another year, another post about world aids day.

year after year, i write about the global aids statistics. year after year, they tell the tale of how this virus ravages those who are most vulnerable – the poor, the young, the weak.

this year, though, there is some good news mixed with the grim: although there continue to be more and more people living with hiv/aids, the global pandemic is officially in decline.

unfortunately, even in the face of some of the best news since this epidemic began, there is a very sobering statistic : the world health organisation reports that hiv is the number one killer worldwide of women of reproductive age.

that means all those public health policies that work to combat hiv/aids disproportionately affect women – they are policies about women’s health. women are more at risk for hiv/aids for both biological and sociological reasons, and there is “strong evidence of the link between gender based violence and hiv”.

and therefore the funding cuts looming in this shaky economy will disproportionately affect women, and threaten to undermine the hard-won gains that have been made.

now, more than ever, it’s important to keep fighting. after decades of campaigning and fundraising and marching and wearing ribbons, we finally have some progress to show for our efforts – we can’t allow it to backslide!

i’m going to try (again) to run the edinburgh marathon this coming may, and will be fundraising for the hiv/aids fight.

isn’t there something you can do? it makes a difference to so many.

2.7 million people were newly infected last year, and 2 million people died.

but where there is help, there is hope.

if 2 million is too hard to wrap your brain around, this year remember just one person.

and then do something for them.

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last night, my friend amity and i attended a reclaim the night march, as i’ve done off and on since university. it’s a way for women to demonstrably protest the culture of sexual violence which makes the streets unsafe for women.

so we’re marching along in the rain through the centre of london streets. several hundred women, surrounded by dozens of police escorts, chanting, holding placards, drawing the attention of tourists and onlookers. there are guys who feel the need to boo or mock us – which is par for the course, really. some mentally unstable guy spat. whatever.

and then, out of nowhere, in the middle of leicester square, some guy cuts through the crowd, walks up to my friend amity next to me, gropes her breasts, and slips away into the crowd. in the middle of hundreds of women, in the middle of dozens of police.

after the initial shock wore off, i found myself getting really emotional.

it was a massive fuck you. more so than if he’d made some snarky remark (like some men did), more so than if he’d booed (like some men did), more so than if he’d laughed (like some men did).

it was a bold statement: you think you’re safe, you think you can fight back, you think you can reclaim the night… well i’m going to prove to you that i can do whatever i want to you, whenever i feel like it.

you are never safe.

it really shook me. i nearly abandoned the march at that point. after all, if a guy can do that anytime he wants, just because he feels he’s entitled to – then what the fuck is the point?

but as i continued clomping along in my wet boots and bedraggled hair, my sodden sign wavering, my voice having escaped me…

i began to get angry. i mean white hot fury. that “fuck you” was *supposed* to completely dispirit us, make us feel vulnerable.

i will not let that happen to me. not ever. and certainly not because some fucking arsehole managed to momentarily catch me off guard.

fuck you, motherfucker. if you meant to scare us, you failed.

still – if there was ever any doubt that we still need to reclaim the night, that was a perfect example of exactly why it’s so important. why i will continue to participate even when there’s rain, or in-fighting amongst feminist groups, etc.

because until that culture of sexual entitlement changes, nothing will change. until every single person is free from sexual assault, none of us is.

until the streets are free of those who would mock us, or undermine our safety, i’ll keep marching.

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i’ve been thinking a lot about pornography lately. it’s a topic i find hard to grapple with because it’s something that i’ve always had a difficult time reconciling with my particular personal brand of feminism. my brand of feminism, i guess if i had to describe it, is based in a largely pragmatic view of the world at large, but with my efforts funnelled towards those causes i think can have the greatest impact. in my personal brand of feminism, i don’t like to spend a lot of time railing against everything (though one might not guess that from some of my posts here!), but there are key changes needed which i believe are fundamental to the advancement of women’s equality. i believe that, like all fights for rights, the war is a long one, and change is slow, so you have to pick and choose your battles, and wisely consider where best to invest your energies.

pornography is a thorny thing for feminism in general. there are credible arguments from feminists that porn is empowering for women. there are also credible arguments from feminists that porn is truly harmful for women. which leaves me (and others) feeling somewhat stranded between a rock and a hard place.

as someone who has viewed and enjoyed pornography before, i have a hard time condemning porn outright. i’m not a prude, and i don’t have any particular objection to men or women taking pleasure in watching sexual acts, as part of a wide continuum of sexual expression. additionally, i am not an idiot – pornography is nothing new. from the early days of human representational art, sex has been depicted visually in various forms from religious to erotic. film and photographic porn is, in some ways, simply an extension of this.

in other words, porn is not, in and of itself, bad.

the difficulty for me arises from the fact that modern pornography is created, marketed and sold within a particular context – a context from which the end product cannot be extricated or innoculated. a context which is problematic in many ways.

the first and most obvious difficulty is that women involved in porn usually arrive at a place where they are getting their kit off for money because there are not exactly a plethora of other options available to them. in a nutshell, no little girl thinks “i want to be a porn actress when i grow up” – they just don’t. that’s not to imply that women in the porn industry don’t have free will – because many do participate willingly. but selling one’s body as a means to earn a living is not usually someone’s preferred choice of career. for many women, their socio-economic status still restricts the opportunities for earning a living wage. so pornography is an industry which makes its profits off of women who, via various paths, have come to see their bodies as a commodity which they sell, because at a practical level, it made the most financial sense out of the choices available to them at the time. and no matter how you dress it up with hugh hefner’s smoking jacket or cute little bunny ears, that amounts to economic exploitation. exploitation which there is considerable financial incentive to continue to propagate.

which leads us to problem number two: the reason women come to view their bodies as a saleable commodity is because our society is saturated with messages that reinforce that belief. every advertisment which pairs an image of a sexy woman with either a service being sold, or a glossy inanimate object we’re supposed to want to buy, reifies the underlying subtext that women are something you can either obtain or use for money. much like pavlov’s original experiment paired salivation to a bell, this is precisely what happens in the media and advertising world. women’s images are used to sell burgers, cars, lightbulbs. the overwhelming objectification and fetishisation of women’s sexuality (i.e. “pornification”) as part of our mainstream societal wallpaper is not a new phenomenon, and one i’ve written about before here, so i won’t belabour the point. it is, however, that same social context, where everything and everyone has a invisible pricetag, that makes pornography a viable option for women in the first place.

the third big contextual problem with pornography is that is exists in a society which still tolerates (and in some cases condones) sexual violence against women. this ties in with the pervasive mainstream objectification, because a side effect of the women-as-sexualised-objects culture is that it encourages the women-as-sexualised-objects-for-the-enjoyment-of-men culture. men who are taight to view women as objects lack empathy for them as humans – a detachment which can be dangerous. it creates the potential for a sense of sexual entitlement amongst men who have a propensity for violence. historically, women’s bodies have long been objects for the sexual gratification of men to use as they pleased – something which was long embedded in legal and societal mores in western countries. but even in westernised countries where modern-era women’s rights have been been rooting for 50 years, one in four women will still be victims of gender based violence in their lifetime. set against that horrifying backdrop, the pornography industry, whose model and medium is still overwhelmingly male-dominated-women-subjugated, is, at a minimum, not helpful.

so where does that leave me? as someone who staunchly supports a woman’s right to control her own body as a basic human entitlement, i end up conflicted. on the one hand, i want women to feel free to express themselves sexually, and i would never presume to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do with their body (including monetising it) – whether i agree or not. i want women to be fully empowered sexual beings. yet on the other hand, we have a society which continues to devalue women’s bodies as something to be used and abused. where women feel selling their body is the best of the bad choices. where women are still not free from sexual violence.

in an ideal world, i could support porn… but we don’t live in an ideal world. yet the pragmatist in me knows that pornography is not going anywhere any time soon. i don’t want to demonise erotica as anti-woman, and i don’t want to waste my time trying to eradicate something that will never go away. so i supposed that the best i can do in the meantime is continue to support changing the context. to continue to advocate for women’s education and employment opportunities which give them choices. to fight against the objectification and stereotypes of women which are so prevalent. to work to end sexual violence and hold perpetrators accountable.

and that suits my particular brand of feminism to a tee.

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i’ve held off on commenting on the stupak-pitts amendment to the healthcare bill which was passed by the u.s. house of representatives this week in part because i’ve found it difficult to put my feelings into words, and in part because i feel others have said it sooo much better than i.

(if you haven’t been paying particular attention to the political machinations around this issue in the states, here’s a quick recap:right before this version of the healthcare bill was to be voted on, some right-to-life republicans and democrats [oooh, i accidentally just typed demoncrats - freudian slip?] attached a last-minute amendment which forbids any health care plan, private or public, from offering abortion services if they wish to accept even one federally subsidised customer. since the overwhelming majority of new customers who will be purchasing plans are the soon-to-be-subsidised poor who currently cannot afford health care, this effectively forces providers to choose between any new business, or covering abortions, *and* prevents any poor people from accessing abortion services as part of their mainstream reproductive health coverage.)

the phrase “thrown under the bus” has been tossed around a lot, and that encompasses some of the sentiment that i feel. women were definitely run over here in the name of expediency and pragamatism – those voices that continue to try to convince us that the “compromise” was necessary to get any kind of bill passed.

but what comes closer is this: pure unadulterated ire. how dare you. how very fucking dare you. this was no compromise – a compromise is when you give away some of what you want in order to get more of what you want. the failure here is the lack of recognition that abortion rights do not fall into the “want” category. *rights* are not *wants*. they’re not pie-in-the-sky wishes – they are full-fledged-constitutionally-enshrined-and-protected rights. they are not, therefore, something which can be put into the pot as ante. they are not political capital to be traded away like marbles.

they are womens’ *rights*, damnit, and they are mine and hers and hers, and you can’t just take them away when it suits you. but when only 76 of the 435 representatives are women, i suppose it’s easy for the rest of them to forget.

abortion is the single most common surgical procedure carried out – the idea that health plans not only should not, but *must not* cover it because 64 democrats (62 of whom were men) said so is completely out of touch with reality. are these same providers banned from covering vasectomies because of the religious views of a few? i don’t even need to check to know that they’re not.

the most reprehensible bit is that it is the most vulnerable women that are subjugated to the moralistic dictates of others – poor women who cannot afford their own private-pay healthcare, who likely then cannot afford their own private-pay abortion… yet are somehow supposed to be able to afford to raise a child? the courts have said that a woman’s right to privacy entitles her to primacy over her reproduction. but 64 democrats think as long as *they* hold the purse strings, that right is superceded by their own religious beliefs, fuckyouverymuch. in other words, if you’re dependent on the government for help with healthcare, then we will tell you what their god says you can and cannot do with your uterus.

it’s hostile paternalism of the very worst kind – the kind where games are played with people’s legal rights and doctors are bent to the political will of a few, because a group of 64 representatives think they above all others, know what’s best for women living in america. dangling a woman’s right to control her own body like a playtoy on a string, just out of reach… unless you have the cash to buy an indulgence. rich women don’t have to worry about anyone else’s god but their own.

so really, “thrown under the bus” isn’t the half of it. poor women have been put back under the jackboot of the morality police, and stripped bare of their most basic civil right – the right to control over their body. i’m furious at the newest reminder that my rights and hers and hers and hers, all hang in the balance of just a few elected individuals. i’m angry that once again i’m forced to sit here and stew while hoping that someone else is brave enough to stand up for me and her and her and her. it’s a special kind of torture to have to watch your autonomy twist in the breeze. and that’s not sacrificing women voters for the sake of practicality or compromise – that’s creating a women’s-only fucking abu ghraib.

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kimberly munley is the cop who shot the suspect in the recent Fort Hood tragedy. and instead of just praising her for being a brave *cop* and doing her job in a crisis, under pressure (as she was trained for countless hours to do), the media keep using gag-worthy phrases like “tough cookie”.

really? “cookie”? how sexist can you get?!! and by focusing on her sex as if it’s somehow extraordinary that a woman should be brave, they completely undermine the heroic achievement of a lifetime. in hamhandedly trying to honour her, they completely demean her.

because when you focus on the fact that she’s female (yes, cnn, i’m pointing at you), the implication is that even in 2009, people are still surprised that women (who’ve had the exact same training as any man in that job) could enter a dangerous situation with an armed suspect, and respond exactly as she’s been drilled to: shoot to kill.

the crazed episode itself is obviously newsworthy. the fact that she is a woman is not. can you imagine an article about a man using the word “cookie”? or emphasising his “toughness”? or calling him “aggressive”? no. in fact, what they say when these kinds of articles are written about men are:

they were just “doing their job”.

yet our stereotypes about the “weak woman” are so thoroughly embedded in our social consciousness that we often don’t even realise it. i’m absolutely sure that those people who are calling her a “tough woman” don’t realise that by doing so, they’re actually perpetuating the idea that women aren’t *expected* to brave, competent, steel-nerved cops. that even when they are doing the same risky job as a man, the public don’t expect them to do the *really* risky stuff.

we see it repeated nearly daily in the media – the stories about the women soldiers, and the handwringing over the children they leave behind (as if the fathers are expendable) when they end up killed or hostage. the particular emphasis on “women and children” whenever casualties are counted -as if women and children are somehow equivalent in their innocence and helplessness, but men are supposed to die. over and over, the reification of the subtle but persistent idea that women are the “gentler” sex, that women should be protected first and foremost because they are less able to protect themselves, that women should be shielded from the brutal, nasty, dirty, risky stuff of living.

and now for something that may, at first glance, seem like a complete tangent: this is part-and-parcel of the reason i cannot stand to have a door held for me, or to have people pay for me, or to have people allow me to go first in the queue. it’s all a subtle and pervasive way of reminding me (whether consciously, intentionally, or not), that society still sees me as a less able person than a man. it’s a hard leap for many men to understand – they have often been indoctrinate to show “manners”. they don’t understand how i can see being “chivalrous” as incredibly insulting.

to which i’d say, if you truly respect me, you’d see me as your full equal, and not needing any deference or assistance *simply because i’m a woman*.

so every time a newspaper calls someone a “tough woman”, it’s a reminder that that is somehow surprising or exceptional. and every time you offer to pay for me, it’s a reminder that i’m not expected to have as much money. every time you hold a door for me, it’s a reminder that i’m expected to be weaker. in short, every time you offer me help or protection i don’t need, you remind me of the stereotypes that pervade our entire culture, and which i have to battle against every day.

and every time a woman cop or solidier is hailed as being a “tough cookie”, it’s a reminder that in spite of doing the same job as any man, in spite of being a trained, skilled, focused professional who gets paid to put her life on the line…

underneath it all, she’s still just seen as a “cookie”.

eta: even the ny times falls into the habit: would they ever describe a man as a “ball of fire”? or contrast his ” fierce love of hunting, surfing and other outdoor sports” with tending his garden and playing with his daughter? ugh.

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and in a move which will live on in ignominy, yesterday maine became the second state to rip full marraige rights out of the hands of gays and lesbians.

i don’t often agree with andrew sullivan, but he manages to nail precisely why this defeat hurts so much, why it’s so important. and why love *will* prevail in the end.

The truth about civil marriage – why it is the essential criterion for gay equality – is that it alone explodes this core marginalization and invisibility of gay people. It alone can reach those gay kids who need to know they have a future as a dignified human being with a family. It alone tells society that gay people are equal in their loves and in their hearts and in their families – not just useful in a society with a need for talented or able individuals whose private lives remain perforce sequestered from view.

This is why it remains the prize. And why our eyes must remain fixed upon it. In my view, the desperate nature of the current tactics against us, the blatant use of fear around children (which both worries parents and also stigmatizes gay people in one, deft swoop) are signs that what we are demanding truly, truly matters.

…

But guess what? Civil marriage is already here. It exists in several states already, it exists in the consciousness of an entire generation. It exists abroad in America’s closest neighbor and in America’s closest allies. The speed of the movement towards it is unprecedented in modern civil rights movements, even as it may seem crushingly slow to those who live under discrimination’s weight. These defeats – even narrow defeats as in California and Maine – should not discourage us. The desperation and fanaticism of our opponents proves they know that this is the crucial battleground. And they’re right.

But civil rights victories, the final and enduring ones, are always built on the foundations of defeats. Sometimes, the defeat of a minority’s sincere aspiration to equality helps reveal the injustice of the discrimination and the cruelty of the marginalization. Sometimes, it helps show just how poorly treated we are, and galvanizes a community to fight back more fiercely as we saw in that amazing march on DC last month. That has certainly been true of previous civil rights movements. It is just as true of ours.

So congrats, Maine Equality. You did a fine job. Congrats, HRC. You helped. No congrats to Obama who is treating this civil rights movement the way Kennedy first treated his. But we don’t need Obama.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And we will win in due course, with a good spirit and keen arguments, and with passion and conviction in our hearts. We will win.

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remember that episode of “friends” where monica’s credit card is stolen by a bon vivant, and used for all sorts of fun things?

[Monica is examining her bill. Rachel emerges from her room]

Rachel: Oh, Monica. You are not still going over that thing.

Monica: This woman’s living my life.

Rachel: What?

Monica: She’s living my life, and she’s doing it better than me! Look at this, look. She buys tickets for plays that I wanna see. She, she buys clothes from stores that I’m intimidated by the sales people. She spent three hundred dollars on art supplies.

Rachel: You’re not an artist.

Monica: Yeah, well I might be if I had the supplies! I mean, I could do all this stuff. Only I don’t.

Rachel: Oh, Monica, c’mon, you do cool things.

Monica: Oh really? Okay, let’s compare, shall we.

Rachel: [Yawning] Oh, it’s so late for ‘Shall we’…

Monica: Do I go horseback riding in the park? Do I take classes at the New School?

Rachel: [Yawning] Nooo…

Monica: This is so unfair! She’s got everything I want, and she doesn’t have my mother.

yeah. so what happens when someone clones my debit card? they spend £900 on purchases at a garden centre and driving lessons.

what does that say about my life?

been caught stealing – jane’s addiction

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remember a few months ago when i raged about the latest odious invasion of the big brother police state? police files on people who have no criminal convictions but are seen as “potential troublemakers” because they show up at “too many” political demonstrations?

well the “spotter cards” have made it into the public domain this week.

the police say:

“This is an appropriate tactic used by police to help them identify people at specific events … who may instigate offences or disorder.”

which, considering that these people have no official offenses, seems to be a conclusion based on nothing more than their imagination.

but call them “domestic extremists” and suddenly it all sounds a little more credible, doesn’t it? certainly well-worth £9 million. never mind it has no legal basis in definition or fact.

so they take your photo at a public and peaceful protest and log it in a giant database. oh, and think those speed cameras are innocuous? they track your car registration too.

the guardian has done a great series featuring interviews with subjects of the “spotter cards” here.

it’s oppression of free speech and free assembly through bully tactics… you might also recognise it as a key hallmark of those harsh dictatorships around the world which we decry. you may think that a facile comparison, but if you’re too intimidated by the police to exercise your right to protest in the first place, isn’t the chilling effect just the same as those who would intimidate and suppress opposition through brute force?

the information commissioners say:

“We do have genuine concerns about the ever increasing amounts of information that law enforcement bodies are retaining. Organisations must only collect people’s personal information for a proper purpose. We will need to talk to Acpo to understand why they consider it is necessary to hold lawful protesters’ details in this way, before considering whether this meets the terms of the Data Protection Act.”[...]“Individuals have the right to request information that is held about them and can challenge organisations about whether, and for how long, the data should be retained.”

he misses the point entirely: trying to use the data protection act to challenge an infringement of basic civil liberties is like trying to put out a forest fire with a waterpistol. and, i would hasten to point out, is only useful if you happen to know you’re on a super-secret database *in the first place*.

a society without the right to peaceful protest and civil disobedience is a society where all our rights hang in the balance. a society without the notion of “innocence before guilt” is a society where the laws and judicial system have lost their footing. without the means for dissent, or the ability to demonstrably demand change from our government, we are all captive – whether we’ve been caught on police camera or not.

updated: you can follow the excellent guardian series on surveillance and civil liberties here.

requiem for dissent – bad religion

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in what has now become international news, a louisiana justice of the peace denied an interracial couple a marriage license:

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.

“I try to treat everyone equally,” he said.

my first husband was (is) black – we were together for nearly 10 years and never faced any real hostility. part of that was living in urban areas where interracial relationships are much more commonly visible. part of that was luck. part of that was probably choosing not to see certain things. but i know, and have always known, this kind of bigotry existed.

everyone is all up in arms. i feel like i should have something to say about this – shock! outrage! condemnation!

the fact is, i feel none of those things. the world is crawling with prejudiced people – we all see them, we just never confront most of them. they keep their voices low, or preface their statements with, “i’m not a racist, but…” they rarely ever get called to account because, let’s face it, who’s up for the challenge of taking on that kind of argument? few people ever say anything in the face of racism – it’s easier to let it slide.

admit it – you’ve sidestepped racism before. i have too. like the pile on the sidewalk, we walk on and pretend it wasn’t there. life is sometimes easier that way.

so no, i’m not surprised that in this day and age, someone sees fit to say the kinds of things this man has said. he’s admitted to blatantly turning down interracial couples many times before – he’s been a justice of the peace for 34 years! how many colleagues knew about his practices or views? how many friends or family?

and who ever called him on it before? no one, that’s who.

so when the aclu calls it “astonishing” that this would happen in 2009, i can’t agree. i’m not astonished in the slightest.

as long as well all continue to turn a blind eye, this kind of thing will continue to happen. that’s just the truth of human nature.

and that doesn’t shock me or enrage me – it just saddens me a little.

until i sidestep, and move on. like it wasn’t even there.

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barbara ellen gets it spot on when she says katie price is like other women who’ve been raped who are afraid they won’t be believed.

If even the revelation that she’d been raped couldn’t do it, one wonders if there is any situation that could lead to people feeling sympathy for Katie Price?

Or is the mood against her so far gone that a plane could fall out of the sky, right on top of her head, and there would still be members of the British media and public muttering: “Well, she deserved it, didn’t she? Publicity-seeking trollop. Look at how she treated Peter Andre!”

Something has to explain the bizarre attitude of some parts of the media regarding Price’s account of being assaulted. Always careful to toss in a caveat (”Anyone who’s been raped deserves sympathy”), too often this would segue into a (surely irrelevant?) diatribe about Price’s character and behaviour, followed by baiting over her refusal to involve the police. Irresponsible, if not downright suspicious, seemed to run the rationale.

Well, not really. If anything, with her fear of involving the police and the courts, Price was behaving like a typical rape victim.

Doesn’t this, the omnipresent culture of automatic disbelief around sexual assault, serve to highlight why Price, and many other victims of rape, are so loath to come forward? Indeed, doesn’t Price’s obvious lack of faith in the legal system mirror the torment of many other rape victims, ordinary women, who fear they have little chance of being believed?

the comments beneath the article only serve to illustrate the point: that we seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to judge the veracity of a woman’s rape allegation based on her dress/comportment/interaction with the media.

it’s the same sort of disgusting stuff which gets dragged into the courts in an attempt to discredit the victim – a variation of the tired old chestnut of “she deserved it”. no wonder she doesn’t feel any desire to prosecute – the public is doing the defendant’s job for them by spit-roasting her at every turn.

the idea that her looks/attitudes/actions have anything to do with “context” in which we should judge her allegation is ridiculous. after all, where’s the “context” for the rapist and his crime?!

once again we focus on the woman, rather than the perpetrator. the anger and disdain is aimed squarely at her instead of the criminal, and we make judgements about her character and her status as a victim based on how likeable she is. somehow it’s her burden to prove to the public that she really was violated, and there’s more outrage about her status in the gossip mags than there is about the fact that there’s a rapist walking around out there.

millions of women do not report rapes to the police. nor do they have to (though i wish they would). they do not do so precisely because they are afraid of the kind of condemnation on full display for Katie Price. the court of public opinion on rape is so often crueler for the woman than the perpetrator. no one seems in the slightest bit bothered that the social environment all but ensures that Katie Price will not believed and that a criminal is possibly going free – they’re too busy reviling her because they don’t like the fact that she makes money by blatantly using her sexuality and from doing interviews with OK! magazine.

the vitriol is, quite frankly, repugnant and depressing. that women who are raped (whether famous, infamous, sexually explicit, or “nice”) still have to overcome the immediate knee-jerk cynicism and critique of their personality, dress, activities, drinking habits, etc. in order to be taken seriously is a gross failing of our society. until we conquer those prevailing attitudes, how can we expect a rape victim to take them on?

________________________________

PSA: off for another week of holiday, see you when i’m back

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I could write about September 11th, but I don’t want to.

what I want to write about instead, is the kind of day today might have been. a day without the memorial services and moments of silence. a day without the flags and yellow ribbon stickers and “support our troops” signs draped off overpasses. a day without the gloom and grey weather that matches the sombre mood. a day without two wars being fought in foreign lands, and a more nebulous war of ideologies.

I want to write of a day like September 10th 2001. an ordinary day, so unremarkable that i couldnt tell you where i was or what i did, never mind recount every vivid emotion and detail. a day unencumbered by grief and missing. I want to write of a time of peace and security that no longer exists, except in the memory of anyone over the age of 8.

I want to write of what once was, and what will never be again. a nation without scar, a day without fear.

I want to write it and have it be true.

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i watched caster semenya blow away the competition in the 800 metre world championships last night.

and then i watched the race commentators and the iaaf blow her personal dignity out of the water.

since bursting onto the scene last month, there has apparently been quiet speculation about semenya’s gender.  last night that quiet speculation became widespread international rumourmongering that semenya was one of a growing number of known intersex or transgendered atheletes.

gender verification has been carried out in international sport since the 1930s.  from its first crude beginnings, it has, fortunately become much more sophisticated (by comparison) – taking into account physiology, genetics, hormones and psychology.  it has also become much more socially and politically sensitive – transgendered individuals are allowed to compete in their newly-identified gender after a period of two years, and intersex individuals are also allowed to compete.

what hasn’t apparently become more sophisticated or sensitive is the media.  the fact that semenya has spent her whole life as a woman and identifies as a woman, has now been openly called into question, in cruel fashion – it seems as if reporters around the world now feel it is perfectly fair game to speculate on the state of this woman’s genitals.  it’s perfectly okay to discuss in print whether or not this woman “qualifies” as a woman.

for better or for worse, we live in a world where the vast majority of people line up nicely on either side of (what we like to imagine as the neatly binary) “man” “woman” divide.  by default, then, anyone who falls in between those two descriptive categories, is seen by society as unusual.  that doesn’t, however, mean we should allow people to treat them like freak shows.  and surely an organisation as familiar with this territory as the iaaf, could do much to pave the way in this area – rather than singling out those athletes people are whispering about behind their backs, why not establish baseline regulation and guidance for all athletes competing at an international level? determine people’s eligibility for competition before, rather than after? take measures to qualify all athletes, rather than just the gender-bending few?  gender testing was initially done away with in the late 90s, specifically because it is invasive and provides no clear answers.  so is that proposal an easy, cheap, or less controversial way to do it?  of course not – but in the current climate, it’s the only *fair* one.  after all, if you’re going to subject some people to humiliating and invasive screening, there’s no reason the same standards shouldn’t either be applied to all athletes across the board, or be ruled out entirely.  i can’t see anyway around it: either you err on the side of qualifying all, or you decide you will qualify none.  the iaaf said they wanted to deal with this matter “discreetly” – at which they failed spectacularly, with earth-shattering consequences for the woman in question.  so rather than discriminatorily pulling a select few behind the curtain based on scepticism and nasty mutterings, they could seek to implement a proportional and sensitive framework for decision-making before the fact, that applies to all equally, and does away with the tabloid-type talk and treatment of those athletes that “aren’t pretty”, (as a bbc commentator so disgustingly described semenya).

otherwise, (and this is the question which must be answered), why do it at all?  to strip those who don’t “qualify” as women/men of their achievements?  it may seem crude and wildly impractical to suggest that all athletes undergo some kind of process before they compete, but how much more barbaric is it to publically strip-search those individuals like semenya? because that’s what this amounts to.

this is an issue which will only become more common – as it should.  people of all genders and genetics must be allowed to compete in all arenas of athletics and daily life.  we need to identify a way forward for dealing with identity which is not based on “outing” the exceptions to the rule.

last night caster semenya managed to put the rumour and sensationalism behind her… and just be sensational.  it’s a shame the media couldn’t see past her gender, and view her for the true woman she showed herself to be.

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i’ve mentioned here before numerous times that i spent a good part of the academic year 1990 – 1991 contemplating throwing myself out a high window. and while i would never, ever want anyone to experience those horrific depths of despair, the one positive thing that period in my life did do for me, was completely inure me to any fear of death. when you spend day in and day out thinking about death, and planning for death, and imagining what it would be like to die, death loses any sense of mystery or taboo. you feel as if you know it intimately, having slept cheek-by-jowl with it for so long. it takes on the much more pragmatic role of something you have to eventually get around to preparing for. like taxes. or at least, it did for me.

which is not to say, of course, that that means i have any idea what it’s like to actually die. i may, in fact, be piss-my-pants terrified when actually faced with impending death – i have no idea, and am not so presumptuous as to believe i could possibly predict my reaction. i’d like to believe i’ll be very calm and graceful and accepting when my time comes, but may very well, in fact, kick and scream and tantrum like a toddler who won’t let go of his toy.

we don’t talk about death much in either the anglo or american cultures, though. i know a few things about what people in my immediate family want for their arrangements after they die, but not a whole lot about what they think it is like to die. if they’re scared of death. most of us don’t talk about death precisely because we are scared of death. death being that greatest of unknowns, and we fear the unknown. we don’t like to look too closely at the boogeyman in the corner. consequently, i don’t know if many of my friends and family believe in an afterlife, or souls, or reincarnation, or just dust. me? i’m a duster. i think when you’re gone, poof, that’s it. i’d *like* to believe in the recycling of a universal life force… but in reality, i think it’s lights out, game over. which is kind of harsh i guess, but i just don’t think human life is in and of itself, terribly special or precious, or worthy of some kind of karmic preservation after death. i don’t think plants or ants or fish have some kind of heavenly arrangements – why would humans?

which for me, is all the more reason to make the most of our time here whilst we walk amongst the living. to try to take every moment we have available to us and make the most of it. to *live* goddamn it, and to live by no half-measures.

why bring up all of this? well because i fervently and outspokenly believe that every person has the right to control the manner of their death. there have been a few court cases in the news of late, which underscore this point – an australian quadriplegic recently won the right to starve himself to death, and a british woman won her case to have the assisted suicide law reviewed. unfortunately in these instances, neither of these cases is a clear victory: the caretakers of the australian man will simply not be prosecuted for obeying his wishes, while the british woman will find out if her husband will be prosecuted for accompanying her to a swiss right-to-die clinic. but they are important steps in fighting for a growing recognition that part of living well, is dying well.

we often have very little control over what happens to us in life – call it fate, or god’s will, or random chance. in reality, as much as we like to believe we steer our own course, there is only one thing that we can predict with absolute certainty: we will all die. we are all progressing towards that finite moment in time when we will cease to exist. and many of us will die without control over that last moment – it will come at an unexpected time or place not of our own choosing, and not of our own volition. it is only natural, only *human*, therefore, that those who are able to see their own death on the horizon, can and do choose to exert some control over that final event.

to bestow a person’s last moments as a living being on this earth with as much dignity and respect as we can muster…isn’t that the kind of honor everyone deserves?

and yet, we as a society, allow our own multitude of fears around infirmity, death and dying, to pervade our culture and be instituted in law. we tell people that it’s not okay to plan for death, to think about things like pulling the plug, to consider issues around quality of life and what makes it worth going on. it’s almost as if we fear that someone else’s decision that their life is no longer worth clinging to, somehow devalues our own. we fear going gentle into that good night, and so we fight, tooth and nail, to ensure that our rules and our medicine and our cultural beliefs rage, rage against the dying of the light.

but we do so, at the expense of other’s humanity. we do so at the expense of being humane. people are forced to endure unimaginable suffering, unable to exert their last bit of will. family forced to suffer along with them. because we are afraid to confront our own deaths, we are afraid to confront theirs – if we could, we could perhaps begin to imagine ourselves in their shoes, and empathise.

empathy takes courage – a courage it seems we just don’t have yet as a society. we look away from those who wish to die, who discard their last scraps of privacy and place themselves front and centre, demanding that we see. we look away and pretend that it won’t be us.

but it will. one day, it will. we will all surely die. we can only hope that as we prepare to draw our own last breaths, that we are shown the same reverence and kindness that we should have shown to others.

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the lies they’re slanging around in the u.s. about healthcare, have now reached my shores.  i said the other day that i wouldn’t dignify the absurdity with a response, but now people with absolutely *no* experience of what they’re talking about, are slagging off my nhs.

that’s right, my nhs. the system i have, in the past 6 years, come to regard as quite precious to me.

in case anyone stateside is looking for some truth, here it is:

in this country, we view basic healthcare is a *fundamental human right*.  that means it is free at point of service to everyone, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, weight, sexuality, pre-existing condition, income level, employment status, maternity status, mental status, or disability. that means when i go to the doctor, i never once have to take out my wallet. not once.  that means i don’t have to worry about eligibility periods, or COBRA payments, or copays, or excluded conditions, or health savings funds, or coverage levels, or HMOs, or PPOs, or staying in-network, or annual deductibles, or employer contributions, or payment plans, or contract clauses, or invoices.

i simply go see my doctor, and they treat me.

it’s not perfect – in fact, far from it.  but it’s still a damn sight better than any system currently in place in the u.s.

oh, and if i don’t like it? i can go private.

but don’t take my word for it.  check out the facts for yourself here and here.

i’m tempted to say that if people are stupid enough to buy into the lies and fearmongering, they’ll get the system they deserve…  but they won’t.  because what everyone actually deserves is universal healthcare.

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when i was back in boston a few weeks ago, i spent a couple days hanging out at my brother’s house.  my brother has one of those giant fuck-off plasma screen televisions, and every available cable channel known to man.  and as i spent some time one morning flicking through news station after news station, with screaming headlines in primary colours and slick plastic talking heads, i was overwhelmed with a single reflexive reaction: revulsion.

and so i turned it off, and walked away.  probably one of the only times i ever have.

confusing too, given my former status as a political junkie, but i seem to have lost my appetite for it.  i’ve known, intellectually, how the politrix of media plays out – the mass marketing of fear and hype, preying upon the simple desires of the public to have complex, grey issues distilled down into an easily digestible message.  but for the first time, instead of railing against it, i’m content to walk away.

i’m not interested in playing out my part in the artificial drama any more.  i’m not willing to allow myself to be worked up into a frenzy, or polarised, or take up arms for my side. because even battering against the facile stereotypes and misinformation, feels like playing into their hands.

these well-worn tropes only work when they can define themselves in opposition to something.  when people act in defiance against something.  more and more, it seems to me that the intentional devisiveness taking place in america only serves to undermine *everyone’s* best interests.

and so while i read the ridiculous headlines about “death panels” and socialism (as if!) and nazis in relation to the healthcare debate, i no longer feel the need to weigh in.  i’m happy to nod along with others, but  the level of invective being slung around has reached absurd heights.

really? nazis? joker satire? over *healthcare*?  it’s reductio ad absurdum spun out of control – it all seems like a preposterous joke, and i can’t relate in the least.

so if you’re wondering where my usual ire has been these days, with so much to rant and rage about, there’s your answer.

i just can’t.  i can’t dignify this kind of rhetoric with a response.

which is a shame really.  not for me – but for all those out there who invest immense amounts of time and energy is a war which cannot be won.  because like all wargames, there is only a zero sum outcome in which we *all* lose out.

updated: just in case, like me, you need a bit of humour to see you through, check it: jon stewart v. town hall crazies and death panels

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wanted to draw attention to a fantastic article on the challenges of advancing women’s rights globally, and what a staunch and prominent feminist like hillary clinton as secretary of state brings to the table.  a truly worthwhile read.

Hillary Clinton is not our first female secretary of state, but she is our first explicitly feminist one. She’s been an iconic figure in the movement for women’s rights globally ever since she gave her historic 1995 speech at the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing. Denouncing a litany of the abuses to which women worldwide are subject, the then-first lady declared, “Women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.” The New York Times said it “may have been her finest moment in public life.”

Clinton’s confirmation hearings offered a clear sign that she intended to prioritize women’s issues. “If half the world’s population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal, and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity is in serious jeopardy,” she said. “The United States must be an unequivocal and unwavering voice in support of women’s rights in every country on every continent.”

Five months into her tenure, we’re beginning to see what that vision looks like in practice.

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this kind of thing makes me so angry: tories think they should impose a 3 month “cooling off” period before people can file for divorce.

it just demonstrates and reinforces the same idiotic stereotypes that so many conservatives have – as if people take an irresposible, cavalier attitude towards ending a marriage, or that it’s too easy for people to make life-changing decisions.  a distorted perception that bears absolutely not resemblance to the truth of most any divorced person i know.

my divorce was amicable, quickly resolved, and without a doubt, the right decision, arrived at after several years of counselling – and it was still the worst experience of my life.  the idea that some stuffed-shirt could or should tell me that i need an additional 3 months to “cool off” is beyond insulting.  i don’t know anyone who ever comes to a decision to divorce as a result of some sort of impetutous, overheated whim.  no one takes the decision to dissolve their life with their spouse lightly.  no one.  deciding to divorce is a painful and heavy moment.  so who are these people that need to “cool off” to make sure they’re doing what

divorce in the u.k. is already more difficult than in many places:

- you cannot divorce until you’ve been married for a full year
- there is no “no fault” divorce
- unless you accuse your spouse of adultery or unreasonable behaviour, you have to be separated for 2 years first
- even if your spouse has left you, you have to wait two years to be divorced

the idea that adding another 3 months to an already emotionally wrought and drawn-out process will somehow dissuade people from frivolously divorcing is, frankly, insulting.  and what about people who’ve been psychologically or physically abused? should they be forced to stay married for an additional 3 months to salve the conscience of a group of politicians?

the clue to the kind of thinking that prompted the report can be found at the end of the article:

Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC that compared to their grandparents, young people had “very high” expectations of marriage “far beyond actually what it will deliver”.

He added: “It’s ironic really, given the nature of family breakdown around them, they have this incredibly high expectation of it.

“And so the idea of compromise from day one, two living as cheaply as one, seems to have disappeared.

“You do not need a £20,000 themed wedding to be a happily-married couple.”

ah, that’s it – today’s young generation of selfish, spendthrift couples who need a lesson from their elders. oh, well that’s okay then!

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a few years ago, we bought a secondhand television (£50).  we buy a monthly cable package (£40).  we pay for our electricity quarterly (£100).

all the ingredients you need for watching television, yes?

oh no, not so fast.  here in britain, if you wish to *use* the television, electricity, and cable you’ve already paid for, you need to pay the government an additional £142.50.  per year.

see, the uk has this public commodity called the bbc.  it’s essentially the same thing as pbs back in the states – publicly subsidised media which is supposed to provide independent, impartial and educational media to the masses.  now, leaving aside the matter of bias (because it’s simply not possible for media to be entirely free of bias, and the bbc is no exception), the bbc is funded by this “television license”, which is collected annually from every household which owns a functioning television.  this pays for 8 national television channels, 10 radio stations, the online website, and some regional/local media. (other services are paid for through other funding streams).

lots of people argue that they don’t use any of the bbc services, therefore should not have to pay the tv licensing fee.  personally, i have no problem with paying for public services i don’t use – i do it all the time, in fact.  i pay for roadworks when i don’t drive, education when i have no kids, libraries which i don’t visit, etc.  i believe these things serve the greater public good, and i’m happy to have money withheld from my paycheque to contribute.

what i have a problem with, is the notion that this television licensing fee is not a flat tax.  because while it may have begun in 1946, days when few people owned a television, and the bbc was *the* only broadcaster, (and therefore only taxed those people who actually used the service is supported), in 2009, the idea of television as a luxury which is taxed only for the 98% of families who own one, is just dumb. even sillier, it’s not the *television itself*, or even the actual service (e.g. transmission), but the *reception* of the service, which is taxed.

i don’t have to buy an annual water license for receiving my water, or electrical license for allowing current into my home.  yet every year, i have to pay for allowing television airwaves into my living room.

furthermore, the method of collection is so blatantly inefficient as to be laughable.  the idea that you have to renew your license each year, means that there is an amazing breadth of scope for omission/evasion.  if they don’t have you on their database as having a valid license, they first send you a standard warning letter.  more than 20 million warning letters are issued each year.  if that fails to produce the desired response, the tv licensing people come personally knocking at your door, and try to get you to allow them into your home.  they have “tv detector vans”, which can tell if you have a television operating in your household.   they make around 3.5 million personal visits each year.  they threaten prosecution, tell you that you’ll be “cautioned and interviewed”, and could be subject to £1000 fine.

according to their 2009 report, the bbc spends they spent 4% of all revenue from the television tax on collection and enforcement.  £181 million each year is lost through evasion, about 5% are evaders.  the cost of collection is £122 million, of which, £73.4 million is spent on direct collection and enforcement.  of the 3.5 million visits, 603,000 end up as “sales” (i.e. people purchasing a license), which roughly adds up to income of £84.4 million pounds.  £20 million was garnered in prosecution fines.

in other words: they spend £73.4 million a year to collect £84.4 million pounds, plus an additional £20 million from people they prosecute (minus prosecution costs, natch, which they’ve neglected to specify in their report), and continue to lose £181 million per year.

doesn’t sound terribly efficient to me.

if all this rigamarole sounds antiquated, bizarre and farcical, it’s because it is.  for fuck’s sake.  stop the intimidating and inefficient harassment campaign.  collect the television tax like every other tax applying to household utilities – either at the point of service (add an additional sales tax to cable, satellite and internet services), or as paycheque withholding (like we pay for almost all other publicly subsidised infrastructure and services).  easy peasy – no opportunity for evasion, no need for enforcement, no adversarial intimidation.

good god, even traffic enforcement is more advanced than the tv licensing regulation!  why are they still stuck in an era where people require little pieces of paper that prove they’re entitled to operate a television?  we no longer live in 1946.  the bbc need to stop pretending that we do.

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i’ve been following the happenings in iran very closely over the last few days, amazed at the incredible scenes of both violence and courage.  i’ve been keeping up with all this via youtube video and blogs and some mainstream reporting, but most obsessively via twitter.

lots of people have derided twitter, and lots of people still don’t get it, but for the people of iran today, it is the single most powerful tool they have in their struggle.

there is something about the immediacy and connectivity of the medium which simply cannot be brushed off.  i first became aware of it during earth hour (#earthhour), when watching people send picture after picture of darkened cities in domino fashion across the time zones of the globe, was simply mesmerising.  it was brought home to me even more so during the aftermath of dr. tiller’s murder, when it was personally comforting to see thousands of people mourning together, and honouring him in ways big and small (#tiller).  during the european elections, as the results rolled in late into the night and i was alone in my lounge with my outrage over the bnp,  there were others on the other end of the network, screaming along with me in unison (#notinmyname). and when the california supreme court upheld proposition 8, there was a virtual outpouring of support for those left disenfranchised by the ruling (#civilrightsfail).

those were all fascinating and powerful moments, but they’ve been thoroughly eclipsed by the aftermath of the iran election (#iranelection).

and in these past few days, when the state-ruled media has been trying so desperately to squash the dangerous truth of what’s happening on the streets of iran, when the reporters are being arrested, when protesters are being beaten and shot, when the hundreds of thousands are turning out in stark and silent declaration, when texting and internet coverage has all but been banned… it is twitter that they are turning to.  what used to happen largely unseen behind the iron curtains of oppression, is now happening in front of the whole world.  and the whole world can let them know they are watching, witnessing, expressing solidarity, carrying their voices and pictures into the light of day. it is an amazing and sobering phenomenom to behold.  reading the tweets of people who are *there* hearing the gunshots, or trying to locate their families, or gathering in the streets… there is no filter, no cautionary analysis, no measured response.  there is only anger and fear and pain, bleeding raw across the screen.

go. see for yourself. if you didn’t get twitter before, you will now.

(eta: last night the *state department* asked twitter to delay its scheduled downtime maintenance.)

things may or may not change in iran, for better or for worse – but if they do, i’ll be watching history happen.

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8 years living in nyc. number of subway strikes during my residency? zero

21 years living in boston. number of subway strikes? zero

2 years living in montreal. number of subway strikes? zero.

6 years living in london. number of tube strikes? not counting the one that began today and runs to thursday? i seriously can’t even remember, what with the constant strike threats and partial strikes and strike balloting and full-scale strikes and narrowly averted strikes… think i’m exaggerating?  well let’s just see…

since march 2003:

what a fucking joke.

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it’s official.  the nazis bnp have won two seats on the european parliament.

jonno refuses to share my outrage and indignation. “it’s only two seats. this is a democracy.”

don’t forget: the original nazis were democratically elected too. this is the same party that wants both me and you out of the country as immigrants. the same party that calls for “voluntary repatriation” of non-whites.

this is not democracy. this is fucking repugnant. this is voting from a place of hatred and fear. has history taught us nothing about the pitfalls of that? the bnp are fascist, racist, nazi sympathisers. we’re talking people who burned synagogues, and participated in the national front. the news keeps calling them the “far right”. calling the bnp the far right is like calling the titanic a naval mishap.

dress it up any way you want – we’ve sent nazis to represent us in the european parliament.

and i, for one, won’t stop being fucking disgusted, fucking outraged, screaming at people to wake the fuck up.

i’m getting the fuck outta here.

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