: 80,000 words of action-packed academic fun. Proper posting to resume later this week when I've recovered. W00t.

"fun-loving" blogger

I'll be back in a couple of days but:

1. Someone seems to have taken offence to my use of the word "fuckwad." My mildest apologies, but indirect threats do not make me more responsive to your position.

2. However, I'm a nice person who doesn't like to upset, so I've altered the post in question in a way which should be imperceptible to the human brain - but without changing the underlying argument, which is that groups with extreme opinions attract people who have no sense of restraint regardless of how mild the organising committee might be. And that said committee shouldn't look so damn suprised when someone points it out.

Totally disavowing any consequences for your actions whatsoever wins no prizes around here, regardless of whatever moral high ground you think you've climbed.

3. Fuckwaaaad.

alpha woman versus the incredible hulk: the daily mail on careers and relationships

Anna Pasternak took time out yesterday to argue "Why an Alpha female should never marry a Gamma man," sadly without recognising that the original Gamma man is, of course, Bruce Banner who marriageability is actually limited by his unfortunate propensity to turn green and throw cars: Hulk smash.

Still, it's a classic example of a universal principle being drawn from a singular example - allowing the pretence that all men and women can be grouped into certain categories, and that only certain categories are compatible. It's the algebra of human emotions - the search for a complicated reason for why a relationship didn't work:

When my partner of four years and the father of my two-year-old daughter left me after a particularly unedifying row at 4.30am one day last year, he shouted: 'You are a complete failure and you are going to go bankrupt.'

Maybe he was just a total arse, no?

The strangest thing about this piece is the introduction of "relationship terrorism," which seems to be the struggle for dominance within a relationship. Not quite sure how it's terrorism, though. Still, it seems to be a path to arguing that - you've guessed it - women having jobs is interfering with their ability to have long-term relationships:

STATISTICS bear this out: the number of women entering the workplace has increased by a third since 1975, and in 2005 one third of all managers in business were women.

At the same time, 40 per cent of all marriages end in divorce. Clearly, it's difficult to deny the two sets of figures are in some way connected.

It's not difficult at all: it's what we'd call correlation, rather than causation. In the same period, the number of commercially available butter-milk spreads also rose considerably, though I don't think "I Can't Believe It's Not Hydrogenated Animal Fat" is the cause of divorce. It doesn't stop Pasternak from concluding:

How wonderful it would be to be loved and supported. Can a woman have a successful career and a successful relationship? Increasingly, I fear the answer is 'No'.

I'd better get on the phone to my happily married sister. And my mother. And some aunts and cousins. They probably don't know how happy they shouldn't be.

Long story short: if you cling to traditional gender roles that have always been more cultural fantasy than material fact - or live with an arse who does - you are going to be unhappy. Unless you live with the Incredible Hulk, in which case you have entirely different problems.

a good coke is like casual sex: manliness and advertising special

Must restrain self.. mockery engaged:

Coca-Cola is launching a male-oriented soft drink backed by a month-long television advertising and poster campaign. The drink has been dubbed "Bloke Coke".

The US corporation's British arm will spend £8m in the campaign to sell the no-sugar drink, which is aimed at health-aware young men who think that Diet Coke is too feminine.

It's true: the sugar-free drink has indeed long been the greatest threat to British masculinity, beating out "the demise of traditional paternal authority" and "women who vote" to claim the top spot. But now that dark time is over:

In the television advertising campaign starting on Monday, the properties of the new drink will be depicted as "masculine". The adverts will feature a Coke Zero drinker, called Dan by Coke's marketing department, who expresses surprise that a Coke without sugar is tasty.

A brilliant ploy: "This product tastes nice. You should buy it because it tastes.. nice." I hope someone was well paid for that pitch.

He goes on to imagine that it may be possible to have "girlfriends without five-year plans", "bras without the fumbling", "workmates without work" and other pleasant scenarios.

Confusion.. filling brain.. because the real problem with diet Coke - that's lady Coke from now on - is that it's loaded with social responsibility and awkwardness? It keeps expecting you to pay bills and wants to talk to you after sex about a weekend with her family?

This is still a soft-drink, right? A good Coke is like a woman whose bra comes off easily for the purposes of casual sex? Now there's a slogan.

Yesterday, the company began the campaign by releasing a picture of the pop singer Cheryl Tweedy, from the group Girls Aloud, wearing a business suit and black hat, and clutching a can of the drink.

It's so very masculine that even Cheryl Tweedy drinks it. I'm guessing that a group of men sitting around enjoying lady Coke.. sorry, "Coke Zero".. was going to look a little bit too gaaay. A pity.

I have nothing but pity for someone whose masculinity is so fragile as to be threatened by a choice of soft-beverage. Fortunately, it's far more likely that no-one like that exists, and Coke has merely disappeared up its own arse in a desperate attempt to sell more fizzy pop to grown-ups.

legal challenge to academy schools moves forward

More movement on parental legal challenges to academy schools that ..uh.. parents are supposed to want so very much:

Rob MacDonald was given permission by the high court to seek a judicial review of Merton borough council's decision to close the school attended by his 15-year-old son Callum, Tamworth Manor, and another school, Mitcham Vale.

Mr MacDonald, from south London, argues that parents were not properly consulted about the council's proposals or provided with sufficient information. [...]

Mr MacDonald's lawyers will argue that the consultation process was flawed because parents did not have access to the "funding agreements" on which the academy plans are based.

These set out legal obligations in key areas such as admissions, exclusions and provision for special educational needs.

The key concepts here are "transparency" and "accountability" - both terms on which educational reform intended to "empower" parents seems to failing.

uk "pink list" of powerful gay men (and a few good women)

The Independent produces its "pink list" of the most powerful gay men and women in the UK - though, as in previous years, it's mainly a list of gay and bisexual men. Of the 100, only nineteen are women, despite the fact that "[a] few years ago we ran 20 names, some of whom needed persuading to appear. This year we had to choose from the hundreds of suggestions."

Interestingly, of the nineteen women on the list, nine were "new entries" - and at least one of those had appeared on the list in previous years. This year's count actually represents a substantial increase - from only eleven women last year (see "most powerful gay men and women: men only uk edition") - though there are no longer any lesbians in the top ten.

It's important to recognise that imbalance - either in the real absence of gay women in positions of power, or the lack of recognition of those women - as part of the discussion here last month about normalising difference: all non-heterosexual people are the same kind of different so it doesn't really matter whether they're gay, bisexual, lesbian, transgender etc. etc.

While there's little such indifference to specific identities at the activist level (such as in the interplay of race, religion or age and sexuality) mainstream media tends to create an unintentionally homogenous world view - where, as in the this case, the marked absence of gay women isn't marked at all.

I'm not necessarily arguing that The Independent should remark how difficult it was to find powerful gay women or speculate why they seemingly "don't exist" compared to their male counterparts, though that would make interesting reading. However, it would be productive to at least recognise their relative and continuing absence from this list of the powerful since its inception in 2000 - rather than pretend that such a disparity doesn't exist.

admin

I'm currently checking my thesis' bibliography before entering copy-edit corrections: in short, posting is going to be a bit spartan for the next few weeks until I submit. I will, however, be posting in the event of Melanie Phillips.

home office saves money on memory holes

Via Tim Worstall, I discover that the Home Office has gone from releasing all of its potentially embarassing research on one day ("Research Thursday") to just.. not releasing it at all:

John Reid, the Home Secretary, has ordered a "pause" in the publication of government-funded studies on crime, immigration and prisons.

The move affects research commissioned by the Home Office and carried out by leading academics. One of the delayed papers, a gun crime study by Prof Chris Lewis of Portsmouth University, was set to highlight the ease with which criminals can obtain firearms.

Apparently, the gun crime study is just being "checked" and has not been cancelled. Hmm. The next question that needs to be asked is just how long this "pause" is going to last - and when we might hope to see Prof Lewis' work.

gay adoption in scotland one step closer

Reforms that will allow gay couples in Scotland to adopt have taken a significant step forward:

Members of Holyrood's Education Committee unanimously supported the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill, which will now proceed to the next parliamentary stage.

Convener Iain Smith MSP said: "Our committee fully supports the Executive's position of extending the eligibility to apply to adopt to all unmarried couples who want to adopt and who can provide the right family environment for a child."

The upcoming parliamentary debate should be very interesting - I'll try and find out when it's scheduled; I may even attend.

Previous posts: child of gay parents do as well as heterosexual parents in every way, reforming adoption law and - because there's nothing quite like it - one of my first posts about Melanie Phillips: more making shit up with the daily mail.

Oh, and nearly forgot: Bishop Devine's "mounting disquiet."