Misogyny To The Fore!

Oh, readers. It's not been a good week. Not in the usual emo-meltdown fashion (though there was a little of that), but in a deeper, more depressing way.

A certain listlessness, a fear about the future and increasing consciousness of the speeding-by of Time have set in. Lack of sleep, a lunatic sleep-schedule, awareness of the fact that I am going to effectively FINISH MY DEGREE in about two months' time commenced the deluge. Then, there was guilt over my responsibilities to others. I have been regularly cheering up my friend Colin with long phone chats, and trying to be a source of occasional support to my oft-insomniac friend Trish. (She has huge blue eyes which seem to get even larger as she gets worked up, and make you want, as The Libertarian said, to pat her and tell her to calm down). These moments were rare, though.

I tried to intervene between my sister and parents every now and again, including this evening. Her idiot husband wants to reconcile - so he sent her a 3-page list of her flaws, and then when she replied that she did not want to meet with him, responded with: 'I'm amazed by your reply.' Even now, some days later, he remains 'amazed.' I remain amazed that I have not *headdesk*ed yet. Or *facepalm*ed. I never realised that trying to reconcile with somebody involved systematic and repeated attempts to blame them for your relationship's failings, while also refusing to take any responsibility for anything yourself. Nor did I comprehend that, in essence, it involves behaving in exactly the same way that brought the relationship to a screeching halt. More fool me!

(Somehow, I have graciously restrained my urges to email him abuse, despite even being encouraged to do so by my mother *twitches with this saintly effort* Though if I did, I would say, quite simply: 'FUCK OFF OUT OF MY SISTER'S LIFE, YOU CHILDISH TWIT'. I might also add 'SHE MIGHT GIVE A SHIT, BUT NONE OF US DO, IF YOU NEVER MARRY AGAIN' (As he said to her). Oh Lord, that felt good).

So yeah, I'm antsy like I've bathed in chilli-powder, and have found it really bloody hard to motivate myself to work this week. It doesn't help that misogyny seems to be bearing down on me from all sides. Not just me, of course - laydeez in general, but that doesn't make it any easier to stand.

Let me just link you good people to this and this. The author of both these posts is one Chris Dillow, who I've seen showered with praise, particularly by sites I read like Liberal Conspiracy, presumably for the fact that he is a liberal/left-leaning economist who seems to know his stuff and provides good analyses of stuff. Now, I've no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the explicitly misogynistic tone of those two posts, ESPECIALLY the latter.

I left an infuriated comment on the LibCon article, which got ignored (unsurprisingly). The thing that really depressed me was that five women disagreed strongly with the bullshit on it, whereas only three men did the same. On t'other post, about 10 people said things which were supportive of women against Dillow's bullshit generalisations; there were other comments that sort of challenged him, but rather weakly. The rest of the comments included such gems as:

Sexist weekend should be a cultural institution:

What do you do if your dishwasher breaks down?

Slap her.

You've got 7 points about women here and sex doesn't appear in any of them: there's something far wrong with you, m'boy.

While I'm a roll here I'd just like to point out that political correctness was invented so that all women could nag all men, not just the ones they are married to.

and finally:

If your basic statement is "There;s nothing less attarctive than a middle class career girl who takes a perverse pride in her inability to cook and considers friday night a good time to stay in and talk about the realtionship" then I'm in full agreement. If women concentrated on buying and wearing attractive underwear the world would be a much happier place.

Only half of the non-misogynistic comments stuck up directly for women. There were quite a few mocking ones from women (not just from women), but I thought the fact that nobody just called 'misogynist' was rather depressing. The best comment came from one James Hamilton:

My experience of people possessed by one form of prejudice, such as yours against people you perceive as posh or public school, is that there's always another form of the same thing in them somewhere. So I've been expecting this. I'm surprised by what it is,though. I expect you'll get off in the same way you usually do - enough people prepared to believe that you don't mean it. I'll give you this much: I do think you're open about these things, and that you do mean it, although I think you lace them with humour. But you're not being ironic, in that crude and misconstrued blogosphere sense. Good luck.

Wherever you are, James - we love you! How accurate your predictions were, with so many people actually engaging with this kind of thing in some form or another in the comments. A poster called Katie (apparently female, then?) posted the following:

In terms of an intellectual exercise, I am not sure this is a success. Some of your points are opinions, while few are supported by evidence. It would be good to see an evidenced four way comparison: boys good, boys bad, girls good, girls bad, with every point evidence to compare for each points.

I felt like saying No, no, NO, Katie! Don't fall into the fucking trap! You should not have to engage with this, and this bullshit disguising of misogyny as intellectual ranting!

It is so shocking, as a feminist, to see this kind of thing in the so-called liberal blogosphere, just as it is in the mainstream media. It makes you feel like a real tool, because you can be quite sure that if a conservative/right-wing blogger had expressed similar sentiments, they would be roundly insulted and criticised. However, when someone like Chris Dillow does it (that post is from last year, by the way, I only became aware of it through the Valentine's post), people will look the other way as much as they can. I never saw any condemnations of that post of his on any blogs I read at the time. So, did most people just conveniently ignore it? It would seem so!

Feminists occupy a particularly ugly position, given that there's nothing that crosses boundaries quite so effectively as miosgyny. Muslims, Christians and Jews can argue about the likes of I/P forever, but many of them will find themselves in sudden agreement on the subject of how to treat women. I would argue that we're perhaps easier to demonise than any other group. There's always a particular minority group that will receive its undue share of media attention, as is happening to Muslims these days, but men of all stripes - gay and straight, black and white, atheist and religious - will come together under the banner of misogyny. It's so depressing.

Comment Is Free, for example, is a platform for Guardian writers to air their views. The Guardian is supposed to be liberal-left. Yet feminist writers are assured of being roundly shouted down when they post on there. Sometimes, as in the case of Julie Bindel and occasionally, Bidisha, this is somewhat warranted. However, even on more moderately-expressed opinions, you'll get loons going 'BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ'. They also routinely try to use the argument that 'feminism is itself sexist because it's feminism.' As Lily Allen once sang, please fuck off. On an article by Zoe Williams about rape, ferinstance, in which she argued that the fact of having consumed alcohol should not have led to a rape victim's compensation being cut, the first comment was by 'thetrashheap' who lived up to his name by saying:

Better than the editorial yesterday but why just rape?

How can being drunk mean you deserve to get assaulted in any manner [Isn't that the point of the whole fucking article, you numbskull?]. Rape can be less harmfull than a serious assult. I know a man who was much more damaged by nearly being beaten to death than a women I know who was raped ['It is true because I know it to be so, based on 1 or 2 personal experiences']. Yet with the indignation over rape the guardian can say in one of its editorials

"Cuts may be justified when a victim's drinking precipitates certain violent attacks "

[Did you ever consider that maybe they were just reporting something as they were told it, and that's all there is to it?] How does being drunk percipitate a violent attack? [Gee, that's exactly what Zoe Williams is saying right here!] If somebody does an action that makes them partly reponsible for violence then so be it but being drunk isn't a reason.

So why concentrate on Rape and demean assault? Why try and lift rape as a crime above all else? Murder is worse, being left as a cripple can be worse? Being left too scared to leave the house after a serious assault can be worse on a person than a date rape.

The law needs changed but it doesn't need such righteous indignation over one particular type of assault. How many drunk men a year get less compensation for being assaulted? The problem is the law regards alcohol and culpability. Women aren't the only ones who get screwed over by this.

Can you hear the cries of 'WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ'?! I don't even have any energy left to continue ripping this shit to shreds. This is the worst kind of comment in some ways, where a small grain of truth buried amongst astounding ignorance is inflated into hand-wringing self-righteousness.

Then you have the fucking Mail website, where the most poisonously vicious articles are written by women and published alongside conveniently half- (or, as was in the case of Peaches Geldof, fully) naked pictures of younger female celebrities, so that the women can tut and feel good about themselves, and the men can do the same while having a surreptitious wank. I patently refuse to link to the pictures of PG. I don't like her, but she doesn't deserve to appear naked in the Mail in an article which slags her off for having tattoos. One of the top-rated comments when I saw it was 'What the hell does she think she looks like?'

What the fuck is it to you, eh, armchair-moralist? And what the fuck is it to the Mail? It's supposed to be an outraged comment, but it turns out to be unwittingly insightful, because of course it doesn't matter what she thinks she looks like. Evidently, she likes the tattoos. What MATTERS is that the Mail are on hand 'to do the proper thing' and trash her for them.

To top all of this off, I'm taking a course on 'British Culture In the 1950s' which has all the fun you'd expect - a surge in evangelical Christianity, colonialism, racism... but, reassuringly enough, the thing that seems to unite all the writers so far is misogyny. Don't worry fellas, when you feel that Africans and Englishmen are irreconcilably different, you can always unite in your disdain for women! I've just read City of Spades by Colin MacInnes. MacInnes was openly gay and had a major sexual obsession with black men, especially Africans.

Now, you would hope that a gay man, as a fellow sufferer of persecution, would try to avoid the rampant stereotyping and mistreatment of women that liberally (haha) garnishes 1950s novels (let's not forget, it was the era of James Bond). I got really excited when I 'met' an independent and capable female character early on, who held a senior position in the BBC. I was optimistic about a girl who was quite shy and meek, but by no means a pushover, and her sister who had apparently chosen to live with a Gambian man.

Alas, it was not to be, my friends! The BBC woman turned out to be a frigid bitch who 'discovered' her femininity upon falling in love with one of narrating characters, and then got punished for this by losing her job when she revealed she was pregnant by him in court, as well as losing the baby. Of course, she'd learnt her lesson by this point: 'All I deeply regret... is losing my child.' Yes, because you've seen the light now, and you realise that other than as a mother, you don't really matter. Without your 'fragment of him' that you loved, your life is meaningless.

The shy girl got knocked up and abandoned by the same character - after he had lived off her and perpetually left her by herself at home - just as his father had done to her mother. Her sister turned out to be a prostitute, pimped out by her own husband and last appearing in the novel in hospital because her husband had cut her face up after getting out of jail.

Of Colin MacInnes:

'I didn't like him at all,' says Diana Melly, who was a showgirl at the Cabaret Club in Soho along with Christine Keeler. 'His idea of me was just the wife with young children who cooked lunch all the time. I don't know what gave him the idea that he could get so drunk and be so rude after having his lunch made.'

This peculiarly male-homosexual disdain for women is nothing new to me, it's just really depressing. MacInnes is another one who was 'liberal' by the standards of his time. Why is it impossible for people, if they can stand other races, religions, etc., to not be the same about women?

As a socially-liberal feminist, it feels like the worst kind of betrayal when men who claim to be liberal/left-wing suddenly reveal themselves to be misogynists, or unfurl the handy caveat of saying 'I'm not a feminist.' You feel very alone, all of a sudden. If feminism doesn't have a home within the liberal-left community, then where is there a safe space for feminists? Liberal Conspiracy held a BlogNation event some time back (which I didn't attend, because I didn't 'matter' enough, and I doubt I do even now!), and the subject of trying to engage with the feminist blogosphere was raised by Sunny.

Let me offer a much-belated tip to you, Sunny: why don't you call bullshit on your ilk who profess misogynistic views? That would be certainly preferable to the following dubious comment you left on the Valentine's thread, in response to Jennie Rigg:

You see, the thing is women, rather like men, ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS. We don’t all think the same, and there is no sure fire way to please us.

Well, yes and no. Everyone’s an individual… as everyone likes to think. But people also behave in remarkably predictable ways.

Excuse me? The Libertarian, a white, middle-class man (probably the sort who Chris Dillow would loathe) who initially identified as right-wing (now, he's not so sure, because he's actually socially-liberal on the whole - what do you think I am, insane?!) has proven to be much more a feminist than some people *coughs and glances upwards* who claim to be, even though he didn't initially consider himself one.

So yes, you can bet that I've been disillusioned this week. Though it's been an accumulation of things, not just current affairs. The stuff about 'men are responsible for the banking crisis, bring in more women!' was another stab in the weeping lesion. BRING PEOPLE IN ON MERIT, and yes, we need more females in that atmosphere, but merit needs to come into the equation and we need to start challenging society's assumptions. Banking is a deeply sexist sector from what I've (repeatedly) read, it doesn't surprise me. Women within that field need to be able to know that they won't be forced to go to strip clubs and act like 'one of the boys' just to retain their jobs. I really think that bosses, the people in charge of recruitment and management decisions, should be made to show proof of feminist credentials. Male OR female. It doesn't have to be anything major - just interview the women they've worked with previously, if need be.

Anyway, I'm hauling my tired ass off to bed. I was feeling very low, but then I remembered - hey, I'm seeing The Libertarian tomorrow! How childishly excited I got! I actually wanted to send my friend a text about it as if it were news. I fought the urge to mention it in in my Facebook status. He smiles with his whole face (eyes AND mouth), and what a smile it is. Good God. I'd take his over those of cherubs or female figures in classic art anyday. The Mona Lisa? You are the weakest link, goodbye. Next to green/hazel eyes, rosy cheeks, a freckled nose and the most effortlessly alluring pair of lips I have ever known, the Italian broad can just go hang (oh wait, she is already - in the Louvre *drumroll and crash*). Admittedly, I can't help noticing his lips because the top of my head only comes up to his chin. Still, why quibble? I'm getting feminist-kissed!

Recommended Reading:

Another bigot emerges, seemingly from nowhere.

Intelligence in women - still a topic for debate in the 21st century...

Two really good pieces on women and cinema.

Upskirting - warn all the women you know.

Another woman comes along to tell us that in fact, if we willingly prop up the patriarchy, it can only be good for us. Cheezus.

More Sex Please...

I'm a feminist. Hur hur. I am using this post to clarify what I said in the previous post, and also to talk about other 'ish.

I'd like to say here and now, just in case it wasn't clear from the previous post that I'm not against waiting until marriage to have sex at all. Provided that it's actually a choice (some people are strong-willed/religious enough to do that) - a genuine choice and the person has sufficient awareness of contraception, diseases and their body parts to not do themselves any harm, then great. If they've found the right person and yadda, yadda, yadda, then more power to them. It is genuinely admirable.

That's just it though - when it's not a choice, but a cultural expectation, we're entering Whole Different Kettle-o'-Fish Land. All too often, it IS a cultural expectation, conveniently underpinned by misogyny. Worried that girls are getting pregnant too young? Hey! Don't get your knickers in a twist! You don't have to do anything as difficult as tell boys that they're just as responsible for the being that will be created. I mean, it's only 50% of their genetic material, and it's not like it's growing inside of THEM, right? Naaah, man, there's a much easier way to deal with it. Teach your girls to JUST SAY NO! Everyone knows they're the weaker sex anyway - you'd better drum it into them just to be safe.

I mean, girls are nothing but empty vessels, right? Shout that abstinence message right into their ears and it'll keep echoing delightfully around in their pretty little heads. They won't get pregnant, no sirree. They won't have sex.

... Except, as any fule kno, they will, because girls have desires too. Sometimes, even when they might not want to go 'all the way', a coercive boyfriend will tell them to do it 'if you love me', passing off a frankly galling selfishness that would have no place in REAL love under cover of emotional blackmail. Then, once they do, if they haven't used contraceps - that's right, up the spout! If they were told that 'abstinence is the only way,' then you can bet they're going to end up DOUBLY screwed.

Granted, the abstinence movement is bigger in the US than it is here, but there are things which make me think of it in this country too. Like this, for instance.

Why the flying fuck is The Times even giving this dumbfuck print-time, seriously? I was utterly UNsurprised to learn that the most prominent critic cited was affiliated with a religious body.

Simon Calvert, deputy director of the Christian Institute, attacked the leaflet, saying: “The idea that the government is telling families not to pass on their values [they're not... have you read the leaflet?] is outrageous.

“Preserving children’s innocence is a worthy goal. We would like to see more of that kind of language rather than this amoral approach where parents are encouraged to present their children with a smorgasbord of sexual activities and leave them to make up their own minds.”

Oh, Lord forbid that they should MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS! NOOOOOO! IT'LL BE SODOM AND GOMORRAH ALL OVER AGAIN, FORNICATING IN THE STREETS, RIVERS OF BLOOD...

(as opposed to the good ol' down-home repressed approach that some righteous Christians use to deal with their urges... Speaking of which, don't you just LOVE that the Pope not only didn't fire Cardinal Bernard Law, but transferred him, and then called for 'continuous prayer' to deal with the problem of paedophilia within the Church? Instead of like, y'know, doing something about it. Like firing those who do it, and recognising that it's PAEDOphilia - being attracted to children - NOT linked to those with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" as the Supreme Morons put it).

It beggars belief. I mean that literally. It reduces belief to beggary for the many Christians out there who are not utter morons - like Derek_M.

Seriously dude, if that's how you think, you should be sterilising people, because as soon as a human being is born, they are equipped with a fully-functioning (in most cases) mind of their own. The whole thing that's meant to be 'divine' about humanity is that they can choose and judge for themselves, not blindly follow the call of biology as the rest of the Animal Kingdom does. Adulthood is about children learning to make up their own minds. So, what do you suggest we do? Kill 'em when they're 18? Sterilise everyone just to be safe?

I thought of the abstinence movement here because what screamed out at me were the LIES, LIES, LIES in what Christofascist (sorry, had an attack of 'teh internets' there) Calvert said here:

"Preserving children’s innocence is a worthy goal."

It is, my frothing moron, it is. Don't think the warm glow of a universally-accepted statement is going to get you off though, because, you see, it doesn't apply to you. You're just a meaning-twisting liar like so many others out there.

You don't give two hoots about children's innocence. You want to amend that phrase to read 'Ensuring children's ignorance is a worthy goal' because that's what you mean. If you're worried about children's innocence, start taking bad parents to task - and I mean in a genuinely productive way, not through something like 'continuous praying' (snicker).

I think Mr. Calvert needs to have a read of this, if you ask me. The Virgin Mary might've done alright, but let me remind you, Mr. Calvert, that she was carrying the Son of God. Little girls out there who get pregnant are not all carrying the Son of God (wouldn't that be interesting!) and little boys who pick themselves up a nice STI or twelve and learn nothing about respecting women in the process are not Joseph. They ain't going to be visited in no dream by no angel, telling them to stand by her because they'll get fried otherwise!

And if the stuff about Alfie Patten's mother spreading the story to make money is true, then your rant is even worse than useless. People need money to live, especially in a recession, and if God doesn't come through for them but pre-marital teenage sex does... whatcha gonna do about it, huh?

Given that he hasn't even read the leaflet (it doesn't forbid passing on your values, it encourages it. All it does is (quite sensibly) warn against moralising when it comes to sex), I don't think there's many a strip more to be tearing off him. AND - perhaps most tragic of all - he confuses sexual activities with teaching kids about contraception and STIs. Good God.

Sex Before Marriage - Bring It On

I have been moved to write this by a series of comments on a note I posted on Facebook. An American who took a bizarrely thorough interest (not romantic, just general) in me and who I fell out with/stopped talking to via the Internet a while back assumed that because I said I don't believe in waiting till marriage to have sex, that I am no longer a virgin:

'the mistaken.. version was...."I'm just saying that I don't believe in sex
before marriage"...i would be relieved.....if the contrary was not approaching
the end point....then u may say. why...to be blunt or direct as i call it... the
answer is:.because u were once a sweet virgin girl..!'

The implication being that 'once' I was 'sweet' and a 'girl' and now I'm not, apparently (Might I just say that I am so not disclosing any details of that here, it's my business and no-one else's).

That was precisely what infuriated me about such a comment. Where is the need to extrapolate from a general view of mine and then try to apply it to me? The ongoing discourse is only making me angrier and angrier, which at this time of sadness-prone-ness, is welcome.

More than anything, it made me angry because it reminded me of the wall that we South Asian feminists come up against - and will continue to come up against - when we try and deal with things like this directly. I know enough of our society to be fully aware that throwing up your hands and saying 'This is who I am, take me as I am' doesn't work. It might make you feel better, in that you'll stop living a lie, but then the bigots will regroup and bear down on you again. That's the precise problem - you can't reason with bigots whose beliefs are rooted firmly in their irrational, emotional prejudices.

I will just say that the fun didn't stop there. I replied, saying:

'.because u were once a sweet virgin girl..!'

Er, how can you presume to know about my sexual status just because I've said I no longer believe in sex before marriage? Nice jumping-to-conclusions there.

I know a lot of men, particularly those of South Asian descent, just love the idea of the virgin bride. However, knowing increasingly more about the realities of Indian marriages (at the very least), I find the thought of waiting until marriage quite terrifying, as do many women. Especially, as is usually the case, you don't know your partner very well, or even not at all.

And here is the rest of it in full. Him:

"the death of virginity at ur age begins.. when u no longer value it.."
i didnt quite pressume....i infer from the absence of a clarity...
i hope u dont find it rude...
i wonder if ur field research.. of "lot of men" and "indian marriages" reduced to ur CENSORED .."lot"

Me:

No. How did I imply that, even directly? I simply replied that my 'field of research' isn't necessarily as narrow as you seem to be assuming, and that I have based my opinions on judging for myself, things I have overheard and directly discussed, and my knowledge of what it is like trying to do things 'the traditional way.'

Him:

so are saying.. the ppl above 30 yrs of age... born and raised... in the "3rd world" have endoresed ur present view..? are including ur parents... u discussed this with them..


when did u come to ur current view point on this precious matters....?
did u include ur parents in this discussion..?

I stopped responding here, and then deleted him from my friends list. I was absolutely furious, and my ex even said 'What a dick.' I just could not believe it. A man in another country (America), who does not know me, who has no real link to me whatsoever and whom I have nothing in common with save for the fact that we both, as far as I know, 'originate' from India, policing my sexuality?

This is where anti-feminist wackjobs would leap in and say 'How is he policing it? He's simply asking if your parents are aware of what their daughter is up to, HAVING CONSIDERATION FOR THEM.'

To which I'd say: read the whole thing, fuckers. Where exactly does my stance (disapproving about waiting till marriage to have sex) cross over into my private life? At what point did I stand up and say 'YEAH, I'VE LOST MY VURGINITY AN IT WOZ GRATE TOO!!11!!'?

That's just it - I didn't, because contrary to the insulting assumptions being made here, this isn't another story you can write off as 'Oh, she met somebody she wanted to sleep with. Just another slut then!'

See, my 'skinny friend' who I haven't mentioned for ages took it personally when he found out that I'd kissed TL and said 'I thought you were different.' Trans: you turned out to be just another slapper. Note how the same assumption is being made about me by this man, ALSO of Indian extraction. Why, despite my affirming that the two things are not linked, does he persist in asserting that I must have had sex before marriage just because I said I don't believe in waiting? And furthermore, what business of his is it anyway?

Witnessing the break-up of a marriage, being aware of the lack of sex education that women of South Asian descent receive (South Asians in general, but it's worse for women since the obsession with our being 'pure' and 'innocent' means we don't get to participate in the same kind of consequence-free fucking and hence experience-gaining that the males frequently do...!) and considering the things that will be expected of me when I'm married, as well as a comment on Pickled Politics by the commenter Jai (which I won't link to because I have no idea where it was now)... all these things made me think. A big part of my sister's break-up was the fact that the guy didn't want children with her.

I began to think about that. I am a fairly sensual person and I knew I'd want to have sex for more than just procreation, but given my lack of knowledge how was I supposed to know what to do? I will tell you totally honestly that despite receiving some sex ed at school, I wasn't even sure where in me it was meant to go. Yes, I was that clueless. I did research on this (Internet, talking to friends) and was told that in order for it to go in, I'd have to be 'wet and slippery.' 'How does that happen though?' I asked. 'You have to be relaxed and turned on,' I was told.

I thought of a woman shipped over from India, to meet her husband for the first time, or my sister, married to a man she had known for a matter of months, a man who enjoyed slighting her and trying to control her. I thought of the prescriptiveness of our culture that treats sensuality, but female sensuality in particular, with huge doses of guilt and shame, preventing women from being able to understand their bodies and use them effectively. Jai's comment had been that for many women, the wedding night is effectively rape (I think he was talking about arranged marriages in particular though). I thought about it, and hang on, he was right. The 'consent' given was highly dubious - not really given by the woman within the couple, but applied from outside by society, in the form of the marriage ritual.

Far from 'consent,' it was rather submission - a submission which her female relatives, more often than not would groom her for. The patriarchy would make her understand that this was expected of her, because it is a husband's and his family's right to expect an heir. Many women want stability and want children, and then are implanted with so much fear and such low expectations, that they yield. It is a general submission. Learning to live with it is Stockholm Syndrome, not love (though that's not to say that love can't happen in the course of the marriage). When you have to sleep with a man at the start, when you don't know him well enough to be safe OR you do know him but he doesn't understand/appreciate your needs, it ends up becoming rape, does it not? The 'consent' is extracted, not offered freely.

Although, I bet that in many modern couples, the 'wedding night' doesn't happen at that time, because they are probably both too exhausted by the day's events. Ironic really - I criticise the excess of Indian weddings, but I suppose in a way, it's almost doing brides a favour in some instances...

I must say here again that I haven't touched on all the things that have drawn me to think this. Meeting a long-lost friend who had put her daughter's husband and in-laws in jail for their rampant mistreatment of her (including violently buggering her, which my friend only learnt of via the police report, which she couldn't bring herself to finish, understandably), the idea of marriage as prostitution... (I know it's Bindel, but swallow down the horror and just read the interview - she doesn't interject! Thankfully. I think she's probably too overcome with hero-worship, or something...).

Both that American and my ex-friend can fuck right off, because they are just more dull, unthinking collaborators with the patriarchy. Who gives you the right to police my sexuality, ey? It's MY BODY, not yours, and not really my parents' either. To be crude, if I have sex or not, it's MY BODY PARTS that are interacting with another's, not my mum's and not my dad's. Ergo it is only a matter for my parents if I were to get pregnant (H to the E double L no) and have to rely on them financially - because that would directly affect them.

I find it outrageous too that my virginity is assigned a value and deemed as the marker of my becoming an adult. How fucking patronising is that? I'm an adult upon reaching the legal age, though I could emotionally be an adult beforehand. Engaging in a physical act, while undoubtedly a milestone, is not THE milestone for me, thank you. I must ask as well: why is my sex life or lack thereof so 'precious' to you? Is it a heap of gold in which you have a stake invested? Did you 'give' part or all of it to me? No, you did not. So, mind your own business and piss off, if you please.

It really does bewilder me why people do this though. Is it because I am fair-skinned and relatively pretty? Not just that, but I look younger than I am and sort of innocent, which is probably why the weirdos seem to flock to me. I'm also relatively open, friendly and polite, which no doubt encourages them. It infuriates me though, because my parents have always tried to imply that such behaviour is 'weak' and that made me only more determined to stick to it. How dare you think I'm weak? I'm strong enough to admit my own ignorance on many topics, and I'm strong enough to have carried the emotional weight of someone 10 years my senior. It's my body; butt out.

(I just wish I could be one of the Save The Earth Foundation members beating up the Sri Ram Sena wankers who attacked women for daring to go to the pub in Mangalore). This is why I want to make sure I do SOME SORT of women's rights-based work this summer, even if it's only for two weeks. A girl's gotta fight.

THANK YOU to my four subscribed readers by the way, I appreciate the fact that you think I'm worthwhile enough to subscribe to and I am sorry for my general shittiness. I'm really not good with people. :D As to lurkers or random readers - I hope you find something educative here. If not - well, tough titties.

Slumdog Millionaire: A Review...

Now, on to that incredibly hyped piece of populism Bollywood-goes-Irish feel-good number Slumdog Millionaire. No doubt you will have seen the poster on the side of a bus, if you haven't heard various cultural critics raving about how it is so good without really ever explaining too much why. I shan't give you THE review - various sites and papers have done that already. Instead, I shall give you a review.

Basically, the clichéd underdog-does-good storyline was nice and reassuring and all that, and left me feeling vaguely warm. However, as I've just hinted, it is nothing new and the structure of the film is set up to make it more affecting than it actually is. The film opens with our plucky hero being beaten up by the police for having apparently cheated - a great way to galvanise us immediately into the sort of viewer that Boyle expects us to be. This paves the way for a deluge of affecting flashbacks, which only supplement the underdog-loving gut-instinct in us that was born with the early scenes of torture. Not only was he innocent, but he's suffered too! Compound the sense of injustice with outrage!

The visual appeal of the film - as critics have already pointed out, it's quite arty-looking, all bright sharp colours and beautiful cinematography (can you tell I don't really know what the fuck I'm on about?) and the soundtrack pumped with M.I.A and A.R. Rahman doing a nice line in urgency - work with the structuring to help deliver a satisfying cinema experience (that sounds very wanky, I know).

However, I do have to agree that the characters really are pathetically underdeveloped (at times I really thought Dev Patel made Jamal come across as simply brain-damaged rather than shy-but-silently-driven). Freida Pinto, while pretty, doesn't really have to do much other than stare sorrowfully out of her pretty eyes and look small and delicate and (again), pretty. The character of Jamal's brother Salim comes across as so downright psychotic at times that it's hard to take his 'good' moments seriously, even though they're instrumental to the plot. Ahhh, the plot. Moments of serious social commentary leap suddenly out (at the vigilant viewer, that is), otherwise jostling uneasily with the highly improbable love story. I'm somebody who likes romance and really does believe in love, but... come on. In some respects, the film looks like it's trying very hard to be 'authentic' or 'realistic', in others it heads into Disney territory. Make up yer minds!

The moments of social commentary - whether intentional or inadvertent - were what really caught me. I emptied a whole week's worth of under-eye luggage weeping at a particular moment in the film which, beautifully and concisely, illustrates the brutal, horrifying futility of sectarian violence. *SPOILER ALERT* When we see Muslims being set upon like dogs and thrashed to death for no other reason than: 'They're Muslims, get them,' it is painfully, hopelessly STUPID and DISGUSTING. We don't know what this particular attack is in aid of, what provoked it - and that's what's so good about this short bit of the film. There is no bullshit justification or intellectualisation of what is nowt but bigoted hatred - we are simply and sharply reminded of the consequences of letting ideology override humanity. Families are destroyed, children are orphaned, lives are ruined.

I thought that I would offer that in itself as a recommendation for why you might want to go see Slumdog in the cinema now; what with the ridiculous loyalties that always re-emerge, smarting like an old wound that's lost its scab with every discussion of Israel/Palestine, here is a film about people trying to get beyond the religious hatred and snobbery which has hampered the beginnings of their lives.

Although it'll make me unpopular for saying it, I also found the disturbing sections showing what often happens to homeless, orphaned kiddies in India (not just in Mumbai) offered a valuable sense of perspective as we here in Britain gripe incessantly about the recession. Though people losing their jobs isn't exactly a positive result ever, at least most of us will be able to return to our families if times really get that hard, and many of us, even if we were to end up starving to death due to lack of employment, bills etc., would have somebody to look into our deaths and enquire after us once we were gone. We still have poverty in this country, undoubtedly, but many people get, at the very least, a chance at life at a young age. Virtually everyone gets schooling, for example.

Seeing the children who are lured and then bound into begging for the rest of their lives, effectively the property of their pimps and masters - seeing the prostitutes forced to keep their crying children alongside them because they have nowhere else to send them while they 'work'... I'm not going to be lame and say 'It was a wake-up call' like some bleeding-heart liberal. I knew of this before - but it was a timely reminder. Maybe, like Jamal, we in Britain need to stop trying to 'keep up with the Joneses' (say what you want, it was our terrible spending habits and sense of entitlement that created the 'recession culture', not just the banks) and think long and hard about the place money and material goods occupy - and should occupy - in our lives.


Recommended Reading.

Also, Pickled Politics is hot to trot at the moment, with a new 'Speakers' Corner Sundays' feature where Sundays are for guest writers' articles - so if you feel like sounding off about ANYTHING, go for it! I hope to at some point...

The obligatory music video so as not to head towards Monday feeling like the apocalypse is coming. Watch it, it's uplifting and happygood!

'Bankish' Behaviour - Sexism at the BoE

As regards the title of this post, just follow the link and READ THIS STORY. READ IT.

I am really quite angry. I didn't think such ridiculous things could irritate me that much, but no, the feminist tiger has been roused and she'd like to rip the head off the 'image consultants' who ran this thing, if nothing else. Though REALLY, what she'd like to do is get some choice 'alone time' with the fuckers at the Bank of England who arranged this. Don't shoot the messenger, etc. etc. etc.

I mean, FUCK YOU. The word 'bankers' has become Cockney rhyming slang for 'wankers' and I tell you, it's feeling like a pretty fitting epithet right now. Although of course, that's hardly fair because not all bankers are, and not even everyone at the Bank of England is.

We're going to use an extreme comparison now to attack what is occurring here. Y'know how, (as anyone who's read/watched Persepolis will know?) the 'Vice Squad' in Tehran roam around policing women's clothes so that they show the acceptable amount of modesty? Well, this is just another version of that, really, but in Britain and done without religion or violence being involved. Not that that makes it any more acceptable for it.

This parallel I've just drawn may seem extreme to some of you, but let me explain:

A memo leaked from the meeting details the advice given to staff, including the warning that wearing certain accessories would make women workers look like prostitutes.

This is the bit that sent me over the edge of calm and hurtling dangerously into the lava-paved fields of rage. Firstly, my brain screamed: WHY? WHY should women not look like prostitutes if they want to? Let me elaborate.

1) By taking this decision in the first place, women are being told how to dress - just like in Tehran - and not being credited with intelligence enough to not dress like sex workers. Ruth Lea, former Centre for Policy Studies director and current economic advisor to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, had this to say:

"Surely it is up to men and women, and their peers at work to decide for themselves what is suitable to wear. If you can get a well-paid job, surely you have the nous to choose the right clothes."

Amen, sister! Seems simple, don't it? Yet this whole fiasco is not just insulting to the female employees and a sheer fucking pisstake at a time of intense economic difficulty for the whole fucking country. It's also insulting to the men who work there.

As Craig David used to popularly sing, re-re-wind:

'wearing certain accessories would make women workers look like prostitutes.'

Here we are, back in the familiar terrain of 'Oh NOOOO! Female sexuality! SHIT! Lock up your sons and fathers and brothers!'

I'd frankly be curious to know what they had in mind here. Maybe they were thinking nurses' uniforms, thigh-high stockings, kinky boots ending above the knee? Or maybe this is just supposed to cover anything that makes you look the tiniest bit attractive and not like someone's stern aunt, or Margaret Thatcher? I have to return here to saying: and what, if women look like prostitutes?

2) If you're working for the BANK OF FUCKING ENGLAND, I think you'll know better than to turn up looking like a prostitute, as observed above. I'm sorry, wanky image consultants, but a woman wearing something which is cut slightly lower/fits slightly tighter/is shorter than you might like is part of a wonderful thing called Choice. It tends to go hand in hand with a concept known as Real Life Is For Living, and although I'm sure the BoE is full of old-ish white middle-class male types, the times they are a-changin'. Plus, it's winter. You certainly wouldn't catch me dead in a PVC maid's dress in this current snowfall!

3) As to insulting the men, I'm quite sure that, er, they're able to discern that the women they have been working with all year are not prostitutes. To be honest, giving the following advice:

'wearing certain accessories would make women workers look like prostitutes.'

is firstly infuriating because it proves that, time and time again, even the merest showcase of female sexuality is a problem for some men - and despite it only being some, all the women must be suppressed accordingly, and also because it wildly insults the intelligence of their male cohorts. Having been hired by the Bank, she knows she's not a fucking prostitute; having worked with her, he knows she's not a fucking prostitute.

The 'logic' that I can see spiralling out of this idiocy runs as follows:

Women dress like prostitutes. This presents a problem for poor, helpless males who let themselves reach the point of unbearable strain. Women subsequently sexually harassed/raped/bullied - go on to take BoE to court and money stands to be lost. Unhappy faces all round!

So, the answer to the kind of bullshit institutional sexism and recycling of outdated gender stereotypes is *gasp* not trying to educate those men who can't cope with a woman wearing a slightly shorter skirt, it's to waste a load of fucking money during a recession period telling women to 'Dress For Success.' The common sense of simply crediting the men with the awareness that their fucking co-workers are evidently not sex workers - and explaining very slowly to the especially thick/bigoted ones - is lost. Do they not think men have enough self-control to avoid leaping on their colleagues at the slightest flash of thigh and humping them unconscious? Do they really think men are that utterly lacking in self-control? Jesus H. Christ.

Interestingly enough, just to dispense with this, I like how women's sexuality is being pummelled into projecting just the right sort of mother/older auntie attitude here. By all means, don't turn us on - but don't confuse us either! Tomboys and androgynes (my coinage) not welcome!

"... always wear a heel of some sort – maximum two inches; always wear some sort of makeup, even if it's just lipstick,"

(BUT WHY?!)