A cloak of privilege

The other day I was attempting to do some surveying about a local project in the Roskill shops.  The person who gave me the most time of day was a young woman of Pasifika descent, I think she had a bible in her hand and had probably been to the Church of Christ just around the corner.  I asked her a few of my questions and she struggled to answer one so I said "what don't you like about the area?"

The answer was quite shocking to me.  I've lived in this area for 12 years, and spent a lot of my childhood staying with my Nana nearby or visiting her.  My mum grew up here.  She met her first boyfriend at the (then) milk bar across the road from where we were talking.  I know it's a bit scuzzy, and not a great place to hang out these days, and part of the point of the survey is to work out how to fix that.  I catch the 267 or 258 there regularly, at the bus stop we were talking at.

The young woman I was talking to told me that what she didn't like about the area was the random cars driving past trying to pick you up.  And how they have strangers in them, and they won't leave you alone even when you tell them to go away.

Fool that I am, my immediate response was "Wow, that has never happened to me".  Which was when I realised the cloak of privilege I wear within my own community.  Which is why that has never happened to me.  I didn't mean to be denying her experience, and quickly told her I absolutely believed her, and she told me a bit more.

On the one hand I want to share my cloak of privilege, to cut it up into bits that can be shared around as widely as possible.  But on the other wouldn't it be better if no one had or needed one?

We had a bit of a chat about safety - how do you change a culture where that is happening, that sense of entitlement to young women, to harass them, to ignore their own agency?  We didn't talk about it quite like that.  All I could think of was making the town centre a nicer place to be, so that people will be around, will hang around and get to know others, where you can feel that you know some of the people that work in the shops, and go to them for help if you need it.  Where asserting yourself against unwelcome behaviour will mean instant support from those around you, not a blank stare and a scuttle in the opposite direction.

Urban design can help make a place better, more people focused and friendly.  But really the $500,000 we have to spend on the town centre upgrade isn't going to touch the sides of the real problem.

Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes

"Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you."

Not so.

Time after time we see this, people who suffer, and seeing no other way to end their suffering, end their lives.  Charlotte Dawson is the recent high profile case, and there will be likely be many that go unreported in Aotearoa NZ this week alone.

And so often it comes back to the sometimes thoughtless, oft-times callous, many times deliberate ways in which we wound each other with words.

For those who have not had the experience of a mental illness which magnifies the slights of others inside your head until they echo around and around with no way out, well it is a hard thing to understand I suppose.

But please be assured that the little mean cutting things we sometimes say to each other can contribute to serious blood loss, in the mental health sense, for some.

In all the sharing around Dawson's death, this is the best link I've seen - genuinely useful both for those with depression and those around them.  Despite having depression for over a decade myself I never made the clutter connection until reading it yesterday.

Let's be a little kinder to each other, or at least try.

Rape Culture: We're soaking in it

NB:  These points may already have been made, and made well, elsewhere. I've been largely keeping away from the Roast Busters stuff as I have other stuff going on currently that leaves me in a bad place to be dealing with that.  Hopefully this adds to the discussion, and the progress we MUST make, rather than just being a repetition.  Strong content warning for sexual violence.

Roast Busters is not new.  It is not some heinous development in human history.  Human history IS Rape Culture.  Rape Culture is a norm of centuries' duration we are trying to change, to overcome.  Well some of us are, anyway.

Rape Culture seems particularly bad right now because you are all seeing it.  It was there all along, so saturating us that it is the air we breathe.

Rape Culture is a society where the first things many people will consider when they hear of a rape include role of alcohol consumed by victim, role of clothes worn by victim, lack of parental supervision of victim,
instead of the reprehensible actions of the rapist.

Rape Culture is a society where victim blaming happens constantly.  Where female friends of the rapists speak out in the media to deny the accusations on their behalf.  Where those female friends may have been raped too, in the same circumstances as those they deny, and they can't face that they were raped too, because that is just too hard to deal with.*

Rape Culture is a society where a public health promotion agency deliberately uses fear of rape to scare women into drinking less alcohol, in the process promulgating a number of really really super unhelpful myths about rape and passing them off as truth.

Most women (and I suspect many men) have rape stories; their own, or those of others who have shared with them, things they have seen, things they themselves have done.  For me they are the stories of others, or near misses, but the chance that I will be raped at some point in my life is really very high - 1 in 4 women and girls in New Zealand have had that awful dehumanising experience.  I read once that 1 in 5 New Zealanders have asthma.  Amongst women being a victim of rape is more common than being asthmatic.

And we don't need more research actually.  There is a whole lot.  I'm not well placed to link, but Scube did, and I'm sure others have heaps of good links they can provide in comments.

What we need is more action.  More action by the State.  NGOs, individuals, groups formal and informal all do what they can, but they do not having the resources, the status or the longevity of central government.  We know enough to act; act effectively, efficiently and make a real difference.  Yet we don't.

We don't when we are the Government.  We don't when we are the Police.  We don't when we are people of high profile with significant media platforms.  Denial is a way of coping, I guess, because otherwise we have to accept that what we did to others could have been rape, what others did to us was rape, what we didn't stop happening to someone we love was rape.  What we allow and even encourage is Rape Culture.

We're soaking in Rape Culture, and it makes it hard to see.  When these moments come we must examine our complicity while we still can, so that once this case has faded we can still see the edges of our own enabling, and stop.



*  I have seen this happen first hand, and have no knowledge that this is at all the case in the Roast Busters situation.

Growing boys, not roast busters

Trigger warning: explicit discussion of rape culture.  I understand in a week with so much victim-blaming littering our media, any mention of sexual violence may be too much, so please be careful.

John Key's response to the gang rape club in Auckland (they call themselves "roast busters") is on the money:

"These young guys should just grow up," Key said this afternoon.

That is the point of this horrific glimpse into the misogyny and sexualising of power over and complete disregard for the personhood of the young women these men have raped - how are our young men growing up?

Let's be clear about this - these young men are bragging about girls as young as 13, about using alcohol to ensure the young women are unable to resist, about knowing the girls are not into what is happening.

They are bragging about raping. 

They are bragging about - and sharing with others - the ways they deliberately, in premeditated ways, over-ride the capacity of others to consent (that's when those others are legally able to consent).

The victim-blaming that has accompanied this - from the New Zealand Police choosing not to act when a 13 year old complained of rape TWO YEARS AGO to the vile commentary from an ill-informed, steeped in rape culture media - illustrates exactly why this gang rape club can exist.

We expect it.  We excuse it.  We tell young men - from the Prime Minister down - that boys will be boys, and if they are behaving badly, maybe we tell them to "grow up".

Well, I don't buy this.  I don't buy the inevitability of "boys being boys".  I don't buy the inevitability of growing boys into men who have no empathy, and no respect, and who prove their masculinity by exerting violence, including sexual violence over others.  I don't buy the inevitability of rape culture.

So Mr Key, to help grow boys into men who do not hurt women or anyone else, let's try getting them early.  Teaching little boys about empathy, teach them to try and imagine, by reading to them and talking to them, how other people feel.  All the time, about everything.  So when they are starting to explore being sexual with other people, that's in their kete of skills.

Let's stop telling little boys, big boys and men to "harden up."  Last week I was playing in my vegetable garden, and the next door neighbour's children were hanging out with me, weeding.  The three year old boy was heaving on some tall weeds, and fell on his bum, face crumpling up.  I asked him if he was ok.  His six year old sister said "Yeah, he's tough."

I said "I think you can be tough, and things can still hurt.  Are you ok?"  And he had a little cry and a little hand squeeze with me, then jumped up to do some more weeding and talk about favourite biscuits (his: tim tams; mine, on that day: toffee pops).

If we encourage boys to express all of the feelings they have - including vulnerability and sadness and sometimes just not knowing - we will grow men who have a range of emotional options available to them, not just anger.  And that will help them navigate the tricky waters of life, where anger being your default expression seldom leads to great relationships.

Let's start telling little boys about what great caring men they can be, and about what great women there are, and about the many and fabulous ways they can express their gender.  The less oppositional this is, the better.  There are no boys and girls toys, just toys.  There are no boys and girls colours, just colours.  There are no boys and girls games, just games.  Pointing out the rules some people have around these things is part of teaching gender literacy, part of making gender norms visible, but it shouldn't be a bible our beautiful children should have to follow.

Let's respect little boys autonomy with their body.  If they are scared and don't want to climb a tree, they don't have to.  How can we expect boys to learn respect around bodies when we too often teach them the exact opposite?

Let's teach boys about consent in everything we do, so by the time they want to be sexual, they know what it means, they know what the absence of it means, and they know how to negotiate with other people.  Let's make sure teaching consent is part of the ways we teach sex education - as opposed to sexist education.

And finally, let's teach little boys to stand up to oppression.  Whether that's their friends bullying other children, or their teacher saying racist things in class, or their sports coach ridiculing queer people, let's teach little boys to say "I don't think that's ok".  Because if one single thing could change rape cultures, it would be men standing up to other men.

I understand how hopeless this gang rape club situation is making people feel about the enormity of rape culture and how steadfastly it is growing in our public institutions, still.  I hope people are taking real care as they negotiate the media this week.  I'm thrilled to see there are protests springing up, all over the country because quite frankly the responses to the gang rape club are truly, truly horrifying.

But in all this, let's not forget - rape is something people learn is ok.  We can unlearn this.  Most people do unlearn this.  To end rape culture we need to grow different rules around masculinity.  We need our young guys to grow up alright - to be men who respect women and other people.

Off with their benefits

I have to admit to falling prey to despair in the face of the latest example of incredible idiocy from those in charge of what is ironically known as "welfare". This month a blanket regime for "jobless" beneficiaries (including the ones already working extremely hard looking after people who have to be looked after) came into force.

Now we're seeing exactly how stupid this regime is. Grandparents - especially grandmothers - who have stepped in to take care of children bereft of their parents' care through death, illness or dereliction are being hounded to enrol in jobseeker courses, work out their "long-term career goals" and hunt for non-existent jobs. NO job could be more important or useful not just to their grandkids but to the rest of us as well, or save taxpayers more money, than the job they're currently doing - and for which they have in many cases already sacrificed their own earnings and any prospect of retirement.

But none of that seems to mean anything to those running the new regime. Today's Dominion Post reported.on the case of Denise Herman of Dannevirke, who has "single-handedly raised three of her grandchildren, and another foster daughter, for more than a decade." 

"Along the way, she has sacrificed her business, relationship and house to keep them out of foster care. She rescued her grandchildren from their parents after a Child, Youth and Family intervention. She said the parents struggled with drug addiction and spent time in prison. 'Without me, the kids would have been in foster care.'She has been able to care for them with the help of the domestic purposes and unsupported child benefits. She describes it as a fulltime occupation. On Monday, she will turn 64, and in a year she will be eligible for superannuation.But that has not stopped Work and Income telling her last month that she needed to look for a job or face having her support cut. She was enrolled in a six-month job-training course and asked to describe her skills, the last school she attended and her long-term career goals.'My long-term goal is to finally have some peace and rest,' she said. 'What a waste of money paying some training provider.'The Ministry of Social Development would not comment without a privacy waiver, which could not be obtained before publication."

This is pure lunacy, the work of a one-eyed concentration on just one thing: forcing down benefit numbers, regardless of the consequences. And because women are so much more likely than men to be on a benefit not because they are not working, but because they are doing vital unpaid work, it's likely to be women who get caught in this crazy catch-22 merry-go-round masquerading as social policy. 

Grandparents are not the only victims, they're just the most obvious example of a never generous but once more-or-less effective system of support that has been deliberately broken, and then broken again. I wonder if they're already hounding widowed Pike River mothers out to work too.

There is no depression in New Zealand

There's a lot of talk at the moment about mental illness, and particularly about assumptions made that really bad things (like mass shootings) are carried out by people with mental illnesses.  I was part of such a discussion today, and I paused a bit, then told the small group discussing it that I have a mental illness.

I explained, after an awkward silence, that I take medication every day for depression, because I seem to have a chemical imbalance in my brain*, much in the same way that I take medication every day for asthma, because I seem to have chronic inflammation in my bronchioles.  I see a counsellor once a month to help me with tools to build my mental fitness, in much the same way that others might go to a gym for their physical fitness. It was surprisingly hard for me to talk about.

I think it's natural to assume that people only do really bad things because they are not in their right mind at the time; a "psychotic break" perhaps.  And I'm sure sometimes that is the case.  But it does seem like often it's a convenient way to Other, to dehumanise, to put the perpetrators of bad deeds at a distance from ourselves, so that we don't really have to explain or understand why. 

Via a Facebook friend I happened to stumble across this interesting blog post today, which included the timely quote:

Instead of examining what made it possible for [Anders] Breivik to unleash his barrage of racial hatred (he was vehemently against immigration by racialized bodies and supposed ‘takeover’ of Norway through this immigration’), he is excused and deemed insane, being sent to psychiatric care instead of prison. The explanation for his violence – he had a psychotic  ‘break’, a break from his normal civility and a break from an ordered society that would never breed such violence.

Never mind his high levels of planning and execution, never mind that he was actively a part of White supremacist organizations with similar views – White society is civilized and non-violent, so he must have been crazy. Madness is used here as a way of explaining away violence within White bodies and White society. It is not the norm, it is a break from it. 

And then there is this response to the Sandy Hooks shootings, and the leap to assume a role for mental illness there too, You Are Not Adam Lanza's Mother, including this:

The reality is that there is no such observed link: “after analysing a number of killers, Mullen concludes, ‘they had personality problems and were, to put it mildly, deeply troubled people.’ But he goes on to add: ‘Most perpetrators of autogenic massacres do not, however, appear to have active psychotic symptoms at the time and very few even have histories of prior contact with mental health services.’” And most people with mental illness are not violent, although they are far more likely to be victims of crime.. [their emphasis]

I don't really know how to finish this post other than to say it has been a difficult day.

---

I've just edited this, a few minutes after publication, to take out the picture and reference to some of the work the Mental Health Foundation is doing because I don't want to confuse things by writing about them in the same post.  Hope that makes sense.




*  This is my experience of mental illness, and it won't necessarily reflect how others with mental illnesses see their own experience.

It is rapists who are responsible for rape

Trigger warnings for rape, substance abuse and addiction, general enragingness.  Also excessive use of CAPS LOCK.


I heard a little bit about Lindsay Mitchell's latest Truth column on Twitter on Friday, but no one could provide me an online copy.  Today someone rectified that in comments here (thank you, kind of).


Now Lindsay and I disagree on many things.  We often have those agreements online, through the medium of blogging, but normally we manage to be remarkably civil for two people who disagree so fundamentally.


I really struggle though finding civil responses to this incredibly harmful rape apologist Truth column from Mitchell.  


1.  It is not necessary to put rapes in scare-quotes, especially when you are already using alleged in front anyway.  Quote marks are for quotes, and here are some examples:  Calling rape a "sex 'accident'" is so incredibly awful that it should be erased from the english language and never ever used again except to point out how awful it is.  Ditto for "retrospectively unwanted sex".  


2.  If a friend came to me and told me she'd been raped while she was drunk (or a male friend for that matter) then my first response would not be to have questions, but to offer support and love and whatever else they needed BECAUSE THEY ARE MY FRIEND.  


3.  The legal standard may be guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but when I'm not a judge or a jury member I am quite at liberty to make up my own mind to believe the person who was raped, which is what I intend to do, especially if they are my friend, but also as a point of principle to somehow slightly re-balance the constant disbelief that rape victims face at every turn.  Hurtful, harmful, unnecessary disbelief that Lindsay is perpetuating with this column.


4.  No one asks for rape.  It is rapists who are responsible for rape.  Being incapable of giving consent means you have NOT GIVEN CONSENT.  Sex without consent is rape.  It's really quite simply.  I thought former ACT candidate's were generally big on people having free will and giving informed consent and all that jazz?  


5.  "I’d talk it out and insist she mentally take some responsibility for what happened, learn from it and move on. And I’d forgive her, so she could do the same. "  This HORRIFIES ME.  If anyone has had that conversation with anyone I know who has been raped you better not ever tell me because I will explode with anger.  All over you in a hideous mess of brain matter and internal organ-ness.  I am not entirely sure I am exaggerating.


6.  Suggesting that the best response is to totally sweep any such incidents away from any examination whatsoever is just so irresponsible that I cannot believe Truth even published it.

I'm going to stop at 6 points.  I have to because otherwise I could write and delete and write and delete and write all night and still not be any further on with saying what I want to than just saying this:

It is rapists who are responsible for rape; minimising, excusing or denying this is unacceptable to me.

Yes, this happened in Aotearoa New Zealand

Thanks to Women's Health Action Trust for allowing me to re-publish this media release here.  It refers to this case in the media last week.


Criminisalising pregnancy no solution

‘Jailing women in the interests of foetal protection cannot be justified on either human rights nor public health grounds and sets a dangerous precedent’ says Christy Parker, Senior Policy Analyst of Women’s Health Action Trust.

Ms Parker was responding to reports this morning of the jailing of a New Plymouth woman in the interests of protecting her ‘unborn baby’ from harm.

‘Women’s Health Action strongly supports steps being taken to ensure good outcomes for women and their babies when they are risk of harm. However the criminalisation of conduct during pregnancy has not been shown to improve outcomes and has been condemned within international human rights forums’ Ms Parker states.

‘Making women fear prosecution for various types of behaviour during pregnancy has been shown
to be a barrier to accessing health and social services that support women to improve outcomes for
themselves and their families. This has recently been highlighted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, in his report to the United Nations. Mr Grover states in his report, ‘it has been well documented that the public health goals are not realised through criminalistion; rather they are often undermined by it’. In addition, States are obligated to ensure that interests in protecting prenatal life are consistent with the fundamental human rights of women and do not perpetuate discrimination against women’ states Ms Parker.

‘The issue here is not about the details of this particular case but rather a trend towards foetal
protection and the criminalisation of pregnancy in Aotearoa New Zealand. As interest grows in the
outcomes of the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children, we need to be thinking carefully about how
to best support good outcomes for women and their babies. Punitive measures that further isolate
women and that risk undermining their human rights should be treated with caution’.

More on Women's Health Action Trust can be found at their website.

The tale of a billboard - part 1

Stella Artois beer advertisement, glamourous woman drinking beer, man gazing on, "She is a thing of beauty".  Someone has scrawled across the bottom of the billboard "She is not a thing."

Many thanks to Cathy Casey for this snap. 

I walk and drive past this billboard regularly, as I cross through the intersection of New North Rd and Sandringham Rd in Kingsland.

The above addition had been painted over but I noted yesterday that there was a new viewer comment (two in fact) which I will hopefully get a picture of to share before it gets painted over too.  If anyone has an image already do feel free to send it to me julie dot fairey at gmail dot com.

Fetus fetish

Last year I gave a talk on abortion law reform at a local students' association.  There were about twenty people in the audience, if I recall correctly, and when we got to discussion time there were clearly two who were anti-abortion.  

Putting aside the fact that both of these people were young men, what really struck me was how strongly one of them in particular identified with fetuses.  I've come across the fetal personhood argument before, not least in five and a bit years of Catholic schooling.  But this experience, with this not unpleasant young man who clearly sincerely believed what he was saying, provided a real light-bulb moment for me; it's not just that some who are anti-abortion believe in fetal personhood, it's that some seem to sub-consciously identify as fetuses.

Now I haven't put that quite correctly, so forgive me if we have to work through this a bit in comments until I work out precisely what I mean.  I'm definitely interested in discussing 

What I observed was how fervently this young man seemed to feel personally the perspective he imagined a fetus might have.  I've seen others do it too, now that I have started looking for it.  He actually said something along the lines of "If I was a fetus I wouldn't want to be aborted."  

Not only does that seem to me an incredibly odd projection, but what does it say that someone thinks they can imagine what it would be like to be a fetus, and speaks from that perspective, yet cannot seem to put themselves into the shoes of a person, an actual person, much more like them than a fetus, who is pregnant and doesn't want to be.  

I still remember, vividly, the moment when I thought I was pregnant and in a situation where that would have been disastrous.  It was almost half my life ago.  I doubt I'll ever forget the sensation of the walls of the room closing in around me.  I felt trapped.  I just could not re-imagine my life with all the changes that a pregnancy, let alone a child, would bring, and so it really seemed as if it was an end to my life, as I could not see beyond that moment to even what I would do in five minutes' time.  The relief when the test result was negative made me realise I was holding my breath, in more ways than one.

And I recall the happy positive pregnancy tests too, tinged with nerves and all sorts of other emotions.  The sorrow of miscarriage, the fear of labour, the apprehension of becoming a parent, the shock of contractions, the weirdness of having operations that resulted in babies. 

All of these are human emotions that people feel.  For myself I've worked out that I could not have foretold exactly how I would feel in these situations, and I don't feel like I had proper empathy for these experiences until I'd had them myself.  But they weren't completely alien, far from it.  I'd felt shadows of all of this before in other contexts, at other times, and I have since too. 

Once upon a time, before I was a person, I was a fetus.  I've not yet had an unwanted pregnancy.  Yet I still find it far far far easier to attempt to put myself in the place of an unwillingly pregnant person than try to channel a fetus.  

***


This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011.  For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index.  And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com. 

default human

i've read plenty of posts around the feminist blogosphere about how the default human is male. there's plenty of evidence this is true, but i had another reminder in this weekend's paper.

gwynne dyer is a well-known columnist who is published in the fairfax papers, and i think the herald also published his pieces at some point. he certainly comes across as progressive, and i generally enjoy reading his columns. until this week's one, which includes the following:

And it's Muslims (British Muslims this time), who keep their women indoors or make them cover up when they go out, who are the main victims of this disease.

so, the default "muslim" is male. the women belong to the males, apparently, and have no individual identity or agency. according to mr dyer, it's not even a possibility that the women might choose to cover themselves, having thought about the issue and come to a decision. the possiblity that some of these women are covering themselves when the men who apparently own them would rather they didn't.

the whole construction of this sentence sickens me. that it comes from a writer that is clued up on so many issues rather than jihad watch or pamela gellar just makes it worse. it's so much harder when you have to try to convince people who, on the face of it, appear to be on your own side, that you come under the definition of human being (or muslim human being in this case). and i don't believe he's using "muslim" to mean muslim men in opposition to the arabic "muslimah" for muslim women, because he doesn't bother to use "muslimah" anywhere in the article to describe muslim women. he just sees them as appendages to the actual humans, being the men.

it all brings to mind the whole richard dawkins thing, and his use of muslim women to put down the very valid concerns of another women. this atheist wants to speak for us or about us in other forums, as if we couldn't possibly speak for themselves, as if we need this white knight to come to our rescue, as if we're just tools to be used in argument.

this all goes back to the point i was trying to make in my last post: that there is so much cr*p out there about muslim women, and it takes so much effort to get just one article giving us a voice and allowing us to talk for ourselves. sometimes it feels like an impossible task.

The invisibility of rape in war

Trigger Warning for this post for rape & violence.

I found the three paragraphs below absolutely chilling when I read them last week.  So much is left unsaid, and yet to me the implications are clear.

Excerpt from Ask That Mountain:  The story of Parihaka, by Dick Scott - first published 1975, this is from the 2006 reprint:

The night raids were stepped up to find which houses to destroy and the women were frequently victims of drunken and diseased troopers.  Once the officers got their wires crossed and a unit raided where it was not expected.  The sequel, as the Auckland Herald delicately reported, was the discovery of 'a gentleman who has taken a very prominent part in the recent proceedings under circumstances that recall the earnest terms in which the West Coast Commission deplore the existence of semi-connubial relations between officials and natives.'

The reality behind the indulgent amusement was that syphilis was brought into the town once given a clean bill of health by Taranaki's medical officer, Dr. O'Carroll, and congenital cases, a direct result of the invasion, were reported through the province for years aftewarrds.*

*  Dr EP Ellison, of Manaia, told the writer:  'There was looting and debauchery.  Perhaps I speak too strongly but the truth must be told.  In my work as a young man I saw cases of congenital syphilis in Taranaki that were the result of the occupation of Parihaka.' Not all excesses were condoned.  At one stage of the Taranaki campaign some of the armed constabulary were court-martialled for copulating with dogs...

Even in 1975, and in more recent reprints, it seems that it was not acceptable to call terrible things by their true names.  This was rape.  It was repeated rape, systematic and used to demoralise and exercise power in a shameful exhibition of a piece with the unfair confiscation of the land.  There is mention of the syphilis that affected the population of Parihaka after these rapes, but no mention of the other effects that violence would have had - not only the physical and mental impact but also no doubt pregnancies and possibly children who resulted from these "semi-connubial" encounters, and then the potential shattering of adult relationships too.  Does the "semi" indicate the only the men consented?  

One of the things I find true about the way that George RR Martin portrays war in his A Song Of Ice And Fire series is how he doesn't make rape invisible.  He doesn't make it prurient either, or paint it as titillating - it is more told than shown, if that makes sense - but he acknowledges it as another form of the violence of war.

It's only by naming it, by acknowledging it, that we can fully recognise that rape is there, it is real, and it must be stopped. 

Parental notification is defacto parental consent

Make no mistake:  parental notification for teen abortions is actually about parental consent for teen abortions.

Let's consider the broader position of those who advocate strongly for parental notification (not just those who agree when asked the right magical question).

Do they support the right of pregnant adults to have abortion on demand?  No.

Do they support funding for independent counselling services, not run by anti-choice organisations?  No.

Do they support Family Planning and their work to improve both sex education and access to contraception?  No.

Do they support early medication abortion, because it is easier both physically and psychologically?  No.

Do they seek to reinforce the position, shared by our current unfair law, that the pregnant person is not the person who should decide whether or not to terminate their own pregnancy?  Yes.

The point of changing the law to get parental notification is to yet again take power away from the pregnant person.  Notification will become defacto parental consent.  And that is just another way of saying the pregnant person can't, shouldn't, musn't decide. 

It is wrong that certifying consultants have the power to deny or allow abortions.*  It would be just as wrong for parents to have that power.  Even if that power is exercised over their own child, and they are under 16.

Many good points have been made in other blog posts about the relationships of parents and their children, and how while parental involvement can be encouraged it should not be mandated.  I'm not able to put a great link farm of all that good stuff together right now.  I agree with many of the arguments that have been made - about the right of teens to privacy, about the vulnerability of those who will be in abusive family environments, about the problem with parental notification where someone in a parental role may be the father, about respecting that people should choose who supports them.

I agree with all of that, and at base it all boils down to one thing for me; respecting the right of the pregnant person to control their own body, and acknowledging no one is in a better position to make that choice than they are.




*  This should in no way be read as a criticism of the many excellent certifying consultants who do difficult work in challenging circumstances.  I heart them.

Baggy clothing is not a bulletproof vest.

Crossposted from "Well behaved women rarely make history."

For those of you who (like me) have been busy with work and play, you may have missed the flurry of conversation and bloggy wonder around the concept of a “Slut Walk”
There are some great conversations around what it means to individuals, and how they plan to express their own understanding of the slut walk.
Here is mine.

I will be there, and I will be wearing a pair of baggy blue cotton pants and a matching top – a set of surgical scrubs.

My understanding of the slut walk is that Toronto Police constable Michael Sanguinetti made an ill thought out comment that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised”.
He has since apologised in writing for the comment but the fact of the matter is that the concept of a correlation between clothing/image and sexual assault is so deeply ingrained in our thought process that it didn’t even pause coming out of his mouth at a public speaking engagement in the line of duty.
This baffles me.
Most people (men and women) who are assaulted have to go through the questioning of what they did before and during an assault, and I understand the need to fully understand the crime scene so as to better bring justice.
This should always be done with respect and sensitivity.
I cannot comment on adult services, but in Auckland we have a wonderful unit for children, with specially trained nurses, safe places, soft toys, and a respect for the word ‘NO’ treatment and forensics takes as long the child needs to take.
Guilt on either side should not be played out in the media.
Who is a predator, vs. who is a prostitute on the weekends should not be a coffee group discussion by people with no knowledge of the case.
Assault and rape is not funny, and I cannot understand how people I respect have told rape “jokes” IN THE WORKPLACE.

The only reason these public conversations occur is because people do not realise how widespread assault and rape is, the assumption is still that it occurs solely to women, and certainly not women we know... good grief no!
It is those women, the ones with short skirts and night jobs... the sluts.

But it isn’t.
The people affected by sexual assault are your friends, your family, and the women you like and respect. The ballsey ones who don’t take shit from anyone.
And what they were wearing at the time is irrelevant.
A short skirt does not cause a good man to suddenly turn into a rapist.
Black eyeliner and voluptuous cleavage will not force a man into grabbing the aforementioned breasts.
My baggy scrubs will not protect me if a rapist decides that they need to dominate and hurt someone and I am there.

Clothing does not cause or prevent crime. And I LOVE that the slutwalk is starting these conversations.

For those who would like to join us in the slut walk please go to Slutwalk Aotearoha.

A Royal Spectacle

I adore the spectacle of weddings.  There's just something about seeing the fruition of all that planning and intricate work that gets me most times.  Few events are more complicated or more brilliantly realised than a royal wedding.

We have but one television in our house, and so in a spirit of compromise we are currently avoiding the royal wedding coverage in the lead-up, with the understanding we will switch stations come 10pm for the ceremony itself. 

Although I like weddings I don't really hold a candle for monarchy, British or otherwise.  How can anyone really justify an approach to human beings that is all about birth determining worth?

So all these media comments about the "progress" the British monarchy has made with this wedding leaves me a bit cold.  Kate Middleton is still referred to, over and over again, as a "commoner".  I thought she was a person, silly me.  Then there's all this faff about whether or not she's a virgin.  NOT OUR BUSINESS.  And finally, the suggestion I heard from one TV3 commentator that as a future queen Kate may have been required to undergo a fertility test.  No one even mentions whether or not William goes to the altar with cherry intact, or has active swimmers.  (Not that I want them to.  Screwed up my face in dismay just typing that.)

One slight plus which warmed my cold dead egalitarian heart when someone pointed it out on twitter;  Elton John can not only go to an event packed to the brim with the powerful of Britain and beyond, he can also take his partner with nary a glance askance.  That is progress, although it's got naught to do with the monarchy imho.

Maybe next time there's a Big Deal royal wedding we'll see a female guest in trousers. 

There's lots of awesome tweeting and live blogging all about the show, so I'll leave it there and go get my wedding fix. Also:  fascinators!!



Looking for a picture for this post I thought I'd just have to go with some regal looking cupcakes, but no there was quite an array of royal wedding cupcakes on offer.  I find cakes iced with pictures of real people a bit creepy myself, but each to their own.

Two ARGHs in one morning is two too many

ARGH the first, was the news, via Russell Brown on twitter (@publicaddress), that Bronagh Key is down on the royal wedding invite list as "Mrs John Key."  I don't know who is responsible for this but it really bugs me that anyone gets to be differentiated from their partner by only one little "s".

If that's genuinely what Bronagh wants to be referred to then that is her choice, and I'll shut up about it (publicly, no doubt I'll mutter into my cereal about it privately).

But if it's been imposed by anyone, or just assumed, then that sucks.  Russell thought it was better than being John Key's +1, however I'm not so sure.  Both seem to me to indicate she's just an appendage, not a person in her own right.

ARGH the second, totally didn't have to be an ARGH.  The Unnecessary ARGH if you will.  Dr Tiso pointed me to an awesome set of bathroom scales (right) which are not only pink (win), fluffy (extra win) and decorated with a shiny star (ultra mega win), they also don't feature numbers but instead wonderful friendly words like "Perfect", "Hot" and "Ravishing."  The Yay Scale is the work of Marilyn Wann, a body acceptance activist who wrote Fat? So! and has done some great stuff with Healthy At Every Size (aka HAES).

So where's the ARGH in that, pretty awesome right?  Sadly this isn't the order I read about this Cool Thing in.

First I stumbled into a savage "review" (who reviews bathroom scales?) all about how the Yay Scale was apparently not so yay because it was Encouraging Unhealthy Eating Habits.  The reviewer has been put right in comments, although there's no response to the well made points about the positive nature of the scales.

I was particularly galled by the idea that those who wanted to know their weight might inadvertently purchase the Yay Scale and have to live in ignorance of their mass!  ZOMG False Advertising the Like of Which Has Never Been Seen Before!  Except if you count almost the entire fashion and beauty industries, basically.  But I digress.

Now I'm hoping for an ARGH-free Monday.  Might be lucky and get away with a few minor GRRRRRRs.

presenting the new miss usa

i'm not really a fan of beauty contests. in fact i pretty much hate them. just the whole idea of lining women up, and judging their faces and bodies - well, it doesn't sit well with me. my own preference is that, as a society, we focus more on our inner selves - more on our behaviour, our intellectual and spiritual development. and i think that everyone has something beautiful about them, so i don't get the need to compete to prove that you're more beautiful than others. then there are the issues around the "beauty contest" definition of beauty - have to be young, have to be tall, have to be unmarried and unsullied (nude photos tend to lose you the crown). further to that, so much of what is presented to us isn't natural beauty - rather, it seems to be a factor of how much money you can spend to surgically remove all your faults or to cover them with make up.

given that's how i feel about it all, i'm probably not the best person to be doing this post. but never mind, i'll do it anyway.

it appears that the miss usa crown has been taken by a lebanese-american, one rima fakih. not only that, but miss fakih identifies as muslim. now, while i hate beauty pageants, i respect ms fakih's choice to enter one, and certainly don't believe she deserves this:

– Conservative radio host Debbie Schlussel blamed Fakih’s win on a supposed “politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate” in America and labeled her a “Lebanese Muslim Hezbollah supporter with relatives who are top terrorists.” [5/16/10]

– Right wing pundit and Fox contributor Michelle Malkin ranted that “Fakih’s cheerleaders are too busy tooting the identity politics horn to care what comes out of her mouth” and that “the Miss USA pageant didn’t want to risk the wrath of the open-borders mob.” [5/16/10]

– Conservative author Daniel Pipes, who was briefly appointed by former President George W. Bush to the U.S. Institute of Peace, opined that “this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.” [5/16/10]

– Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson complained that Woolard’s “informed opinion” may have cost her the crown, and said that Fakih may have won because we live in a “PC society.” [5/17/10]

incidentally, the "informed opinion" mentioned above appears to be some kind of support for arizona's new immigration laws, wherein people can be stopped randomly by police if said police think they don't look like they belong there. and no matter how much i hate beauty contests, i certainly wouldn't use the language of ms schlussel:

Trump made a bigger deal with Miss California USA and her bimbo activities, when–hellooooo–it’s a bimbo contest. Now, Hezbollah has the chief USA bimbo.

wow, that's a much deeper level of hate than i could ever aspire to. actually, what am i saying? i don't aspire to it at all. i don't think ms fakih is a bimbo. if it was up to me, i'd rather she hadn't been in the pageant simply because i'd rather that there were no such pageants. but it isn't up to me, and i refuse to denigrate her for her decision.

but the all the comments above are not just denigration for her choice to enter a beauty pageant, they are deeply bigotted comments targetted at her for the temerity of winning it. pretty sick really.

(hat tip shakesville for links)

time to cancel my subscription, again.

i pretty much hate the waikato times just at the moment. what has let to this depth of feeling is monday's issue, which i only managed to look at this afternoon. it has back to front coverage of the v8s, which is annoying in and of itself when there is so much happening in the world right now. but it is the nature of the v8 coverage that is particularly puke inducing.

two thirds of the front page is covered by an article, which features 2 photographs. there is a small one of the crowd at the pit area, and a much larger one of the winner & some other dude. this is the main business of the v8s, the serious stuff as it were. there were 8 people quoted in the article, one of whom was a female police officer quoted right at the end on good crowd behaviour. the rest were blokes, a couple of whom were joking about the fact that "they had left their wives at home for the second year in a row and were having a 'fantastic time'". habloodyha.

page 3 then has big picture of miss v8 and a couple of contestants behind her, accompanied by a small piece about how she's a mum, and basically all about being sexy. note that the three women are white, young and slim. there are 3 other articles around this piece: one about annoyed frankton business owners where we have two female business owners quoted; another about the crowds at the city pubs, where the only women involved in the story are this quote from a bar owner "usually it's very male-oriented but this year we had a good mix"; and the third one about the annoyance caused by someone with a laser light, where we get the same female police officer quoted in the last paragraph.

page 4 is half advertisement. the other half has a big photo of a male driver who one the second race with article about him. next to that a similar sized photo of a "grid girl" in her sexy attire (white, young & slim of course), and a small piece about grid girls.

page 5 is again half ad. we also have an op-ed by a male writer about what a let-down the kiwi drivers were. below that is an article about melanoma awareness stand at the v8, and yippee, we actually get to see a woman in the driver's seat not being supersexy (though still white, young and slim, of course) in the photo accompanying the story. she has no mention in the story though. and next to that is a story about a couple who won $20,000 at the v8s. the accompanying photograph has the couple surrounded by 6 "jim beam girls" in their super sexy clothing, and you'll never guess. they're all white, young and slim.

but this is not all. wait, there's more. on the business page (yup, the business page) we have a big article about the success of a talent agency. and can you guess what the two photos accompanying the article show? i won't leave you in suspense. at the top is a large one of 4 "hood street hotties", all looking super sexy, and sitting or leaning on a red, red holden. the second is a smaller shot of two "in demand" women, also with the sexy poses. and are they all white, young and slim? you betcha!

what the F**K??? i mean, really, this is what v8s are about? a couple of whiny businesswomen (because that's how the article makes them sound) who don't even get their photo in the paper, and the rest of the coverage of women is as eye-candy, fitting narrow stereotypes of beauty. their achievements are pretty much limited to their physical appearance - except that miss v8 was apparently also judged on her personality (along with her "stage presence", her walk, and how she "looked in the little blue dress").

to be fair, page 7 has an almost full page piece about the outgoing chief executive of gracelands trust, with accompanying photograph of her and a maori woman - two average yet lovely women, though not fitting into any definition of hot. and the back page of the first section has a big article on geena davis urging strong roles for women in film (ironic, much?).

but really, i'm sick of the v8 coverage around women and the very limited public role they are allowed to have.

More on AirNZ's cougar rubbish

Further to my post about AirNZ's vile Grabaseat promotion last week, there have now been articles in both the Sunday Star Times yesterday and the Herald today on the matter.

SST:

... Victoria University associate professor Delores Janiewski – an expert on gender, culture and media – said the ad was "funny and cheeky" but it was hard to tell whether the ad was encouraging or denigrating single women.

However, Auckland comedian and poet Penny Ashton said the ad was sexist, and painting women as predators and men as their feeble prey "incensed" her.

"Men are not helpless. Surely if you say no a couple of times it should work?"

Social commentator and Sunday Star-Times columnist Rosemary McLeod said the ad was lame.

"I think older women should think very carefully before tackling young men in gay bars, as disappointment is bound to follow."

A Grabaseat spokesperson said the promotion was not intended to be offensive. It would not be shown on TV.

And from the Herald this morning:

The director of Rape Prevention Education [Kim McGregor] has attacked a promotion offering rugby tickets to "cougars" or women aged 35 and over "looking for slabs of meat" as appalling and disgusting, and wants advertisement withdrawn.

But the competition's promoters say they have no plans to stop the advertising campaign, which it says is meant to be light-hearted.

...She said the online advertisement, which shows a mature woman or cougar "starving itself on sparse vegetation during the day then hunting large slabs of meat at night" by stalking a young man at a bar should be withdrawn immediately.

Despite the man's attempts to ward off the woman's advances, the cougar has "not tasted fresh meat for days" and drags her prey to an inner-city apartment.

Ms McGregor said the organisation had heard from Air New Zealand staff who were embarrassed and concerned by the promotion.

"They find it degrading and that it is encouraging potentially harmful behaviour, so my question is why is our national carrier promoting sexually predatory behaviour?"

"We have also had complaints from male survivors who have been raped by women and they are very distressed that their situation is being laughed at and made out to be humorous."

Ms McGregor said a fifth of sexual violence happens in or around licensed premises and figures showed that one in four women and one in eight men would experience some level of sexual violence.

Grabaseat spokesman Sunil Unka said complaints had been laid about the promotion, but it would continue.

"We have certainly received some feedback ...it's mainly from women who are over 35 and have taken a bit of offence to it and felt it was an unfair kind of blanket comment."

"It (sexual violence) certainly is a fairly major issue but this was meant to be light-hearted and not meant to be taken too literally, so we will not be pulling it..."

Vileness, and a bit of irony, from Air NZ

Thanks to a reader who sent this through, here's the text of an email Air NZ has been sending out to promote Grabaseat:

Hi XXXXX,

Happy New Year people and I hope yours was as memorable as mine, which must have been particularly memorable as I can’t remember any of it other then waking up in a tent with a bunch of mates who I hadn’t seen for 9 years.

And let me tell you there is no greater joy than seeing people you haven’t seen in ages and realising that you have aged better than all of them. It was a lovely way to start the year, particularly as I hadn’t made any resolutions involving personal vanity. [J: Wait, what are you selling me again? Wasn't it plane tickets? So why would I care about any of this?]

Grabaseat is kicking off the New Year with a promotion for cougars. It’s my boss Duane’s idea and he’s given me a special blurb about it to send out. He wrote it himself. It’s quite good. [No, it's a sexist piece of crap, but please don't let that stop you sending it out and spreading your misogyny around]

JOIN THE GRABASEAT COUGAR PRIDE AT THE SEVENS

Cougars are women 35 and over who prefer their meat rare. [Actually cougars are a member of the cat family, and thus only distantly related to Homo sapiens, although you are no doubt correct about the rare meat, seeing as how cooking facilities are difficult when you lack opposable thumbs.] Their prey are at least 10 years their junior. [Really? Is there a rule book or something?] Grabaseat is looking for 60 of these exquisite creatures to join them at the sold out NZI Sevens in Wellington as our pride of cougar cheerleaders. [Oh joy, so this is about getting free cheerleaders then?]

All you have to do is register and upload a photo of your hunting pack (no more than 4 cougars) to be in to win tickets to the NZI Sevens. You and your pack will need to make your own way to Wellington [irony much?] and if you plan on sleeping you will need to find your own den. [Oh this hilarious lion metaphor is a source of boundless puntastic fun. Not.]

Grabaseat will be giving the winners cougar costumes [Any guesses what they will look like? I'm guessing they will feature leopard skin and not much of it] and the equipment to make enough noise to attract the attention of young males [To be the "prey", I suppose]. And to make sure the pride doesn’t go hungry, 10 brave young men recruited by ZM will be thrown in as fresh meat to the winners in Wellington. [Now that's just awful.]

So if you’re more roar than meow, check out our video about the mating habits of cougars and sign up here.

Yuck, yuck, yuck. Haven't watched the video as I'm at work, but if any reader wants to explain what's in it please do so after the beep (i.e. in comments).