Demetri Marchessini has caused vast amusement by declaring in a creepy book that women wearing trousers is a hostile act.
Let's pause to let that sink in. Putting on trousers and striding around in them all day, is a hostile act if you have a vagina.
Here's the article so that you can get the full enjoyment this poltroon provides: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/17/ukip-donor-women-hostile-trousers At the same time, you can decide whether you feel he is being particularly hostile to women by not looking as attractive as we might like him to look
While I've hooted along with everyone else, I've been very grateful to this guy for expressing something which most people don't want to admit many men feel: that they have the right to be sexually titillated or at least aesthetically pleased, by the sight of women.
Not by women in their bedrooms, or on a date, or at a party; just by women in general, walking down the street, shopping, working, going about their daily business. Women men don't know, have never had any dealings with and have no relevance to their lives, have no right to be out in public, unless they are making an effort to look as if they care if men want to fuck them or not. If they're not prepared to make themselves sexually attractive to men, they they don't really have the right to be out in the world. They should either stay at home or wear a burka, so that men's aesthetic sensibilities are not offended. Looking as if they don't actually care if they please men or not, is enough to be considered as a declaration of hostility by men like Demetri Marchessini. The idea that we should have dressed to please ourselves, to go about our business comfortably, rather than to have prioritised being aesthetically or sexually pleasing to men, is a terribly worrying one for men like this.
Marchessini is idiotic enough to have expressed that worry out loud in public; but there are many more men out there, who at the back of their mind have the same assumptions but just don't express them out loud because they suspect they'd be laughed at as loudly as Marchessini has been. While it's fun to laugh at them, it's worth examining why they are worried; if women are comfortable and happy in their own skins and aren't trying to please men, then that means that men can't enjoy the power kick of being constantly reminded that women's essential role is to be there to please them and be used by them. That's what lies at the heart of this hostile trousers nonsense.
I won't even begin to compare the way men express hostility to women, compared with how Marchessini et al think women express hostility to men; men's hostility to women goes way beyond wearing the wrong trousers; in public, men catcall, harass and insult women; those women who dress without reference to pleasing men will be instructed by male acquaintances to put some make up on or cover their grey hairs and advised by men they don't know that they are munters if they don't; those who do dress to comply with patriarchal beauty standards will be advised that they have nice tits, or a fat arse or that they need to be fucked slowly for 12 hours or any of the other myriad threatening remarks men seem to be able to pick out of their bag without thinking. They'll rape or sexually assault a quarter of us at some point in our lifetime; and they kill 2 women a week in the UK.
If only men could take a leaf out of women's book and express hostility to the opposite sex by wearing clothes women find unattractive, instead of insulting us, harassing us, raping us, beating us or killing us. How much more pleasant and safe the world would be for women.
Trigger Warnings
Saturday, 18 May 2013
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Possible domestic violence going on? Nothing for the Cleveland police to bother about
So the horrifying story of the Cleveland kidnaps are beginning to come to light and the wearying, oh so predictable scenario of how it was possible for 3 men to keep prisoner and abuse 3 women and a child for over a decade with no-one noticing, is also coming to light.
The Cleveland police have been criticised for not taking seriously phone calls from neighbours who noticed young women in the garden on dog-leashes and phoned to report. It seems that putting a woman on a dog leash and walking her round the garden is not worthy of police attention.
On one level, the people who are into BDSM and tell the rest of us we're boring vanillas because we're not, have a point; if people are going about their lawful business engaging in consensual abusive behaviour, then it isn't the business of the police.
What is disturbing however, is that the default mode of the police was to accept that whatever was happening, must be consensual and therefore not worthy of further investigation.
Is it really too much to ask that the cultural mainstreaming of the eroticisation of violence against women, should not be accepted by the police as being the default mode of relationships between men and women and therefore not worthy of even the most box-ticking of questions in case there is a crime going on?
Should the default not be for the people who are supposed to enforce law and order, to assume something untoward in this scenario unless they are told by the potential victim (in a safe space, away from the potential abuser) that it's all consensual and everything is OK so they can put their clipboards away and go on back to their police station?
It occurred to me while reading about this crime, that one of the reasons to resist the mainstreaming of BDSM (among others) is that if it is so mainstream that the police assume that every report of violence against women is simply kink spilling out of the bedroom into the garden, then the world becomes a more unsafe place for women than it already is - and it's already dangerous enough for us. This isn't a post urging everyone to give up kink immediately if that's what they're into; just pointing out that it's one more source of danger for women if we accept it as normal and assume abuse is consensual when we see it.
That's apart from the fact that the police received other calls which indicated that there may be some domestic violence going on in that house and ignored them because DV is simply so normal.
When it comes down to it, the three kidnapped women remained captives for so long, because of the cultural acceptance and support of male violence. Neighbours would have been more curious, police would have taken calls seriously, Amanda, Gina and Michelle would have been free a long time ago, if we didn't accept male violence against women as being normal enough for the police not to need to even check it out.
The Cleveland police have been criticised for not taking seriously phone calls from neighbours who noticed young women in the garden on dog-leashes and phoned to report. It seems that putting a woman on a dog leash and walking her round the garden is not worthy of police attention.
On one level, the people who are into BDSM and tell the rest of us we're boring vanillas because we're not, have a point; if people are going about their lawful business engaging in consensual abusive behaviour, then it isn't the business of the police.
What is disturbing however, is that the default mode of the police was to accept that whatever was happening, must be consensual and therefore not worthy of further investigation.
Is it really too much to ask that the cultural mainstreaming of the eroticisation of violence against women, should not be accepted by the police as being the default mode of relationships between men and women and therefore not worthy of even the most box-ticking of questions in case there is a crime going on?
Should the default not be for the people who are supposed to enforce law and order, to assume something untoward in this scenario unless they are told by the potential victim (in a safe space, away from the potential abuser) that it's all consensual and everything is OK so they can put their clipboards away and go on back to their police station?
It occurred to me while reading about this crime, that one of the reasons to resist the mainstreaming of BDSM (among others) is that if it is so mainstream that the police assume that every report of violence against women is simply kink spilling out of the bedroom into the garden, then the world becomes a more unsafe place for women than it already is - and it's already dangerous enough for us. This isn't a post urging everyone to give up kink immediately if that's what they're into; just pointing out that it's one more source of danger for women if we accept it as normal and assume abuse is consensual when we see it.
That's apart from the fact that the police received other calls which indicated that there may be some domestic violence going on in that house and ignored them because DV is simply so normal.
When it comes down to it, the three kidnapped women remained captives for so long, because of the cultural acceptance and support of male violence. Neighbours would have been more curious, police would have taken calls seriously, Amanda, Gina and Michelle would have been free a long time ago, if we didn't accept male violence against women as being normal enough for the police not to need to even check it out.
Friday, 3 May 2013
Another week, another BBC predator exposed.
Stuart Hall who apparently was one of the most popular TV presenters on the BBC at one time (I don't seem to have any memory of him at all, but clearly I wasn't paying attention at the time) admitted abusing 13 girls (one as young as 9 years old) in between 1967 and 1986.
Amid all the comment, interviews, flurries of shock and horror, one thing struck me on the World at One yesterday: an interview with journalist Linda McDougal, who had worked with him. She frankly described him as a nuisance, but then, she more or less accepted that all men back then in the workplace were, and he was very friendly and nice and she had remained good friends with him - so much so, that it was only because he had preyed on children, that she had agreed to speak to the world at one; the implication being, that if he'd sexually abused adult women, that would somehow not have merited her speaking to the World at One.
Pause to let that sink in.
If he hadn't assaulted children, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. Assaulting women, isn't so much of a big deal that it's worth dropping a friend for or being interviewed by the media to shed some light on it, even if you yourself might have been one of the victims of that sexually predatory behaviour.
Now I don't blame Linda McDougal for this indulgent attitude to the small matter of sexual abuse of women, even though she said she was a feminist way back then when Hall sexually abusing girls. Our whole culture encourages us to believe that men are entitled to be sexually predatory and has only ever punished predatory behaviour by men, if it were directed against the wrong person. If a man was predatory towards a child or woman owned by a man of higher socio-economic status to him, or the wrong caste or race as defined by the male elders of the community, then he might be punished for his predatory behaviour; and nowadays, we tend to believe that men are not entitled to be sexually predatory towards any pre-pubescent children, whatever their social class; we also think they don't have the right to be predatory towards adults who are vulnerable because of a learning disability or illness (it's not acceptable to rape someone in a coma, however much s/he doesn't say no); but towards women; nah, that's still OK, sexually predatory attitudes and behaviour towards fully grown women are perfectly fine and dandy and not something to drop a friend about.
When I hear perfectly intelligent women talk like that about sexually predatory behaviour by men, it's hard to stop my heart from sinking. When self-identified feminists can imply that their friendship with a man would not be particularly damaged by finding out that he's a sexual predator who preys on women, then the denial about the roots of male sexual predatory behaviour runs very very deep.
And still the media avoids the issue. Each BBC or Corrie predator remains either an individual perv or a product of that particular workplace; there is no analysis of the wider culture within which those workplaces sit, which taught them to be the way they were.
Stuart Hall who apparently was one of the most popular TV presenters on the BBC at one time (I don't seem to have any memory of him at all, but clearly I wasn't paying attention at the time) admitted abusing 13 girls (one as young as 9 years old) in between 1967 and 1986.
Amid all the comment, interviews, flurries of shock and horror, one thing struck me on the World at One yesterday: an interview with journalist Linda McDougal, who had worked with him. She frankly described him as a nuisance, but then, she more or less accepted that all men back then in the workplace were, and he was very friendly and nice and she had remained good friends with him - so much so, that it was only because he had preyed on children, that she had agreed to speak to the world at one; the implication being, that if he'd sexually abused adult women, that would somehow not have merited her speaking to the World at One.
Pause to let that sink in.
If he hadn't assaulted children, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. Assaulting women, isn't so much of a big deal that it's worth dropping a friend for or being interviewed by the media to shed some light on it, even if you yourself might have been one of the victims of that sexually predatory behaviour.
Now I don't blame Linda McDougal for this indulgent attitude to the small matter of sexual abuse of women, even though she said she was a feminist way back then when Hall sexually abusing girls. Our whole culture encourages us to believe that men are entitled to be sexually predatory and has only ever punished predatory behaviour by men, if it were directed against the wrong person. If a man was predatory towards a child or woman owned by a man of higher socio-economic status to him, or the wrong caste or race as defined by the male elders of the community, then he might be punished for his predatory behaviour; and nowadays, we tend to believe that men are not entitled to be sexually predatory towards any pre-pubescent children, whatever their social class; we also think they don't have the right to be predatory towards adults who are vulnerable because of a learning disability or illness (it's not acceptable to rape someone in a coma, however much s/he doesn't say no); but towards women; nah, that's still OK, sexually predatory attitudes and behaviour towards fully grown women are perfectly fine and dandy and not something to drop a friend about.
When I hear perfectly intelligent women talk like that about sexually predatory behaviour by men, it's hard to stop my heart from sinking. When self-identified feminists can imply that their friendship with a man would not be particularly damaged by finding out that he's a sexual predator who preys on women, then the denial about the roots of male sexual predatory behaviour runs very very deep.
And still the media avoids the issue. Each BBC or Corrie predator remains either an individual perv or a product of that particular workplace; there is no analysis of the wider culture within which those workplaces sit, which taught them to be the way they were.
Friday, 15 March 2013
So who at the BBC has an axe to grind about false rape allegations?
That someone at the BBC has an axe to grind, is the only conclusion I could draw from its coverage of the latest report from the CPS about false rape allegations.
The Press Release from the CPS is here: http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/under_the_spotlight/
It basically emphasises the fact that contrary to popular myth, false allegations of rape are really very rare indeed.
And what did the BBC run with? This: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21016808
A report which emphasises how awful it is to be falsely accused of rape.
Now I have no doubt that it is awful to be falsely accused of rape. No worse than actually being raped of course, but the BBC isn't as bothered about that.
What I can't understand, is why the BBC decided to take the CPS report, which is very clear that one of the major reasons rape victims don't get justice, is precisely because of this widespread belief that false allegations are a serious problem and run with propagating the very thing the CPS identifies as a problem: the idea that rape myths are a major issue when it comes to rape and a serious problem in terms of proportion.
It is either a case of very stupid journalists, who even when presented with a report that says the opposite of what they expect it to, still run with their prejudices, or it is a case of someone at the BBC having a bloody big axe to grind.
The End Violence Against Women Coalition have complained about the coverage. A link to their complaint is here: http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/news/86/womens-groups-complain-to-bbc-over-its-coverage-of-cps-false-allegations-report
The BBC's response is pathetic and is given at the bottom of the EVAW page.
Meanwhile women continue to get raped or sexually assaulted at the rate of 1 in 4, 85-90% of us don't report rape and of those who do, only 6% see their rapist found guilty. The CPS latest research shows that the rate of false allegation is even lower than we used to think it was when we thought it was only about 3-4%. But the BBC uses licence-fee payer's money, to focus on false allegations, the very prioritisation of which, contributes to the culture in which rape victims feel they can't report.
Why would that be?
I'll leave you to speculate, as I am doing.
The Press Release from the CPS is here: http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/under_the_spotlight/
It basically emphasises the fact that contrary to popular myth, false allegations of rape are really very rare indeed.
And what did the BBC run with? This: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21016808
A report which emphasises how awful it is to be falsely accused of rape.
Now I have no doubt that it is awful to be falsely accused of rape. No worse than actually being raped of course, but the BBC isn't as bothered about that.
What I can't understand, is why the BBC decided to take the CPS report, which is very clear that one of the major reasons rape victims don't get justice, is precisely because of this widespread belief that false allegations are a serious problem and run with propagating the very thing the CPS identifies as a problem: the idea that rape myths are a major issue when it comes to rape and a serious problem in terms of proportion.
It is either a case of very stupid journalists, who even when presented with a report that says the opposite of what they expect it to, still run with their prejudices, or it is a case of someone at the BBC having a bloody big axe to grind.
The End Violence Against Women Coalition have complained about the coverage. A link to their complaint is here: http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/news/86/womens-groups-complain-to-bbc-over-its-coverage-of-cps-false-allegations-report
The BBC's response is pathetic and is given at the bottom of the EVAW page.
Meanwhile women continue to get raped or sexually assaulted at the rate of 1 in 4, 85-90% of us don't report rape and of those who do, only 6% see their rapist found guilty. The CPS latest research shows that the rate of false allegation is even lower than we used to think it was when we thought it was only about 3-4%. But the BBC uses licence-fee payer's money, to focus on false allegations, the very prioritisation of which, contributes to the culture in which rape victims feel they can't report.
Why would that be?
I'll leave you to speculate, as I am doing.
Friday, 15 February 2013
"It's only 9 months. To save a life"
"It's only nine months! Isn't that worth it, to save a human life?"
So goes the argument made by those idiots who are in favour of forcing girls and women who get pregnant with an unplanned foetus, to continue with the pregancy and give birth to it against their will.
As anyone who has actually been pregnant knows, it's not 9 months, it's 40 weeks, which is actually nearer to 10 months. The reason tradition has it as 9 months, is because in the old days most women didn't know they were pregnant in those first few weeks.
There is a modern myth abroad which declares that "being pregnant is not an illness" and that it is in fact, nearly exactly like not being pregnant. Again, as anyone who knows anything about it knows, that is simply not true. However for many of us, we have NO IDEA, not a single conception, of just how unlike not being pregnant, being pregnant can be, unless we ourselves experience some of the risks and side-effects or know someone who has done so.
I did a little bit of research on this. Oh all right, I didn't, I went on Mumsnet and asked them - this should not be taken as a comprehensive list or a serious meta-analysis. It's just a list of things people on Mumsnet have had happen to them as a direct or indirect result of being pregnant and giving birth. Some of them are relatively trivial, some are vair serious indeed, like Death. Anyway it's my starting point for a list of potential risks that women undergo, when they decide to keep a pregnancy. Or when somebody decides they have to keep it whether they want to or not. When you see it written down, you wonder how much hatred pro-forced-birthers have for women. For the real hardliners, none of this means anything, they hate us anyway and don't believe our lives have any value. But for the thoughtless knee-jerkers who aren't that committed to the forced-birth arguments, this list might be a useful thing to contemplate. Anyone wanting to add anything, I'd be interested to hear from you.
Anaemia
Anal fissures
Anal incontinence
Anaesthetic mistakes leading to permanent disability.
Asthma - 1/3 of women who have it finds that pregancy makes it worse.
Back pain
Bell's palsy
Blindess (tearing retina during delivery because of pressure of pushing)
C-sec wounds getting infected, haematomas associated with C-sec wounds, keloid scarring.
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Cascade renal colic
Change in digestive system
Change of body shape - breasts and hips do not return to form prior to pregnancy. There are implications for psychological harm there alone.
Coccyx problems - some women have difficulty sitting down forever after.
Constant nausea sometimes for the whole 10 months
Cutting of bladder during caesarean
Death
Decreased suppleness (particularly bad for women who do sport).
Dental problems
De Quervain's Syndrome or Mother's Thumb?
Diarrhea and vomiting lasting for 2 or 3 years after the pregnancy.
Eclampsia
Eczema can be made worse
Episiotomy wounds can open up
Eye prescription changes.
Fistula
Gestational Diabetes. About 8% of women are affected by this.
Guilt and self-loathing from giving child up or not bonding if kept.
Gum disease and wobbly teeth
Haemorrhage
Hair colour change
Hands and/ or feet can grow and not go back to their old size.
Hernia
Hip pain
Hormonal effects on pre-existing conditions ie psoriasis, acne, etc
Hyperemesis, with severe dehydration
Increased risk of gallstones and kidney stones
Increased risk of osteoporosis
Increased risk 12 months post partum for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (inflammation of the uterus, ovaries, FTs) - can leave permanent scarring, cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy etc
Iritis (a horrid auto-immune inflammation of the iris, which leads to blindness if not treated quickly and efficiently. A sudden change in hormones can cause an attack).
Less intense orgasms
Lochia can be retained, causing distention of the uterus.
Lowering of the immune system
Mastitis
Memory implications
Mental Health conditions are often exacerbated by pregnancy.
Months of sleeplessness. Sleep deprivation recognised as serious health risk by most medical authorities in the world.
Muscle tears
Multiple Sclerosis has been known to be triggered in pregnancy
Negative impact on finances that will affect mental health, lifestyle, access to jobs.
Nerve damage
Nipple thrush causing nipples to permanently invert. Leading to lack of confidence, lowered libido etc.
OCD can be triggered/get worse post partum.
Pain of the milk coming in.
Permanent increase in blood pressure
Piles
Plantar fasciitis
PND
Post partum hyperthyroidism, leading to the need to take thyroxine for the rest of ones days.
Post-birth complications. Poor stitching followed by repair operation months later.
Post natal psychosis
Pre-eclampsia
Pre-existing conditions like Arthritis, need drugs to control them. These drugs are harmful to foetuses and need to be stopped, leading to the woman with arthritis ending up in constant pain for years, possibly life and needing to use a wheelchair.
Pre-natal anxiety and depression is generally not discussed but common.
Prolapse
PTSD
Restless Leg Syndrome
Scarring
Sexual problems (libido, sensations)
Skin changes like patches, spots etc. Sometimes patches never clear up.
Snoring and sleep apnoea
Spinal migraine
Sore and painful joints, sometimes lasting months or years.
SPD - a syndrome which can lead to serious disability and pain, no cure.
Splitting of chest muscles (can't remember term, but colleague could fit a fist in the space between her muscles)
Tears into urethra and clitoris as well as vaginal and anal.
Thrombosis- deep vein and superficial vein
Tokophobia
Urinary Incontinence - stress incontinence, urge incontinence and both. This would be considered a major effect in a man, but for some reason women are supposed not to mind. This can lead to lack of confidence, depression etc. (Which since this is how patriarchy likes women to feel, should possibly be seen as not a side effect at all, but a lovely womanly enhancement.)
Varicose veins
Women who suffer Gestational Diabetes are more likely than average to develop diabetes later on in life. Sometimes gestational diabetes will be permanent.
Only 9 months eh? I don't think so. Now imagine telling a man that he should risk any of the more serious things on this list (or even some of the less serious things), in order to save the life of a child, because human life.
It just wouldn't happen would it? Because unlike women, men matter.
So goes the argument made by those idiots who are in favour of forcing girls and women who get pregnant with an unplanned foetus, to continue with the pregancy and give birth to it against their will.
As anyone who has actually been pregnant knows, it's not 9 months, it's 40 weeks, which is actually nearer to 10 months. The reason tradition has it as 9 months, is because in the old days most women didn't know they were pregnant in those first few weeks.
There is a modern myth abroad which declares that "being pregnant is not an illness" and that it is in fact, nearly exactly like not being pregnant. Again, as anyone who knows anything about it knows, that is simply not true. However for many of us, we have NO IDEA, not a single conception, of just how unlike not being pregnant, being pregnant can be, unless we ourselves experience some of the risks and side-effects or know someone who has done so.
I did a little bit of research on this. Oh all right, I didn't, I went on Mumsnet and asked them - this should not be taken as a comprehensive list or a serious meta-analysis. It's just a list of things people on Mumsnet have had happen to them as a direct or indirect result of being pregnant and giving birth. Some of them are relatively trivial, some are vair serious indeed, like Death. Anyway it's my starting point for a list of potential risks that women undergo, when they decide to keep a pregnancy. Or when somebody decides they have to keep it whether they want to or not. When you see it written down, you wonder how much hatred pro-forced-birthers have for women. For the real hardliners, none of this means anything, they hate us anyway and don't believe our lives have any value. But for the thoughtless knee-jerkers who aren't that committed to the forced-birth arguments, this list might be a useful thing to contemplate. Anyone wanting to add anything, I'd be interested to hear from you.
Anaemia
Anal fissures
Anal incontinence
Anaesthetic mistakes leading to permanent disability.
Asthma - 1/3 of women who have it finds that pregancy makes it worse.
Back pain
Bell's palsy
Blindess (tearing retina during delivery because of pressure of pushing)
C-sec wounds getting infected, haematomas associated with C-sec wounds, keloid scarring.
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Cascade renal colic
Change in digestive system
Change of body shape - breasts and hips do not return to form prior to pregnancy. There are implications for psychological harm there alone.
Coccyx problems - some women have difficulty sitting down forever after.
Constant nausea sometimes for the whole 10 months
Cutting of bladder during caesarean
Death
Decreased suppleness (particularly bad for women who do sport).
Dental problems
De Quervain's Syndrome or Mother's Thumb?
Diarrhea and vomiting lasting for 2 or 3 years after the pregnancy.
Eclampsia
Eczema can be made worse
Episiotomy wounds can open up
Eye prescription changes.
Fistula
Gestational Diabetes. About 8% of women are affected by this.
Guilt and self-loathing from giving child up or not bonding if kept.
Gum disease and wobbly teeth
Haemorrhage
Hair colour change
Hands and/ or feet can grow and not go back to their old size.
Hernia
Hip pain
Hormonal effects on pre-existing conditions ie psoriasis, acne, etc
Hyperemesis, with severe dehydration
Increased risk of gallstones and kidney stones
Increased risk of osteoporosis
Increased risk 12 months post partum for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (inflammation of the uterus, ovaries, FTs) - can leave permanent scarring, cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy etc
Iritis (a horrid auto-immune inflammation of the iris, which leads to blindness if not treated quickly and efficiently. A sudden change in hormones can cause an attack).
Less intense orgasms
Lochia can be retained, causing distention of the uterus.
Lowering of the immune system
Mastitis
Memory implications
Mental Health conditions are often exacerbated by pregnancy.
Months of sleeplessness. Sleep deprivation recognised as serious health risk by most medical authorities in the world.
Muscle tears
Multiple Sclerosis has been known to be triggered in pregnancy
Negative impact on finances that will affect mental health, lifestyle, access to jobs.
Nerve damage
Nipple thrush causing nipples to permanently invert. Leading to lack of confidence, lowered libido etc.
OCD can be triggered/get worse post partum.
Pain of the milk coming in.
Permanent increase in blood pressure
Piles
Plantar fasciitis
PND
Post partum hyperthyroidism, leading to the need to take thyroxine for the rest of ones days.
Post-birth complications. Poor stitching followed by repair operation months later.
Post natal psychosis
Pre-eclampsia
Pre-existing conditions like Arthritis, need drugs to control them. These drugs are harmful to foetuses and need to be stopped, leading to the woman with arthritis ending up in constant pain for years, possibly life and needing to use a wheelchair.
Pre-natal anxiety and depression is generally not discussed but common.
Prolapse
PTSD
Restless Leg Syndrome
Scarring
Sexual problems (libido, sensations)
Skin changes like patches, spots etc. Sometimes patches never clear up.
Snoring and sleep apnoea
Spinal migraine
Sore and painful joints, sometimes lasting months or years.
SPD - a syndrome which can lead to serious disability and pain, no cure.
Splitting of chest muscles (can't remember term, but colleague could fit a fist in the space between her muscles)
Tears into urethra and clitoris as well as vaginal and anal.
Thrombosis- deep vein and superficial vein
Tokophobia
Urinary Incontinence - stress incontinence, urge incontinence and both. This would be considered a major effect in a man, but for some reason women are supposed not to mind. This can lead to lack of confidence, depression etc. (Which since this is how patriarchy likes women to feel, should possibly be seen as not a side effect at all, but a lovely womanly enhancement.)
Varicose veins
Women who suffer Gestational Diabetes are more likely than average to develop diabetes later on in life. Sometimes gestational diabetes will be permanent.
Only 9 months eh? I don't think so. Now imagine telling a man that he should risk any of the more serious things on this list (or even some of the less serious things), in order to save the life of a child, because human life.
It just wouldn't happen would it? Because unlike women, men matter.
Thursday, 6 December 2012
The Parable of the Justice Evader
Is it wrong of me to laugh loudly, yes, really properly LOL, not just a virtual LOL a real one, when I heard that Julian Assange is suffering from a lung problem due to lack of fresh air in the Ecuadorean embassy?
It's like Mother Nature just simply couldn't stand the sight of all these rapists and rape apologists strutting their arrogant stuff on the world stage anymore and decided to land a little gift into the laps of those of us who have been sickened by the parade of men and women eager to tell us that when once we consent to sex with a man, we have then agreed to all barriers of bodily integrity being broken and we have no more right to put conditions, boundaries or any sort of negotiation around sexual behaviour from that moment on. Once we've said yes once, the story goes, the men take charge and can do what they want with our bodies. That's the model of sex so many people in society believe is normal. This beautifully crafted parable of the rapey man who brought judgement on himself by trying to avoid judgement is like Nature's refutation of that rape-friendly model of normal sexual behaviour. It's almost irresistable, but I'm going to restrict myself to merely observing that although I don't normally believe in Karma I might just suspend my disbelief for this particular case.
The glorious thing about it is that if Rapey Julian had actually stayed in Sweden to answer the questions the Swedish police wanted to ask him, the whole thing would probably have blown over by now.
We know that even in "progressive" Sweden, rape conviction rates are ridiculously low and rapists generally walk free just as they do all over the world. Chances are, Rapey Julian would have been questioned and the police would have decided that there isn't enough evidence to prosecute, as happens in most rape cases (because the evidence is "just the women" and we all know how much the word of women is worth). Even if he were charged with rape, he'd probably have got off - most rapists do, even in Sweden. And like most rapists, nobody would hold it against him that he had been charged with rape, even though we know that over 90% of men accused of rape are guilty, though fewer than 10% are actually found guilty by a jury of their peers; on the contrary, he would have been feted everywhere as a poor put-upon innocent man who had been yet another victim of the inexplicable malice of wicked women who as everyone knows, invent rape allegations at the drop of a hat because their wombs and hormones and general female-ness make them unbalanced and hysterical and unreliable an' all. Much more than men, who hardly ever lie about anything and of course don't have as much reason for lying about rape as women do... oh, wait...
By his own actions, he has brought upon himself the prison sentence he so richly deserves, without even having gone through due process. I have no idea whether he's guilty of rape or not, but he's most certainly guilty of rape apologia, sexism, creepiness and bringing John Inman into disrepute because he looks so like him. Are you free, Mr Assange? The consternation caused by seeing Mr Humphries grand-standing about CIA agents, has got to be worth a custodial sentence by itself.
What a pity the same sort of karmic consequences can't be meted out to all these appalling rapey lefty-boys like George Galloway et al, who can always be relied upon to defend rapists when their interests are in conflict with the interests of women. Ironically, they are defending a man who isn't even a lefty-boy like them - he's a libertarian. For someone who wouldn't know socialism if it slapped him round the face with a condom upon which sex is conditional, these socialists are going to an awful lot of trouble to remind women to know our place - and that place isn't somewhere that includes bodily integrity or demanding the same human rights men demand for themselves. Funny isn't it, how lefty-boys will defend to the hilt the right of a man to rape a woman even if that man is not their political buddy? If any woman was labouring under the delusion that lefty men are more likely to consider us fully human than right-wing men, the Assange case should have disabused them of the notion. Oh I know, most women have Stockholm Syndrome about men and will cling to denial, they'll cling to the idea that their lefty buddies are of necessity better men than the others. The truth is too depressing and sad to contemplate - that left wing men, just like right wing men, still haven't realised that women are human like them and when they talk about human rights, they don't mean women.
I used to want Rapey Julian to be extradited to Sweden. But his refusal to enjoy the famous clean air of Sweden has had an almost biblical result in this lung problem he has developed. The irony is, he will probably serve a longer and harsher sentence in the Ecuadorean embassy, without the health-giving properties of Sweden's fab air quality, than he would have done if he'd actually been found guilty in a court of law of the crime for which the Swedish police would like to question him - and the chances of him being found guilty were always quite low, as they are for all rapists. So he has chosen to serve a sentence with the cruel and unusual punishment of illness caused by his living conditions, which is far in excess of what would have happened to him if he had had a bit of respect for the women who are accusing him and the Swedish legal authorities. One up for Karma, I reckon. http://therealsgm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/16-days-of-action-on-violence-against.html
Friday, 2 November 2012
"Regret" - the abuse whitewash word
Today I read an article which really disgusted me and at first I couldn't quite put my finger on why. It's here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/01/nude-kate-moss-ushered-90s
Took me a while, but then I stumbled upon it: it's that use of the word "regret" ("Moss may regret that early shoot...etc.")
In one single word, Alex Needham dismisses and minimises the trauma and distress felt by a coerced teenage girl. And he also whitewashes the abusive behaviour of the adults around her.
We all know what being forced to undress signifies: a loss of dignity and self-determination. That's why the first thing repressive regimes do to prisoners, is to get them naked, to push home the point that they are helpless now and in the power of the regime's representatives.
At a deep, gut level, even stupid people unused to analysis, who think that fashion is more important than anything else, know this. So the adults around the sixteen year old Kate Moss, would have known how vulnerable and distressed she was AND THEY CHOSE TO BLACKMAIL HER. It says something about Alex Needham that he can contemplate that and not feel horror and indignation on Moss's behalf or any disgust about the characters and values of the people who saw nothing wrong with coercing a vulnerable child into stripping for a photo-shoot. No, it's much more important that she ushered in a new fashion era, so her humiliation and distress doesn't matter and we won't even examine their behaviour.
That use of the word "regret" is so telling: it's so often how rape is re-framed by all those people who have a vested interest in ensuring that men's abuse of women and girls, goes unchallenged and unacknowledged. How many women don't report rape because they know perfectly well that it will be dismissed as "sex she regrets"? How many times are rapists exonerated because they claim that the women they have raped, did actually consent to sex but for reasons best known to themselves, now "regret" it?
The myth of the woman who does something and then regrets it, so accuses innocent men of abuse, is so strong that just using the word regret in the context Needham has used it here, is a really powerful put-down. Kate Moss has been extraordinarily brave and honest in describing the abusive scene that photo-shoot represents. The fashion industry has a vested interest in ensuring that an abusive approach to the models they exploit, remains the unchallenged norm. Someone like Moss speaking up in the way she has, is actually a very alarming thing for this industry and Needham's slap-down is an absolutely predictable response: minimise the abuse issue and frame the situation as one of the victim's regret, rather than the abuser's behaviour. It's actually textbook stuff.
Took me a couple of hours to realise it, but that's why I felt such a visceral feeling of disgust when I read that article. All the irrelevant crap about how the photos of Kate Moss ushered in a new era, blah blah blah, are just a lot of boring flannel; the flashword there was regret and it taps into that centuries-long myth of unreliable and/ or malicious women who cannot be trusted to frame their experience correctly and need to have it re-framed by more rational, sensible beings (preferably with penises) who are better qualified to define reality than any woman or girl. And guess what - that definition of reality can be relied upon to whitewash abuse of girls and women.
Took me a while, but then I stumbled upon it: it's that use of the word "regret" ("Moss may regret that early shoot...etc.")
In one single word, Alex Needham dismisses and minimises the trauma and distress felt by a coerced teenage girl. And he also whitewashes the abusive behaviour of the adults around her.
We all know what being forced to undress signifies: a loss of dignity and self-determination. That's why the first thing repressive regimes do to prisoners, is to get them naked, to push home the point that they are helpless now and in the power of the regime's representatives.
At a deep, gut level, even stupid people unused to analysis, who think that fashion is more important than anything else, know this. So the adults around the sixteen year old Kate Moss, would have known how vulnerable and distressed she was AND THEY CHOSE TO BLACKMAIL HER. It says something about Alex Needham that he can contemplate that and not feel horror and indignation on Moss's behalf or any disgust about the characters and values of the people who saw nothing wrong with coercing a vulnerable child into stripping for a photo-shoot. No, it's much more important that she ushered in a new fashion era, so her humiliation and distress doesn't matter and we won't even examine their behaviour.
That use of the word "regret" is so telling: it's so often how rape is re-framed by all those people who have a vested interest in ensuring that men's abuse of women and girls, goes unchallenged and unacknowledged. How many women don't report rape because they know perfectly well that it will be dismissed as "sex she regrets"? How many times are rapists exonerated because they claim that the women they have raped, did actually consent to sex but for reasons best known to themselves, now "regret" it?
The myth of the woman who does something and then regrets it, so accuses innocent men of abuse, is so strong that just using the word regret in the context Needham has used it here, is a really powerful put-down. Kate Moss has been extraordinarily brave and honest in describing the abusive scene that photo-shoot represents. The fashion industry has a vested interest in ensuring that an abusive approach to the models they exploit, remains the unchallenged norm. Someone like Moss speaking up in the way she has, is actually a very alarming thing for this industry and Needham's slap-down is an absolutely predictable response: minimise the abuse issue and frame the situation as one of the victim's regret, rather than the abuser's behaviour. It's actually textbook stuff.
Took me a couple of hours to realise it, but that's why I felt such a visceral feeling of disgust when I read that article. All the irrelevant crap about how the photos of Kate Moss ushered in a new era, blah blah blah, are just a lot of boring flannel; the flashword there was regret and it taps into that centuries-long myth of unreliable and/ or malicious women who cannot be trusted to frame their experience correctly and need to have it re-framed by more rational, sensible beings (preferably with penises) who are better qualified to define reality than any woman or girl. And guess what - that definition of reality can be relied upon to whitewash abuse of girls and women.
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