A's moral dilemma

My partner, A, was driving with the kids to the video store. Our neighbourhood is a bit mixed - there are gangs and violence in parts of it - so A was quite concerned when he saw a young teenage girl walking by herself in the dark.

A's concern was heightened by the recent rape of a 13 year old girl in Auckland - and that fact that, when this girl asked a member of the public for help, she was turned away. We have a strong ethical principle in our family: if someone needs help, or looks like they might, we intervene (so long as we won't cause more harm, to others or ourselves, by doing so). Nine times out of ten, you just look like an over-anxious dick - but that other one time, you might just be the difference between something bad happening or not. And it's better to look like a dick, we reckon, than have to reproach yourself because you didn't give help to someone who needed it. This may look like a strange creed - it's led to us breaking up fights, having a squabble with skinheads, and, in one bizarre case, me doing point duty until the Police arrived! - but hey, that's the kind of people we are.

So A considered offering the lone teenage girl a ride home. In the provincial areas he and I grew up with, this wasn't a strange thing to do at all (it's a reflection of community that may, sadly, be a thing of the past). He knew that the girl probably wouldn't accept, but he initially thought it was right to make the offer anyway. But then he pondered a bit further: maybe by offering a lift, he would actually just scare the girl, leaving her worse off than if he'd done nothing and let her take her chances walking in the dark.

When I intervene in situations that concern me, I feel I can do it more safely than my partner - because I'm a woman, I don't scare people, and my intervention won't be taken as a sign of aggression, so I feel less likely to be harmed. Because men are the perpetrators of sexual violence, a man's attempt to show concern or intervene may cause fear, or some other negative reaction. There's plenty men can and should do in their everyday lives to resist violence against women. But, in a situation of immediate danger - whether that danger is great, small, or only a possibility - it's hard for a man to show compassion or concern without being perceived as a great, small or possible psycho.

There's a vicious circle going on here. Because men are responsible for most domestic and sexual violence, we think of the tendency to violence as a male characteristic. (The most horrific aspect of the Tony Veitch case is the way it has fed this belief, implying that some situations are so irritating that it's understandable when men 'lash out'. I can't think of any situation in which the public would sympathise with a woman who broke someone's spine.) How can we develop a cultural idea of masculinity which both recognises that men are primarily responsible for violence (and why this is), while also recognising that men aren't destined to be violent. As long as we believe that violence is somehow inherent in (at least some) men, we give a level of cultural permission to male violence.

I would probably have offered the girl a lift. Figuring he might do more harm than good, A kept on driving. It's not that he cares less about sexual violence against women than I do (the incident's been bugging him ever since). It's just that, in a society which justifies and normalises a degree of violence from men, the bloke who challenges this with a 'womanish' gesture of concern may look weird at best, and threatening at worst. The same gesture which suggests concern when it comes from a woman seems suspicious when made by a man.

If we make cultural excuses for men's violence we'll get men's violence, we'll imply that men committed to non-violence and caring are slightly odd, and we'll have good reason to be afraid of men, well-intentioned or otherwise. Who could blame a lone teenage girl for being scared of a strange man, speaking to her from his car in the dark?

(Self) promotion

Last week, I had a performance review at work. It went just fine. My boss was encouraging and helpful. We discussed what I'd done, and how I could improve my skills. But then came the part that made me wince: discussing my future. I quietly blushed and looked at my fingernails while my boss made suggestions about how I could get ahead in my career.

I find it really hard to talk about personal advancement in the workforce, and the idea of putting myself forward for promotion makes me deeply uncomfortable. It's not just because thinking of myself at a time when people are being made redundant in droves seems crass. And it's not just that, as a feminist, I'm only too aware of the feminisation of poverty - that a great many women don't have the basics, let alone the luxury of worrying about career plans. And it's not that I can't be assertive in the workforce, or that I lack self-confidence - I happily take on leadership roles quite often.

Buried deep inside my psyche, there's a part of me that feels very uneasy about putting myself first, and competing with workmates to do so. The stereotype of the cold, ambitious career woman must be lurking somewhere in my subconscious. Some research I did on female academics suggests they feel the same. Women are more likely to wait quietly until someone suggests they apply for promotion, whereas guys will generally just go for it, whether or not they believe they'll succeed. I don't think that competitive behaviour is particularly desirable at work - but if women don't engage, we end up with little or no female representation in our decision-making bodies.

Is this a gender thing, a 'me' thing, or a bit of both? Are there any other shrinking violets out there?

rights or wrongs

bet you've all read the book "don't sweat the small stuff". if you haven't, give it a go. i started off enjoying it, but by the end i was finding the advice pretty insufferable. the phrase "insufferable, sanctimonious do-gooder" kept coming to mind, and i think i never managed to finish the book.

the only piece of advice that i can remember was "would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?". this was in the context that you should give up arguing even though you know you're right, and compromise to reach a position where you'll actually be happy. if i recall correctly, the author gives nice little anecdotes to illustrate his various points. in this case, it was something along the lines of quarelling relatives who hadn't seen each other in years, but then one of them decides that they would rather be happy than right, so rings up & starts the relationship afresh.

yes, i do have a point, i'm getting to it! i was thinking about life as a feminist and an activist. i find that it involves a lot of angst and a lot of arguments, certianly a lot of energy. i've always tried to speak out against things that are wrong, both in my personal life and in the wider community. i try to challenge the status quo, and the responses can vary from positive to rather nasty.

the nastiness tends to be more in the personal sphere than the public one. i read of the experiences of other women who fight for their rights to not have to do all the housework after having to do a full day's paid employment, some who fight for the right to have paid employment, or who argue about names for themselves and their children, or so many other battles as they try to achieve fairness in their relationships. of those, i think the arguments over housework are often the most common and the most frustrating.

in the public sphere, there is still quite a bit of nastiness for the women who dare to speak out. we now have wonderful words like "feminazi" and "sisterhood" along with other put downs (hairy-legged, ugly etc etc), to marginalise such women. and the marginalisation is often just as strong from other women as it is from men. this is something i really struggle with, the notion that such women think of us activitsts as lesser persons than themselves, and the changes we're trying to make as detrimental to their own happiness.

i know in my heart that what we try to achieve is right. i know it's important to take up the fight, to brave the consequences, hold our heads high and keep working on those incremental changes that move us towards our goals. this is what the great women before us have done, so that we can enjoy a better life than they had.

i don't regret my own choices for a minute. i couldn't have lived any other way, i could not have submitted to expectations that were unfair and in the end, too burdensome for me to bear. i'm quite prepared to keep on keeping on & not particularly fussed about the consequences.

but when it comes to my daughters, i come a little unstuck. i want to bring them up to be strong women who speak their minds, are mindful of their rights and keep working for justice. that would be right. but i don't know that it would make them happy. when i look around me, the happier women are the ones who conform, who accept the injustices in their lives as just the way things are and don't waste their time worrying about it. that's not really surprising, as society is set up in such a way that the women who conform are rewarded and valued much more than those who assert themselves.

knowing that, i do wonder if the best thing i can do for my daughters is to give them room to be conformers. after all, if the choice is being right or being happy, for them i'd much rather the latter. so why is it that i can't reconcile myself to sending them down that path?

'Controlling' kids

When it comes to disciplining kids, my philosophy is that no one ever learned to be a good person simply because they were scared of being punished.

I'm happy to be the mother of two kids - my 7 year old daughter, and my 2 year old son - and I'm relieved to say that they're pretty well-behaved. My partner and I try to teach the kids to think about the moral consequences of their actions - if the behaviour you're planning is likely to harm yourself or someone else, don't do it. I figure that telling kids they should behave to avoid punishment implies that it's OK to be naughty if you think no one will catch you. My partner and I occasionally use time out or talk sternly to our kids, but mostly we don't have to, because they're pretty considerate.

So far, so good - but then, straightforward ideas like these work much better for little kids than for teens. Wee ones can't get up to the same waywardness as older kids. They don't drive dangerously, take your credit card or get horrendously drunk in unsafe situations. I've got a feeling that, ten years from now, my simple parenting formula may be challenged!

This article from the Taranaki Daily News got me thinking about a range issues to do with disciplining kids. In this article, the mother of a 16 year old got a last-minute reprieve from a conviction for failing to send her son to school. The formerly truant son, who'd just had his birthday, had had a change of heart and decided to attend school regularly. He'd turned over a new leaf and enrolled in an alternative education programme (suggesting he has learning or behavioural difficulties which were causing him to struggle at school).

This is good news - but, if the son had refused to go back to school, how far could his mum have fairly been held liable? Would his truancy necessarily be a reflection on the quality of his mother's parenting? And how exactly are parents supposed to 'control' teenagers who have minds of their own?

The strangest part of the this article was the following comment from the district court judge, to the teenager's mother:

I can understand how for a mother it is sometimes hard to exercise discipline over a child, particularly one who is now taller than you.

This seems like a suggestion that effective discipline of teenagers lies in some sort of physical superiority - the ability to loom over a kid, perhaps, and intimidate with bodily presence. If that's what we regard as the right way to get kids to behave, discipline of kids will fall to men, and women (particularly those parenting alone) are set up to be 'weak', failed disciplinarians. Most mums aren't tall enough to loom menacingly over their teenage sons - and I, for one, don't want to. When my kids are teens, I hope to have a meaningful influence over their behaviour - one based on reason and consideration, not calling dad in to scare them if they won't do what I say.

The irony is that, in the case of this particular 16 year old, his decision to go back to school had nothing to do with standover disciplinary tactics. He thought about the situation, realised his truancy was about to harm his mother, and he changed his behaviour. That sounds like a good moral outcome to me.

Quick hit: Eluana Englaro

Italy has been riven recently by debate over the life, and death, of Eluana Englaro. She had been in a vegetative state for 17 years, until she passed away earlier this month:

The news of Ms Englaro’s death came as the Upper House of parliament began debating emergency legislation rushed out by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi. It would have ordered medical staff to restore all nutrients. She had been in a vegetative state for 17 years after a car accident.

Ms Englaro’s father, Beppino Englaro, had been fighting for a decade for a dignified end to his daughter’s life in accordance with what he and her friends have testified were her own wishes. At his request doctors at a clinic in Udine stopped feeding Ms Englaro on Friday.

...

The Senate interrupted the debate and observed a minute’s silence as a mark of respect. After the silence came recriminations. “She didn’t die. She was killed,” Gaetano Quagliarello, a centre-right senator, shouted, while others screamed “murderers, murderers” towards the Opposition benches.

Mr Berlusconi’s law would make it illegal for carers of people “unable to take care of themselves” to suspend artificial feeding. Euthanasia is illegal in Italy but refusing treatment is not.

...

For the third day in succession Pope Benedict XVI referred indirectly to the case, declaring yesterday that “the sanctity of life must be safeguarded from conception to its natural end”.

...

Ms Englaro was called “Italy’s Terri Schiavo”, in reference to the American woman in a vegetative state who was allowed to die in 2005 after a long legal fight. Mr Englaro battled his way through Italy’s courts for ten years to have her feeding tube disconnected, saying that it was her wish not to be kept alive artificially.

Rome’s right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, announced that the Colosseum would be lit all night in a sign of mourning for “a life that could have and should have been saved”.

Click through for more.

One of the main arguments for keeping Englaro alive was Berlusconi's claim that she was "in the condition to have babies". (Mortarboard tipped to Pharyngula for the Guardian link). I find this so appalling that I can't find the words to express it fully. Euthanasia is a tricky area, and personally I tend to change my mind on it every few years because I find it so hard. But to argue that someone who has been in a coma for 17 years should be kept alive because she is biologically capable of conceiving a child (and how precisely does she consent to that from a vegetative state?) astounds me. Talk about reducing a woman to just a reproductive machine.

Big thanks to reader Giovanni for bringing this to our attention via our Facebook group.

Taking a hit for the team

In the late eighties - the last time the global economy spat the dummy on a grand scale - I remember having a conversation about unemployment with my mum. She felt that it would be wrong for her, as a stay-at-home mum, to go looking for work - our household already had one income, and many other families had none. Mum wasn't meaning to be sexist, but simply humane. In a society and economy still largely based on male breadwinners and female housekeepers, it seemed to make sense.

Twenty years later and, once again, there aren't enough jobs or money to go round. To some extent, everyone's being asked to take a hit for the team, and our parliamentarians have even volunteered to accept a pay freeze. (At first, I thought the MPs' pay freeze was a pseudo-magnanimous gesture, aimed to make it easier to avoid giving payrises to those on lower incomes. Since then, an increase to the minimum wage has been announced - but we'll see what happens when state employees' pay rounds begin to be negotiated.)

Tightening public and private purses represent a real challenge to the labour movement. What are you supposed to do when there's just not enough moolah? As a public sector employee (and a reasonably well paid one), I'd be quite happy for whatever can be found in the coffers to go towards the lowest paid public employees. But there's plenty of problems with taking that position. For a start, I can't assume that everyone paid the same or more than me is well off - I don't know their circumstances. More importantly, when workers agree to cede their rights, for whatever reason, these can be very hard to recoup at a later date.

I was horrified to see a Christchurch firm offer its employees two options: everyone takes a pay cut, or some of you get laid off. The firm might have been trying to do the right thing, but it put the workers in the awful position of having to duke it out amongst themselves, trying to decide who had the best claim to a job.

Slightly better was the response of the Tiwai aluminium smelter in Southland. They asked who amongst their workers would like to work fewer hours per week. They had so many responses that they were able to shed more equivalent full time workers than they'd hoped. Probably, this is the most humane trade off to be made - no one's been laid off, and wages and conditions have stayed intact. But I can still see alarming possibilities. If a workplace is asked who's willing to take a hit for the team, they must look around themselves and start saying things like, 'Such-and-such is practically at retirement age - why doesn't he cut his hours?', or 'Her husband's got a good job - she's only here for something to do'.

Capitalism stinks - but since the revolution is unlikely to arrive in the immediate future, that's not a very helpful response. The greed and stupidity of some may have contributed to the recession, but the strife that many employers find themselves in is quite real. As a labour movement, it will be a challenge for us to maintain solidarity in troubled times - and to avoid divisive arguments about who should take a hit for the team.

Chicken pox and moral dilemmas

I have a special ability to turn every small life event into an angst-ridden ethically complex personal drama. I can hardly check the mailbox without lengthy speculation on the moral implications of my actions. That's the kind of absurd thing that consumes me every day. I'm an over-sensitive nerd - that's how we roll.

When the kids of friends got chicken pox before Xmas, a new moral dilemma presented itself. I cast my mind back to when I got the pox at age 14. It was bloody awful. As a general rule, the older you are when you get it, the sicker you'll be. I was almost my adult height - probably about 5"6 - and after two weeks of misery my weight had dropped to an extraordinary 38kg.

First of all, I found myself wondering whether I should get my son immunised against chicken pox. I decided against the $80 injection - partly because it doesn't protect recipients against shingles (a related and far worse condition), but mostly out of some half-arsed psuedo-scientific fear that by trying to stamp out common childhood illnesses I would ultimately be weakening the human race.

Not wanting to be responsible for hastening the end of humankind, I was left with two options: to let Nature take Her course, inflicting the pox on my boy if and when She got around to it; or to speed things along by arranging a playdate between my kid and the bepoxed offspring of my chums.

My partner and I debated these options, and he remained uncomfortable with the deliberate exposure idea. It just seems icky, and kind of cruel. I argued that by orchestrating chicken pox now, we'd save the little guy much more unpleasantness in the future - but that still doesn't square well with the principle of 'first do no harm', and neither of us felt particularly reassured.

I ultimately won out with the argument that it was better for the lad to be sick while we have one parent at home full-time with the kids. This is at once sensible and horribly cynical - kids, we'd like you to get sick when it suits our career plans - and seems to suggest something faintly unpleasant about the sort of society we live in. But the playdate of pestilence went ahead, culminating in the poxed boy hugging the non-poxed boy at their parents' suggestion.

Two weeks later, my poor little boy began to come up in horrible sores. He got off lightly compared to many kids, but his sheer unhappiness at times made me feel like the crappiest mother in the world. So I hope my kids will continue to be blessed with good health - if chicken pox gives me an emotional crisis, I don't know how I'd cope with the serious illnesses that other, less lucky families are forced to live with.

Should justice be blind, or more insightful?

The shortcomings of our justice system in dealing with sexual violence has been a frequent topic of discussion at THM, and an article in yesterday's Dom Post provides more food for thought.

Unbeknownst to me - and probably many of us - it's common practice for Police to provide Crown prosecutors with info on potential jurors before a trial. Jurors can be vetted on the basis of this information, which includes their criminal convictions, acquittals, withdrawn charges, jurors' criminal associations and which jurors had been crime victims.

Lawyers are petitioning the Supreme Court, claiming the practice of vetting is a miscarriage of justice. The Solicitor-General has defended the practice, arguing that it would be inappropriate to have a convicted sex offender on the jury of a sexual violence trial.

But what should be the limits of this vetting, and what checks and balances govern (or ought to govern) the information which Police can provide? What's the threshold for deciding someone's not suitable to be on a jury? What crimes should disqualify a person from being a juror, and under what circumstances? What's the rationale for removing victims of crime from juries - do we think they'll be hysterical and irrational? And what does it mean to be judged by one's peers anyway?

There are a lot of questions to be asked here, and trade offs to be made between seem ethical values and others. I look forward to the insightful comments of THM readers...

Is free speech everything it's cracked up to be?

Case study 1#

The Dunedin queer community organised an awards event to cap off Pride Week. They put promotional posters on the temporary barriers around a building site, as several other event promoters had done. An employee of the city council put stickers reading 'Cancelled' over the Pride Week posters. He claimed he did it because the barriers are a no poster area. The mayor publicly stated his support for the actions of the council employee. The attendance of the awards event is significantly reduced. Both the mayor and council employee have used their right to free speech to make the queer community feel marginalised.

Case study 2#

Medical doctor and euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke is visiting to Dunedin to speak in favour of his cause. The University of Otago – with its mandate to act as the critic and conscience of society – would not allow him to speak on campus. Nitschke's supporters booked a venue at a hotel for him to speak at, but the hotel backed out after calls from protesters. Nitschke has the right to free speech, but has had difficulty finding anyone to facilitate that right in Dunedin.

Case study 3#

A young woman was raped by four English rugby players. Few seem to believe the 'sex' wasn't consensual and many simply don't care, blaming the woman regardless. The woman has the right to give her account, and no shortage of media willing to publish it; but she, and we, know that to do so would bring a new barrage of cruel attacks on her actions and her character. A law professor publicly questioned her choice to write an anonymous letter about her experiences: this is not the right way for a rape victim to communicate, apparently, and makes her look suspicious. Members of the public are speculating about the woman on blogs, in pubs and elsewhere. The woman has the right to free speech but is justifiably too afraid to use it.

Free speech is a philosophical and practical problem which we debate and negotiate every day. I'm not saying it's unimportant, but I don't rate it as highly as the other ethics I hold dear as a feminist – and we've all seen instances in which the right to free speech is used to hinder feminist or other socially progressive activities. I don't consider the right to free speech more important than, for example, the right of a queer person to feel safe and valued in their community; but then again, I don't have any ideas about how the right to free speech could fairly or realistically be curbed. Most people believe the individual's right to speak should at some point be outweighed by the communities' rights, but where should that point be set?

I look forward to your comments!

Do juries deliver justice?

It's common for feminists to point out that the legal system often fails women, particularly those seeking protection from sexual and other violence. Stories of those like Louise Nicholas show how the Police may be uncaring or even hostile towards complainants, and how going to court can be humiliating and traumatic. I think there's another aspect of the system that needs some good old-fashioned feminist scrutiny, and that's juries.

Most people prefer a trip to the dentist over jury service, and try to get out of it any way they can. When I was called up, I was pretty keen: I wanted an insight into how the justice system works. My jury's case was one of a young guy in his late twenties, accused of indecently assaulting a boy of about 14 years of age a couple of years previously. As a feminist, I went into the trial with the belief that sexual assaults are underreported, that the system treats victims poorly, and that it takes a great deal of courage for victims to come forward – therefore, a complainant should usually have the benefit of the doubt. As the trial proceeded, everything got grey. The accused was an idiot, but in my estimation, a harmless one. He'd had a mentoring relationship with the complainant, and had allegedly touched the complainant on the groin once while playfighting, and on the knee while they were in a car together, at unspecified times. Far more damaging to the complainant were other aspects of his lifestyle revealed in court: he was a frequent cannabis smoker (he'd pleaded guilty to possession; let his young charge go about unsupervised at night; had porn mags in his house, which the complainant often visited; and was generally irresponsible with poor judgement.

As the trial went on, it became increasingly clear that the complainant was a little shit. He was caught out telling a bunch of childish lies on the stand, where it was also revealed that he and his mates had gone to a local school one night and smashed all the windows. The defence lawyer was obliged to bring up these matters, as there was no other way to defend his client against the rather non-specific charges against him. Much of the kid's misdemeanours were news to his family: they looked on and cringed. The arresting officer took the stand, and was questioned by the defence lawyer about the way he'd recorded the details of the investigation. One of the key pieces of 'evidence' against the complainant came from the officer, who claimed the complainant had admitted he 'was sometimes too friendly with the boys' he mentored. When questioned, the officer conceded he'd recorded the accused's admission a full month after it was supposed to have happened, because he'd 'forgotten' it.

What the hell was going on here, you might ask? Why were the Police so eager to prosecute this case, with no direct evidence, and so reluctant to prosecute other cases of sexual violence or misconduct? You can see the horns of the feminist dilemma I was having. On the one hand, I wanted to believe the complainant; on the other, I was very uneasy about how and why the Police had prosecuted the accused.

Things were difficult. When the jury began to deliberate, they became diabolical. For a start, the jury did not represent a cross-section of society. There was a disproportionately high number of retired people. Most of the few young people there were unemployed. There were more women than men, one of whom was a stay at home mum. Others of us occupied various jobs, none particularly flash or important. As far as I know, only three of us were parents.

Before we retired, the judge gave us strict instructions on how to consider the evidence before us. Here are some of the highlights of the deliberations which followed:

One juror proposed asking the judge whether the porn enjoyed by the accused was gay or straight. If we could establish whether the complainant was gay, he suggested, we'd know whether he was more or less likely to molest boys.

Several jurors could not understand the difference between evidence and fact. They thought that they were required to believe everything put forward as evidence, even when two pieces of evidence contradicted one another.

A devoutly Catholic woman (who took the liberty of criticising my de facto relationship over lunch) said we must find the accused guilty of indecent assault, whether he'd done it or not. As a marijuana smoker, he needed to be in prison. She told me that it was because of views like mine that people like him remained 'on the streets'. She suggested ignoring the judge's instructions on how to consider the evidence.

An elderly woman juror, who was quite lovely but appeared to be suffering the onset of dementia, commented, 'I don’t really understand things. Usually my grandson does things for me'.

In my long-winded way, the point I am trying to make is that unpleasant social ideas plus the inability to reason according to the judge's instructions may equal terrible outcomes. The gay/straight porn argument disturbed me the most – it illustrates how dangerous 'common sense' ideas about sexuality can be. Imagine if ALAC's 'Lisa' had taken her rapist to court. What would my jury have made of that? I'd bet you everything I've got that we would have spent our deliberation arguing between two propositions: a) by getting drunk, a woman is signalling that she wants it, and b) a drunk woman may not want it, but it serves her right anyway. Which of these two sorry ideas would we have settled on?

I don't know what the answer is, but my intention isn't to be critical of people who do jury service. Jurors are on a hiding to nothing. They sit is an airless room for hours, under fluorescent lights with cheap instant coffee and Vanilla Wine biscuits, pulling their hair out at other jurors' inability to understand what they're saying. They have inadequate information on which to make a decision; and they consider information which is not presented in the orderly way it appears in television coverage, but in a haphazard mess. They get tired and their concentration slips, despite their best efforts. They're not allowed to ring out to find out how their kids or workplaces are getting on, except under exceptional circumstances. They slowly but surely go mad. And in certain cases, such as that of the Kahui twins, they have to consider matters which are unspeakably horrible. To top it off, no matter what decision they make, they'll be criticised.

Would you like to know what happened in my case? When the jury retired, nine initially believed the accused to be guilty. I'm not usually a person who likes bossing and browbeating others, but this sent me into a panic: I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd sent an innocent guy to prison. So with the help of the youngest juror, we simply nagged and wore away at the others until they gave in with exhaustion and agreed to a not guilty verdict. In the name of some abstract principle of justice which I'm not fully convinced of – and in defiance of my own feminist beliefs – I was an unethical, mean bitch. Like the other jurors, I followed my conscience and did my best – but I couldn't put my hand on the Bible and swear to you that we, or any other participants in this unpleasant justice process, achieved anything socially useful at all.

breach of contract?

i read this news yesterday, about the annulment of a marriage in the south of france on the grounds that the bride was not, as she had claimed, a virgin. the reaction around the western world appears to be one of general outrage. but i'm not sure that is really helpful.

my first thought was for the couple themselves. the groom is obviously at the stage where he has no respect for his wife. the wife has been shamed and does not want to stay in the marriage. let's ignore the wider issues for the moment, and think of the consequences of the appeal of this decision.

this couple clearly do not want to be with each other, and since they both oppose the appeal, i would conclude that neither of them wants a divorce on their "record". but should the annulment be reversed, they would immediately file for divorce. i'm not sure what would have been gained. possibly only the wording of the initial ruling itself, which saw this as an act of misrepresentation, and therefore presumably a breach of contract. but i can't imagine that anyone seriously thinks this marriage should continue.

the wider issue of course is whether it is acceptable to expect virginity prior to marriage. if a person believes that sex outside of marriage is wrong, then it would follow that they would want a partner who holds the same belief, and and has practiced it. for example, i have a hindu friend whose husband told her he was a virgin when he married her. some time into the marriage, he came out with the truth. it was something that she found she couldn't forgive, and although it certainly wasn't the sole reason for their very messy divorce, it was a large factor in her mind.

it boils down to the fact that there is no way to prove whether or not a man in a virgin. this is a situation where we women are let down by our biology. since virginity can be proven for a woman (although not in all casees), we are left with gross discrimination that has wider consequences.

i've heard of customs where the bloodied sheet is passed around as a trophy on the wedding night, while the bride's father rejoices in this proof of his daughter's virginity. absolutely gross and apparently what was supposed to happen in this case. the result, the article i've linked to shows, is not pretty:

The case has also highlighted the plight of young Muslim women, many of whom go as far as to have their hymens repaired in surgery to evade the shame of a Ms Y. Fake virginity certificates and tricks like vials of spilled blood on the wedding night are also not uncommon.

as an aside, i would suggest that this kind of thing isn't limited to muslim women. but the lengths women are going to in order to falsely prove their chastity is appalling. many would be doing so because of fear of violence or even death. the misrepresentation of this bride may have been less for the sake of her husband, and more out of fear of her own family. maybe she had been hoping that her husband would be more understanding than her parents. who knows?

there really are only two options to this situation. either we push for these women to practice abstinence, or we push for everyone to accept that virginity should not be a condition for marriage. if we push for the former, not only is there the whole issue of women who don't bleed when they lose their virginity and women who have been sexually abused/raped; but there is still the issue of double standards because we should expect the same from men but can't hold them to it. not to mention, the faking of virginity and the abuse of women who haven't managed to fake it.

the latter is the option that has been pretty much adopted in the west. in time, no doubt it will be adopted in the east as well. i wonder why that thought doesn't fill me with joy. perhaps it's the loss of notions of innocence and purity. the succumbing to the instant gratification world, where everything has to be here and now. i can't seem to adequately explain it, but it seems to me that something important will be gone.

unfortunately, there is no middle ground between these two options. and in the meantime, there is this poor woman who has been thrust in the spotlight against her will, who wants her marriage annulled, and whose voice seems to be totally drowned out. against her will, she's to be made a martyr in the cause of liberty, fraternity and equality. i hope it's worth it.

What’s a mother to do?

When my partner and I first moved in together we infected each other with two particularly virulent and long lasting maladies. I caught Coronation Street off him and, for his sins, he now suffers a strange spasm most week nights from 7pm, for half an hour or so. We have sat in front of the goggle-box through Mike Barlow’s decline, Huia Samuels’s explosive end, Sarah Platt’s aborted wedding, and Chris Warner’s return. Neither of us go in for Home and Away, Neighbours or Eastenders, but Coro and Shortie are our guilty pleasures.

The current water cooler conversation at Soap Watchers Anonymous, at least in our shaky isles, is Tracy Barlow’s murder trial. For those unfamiliar with the plot line here’s a quick summary:

1. Charlie is an emotionally abusive arsehole who almost ruins the life of the very nice Shelley.
2. Sometime after Shelley leaves Charlie at the altar, he and long-time Coro troublemaker Tracy start a relationship that could be made for the cliché “they deserve each other.”
3. The two nasties basically play games with each other, until Charlie has an affair and Tracy breaks it off in outrage.
4. Surprisingly, Tracy quickly goes back to Charlie. In fact, she has decided to exact her revenge by the long-winded route of creating the (mostly false) impression that he is abusing her and eventually killing him. Her intention all along is to plead not guilty on the grounds of self-defence, by virtue of being a battered spouse.
5. Tracy puts her plan into action, manipulating her neighbour Clare and her mother Deidre, amongst other unwitting Coro St residents, to create witnesses to Charlie’s supposed abuse.
6. Eventually Tracy tries to goad Charlie into physically attacking her so that she can kill him in the process of a fight. When he refuses to rise to the bait she scones him one with a statuette anyway. After some suspense he dies and she is arrested for murder.
7. Tracy sets about giving herself the best possible chance of getting away with it through a sex-for-eye-witness-testimony deal with the Teen From Hell David. She also guilts her parents into funding an expensive legal team, including a lawyer who specializes in helping abused women to escape their violent partners.
8. Deirdre, Tracy’s mother, works it all out and confronts her daughter, who rather remorselessly confesses all.

This last happens a few days before Deirdre is due to testify as the final witness in Tracy’s defence case, backing up her daughter’s accusations of abuse by Charlie. As a woman who has done jail time herself, Deirdre cannot stand the thought of losing her daughter to prison. She also knows that if she doesn’t lie on the stand she will lose her anyway, as Tracy will excise her mother from her life, and take Deirdre’s grand daughter away too.

As a mum, Deirdre feels extreme guilt for her part in raising a daughter who could murder, and also has a parent’s natural inclination to want to do anything to save her child. Plus, Charlie was genuinely a horrible abusive man, although his manipulation wasn’t particularly effective on the woman who actually killed him. All up it’s a twisted situation, fraught with moral dilemna.

What would you do in Deirdre’s brogues? Would you do anything to save your child from many years in prison? If your offspring committed a heinous crime, and you knew all about it, would you shop them? And is Coro St being irresponsible by promulgating the idea that a woman would make up a serious case of abuse to get away with murder?

Thoughts, dear readers, in comments, or if you prefer to write a post on your own blog about this matter please do share a link.