The DISLIKE button

Content warning: features explicit naming of violent misogyny and rape culture.

Anyone who's spent any time on Facebook knows it's both a great tool for organising and home to revolting displays of rape culture, racism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, disability hate speech....you name the kind of discrimination, Facebook will have it.

Women, Action and Media, the Everyday Sexism Project and author Soraya Chemaly led a coalition which took this on last week, specifically around violence against women and girls, in an open letter to Facebook which encouraged advertisers to pull their content.

Specifically, we are referring to groups, pages and images that explicitly condone or encourage rape or domestic violence or suggest that they are something to laugh or boast about. Pages currently appearing on Facebook include Fly Kicking Sluts in the Uterus, Kicking your Girlfriend in the Fanny because she won’t make you a Sandwich, Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs, Raping your Girlfriend and many, many more.  Images appearing on Facebook include photographs of women beaten, bruised, tied up, drugged, and bleeding, with captions such as “This bitch didn’t know when to shut up” and “Next time don’t get pregnant."

Within a week, 15 companies had taken up the challenge and fled Facebook. Now Facebook has responded in what looks like a considerable shift from their earlier stance:

In recent days, it has become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate. In some cases, content is not being removed as quickly as we want.  In other cases, content that should be removed has not been or has been evaluated using outdated criteria. We have been working over the past several months to improve our systems to respond to reports of violations, but the guidelines used by these systems have failed to capture all the content that violates our standards. We need to do better – and we will.

The proof will be, as always, in the implementation.  Facebook seem to be saying they will privilege engaging with the large feminist groups in the US around this, which makes me wonder about gender-based hate coming out of other places.  Of course it's all online, but it seems to me that we need good process around reporting and removing any kind of gender-based hate (and other kinds of oppressive hate) for anyone who wants to raise concerns.

Nonetheless, it's a huge coup from the groups involved, and I'd personally love not to feel physically sick at some of the revolting rape culture up on Facebook.  

LIKE.

Killing us softly, so softly

Suicide.  Frightening, complex, social phenomena which merits sound, evidence based, community responses.

So when this Government announces they have a new plan, it should be great news.  The Plan aims to:

• address the impact of suicide on families, whānau and communities by strengthening support for family, whānau and communities
• build the evidence base, specifically around what works for Māori and Pasifika
• extend existing services, specifically addressing geographical gaps in the coverage of services
• strengthen suicide prevention targeted to high risk populations who are in contact with agencies.

The problem is, every single one of those aims is applicable to the queer* community, and we are not mentioned once.

We are not mentioned once, even though just last year as part of the last suicide prevention plan, the Ministry of Health released a needs assessment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, to provide the Ministry with "information to develop an appropriate policy and funding framework" for mental health promotion. 


Queer* people are much more prone to mental health struggles, much more likely to self-harm, and much more likely to try to or actually kill ourselves.  The reasons are simple - homophobia, biphobia and transphobia teach us to hate ourselves, and the world around us tells us how we live and love is not ok.  Or, as the policy wonks put it:

"It is readily acknowledged in the literature that the mental health of GLBT people is impacted by repeated exposure to a wide range of psychosocial stressors associated with anti-GLBT attitudes and behaviours, which include stigmatisation, discrimination and violence."

Yet we are not mentioned once in the brand spanking new Suicide Prevention Plan.

Young people are mentioned - but not same or both-sex attracted young people, half of whom self-harm, and a fifth of whom will try to kill themselves. 

Māori and Pasifika are mentioned - but not takataapui or fa'afafine.

Addressing gaps is mentioned - but not the lack of queer* support groups, queer* specific mental health services, or training for generic mental health services in the needs of queer* people.  Not the lack of research into the needs of trans* folk, even though international research points to terrifyingly high rates of suicidality which surely merit trans* specific responses.

This silencing, this invisibilisation will literally kill us.  This tangible example of heterosexism and cisgender normativity will literally kill us.  I'm not sure what more there is to say. 

Mother and Baby Support: A Long Time Coming

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the North Island is to get a unit geared toward helping new mothers who face post-natal depression or distress.

Health Minister Tony Ryall announced today an $18.2 million commitment to providing both acute in-patient beds as well as residential beds where the mother and baby can remain together, and Martin Johnston in the Herald did some good reporting on the news in today’s paper.

Lynda Williams, the coordinator of the Maternity Services Consumer Council, told me this commitment is something she and myriad consumer, health and even official organisations have been championing for many many years. She heartily welcomed the news, with a caution: “It’s not enough,” she said, “but let’s start with what we’ve been waiting 20 years for.” Williams emphasises that the new services must be set up in consultation with the consumer groups that have been fighting for it. “We have some clear ideas about how this needs to be done. Preferably it would be better to have a stand-alone unit with other support groups and services around it.”

Despite numerous well-attended meetings, support from experts, lobbying and campaigning, she suspects a crucial impetus for the move were the reports of the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committees, which in recent years have shown suicide to be the No. 1 cause of maternal death in New Zealand.

As a (this links to a PDF) recent article in O & G Magazine (the magazine of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) points out, these maternal reviews were only reinstated six years ago, and they show that in the five years to 2010, there were 57 maternal deaths, with the three leading causes listed as suicide (13), pre-existing medical condition (11) and amniotic fluid embolism (9).

The figures and the O&G article also show that overall Māori and Pacific mothers are more likely than NZ European mothers to die in pregnancy or in the first six weeks postpartum. 

The O&G piece notes that there were four deaths by suicide not included in the review figures because they took place more than 42 days (the cut-off to be counted) – though less than a year – after the women gave birth. Those 13 maternal deaths by suicide that were counted break down a bit further like this: 7 occurred during pregnancy and 6 postpartum or post-termination of pregnancy. (O&G reported that: "Eleven of the 13 deaths from suicide were by violent means.")

As well as the proposed new and much-needed mother and baby services for the North Island (there’s already a unit in the South Island), the figures clearly point to the need for support and options for all aspects of reproductive and maternal health care.

Adult disabled children

Very quick post - I just want to pick up on something around the payments (or lack thereof, in many cases) to family-member carers of disabled people. One of many reasons the result is problematic is that it will pay parents but not a spouse or partner.

This is something that will disproportionately affect queer people, who are more likely to have no or a problematic relationship with their family of origin, who may well consider their partner their only family member. One of the more over-looked reasons for supporting this case was that by making multiple support options more equal, there would be less pressure to remain dependent on an abusive relationship or, hey, not feel obliged to live with parents your entire life for similar reasons to those most people don't, or who want a close relationship that is not based on "care".

But there's also a lot of infantilisation going on. Take the first sentence of this article: "A $92 million fund to pay parents who look after their adult disabled children has been revealed by the Government". Children. There was no reason for that word there - even with the decision as it is: "...to pay for care provided by the parents of adult disabled people..." would work just fine. But these parameters invite such wording; and it plays into the idea of disabled people as overgrown children, incapable of making their own decisions*, or having their own preferences about who they live with and who they depend on. And if that preference - or the best reasonable option - is parents, then it should be treated as such, not as the assumed norm.


*I think children are often more capable than we give credit for, but that's another post for another day.

Waiting in Christchurch

Originally posted at The Daily Blog

On Saturday I took a good friend to Greenlane Hospital for some tests. Nothing major, no drama, she just needed someone to be able to drive her home again as she wouldn’t be able to see properly afterwards for a few hours. It was nice to be able to catch-up between the tests and in the car, as we are both busy people and don’t get to talk much. I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms 1, 3 and 6.

While I sat, and waited, I couldn’t help but think of Christchurch.

I’m not particularly familiar with Christchurch – I’d visited three times before the earthquakes, and not stayed long or seen much on any of those occasions. My abiding impressions from then was that the Garden City was flat, Pakeha, a bit chilly, and well-treed. There was a modest river running through it.

Two weekends ago I returned to Christchurch for a family wedding on the western outskirts of the city. I stayed close to Hagley Park, and spent some time in the area around the Re:Start mall. It’s good to see that well off Christchurchians can buy Trelise Cooper and designer jewellery, there or at Ballantynes, and I guess there is a morale boosting factor to having those things open, but I couldn’t help wondering where the Glassons was. Is the rebuild just for those with the money to stay and make themselves comfortable or will it really cater for those who are still there because they can’t afford to move away?

I could not believe how little has been rebuilt, and how little has been demolished too. Buildings that are fenced off, standing seemingly as they were when the red zone was closed to my unpracticed eye, and with no indication of anything changing any time soon. Rubble, gravel (which is really just smaller rubble), and the forlorn sound of pointless pedestrian crossings near the wreck of the Cathedral. I remember Christchurch as being green, before, but now it all seems grey.

Efforts had clearly been made to brighten things up. We visited the Pallet Pavillion, played Gap Golf, saw some pretty cool and thought-provoking public art. But the greyness and the gravel overwhelmed it all. We didn’t have an opportunity to go into the east.

The sense of waiting was palpable. Waiting for someone to make a move, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the new normal to really begin, because the greyness isn’t enough. Community-led efforts, like Gap Filler, were noticeable and wonderful, but it’s not enough. Tagging was rife, and not just in the more desolate areas I went through. A sure sign that there are lots of young people with not much to do, and that “nice-to-haves” like graffiti eradication have had to go by the by.

Unlike the rooms at Greenlane, where those patiently waiting were quietly seen and free to go home again, I had no sense that there was anyone taking responsibility for moving things along.

And there should be. Central government and local government have roles, huge ones. The fact that there are people living in caravans and using portaloos two years later is unacceptable. This is the whole point of politicians (well one of them); when the chips are down we get things sorted so people have their basic necessities and we use the bulk and resources of the state, or the council, to get it done quickly and well. Yes sometimes we’ll make mistakes when we rush, and I’m not in favour of urgency that undermines democratic processes. There is room for a balance, and that doesn’t seem to have been found in Christchurch.

A final anecdote, that should make you angry I reckon. A relative moved to Christchurch between the first and second big quakes. They lived in Rangiora and in the second big round the granite kitchen bench got cracked. No troubles getting it fixed; sweet as. They’ve now sold that house and moved overseas. Yet people who can’t afford granite benches in the first place don’t have basic heating requirements for yet another winter.

We should be ashamed of this. I know I am

Equality, the final frontier?

Cross posted from my usual place...
 

I came out of the latest Star trek film feeling angry, and let down.

In a film set in a future that is supposed to be pretty damn idealistic (great tech, multicultural/multi-planetary teams, etc.) this film was behind the times NOW.

This film just felt like one big "Male Gaze" to the point where at times I felt physically pushed out of the moment of enjoying a story by the horrible realisation this film wasn’t made for people like me (that's 50% of the population BY THE WAY film industry). The concept of a film so overtly made by men for men is problematic for several reasons, sexual objectification being one, but my beef is that women have ZERO independent character development; they are defined solely by their relation to the male characters. Meanwhile male characters are given development both within their romance and out of it.

Urgh, it turns out that it is not space that is the final unexplored frontier, it is equality.

First up, in a meeting of senior leaders –out of all the entire table of a variety of species discussing plans, 5 women (mixed races and alien). A few characters are overtly alien. There are Eleven white humanoid men.

Really? In the future, we STILL don’t have gender equality, or racial diversity? REALLY?

Uhura has always been a favourite of mine, and I was looking forward to seeing her in this film. Unfortunately she only had one token scene that didn’t revolve around her holding up the concept of Spock's humanity. She bravely negotiated in perfect Klingon, and appealed to the enemy’s' sense of honour to try and save her team. it didn’t work, but it was a neat moment of one of the team showing their true colours and value. Pity it was the only interesting thing she got to do.

The first scene to make me realise that this movie was NOT going to make me happy, was the arrival of Carol Marcus. A young female member of the team is introduced to her new captain (and obviously, boss) – Kirk. On her arrival to the ship Kirk overtly eyes her up and down, makes a loaded comment about how he is happy she is on board, and proceeds to hit on her for the duration of the film.

So just to reiterate, a man who is responsible for hundreds of lives in a workplace people have to LIVE at, he feels confident enough in his own power, and consequently, her lack of power, to sexually harass her within minutes of being introduced.

When I mentioned this to people the overwhelming, and disappointing response was that the action was in character with Kirk, who is to be honest, a bit of a knob. He is endearingly reckless, thoughtless, and laddish. That’s what “makes” the film.

Talk about missing the point.

In the future, there will still be risk takers and creeps, I can totally understand that. But in this film, Kirk didn’t force her back to his cabin to marry him, and consecrate the marriage to make it legal to make an alliance with his commander’s family… why? Because it’s a ridiculous, outdated concept, based on the B.S. model that women are chattel to be passed from father to husband in some sort of sick ownership.

Star trek is set in the future. The future where I hope fervently the idea that workplace harassment and the idea that any leader has the right to treat a staff member like they are there for their enjoyment is ALSO not ok. JUST as silly as the idea of a man "owning" a woman.

We don’t just stop having creeps in this world, the entire culture around what those jerks are allowed to do to other people changes. This is evidenced by all human rights changes ever.

In the future, all will be equal, right? Star trek was the first show to have a woman of African descent in a non –menial role*. It is SUPPOSED to take strides and be forward thinking – the 1968 episode "Plato's Stepchildren" Uhura and Kirk kiss. The episode is popularly cited as the first example of a scripted inter-racial kiss on United States television.

This show is supposed to be thoughtful, provocative, and philosophical.

I’m well aware that the show has been problematic before now, and will continue to need to improve, but to see that NO progress has been made in this latest film, is as much of a kick in the guts as finding this out was…

“I was trying to make a movie, not tryingto make a Trek movie." – JJ Abrams
 

*how the actress herself was treated is more problematic – Nichols was the only performer in the cast who wasn't originally offered a contract, but instead worked on a week-to-week basis.

Who Was That Woman, Anyway?

It’s trite to say that books take you places. But true nonetheless. With books, you can disappear into other times, cultures, imaginary worlds. “Foreign” fiction is better than any guide-book at introducing you to a place and its people, and sometimes even better than going there if you want to see beneath the surface.

But if you live here and read enough of the stuff (say novels from the two Anglophone powerhouses – the United States and the UK-plus-Ireland) then a different feeling starts to kick in. Like what you’re getting to know is really life inside the American novel, not life inside America. At about the same point, for me anyway, “local” fiction itself starts to feel a bit foreign. Not in the way “foreign” fiction is foreign, but in the way local fiction feels rare, like something you don’t see very often. Which, when it’s good local fiction, also makes it feel precious and exciting and new.

I felt this way reading Aorewa McLeod’s new book “Who Was That Woman, Anyway? Snapshots of a Lesbian Life.” It’s a novel, yes, but as McLeod explains in the book’s front matter, it’s inspired by real life events. “Some details happened in real life, some did not,” she writes. “The characters are fictionalised and given fictional names.” The book’s 10 chapters, ordered by date, span roughly 40 years in the life of Ngaio, McLeod’s protagonist who, like the author, is an English lecturer at a university in Auckland.

The subtitle is sweet in the way it undersells the book. These are not only snapshots of a lesbian life, but of life in New Zealand, and life in Aotearoa. Snapshots of what it can be like to grow up here, and live here.

Its starting point is the 1960s with Ngaio, a university student, heading to Nelson to spend her summer break as a nurse’s aide because “an ex-schoolmate’s father was someone high up in the mental health service and he had suggested that nurse-aiding in psychiatric hospitals was a lucrative way of earning money in the holidays”. Ngaio is put in a ward with bedridden, severely disabled children. “There were enormous hydrocephalic water heads, tiny pinheads, huge slobbering mouths, bent bodies, contorted hands waving in the air, grasping blindly, clutching as if there were something to reach for. They could grip me with such desperate strength that I had to pry their fingers off. Many were blind. I couldn’t tell how old they were.” McLeod’s writing, particularly in the first half of the novel, is like that: direct and piercing.

It’s while she’s working in Nelson that Ngaio meets Suzy, her first love. Suzy is a Māori woman from a Mormon family who works as a charge nurse at the children’s ward in town. “She only goes for white girls,” a friend tells Ngaio. “All her family’s married white. That’s what the Mormons encourage them to do, to make it in the white world.” Who cares! Ngaio is in heaven. “This was it; this was what it meant to make love. This was the transformational moment of my life.”

update on merida makeover

just a quick post to say that activism does work sometimes.  after a successful petition and significant backlash against the proposed makeover of merida (covered in my previous post), disney has decided to pull the sexualised image:

In preparation for her "coronation ceremony" last Saturday, Disney gave the Brave heroine Merida a makeover, redesigning the character as thinner with a bigger bust, more revealing dress, a face full of makeup, less wild hair, and replacing her signature bow and arrows with a sassy sash. People were pissed and turned to the internet to voice their protests—which seems to have worked.

As a response to the public outcry, Disney has quietly pulled the redesigned Merida from its Princesses website and replaced it with the original Pixar version. It seems like petitions actually are useful sometimes!

in a world where we're constantly made to feel that our voice doesn't matter & there is no point in trying to change things, even small wins are meaningful.  anything that can counteract our collective feelings of helplessness can only be good.

disney: being brave is not enough anymore

i first learned about what disney was doing to merida, the main character from "brave", from this post.  i really recommend you go over there to see the pictures & the explanations of why it's so wrong.

i had mixed feelings about the movie itself, which i wrote about at the time.  as i said then, it's not the best film ever, but there were still plenty of positives and i thought it was a huge improvement on many of disney's previous efforts.  now, if only they could keep all those positive characteristics, and have the main character not be a princess. although, mulan was apparently not a princess, so maybe they get a couple of points for that one.

but regardless of what you think of the film, it's not like merida was significantly different to the shape of other disney female characters - she's still pretty slim, lots of hair, big round eyes (ok, again with the exception of mulan).  but her traditional image is less sexualised & more of an action figure.

so why the need to make her skinnier still, with the head tilt, the arched eyebrows & the loss of her bow & arrows?  why change something that was working?

there's now a petition against the change, which you can find here:

The redesign of Merida in advance of her official induction to the Disney Princess collection does a tremendous disservice to the millions of children for whom Merida is an empowering role model who speaks to girls' capacity to be change agents in the world rather than just trophies to be admired. Moreover, by making her skinnier, sexier and more mature in appearance, you are sending a message to girls that the original, realistic, teenage-appearing version of Merida is inferior; that for girls and women to have value -- to be recognized as true princesses -- they must conform to a narrow definition of beauty.

as with the changes that were proposed for dora, it's important to fight back against the constant pressure created by images presented to us of female characters.  we all deserve better.

Breaking news: Stuffed Rape Culture

Today Stuff published an article about two rapists, convicted for raping a young woman and sentenced to 16 and 15 years in prison.  Both rapists had previous convictions for assaulting women.

Stuff's advice, right at the end:

TIPS ON STAYING SAFE
Travel in pairs
Make sure people know where you are, and when they are next likely to hear from you
Be aware of your environment
Do not travel with strangers

Just what I needed to finish the day.

The only thing the two young women - yep, that's right, the young woman raped here was already following Stuffed Tip One and was walking home with a friend - the only thing the two young women could have done to be safer in this instance is to not be with rapists.  Maybe those two rapists should have to carry signs showing their previous histories of hurting women?

You know what means you get raped?  Being unlucky enough to be in the presence of a rapist who targets you.  That's all.

Stuffed Tip Two:  Make sure people know where you are, and when they are next likely to hear from you.
Bollocks.  When people don't know where you are, it's not usually because you're being raped.  It would be more effective to suggest women with boyfriends, former boyfriends, male friends or work colleagues should set up rape alarms.  We could set off permanent signals when we're with these men, to alert people about where we are every 15 minutes perhaps, because these men rape us 84% of the time.  It will catch on, I'm sure.

Stuffed Tip Three: Be aware of your environment.
Good tip.  You should avoid being inside, because most people get raped inside (67% of rapes in NZ happen inside the home of the rapist or the person raped.) 
You should avoid night-time, because most people are raped at night.  
You should avoid being around men, because most people are raped by men (99% of perpetrators of adult sexual violence in NZ are men). That's that one sorted.

Stuffed Tip Four:  Do not travel with strangers 
Mmm.  This won't actually help, because most people are raped by people they know (84% of perpetrators of adult sexual violence in NZ are known to the survivor).  More like, don't travel with boyfriends, former boyfriends, male friends or work colleagues.  Wonder why they didn't put that up?

Rape Crisis Scotland have some other ideas:

Rant over.  Get busy with telling Stuff what complete and utter victim blaming creeps they are, if you feel the urge.  The research is here, in case they have trouble finding it.

Womensfest at University of Auckland

Fourteen events in this year's Womensfest organised by the Women's Rights Officers at AUSA - for full details check out the Facebook event page:

I'm very lucky to be speaking on a panel about the portrayal of women in the media on the Monday night - hope to see some of you there!

If you click on the image it should hopefully make it bigger and thus easier to read.

When did you choose? Every day, thanks.

Lots of my friends are posting this on Facebook at the moment:

And I get the point, really, that being "born like this" is one way many queer people experience our sexuality, and that, on the strength of this film, lots of straight people believe they are born straight.

But it feels too simplistic to me, and too invisibilising of quite how messy and complicated desire and love are, for lots of people.  Maybe we cling to identity certainty around that because it makes us feel safer.


Because we grow up surrounded by heterosexuality, by images of lust and love being different-gendered, with opposite-sex sex education (if any) in schools, with opposite-sex love stories in music, in film, in books, on television.  Of course most heterosexual people don't feel like they have "chosen" to be heterosexual.  If your desires fit into the dominant forms of desires around you, why would you even think about it?

I know plenty of heterosexual people who have chosen not to act on same-sex desires.  Ask any queer person how often we've had our straight friends drunkenly tell us "I've thought about it....." often followed by clumsy invitations which, at least to me, haven't been that appealing.

I know plenty of people who acknowledge the fluidity of their desires, because their identity has changed from one part of their life to the next.  Phrases like "hasbian" and "on the train to gaytown", while intrinsically disrespectful of people's ability to define our own identity at each moment in time - and explicitly biphobic - illustrate the fact that identities which feel definitive and important to us at one point of our life can feel just plain wrong at others.

For me, the construction of "born this way" as the dominant way of thinking about sexuality is intrinsically conservative, intrinsically seeking solidity around emotions and desires.  Of course many, many people will have identities that remain constant throughout their lives, and of course queer people have different access to that because we have to buck compulsory heterosexuality to name who we want to shag and love.

But what about those of us who don't?  What about people whose identity fluctuates, based on the social contexts they are in?  What about the people who make choices not to follow desires, because it would be too hard for them, for whatever reason? 

Desire is frequently confusing.  Ever been attracted to someone, then freaked out when their gender is different from what matches your monosexual identity?  If you're a straight woman or a gay man who fancies Justin Bieber you might not want to click on the link.

I've claimed a solid identity around being bisexual for 24 years.  The reality of how complex that is for me is something I rarely talk about, because of quite how fragile the respect available to people who identify as bisexual can be.  Since I started knowing I could love women, that's being pretty constant.  My attraction to things masculine is much more ephemeral and context, and masculine person, dependent.  I believe that's mostly about the patriarchy, but it may well also reflect that I just fundamentally on average find hot women hotter than hot men - who knows?

And I've never - before or after I came out - fallen in love with a man.  Never actually even that close. 

Some people would no doubt argue that makes me "really" lesbian.  I know many lesbians who would and do describe their desires quite similarly to mine, but we identify differently because desire, lust and love are complicated things that mean different things to different people.

So my Facebook friends sharing this film, by all means let's encourage heterosexual people to interrogate heterosexuality - and in particular the privileges that come from being the norm, like being able to sleep with your lover when you're paying money to stay somewhere.

But please, please, please let's not shut the door on the delights of nuanced understandings and experiences of desire and love as changing, fluid aspects of our identity.  We lose something when we oversimplify such complex aspects of human experience.

Sexual abuse and culture

There's an interesting article from Joseph Harker, essentially arguing that whiteness is invisible when we talk about sexual violence, a privilege not enjoyed by Muslim people:

Every day across Britain, it seems, there's a new and horrific revelation of sexual abuse: last week we had the guilty plea of veteran TV presenter Stuart Hall, who confessed to 14 cases of indecent assault against 13 girls, the youngest only nine years old.  Days earlier the possible scale of child abuse in north Wales children's homes was revealed.

But after the shock has subsided and we have time to reflect on these revolting crimes, the main question in most reasonable people's minds must surely be: what is it about white people that makes them do this?

While Mr Harker has left alone the obvious male connection that all of these perpetrators - white and non-white - have in common, he raises a valid point, well.  And one which is just as relevant in Aotearoa, where as Moana Jackson points out the Kahui twins, Nia Glassie and James Whakaruru are household names, while the Nelson twins, Timothy Maybin and Samantha Nelson are not.

What I'm slightly disappointed by in Mr Harker's article though is the lack of attention to power in other ways.  Sexual violence thrives in situations in which there are power imbalances.  Predators target vulnerable people.  Child sexual abuse perpetrated by adults is in the main not by "paedophiles" but by men who have sexual relationships with other adults as well as targeting children. 

This power might be institutional - Jimmy Savile say, with his powerful role within the entertainment industry in the UK.  Where there seems to be a problem, given the Coronation St roll call of men accused of raping children is growing.  Institutional power within educational organisations, or community groups for children, or religious based organisations, or residential services for children, or facilities to care for children.  Social power that comes with adulthood, or being a caregiver, or helping out with babysitting.

We need to ask questions of culture if we want to prevent child sexual abuse, but they need to be much broader than racist deficit assumptions for Muslims, Maori or any other people of colour.  What was the culture in the British entertainment industries which has led to a Police investigation arresting  pop star Gary Glitter, comedian Freddie Starr, DJ Dave Lee Travis, publicist Max Clifford and comedian Jim Davidson, alongside of course the Jimmy Savile revelations and the recent arrest of Rolf Harris?

How many children and adults did these men sexually assault?  How many people knew about it?  What did they tell themselves?  How can we stop that happening again?

The Steubenville rape convictions put the spotlight on the inability of young sportsmen to identify sexually assaulting a near comatose young woman as something unacceptable.  One teammate of the convicted rapists who saw the rape and walked away had just moments earlier stopped another teammate from drinking and driving.  How do we shift those cultural norms, so that young sportsmen are just as determined to stop their teammates raping as driving drunk?

The most important issue, whenever we are talking and thinking about culture, is that the analysis - and the shift to building and supporting protective social norms - needs to come from within the group of interest.  I don't know why the British entertainment industry has been providing such a safe place to abuse for men for decades.  But people working there will.

I don't think we should be scared of talking and thinking about culture when it comes to preventing sexual violence.  In fact I think it's imperative we do that work, if we want protective social norms which promote respect, safety, mutuality and consent as foundations.

We just need to be looking at our own cultural belongings first and foremost.  There's plenty of social change to go around.

Crosspost: The Power of Like: Solidarity in a time of social media

Cross-posted from The Daily Blog 

It used to be pretty lonely being a left-wing feminist off-campus.  While I had political friends I was reasonably sure were feminist too, I was surprised enough times by sexist statements from lefties and ardent rejections of the f word by sisters in the movement that I didn’t take it for granted that we were fellow travellers on the Down With Patriarchy journey. 

Slowly but surely I started to identify like-minded individuals, many of them already people I gravitated to for other reasons like simpatico senses of humour.  But still it was a lonely every-day existence sometimes, with energy stored up from those sparse get-togethers to see me through. 

These days my life fair buzzes with feminist left-wingedness and it’s mostly thanks to my friend The Interweb.  Through the internet, blogging at first, then Facebook and now Twitter, I have met so many amazing women; feminists all, left of centre mostly, and each a jewel in their own way.  It seems hard to remember now that five and a bit years ago, before The Hand Mirror existed, I was often nervous about posting a feminist-minded status update; how could I know that my Facebook friends wouldn’t trot out the old tropes “man-hater” or “feminazi” or, perhaps worst of all, silently defriend me. 

I’ve also found the feminist friends I had all along but didn’t recognise as such, or wasn’t sure of; people from my past, before I was actively political, who I knew from school, or sailing, or via family connections.  They’ve been able to show their agreement and support through the really very small, but often highly significant, act of clicking Like.

For me this solidarity has been amazing.  Not only have I been able to make visible my work, I’ve been able to receive feedback, not always positive but generally always well-meant.  The Likes, the comments, the occasional Shares have been like a kind word in my ear, or a thumbs up and a grin from across the room.  Retweets and Favourites are the high fives of the digital world.  They give me a warm glow that helps to keep me going when the world that isn’t in the ether is getting tough.

Here’s a very different example which reached across political boundaries: the solidarity shown by dozens, possibly hundreds, of tweeters and bloggers when Colin Craig of the Conservative Party decided to take on The Civillian’s Ben Uffindell for a mischievious satirical misquote.

The proliferation of hashtaggery poking fun at Colin Craig was not just a chance for people to exhibit their wit (although it was also that).  It was in a very real way a chance to show support for Uffindell and his (often) good works on The Civillian.  Tweeters nailed their colours to the mast, very publicly, and most of them weren’t in Colin Craig’s shade of blue. 

Then there were the solidarity blog posts, from other oft-times satirical bloggers Danyl Maclauchlan and Scott Yorke, and even a newspaper column from Toby Manhire, again standing alongside Uffindell, for satire, for freedom of speech, and for puncturing the pomposity of politicians who act in such a humourless manner.

The Power of Like is now an undeniable part of our political interaction.  Those who are excluded from the internet are excluded too from this solidarity.  I hope we can get better at becoming more effusive with our honest compliments and warm thoughts in real life too

down under feminist carnival

a quick post to say that the 60th down under feminist carnival is up at news with nipples.

enjoy.