The Broken Dolls House

Why International Women’s Day?(…and when is international men’s day?)

International Women’s Day, a wonderful day, one of my favourites. However, it is consistently marred by the ever predictable response of many “When’s International Men’s day then?”

Hands up if you’ve already heard/seen that today? Well…here is my response.

Firstly, congratulations on being so highly original and witty, no-one ever made that crack before.

Secondly, it’s on 19th November actually, seriously, you could have just Googled that.

Thirdly, here are some of the reasons we have, and need, International Women’s Day (perhaps more so than Int. Men’s day?) :

· The current estimate is that 1 in 3 women will be raped in her lifetime.

· Women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria, according to World Bank data.

· 1 in 4 women will be a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime –many of these on a number of occasions; On average, 2 women a week are killed by a current or former male partner.

· This year a girl was shot in the head, because she dared to want an education; because she was female. Access to education for girls is severely limited in many places around the world today.

· There is still, on average a 20% pay gap between men & women.

· It is estimated that between 130 and 140 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM/C, mainly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries. 3 million girls a year are thought to be at risk of genital mutilation. FGM can lead to long-term health implications and in some cases, death.

· Women and girls account for about 80 per cent of trafficked persons across the world. The majority are trafficked for sex.

I could go on, and on, and on. These are just some of the reasons I get so riled up about the fight for equality and women’s rights; why I call myself a feminist and spend my time trying to do something about it. I can’t see those horrific, injust stats and remain passive. Each figure in those statistics has a face, a name and a story. And this is without even going into the everyday sexism, objectification, gender stereotyping and misogyny that women face daily from multiple sources.

These inequalities are specifically gender based, and affect women considerably more than men. Someone once said ‘This is a man’s world’: they were right. It was, it still is, but I hope that it won’t always be. I love men, and I hate sexism towards men, every bit as much as I do when it’s aimed at women. But still, the facts remain.

The figures above are from today: 2013. This is the state of affairs AFTER the long journey through the ages that women have taken, fighting for emancipation and equality. Women are historically one of the most oppressed groups on the planet, and we’re half the population! Over hundreds of years women have struggled and worked to gain freedoms: the vote; an education; ownership of property; slightly more-equal pay; the right not to be raped by your husband, and on.

International Women’s Day is a day when we celebrate the hard-won freedoms so many of us now enjoy, and remember the women who fought to win them for us. It is a day too, when we stand together to continue forwards on the journey to freedom & equality, in the knowledge of the horrific inequalities that still need to be addressed.

Hate speech, free speech and a considered response…

Last weekend an article was published in The Observer in which Julie Burchill poured forth a vile torrent of hateful words and comparisons aimed at transsexuals, particularly it would seem, transsexual women.

Immediately there was outcry at the way she had chosen to phrase her argument, an argument which was completely lost amongst the offensive, derogatory and completely hateful language she employed. In response to public anger, on Monday the article was taken down and the Observer published something of an apology.

The internet has been ablaze with discussion about the article, but not in the way I had expected. Instead of the discussion needed about why the language she used was hateful, and the damaging effects it may have, the conversation was very quickly dominated by a discussion about free speech.

Whilst the overwhelming reaction to her article was negative, there were a concerted and dominating few that began to cheer Julie on for her freedom of expression. Once the article was removed this crowd sang even louder. ‘We must not censor!’, ‘Freedom of speech!’ they cried. Toby Young in the Telegraph wrote a blog about the defence of free speech, and hastily republished the vile Burchill article in its entirety.
 
But here’s the thing folks, we have freedom of speech; we’ve never had it more. The internet is full of spaces where you can say whatever you like, and you don’t have to look very far to see people doing exactly that, however hurtful or hateful their words may be.

Therefore, Julie Burchill has freedom of expression, nothing you or I can do will take that away from her. She can write as many hateful slurs and transphobic rants as she likes. In her article Julie Burchill did not outline an opinion using reason and debate, she deliberately chose words and phrases which are hateful and offensive to a specific group of individuals, denying their entire experience in some cases.

The problem here was that this article wasn’t on a private blog or social media forum, where people could seek it out if they so choose. The decision was taken to publish these words in a national newspaper, far extending the reach of its impact.

‘Oh, but it’s a free press!’ they cry. So where are the comparative national newspaper articles using racist or homophobic language?

There are certain words which in the past have been used against other races and ethnicities,  those that identify as gay , women and disabled people – that we do not find acceptable any more, and that no newspaper would print.

Does our defence of freedom of expression extend to publishing pieces that include these words? It would seem not. Would people have caused the same stink about censorship and free speech if it were a piece using some of these other words in such an openly hateful context? You can decide.

Hate speech in the UK is defined as an expression of hatred towards another person or group of people using various means such as writing, speech or any other form of communication. In the United Kingdom there are a number of laws set out to provide protection to citizens from hate speech. This can include threatening behaviour and written material that is designed to cause harassment and distress. If Burchill’s article does not fit this criteria, I don’t know what does. The Observer was entirely correct to remove it, and it is astounding they decided to go to print with it in the first place.
 
Here’s the thing, and the reason why we do have laws which protect certain groups from hate speech: hate speech in no uncertain terms leads to hate crime. When words are used in corners of the internet, reprehensible as they are, and like minded people have to seek them out, that is one thing. It would be nice, some may say, to live without this, but we can’t stop it, and we do have freedom of speech. However when a national newspaper publishes hate speech of this kind the ideas are given a much greater platform. Words and ideas put out there like this create and enforce values and beliefs, and those values inform people’s behaviour. In this context this increases the hate crimes against transgender individuals, the high murder rate of transsexuals and the every day experiences transsexuals face where they are mocked, spat at, ignored and discriminated against because of who they are.
 
There will be some that vehemently disagree with me on this, but my personal belief is that certain types of speech and ‘expression’ should be curtailed in some arenas, to protect vulnerable, or at risk individuals and groups. We can say ‘this is not ok’.

For groups of people, like transsexuals,  like those who identify as gay, like black and ethnic minority groups, like disabled people, for which persecution, discrimination and prejudice are far to real and regular, it is ok for the rest of us to say ‘that is not ok’! We protect vulnerable groups by law because why should they have to suffer such illogical discrimination? So Burchill’s article is just words on a page, but words have such power; to inform and create people’s realities.
 
What has disturbed me the most is that this is not the conversation we should be having. This was never about free speech for me. We should be asking why, while hate crimes in the UK have fallen overall, crimes based on sexual orientation, transgender status and disability have risen? Why in 2012 there was a 20% increase in the murder rate of transsexuals? And why a recorded 34% of adult trans people have attempted suicide. And asking ourselves – how can we end this? How can we move to a place where all humans are treated with equal respect, kindness and understanding? 

 

 

 

 

Voting: done



In the style of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey (for no good reason whatsoever) ’Voting: done.’ I’ve just returned from casting my vote in the Police & Crime Commissioner elections. I have to be honest, it was a bit of a tustle with my conscience about whether to leave my nice warm house, that I’d just returned to after a long day at work, and a long cold walk home, to go an vote - or whether just to put my dressing gown & slippers on, get a nice hot cup of tea and wait for Young Apprentice. Idid vote in the end, but perhaps not for the noble reasons I should have. Some of my motivating factors were:

�A guilty conscience telling me I shouldneverwaste my vote (women died so I could vote dontcha know?!)
�My polling station is only a short walk away
�It’s not raining
�Young Apprentice doesn’t start until 8 so i’ve plenty of time to kill.
�I’m one of few people I know who actually know something about any of the candidates.

I think this election process has been a bit of a failure on the part of the government & the candidates themselves. I’ve spoken to several people in the past few weeks, and many today, about whether they would be voting in this election. The vast, vast majority knew very little about it. People told me they weren’t really sure what a Police & Crime Commissioner was, what does one of them do? Most people had received no, or few, information flyers through the post about who their candidates were - how could they use their vote wisely when they knew nothing about the candidates? Some did not agree with there being a PCC in the first place. Some didn’t know where their polling station was. Others just had prior engagements. And many more, I’m sure will have forgotten, not cared, or been wooed by the warmth of staying at home on a cold November evening. And who can blame them?

I have, by means of association really, found out quite a bit about these elections. Coventry Women’s Voices, an organisation I belong to, organised a question time with the candidates. I was asked to live blog for this event, and write lead-in and follow up articles to support this. I got to see all seven West Midlands candidates, in the flesh. I imagine, that were it not for my involvement with this group, and had I not been asked to write about the elections, I would have been just as in the dark as many other potential voters.

Because actually, I also only got ONE leaflet through the door from a candidate. I know about the government’s TV advert campaign, but I only saw it on TV once. I know what a PCC will do because I researched it for an article. I know there is a website called ‘choosemypcc.com’ where you can find out who the candidates are for your area, and what they stand for - but I haven’t seen that advertised anywhere, apart from in an email I signed up to recieve. Even after sitting in a room with the West Midlands candidates for 2 hours while they answered questions from the audience, I was still unsure who to vote for.

This national election is expected to have one of the lowest voting turnoutsof all time!The Electoral Reform Society have called it ‘a lesson in how not to run an election’. It will be interesting to see tomorrow how many peopledidturn up.

At some point it was decided that we ARE going to have PCCs. It’s good that after that decision had been made, a second decision was taken to make it an elected position, to let the people these Commissioners will police have a say in who they are. After then it seems to have gone downhill. No-one knows about these elections! No-one knows about what a PCC will do! No-one knows who their candidates are! I spoke to some people who didn’t even know where their polling station was. Because, no-one has told them.

When Cameron encouraged independent candidates to put their names forward earlier this year, he said: “This isn’t just for politicians, but community leaders and pioneers of all sorts…this is a big job for a big local figure.” But actually, three quarters of the candidates already hold elected office. The cost to independent candidates is estimated to be between £20,000 and £30,000. This is hugely unfair when you consider that any candidates with a political party backing them have all the existing infrastructure and financial support of that party in place to enable their campaigns. Not surprisingly then, the only leaflet I did get through the door was from a party candidate.

The government seem to have been very half-hearted about this. A spattering of bill boards (apparently, although I haven’t seen one), a TV ad sparingly aired and….and…? Ididget the pink leaflet through the door (pictured) which told me a bit more. Did you? Did you read it? Did you vote? If, as the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde, said the PCC role is “the biggest change to policing since 1829″, shouldn’t there have been a bit more hype about it?

I’m glad I voted, and I think my conscience will always win out when it comes to using my vote, even if it is cold outside. I’m glad to live in some kind of democracy. But the government need to help people to vote if they want us to engage (I’m working on the premise that they do…we can discuss that another time). After casting my vote on the ballot slip I was asked if i would mind filling out a short questionnaire. The sheet had a few short questions about why I had decided to vote and how I knew about the elections (sadly they didn’t include tick boxes for many of my real answers to these questions, as above). Then there was a question of ‘How would you like to hear about elections in the future?’ There were several options; leaflet, tv ad, radio ad, text message, email, poster, billboard, flyer……other’. I ticked them all, and wrote underneath ‘AS MANY WAYS AS POSSIBLE’. Tell us. Get us involved. Make it impossiblenot to know about elections. Give us new ways to vote, new places and new times. Give us options of how to vote, and when and where. Make it work.

This blog post also appeared on Women’s Views on News, where I am a regular writer:

http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2012/11/pcc-voting-done/

Me, myself & I

I’ve come home today trying to shake off a ‘fat’ day feeling. This was triggered by the usual trying on clothes in a shop that didn’t look good, even when i tried the bigger size, and also from having to try on for new uniform at work an announce that the size I now need is two sizes bigger than the last time I got uniform. It got me thinking and wondering about what we could do, as I know I’m not the only one who must feel like this sometimes. But I wanted to give this some context and some thinking space.

Over the past couple of years I’ve put on quite a bit of weight. I have watched my body grow and change. There are several reasons for this. Circumstances & events which affected my lifestyle temporarily; I think my age probably has something to do with it, and ironically I think I’ve put on a bit of weight because I feel happier and more confident than I have at most other points in my life. My feminist inclinations have become more cemented, and my focus is less on how I look than it has been in the past.

However I still feel myself constantly in a tug of war between feeling happy about my body - indeed even LOVING it at times, to feeling this awful sadness about not being as thin as I was and a desire to be like the countless homogenous images of women that swarm around us all.

A couple of times in the past year I have said to myself ‘right, that’s it, the diet starts now.’ In the past I have had the will power to diet fairly successfully, but now I might get one or two days in, but I feel like I’m cheating myself; I feel like I can’t preach a message of body confidence and acceptance if I don’t lead by example; I feel like life is too short to deny myself; I feel like I shouldn’t do this because cultural memes say I should. I feel conflicted. And so I ditch the carrot & celery sticks in feminist defiance. Until the next time something doesn’t fit, or I see myself in an unflattering photo.

I love seeing women in all different shapes and sizes. I think the fact that humanity is so wonderfully varied is just gorgeous! And I, as I’m sure many of us are, am far more accepting and appreciative of other people’s bodies than I am of my own.

We all know that all around us the vast, vast majority of media force feeds us a very clear message of what an attractive woman is. While we can strive for more diverse representation, and make ourselves aware of these messages, i think it could be some time before this really changes very significantly. What I’m interested in exploring is how I personally, and we collectively as women, can begin to move towards a point where these messages don’t influence us so powerfully. I know there are many brilliant women around who have got to this point, and I want to learn from them.

The other thing I think links into all of this is that it’s also all to do with confidence in who you are as a person, and with that self esteem. Who I am today is 100% more confident in my own personality, my own beliefs, my own actions than I was 10 years ago. I can only hope that this trajectory continues. But I have, for a very long time, felt doubt and insecurity, as many of us do I’m sure. One of the problems of growing up in a world where so much emphasis is put on how we, as women & girls, LOOK is that even when we’re flipping awesome mo-fos on the inside, we still end up worrying about what’s on the outside. I’m interested in looking at how we can begin to tip the balance the other way, so that I feel good and confident because of who I am, not what I look like.

Now, I know that none of this is new. I feel very glad to know women from all backgrounds, with all different experiences. I’m interested to know what others feel, what they think, how they deal with feelings like this, and how we can support one another in body confidence and self esteem.

The seed of an idea i’ve had is to arrange some kind of body confidence/body image/self esteem forum/workshop/seminar (work that out!) where these ideas can be explored collectively and reflected upon. This could involve speakers, workshops, artistic creations…anything at all really - and could be a one off, or an ongoing project. So basically, my idea is very broad and unformed at the moment and I’d like to know if any do-ers out there want to get together and have a chat about what we could do.

Now I’m off to have some cheese xxx

 

Uncomfortable - a poem

Note* As I wrote this it started out being about one thing, then it became more apparent to me that, for my own personal experiences, it could actually be about several. Whether that is keeping my true emotions inside, or not voicing my opinions, or conforming to the gender stereotypes of the society I live in. It could be all these things and more. So I hope that as others read it, they find some meaning in it which resonates with them. As with all my poems, it’s a work in progress…

Uncomfortable

You want me to make you feel comfortable.
To smile
And say “I’m fine”,
And after a while
I’ll laugh at your jokes
So you’ll know I’m not out of line
With the norm and convention of our time.

You want me to make you at ease
To say “thank you”
And “please”.
To nod and agree
While you nod and decree
What you think you know about me.

You want me to say “It’s alright”
And keep a lid on it.
To hold it inside, where it’s hidden
Fit neatly
Into the role I’ve been given.

So that the world still looks the right way up;
To you.
And the grass stays green
And the sky stays blue
And the ground beneath your feet remains unmoved.

You want me to make you feel comfortable
To smile, and nod, and agree
And not be
Anything you don’t want to see.

A poem, in it’s rawest form

I turn myself into stone, but stone’s not as hard as it seems…beneath the slate surface it teems,
with the the weight of it’s memories causing fissures and splits,
from the frustrated words kept from my lips.
Each fossilized pain is frozen in time,
is unchanged forever and exclusively mine.
The solidified strata layer over the truth, and conveniently compress
all I wish to suppress.
I stand unmoved by the wind and the rain,
but watch, over time,
and you’ll see that I’ve changed.

I will be rock.
And it will take a quake
to unshake
what I lock.

But I see you there with your chisel of trust;
that turns my ironclad nerve into crumbling rust.
Now you’re breaching the crust with your pickaxe of love.
I had it, the granite,
that held me within,
but the patience you showed me penetrated my skin.

Let me alone, in my kingdom of stone.
Where everything I choose remains unknown.

Marriage conundrum…

I recently read an old blog from The F Word in which one feminist explained why she had decided marriage wasn’t for her. I guess her blog hit a nerve with me, because marriage is something I’ve done a lot of pondering over myself recently. Whether I want to get married and, if so, how & why. As many of you know, my feminist ideals burn within me and I find them very difficult to ignore. When it comes to thinking about marriage, I find myself with a vortex of dilemmas and no clear answers as of yet.

Firstly, I need to address something that bugs me regularly. The overwhelming pressure from friends, from family, and society at large that I should get married. We (my partner and I) have got to the point, 5 years in, where everyone we know feels comfortable making digs about when we’re going to to it (actually, more about whenhe’s going to do it - e.g. propose - its naturally assumed of course that as a woman I must be just sitting waiting eagerly for him to pop the question. I’m not btw). I can not underplay the huge pressure there is on women to want to get married, to expect to get married, to obsess about getting married and to ultimately get married. It annoys me that my relationship is not recognised as legitimate without this rite of passage. I’ve known several women whose relationships are of much shorter length than my own, who perhaps married after a year, and yet whose relationships seem to carry far more weight, more external recognition and legitimacy. Not only that, but I feel that married women are often treated differently to unmarried women; as an unmarried woman I feel that I am still often seen as a girl, and my relationship as immature. All of this of course pisses me off. My relationship is essentially no different now, in practical terms, to what it would be if we were to marry. We live together, we share our lives together, we committ to one another. But the world seems to think there’s something missing.

Secondly, I stumble upon some of the many patriarchal facets and connotations of traditional marriage itself.  I know for example that I couldn’t have my dad ‘give me away’. I am not his to give! I am my own. The historical implications of ownership, first by father, then by husband make me balk. Now Iadoremy dad, he is literally the best person alive as far as I’m concerned, and I wouldn’t want to hurt or upset him. But I wouldn’t feel that I was being true to myself to conform to this tradition. Similarly, the white ‘virginial’ dress, indicative of my purity (ahem!); The change of name - something else I just couldn’t do, even the use of the word ‘husband’ - which literally means ‘Master of the house’…all these things just don’t sit right with anything I believe in or stand for. I know that if I did get married my wedding would give more traditionalist family members plenty to moan about. Ultimately I think that those who really love me wouldn’t really mind all that. I think they already think I’m odd, so what’s a little more feminist oddity!? But it does make me wonder, if there’s so much I don’t like about it or want to reject - then maybe it’s the whole thing in fact that I should reject.

I guess my biggest consideration would have to be why I’m thinking about marriage in the first place, and why just rejecting it out of hand still leaves me feeling remiss. I’m in a wonderful relationship, which is coming up to its fifth year. I love my boyfriend and I really do want to have some kind of recognition that he is the one I choose to be my partner. I want the world to see that, and I want the to law to recognise that. I want him to be my official next of kin, and I’d like to be his. I want everyone to know that I am 100% committed to only him. So why not just get married then? Indeed, at the moment, if I do want the law to recognise a special status existing between us - that is theonly option open to me. But when something is the only choice available, it feels a bit unthinking for me to automatically ‘choose’ it.

With the proposed legalisation of gay marriage there has been an awful lot of discussion around what marriage is, and why it exists. This too makes me pause for thought. In many of the discussions I’ve listened to, or articles I’ve read on the matter, I’ve come away feeling wrong about having this ‘privilege’ just because I’m in a heterosexual relationship. Of course, I hope that very soon gay couples will be able to marry too. But the discourse raised by those against it, and their staunch defence of the ‘sanctity’ and sacredness of traditional marriage makes me shudder and want nothing to do with the whole thing myself.
“They have civil partnerships” they say, “it’s essentially the same thing anyway”. Well, if it is - then why can’t I have one too then? And why can’t they have this ‘other’ thing that I can? What is the mysterious element missing from a CP which turns it into a ‘marriage’? Why am I allowed one and not the other? And when (hopefully soon) gay marriage is allowed in this country will this make me feel any different?

To read this you’d think I’m a hardened unromantic. Which is soo far from the truth…I’m the worst at weddings!! I’m the first to start crying, and the last to stop - and this includes weddings on TV, in films and in books - as well as ones I actually attend! I LOVE the public declaration of love, of ‘we choose each other’; the promise of intent to care for and look out for each other forever. And I love it because that is how I feel about my partner, and I would gladly stand on a mountain top and tell it to the whole world! I’d love for us to stand up in front of everyone we know and show them all how much we mean to each other, that we are partners. Can I do this without a wedding? Must I do this for my relationship to be validated?

Similarly, the little girl inside me (brought up very much in our particular society, with all its expectations and norms) wouldlove the beautiful wedding, the dress, the flowers, the first dance. I’ve watched too many wedding romcoms and episodes of ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ to have not fantasised often about how I would domy special day. But all of this just leaves me in more of a quandry! I cannot ignore something once the thought has taken seed…and I’m not sure now what it is I want or why. I instinctively feel that when I want the big wedding, it’s a bit like when I want to be size 8 with big boobs….it’s what society has taught me to want. But not really what I need and not really what my feminist values lead me to conclude is best.

At the moment I think we’re quite happy ‘not getting married’ and will have to bat off the constant pressures from those around us that we should be. When I think about this, more often than not the conclusion I end up with is that what I actually want is a Civil Partnership. This is free from the stereotypical male/female roles associated with traditional marriage and the historical patriarchy of the insitution, it explains what we are: ‘partners’, and it would give us the legal recognition and protections that I desire to share. But guess what? I can’t have one of them.

I think every couple should be allowed to decide what is best for them, what most suits their own personalities, politics and beliefs. For me, it seems there’s nothing that quite fits the bill out there at the moment. For many gay couples, the thing that would fit the bill, they are barred from. You can find out more about some of this at Equal Love, which campaigns for gay marriage and hetero CPs. Please also sign their petition for equal love rights for all!

A slightly furious rant…

I have removed this blog now. I’m glad I said it, but didn’t want it to be out there in the world for too long…. And I’m slightly less furious now.

Beautiful bodies in ‘The House of Tolerance’

Often when you go to see a film there is one element of it that resonates within you somewhere, and keeps coming back to you in the days after; some impact that the film has upon you which reverberates through your consciousness.

This week I went to see a french film called ‘The House of Tolerance’ (L’Apollonide: Souvenirs de la Maison Close). The film was about a Parisian brothel at the turn of the twentieth century. I went mainly because I was intrigued by how the subject of prostitution would be covered, and I thought it may prove an interesting subject matter to discuss with my feminist group.

However, the thing that has stuck with me through the rest of this week was nothing to do with the themes covered in the film, but more to do with what I saw on screen. The women who play the Victorian prostitutes in ‘House of Tolerance’ were beautiful. What has formed the most lasting impression on me is seeing these women naked. Accurately portraying women of the era they were unshaven (pits & bits), they were un-enhanced by surgical procedures, and, appropriately for the roles they were playing, they were uninhibited when undressed.

As I watched these natural bodies move across the screen it was like a spring of refreshing water. In contrast to the women’s bodies that are typically displayed on screen in films and TV shows today, these women were real. And they were so sexy! Women with pubic hair; with curves; without curves; with small boobs; with big boobs…with confidence. They looked stunning.

Without wishing to overshare, in the days since I saw the movie I have felt so sexy naked! Seeing these women on screen, in all their glorious, normal nakedness made me look at myself in a similar way. This is not the normal reaction I have to women in films…Hollywood women & TV stars normally make me feel the opposite. I normally feel inadequate when i see the perfect, dimple free, hair free, toned, tanned, size 8 bodies most women in movies have. I feel the annoying, and re-occuring urge to diet. I feel unsexy in comparison. This, I rather feel, is the norm for the vast majority of women. We are fenced in by an army of near-cloned super beauties, all fitting the one norm - a norm which is heralded as IT: ‘This is what you should look like; this is what is sexy; you need to be like this’ - ‘This’ is not what I am. And so a sense of ‘not quite good enough’ descends upon a population of normal, actually perfectly beautifully-bodied, women.

I dared to imagine how different things might be if every portrayal of women on screen was as naturally beautiful as the actresses in ‘House of Tolerance’. Maybe instead of an epidemic of eating disorders, we would have a generation of women comfortable and confident in their beautiful bodies. Maybe instead of women spending thousands of pounds, and hundreds of hours on making themselves look ‘better’, we would have a host of women enjoying their lives and their beautiful bodies. Maybe instead of the tanning, waxing, shaving, plucking, dieting, botoxing, painting, implanting, suctioning, nipping & tucking women currently put themselves through…we would just look at ourselves, just as we are and say ‘yes, i like you’. Certainly after one (quite intense) dose of this treatment myself I feel measurably more cocky about how great, and hot, my body is!

Anti-Street Harassment Week

This week, from 18th - 24th March, is International Anti-Street Harassment Week (http://www.meetusonthestreet.org/). The event has grown from an Anti-Steet Harassment day in previous years, to a whole week dedicated to raising awareness of, and seeking to end, street harassment in it’s many guises. It’s grown to a weeklong event because of the massive response in the past from countless women around the world who have all experienced street harassment.

Coincidentally street harassment has been making the news here in recent press. On International Women’s Day last week David Cameron announced that the UK government has signed up to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Violence Against Women & Domestic Violence. The vast majority of media coverage of this has zoned in on a couple of sentences in the Covention which pledge to make illegal ‘unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct with the purpose of effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’. Tabloids, Tweets and talk shows joined the flurry of concern over the fact that this could effectively ban wolf whistling (shock, horror!) Firstly, I feel that this has detracted our attention from the fact that the Convention is aimed at tackling a much broader range of issues, from domestic violence, to rape, to female genital mutilation and forced marriage. Issues which are grave and horrendous, and very, very real for many women across Europe. That our government took so long to sign up to the convention is the only puzzlement (it was created almost a year ago). Secondly however, if wolf whistling and other forms of street harassment are caught in the far reaching net of the convention, then all the better. Because yes, street harassment - from a whistle, to a leer, to longer than neccesary stare, to a grope - is “intimidating, degrading, humiliating [and] offensive”.

At work today I spent some time speaking to a female colleague who recently encountered some pretty awful sexual harassment from a member of the public, whilst in work. This younger woman was clearly left shaken and upset. We had a good long chat about the various ways in which we have both been harassed in the past. I can honestly say I think the first time I clearly recall street harassment happening to me was when I was 12 years old, and wearing my school uniform. The jeers in the town centre where I grew up didn’t come from school boys my own age, but from adult men. As a young girl this male attention flattered my ego; (of course, isn’t every young woman in our society taught from a young age that male attention is to be not only desired, but sought out?) Today, realising how long I’ve had to put up with street harassment I shocked even myself - and I balked at the thought that as a 12 year old I was being perved on in this way.

Now,16 years on, I am openly furious about street harassment. For me this has included whistling, staring, shouting, whispering and following. I’m one of the lucky ones, I have not been physically groped as far too many women have…or worse (because wolf whistling is the thin end of a much bigger, more sinister wedge). On the occasion where I have mentioned my disgust at this to others, I have on far too many times been met with ‘but you like it really don’t you?’, ‘take it as a compliment’, or ‘it’s just flattery’. (*SCREEEAAAMMMS!!!!!*) NO! NO! and NO! NO, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!

I don’t like it. It is not a compliment. It is not flattering. It makes me feel intimidated. It makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe. It is uninvited and unwelcome. It is disrespectful. It is derogatory. It is sexist. It is humiliating. It is reducing me to something for you to look at and makes me feel like a piece of meat. It is not how you’d want your mother/sister/daughter/wife/girlfriend to be treated. It intrusive. It is rude. It is power play. It makes me feel like less than I am.

If you want to compliment me, get to know me, find out something wonderful about me and give me an honest compliment that is not based on your sexual opinion of my face or body. If you want me to feel comfortable and safe close your mouth and avert your gaze. Treat me with respect; I am someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s girlfriend. I am a helluva lot more than what you can see. How dare you?! Stop sexualising me.

I know that the majority of women who read this will know just what I am talking about. This Anti-Street Harassment week raise a shout; raise a ROAR. Share your story and get angry. IT IS NOT OK! Talk to other women, unite together and give each other support - that is just as important as anything else we can do to stop this.

Despite it sometimes feeling like we’re wading through treacle, I have to keep hope that we are moving toward a better society for everyone to live in. Street harassment has no part in it.

For more and to see how you can get involved see:

www.stopstreetharassment.org

www.meetusonthestreet.org

http://www.ihollaback.org/

For more about the European Convention on Violence Against Women, the FAQ’s are a really good place to start:

http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/convention-violence/faq_en.asp