Shame of Spitalfields

Pride of Spitalfields is the name of the pub where Meow Meet – a gathering of like-minded individuals’ crazy about communism and cats – took place. There was a planned pub crawl but as the night went on, we settled and occupied the back quarter of the pub. Being with kindred spirits aside, I felt myself on full alert having clocked the various leering geezers dotted around the bar. Very early on in the evening a large skinhead attempted to woo me with his American accent all the while slurring how much he liked the cat on my dress, his eyes fixated on my breasts. After we’d done a good job of ignoring him, he sloped off.

I felt safe. A mixed group, I was friends with many of them and since we’d been out together and tackled patriarchy effectively before, I felt reassured I could just be. With these righteous men and women I felt free. Except patriarchy was more brazen that night. I caught the bald American through the corner of my eye, as he left his table to walk past me for the loo. He stroked my shoulders and back whilst I was sat on a stool between two of my friends. Shocked and utterly grossed out, I told the group what had just happened. When he came out of the toilet, one of my beautiful sisters pointed at him and said “how dare you touch her? Don’t fucking do it again?” Far from being embarrassed he’d been caught out, he leant in to her and asked her to slap him. In an attempt to distract him, I asked if he was American. When he replied yes, I said “figures”. Well, then he called me a “fucking cunt”. When the rest of our group stood up, he crawled off, mumbling expletives.

Shaken but proud and empowered, I told one of the barmaids what had happened. I was happy when she immediately said she would not serve him anymore. She also said he had been aggressive but they couldn’t throw them out because there were only three women behind the bar. However, I was just pleased that she’d acknowledged what had happened. Shortly after, the man and his friends left. One of them even apologised to one of the men in our group. We were able to enjoy a few more drinks before the second incident of the evening.

Sat on my stool at the side of the table, somebody grabbed the back of my neck and pushed me down. Alarming and distressing, yes, but I also have a spinal injury. I’ve been told never to attempt to touch my toes. I have to think of my every movement before I make it. I am having an MRI in three days. Livid, I shot up and shouted at the man. I can’t remember what I said; I was too frightened and angry. Other people in the bar started shouting at me, how it was funny it was always the same girl complaining, how our stools were in the way of the path to the toilet and my blood ran cold. I asked the older landlady whether they were saying I was making it up and she matter of factly nodded yes. I didn’t exactly want to burst into tears and start rolling off all the other times I hadn’t been believed but that’s what happened. Like a collage of all the other times I’d been violated but made to feel like the evil scheming temptress I must be. All of it poured out as the mascara gushed down my cheeks. I’d had a drink but the pain is always the same and I react in exactly the same way. Triggers, emotions so strong and so embedded because of careless caretakers and patriarchy; that I try and keep a lid on. For years, I slapped a smile on it until the corners of my mouth hurt so much from smiling, they’d quiver. Now, I cannot.

One of the things said to me by the patrons of that pub was that we should just accept it. Accept what? Being groped? Being leered at? My body does not belong to the public. It is mine and it is fragile. If anyone touches me without my consent, I will shout and scream blue murder.

When I finally calmed down I learnt the man who’d grabbed my neck had also groped one of our teenage comrades (her account). The guy was in his 50s. One of my friends hugged me as she said she’d challenged one of the younger barmaids as to whether she’d been harassed more than a coupla times in one evening and she said yes. The landlady responded there was little they could do with their customers of old. And there, patriarchy is atoned. Capitalism is what makes the misogo man’s world go round.

I can’t keep it in any more. And I know there are many others like me. I’m not going to get quieter as time goes on; I’m going to get louder. And if aggression is what they understand, I might have to do what is required of me.

I think if someone touches you without consent, you should be allowed to hurt them back without theirs. That seems a fair exchange.

He Said (TW)

HE accused my 16 year old virginal mother of maliciously impregnating herself.

HE demanded she abort but changed his mind on hearing two heartbeats instead of one.

HE read the Azaan into my ears and shaved the baby bird down on my head.

HE said to speak against my elders meant I was evil and a slap on my 3 year old face would rectify this.

HE said I couldn’t wear shorts cos my five year old legs were too tempting.

HE said I could not play sport cos the shape of my vulva was on display.

HE said a bike would damage my virginity.

HE said to speak to boys was confirmation I was a slag

HE said I mustn’t speak to the white kids cos then I was just as bad as them.

HE said I must learn this alien language and chant with perfect enunciation and THEN God would love me.

HE said if I refused I would burn in Hell’s eternal fires.

HE said the angels on my shoulders would weigh my heart against my deeds and then I would be judged.

HE said I was mother’s daughter which of course was proof that I was a slag.

HE said that I purposely lost the £5 I was supposed to give to the mosque.

HE watched in delight as my family slapped me in front of him.

HE said I was the best in my Arabic class. Maybe that’s why HE would slap me across my developing chest. Maybe that’s why HE would run his hand along the length of my thigh.

HE said I wasn’t the pretty twin but more academic instead. My puppy fat was confirmation of this.

HE said I was an ‘earthquake’ a ‘bulldozer’ and ‘the Himalayas’ when my body went through the first change.

HE said I was hairy and ugly and a bit mannish with my deep husky voice.

HE said I would burn in Hell-fire for wearing my fashionable cross.

HE said someone ought to teach me a lesson for eating the wrong kind of meat.

HE gave me a glare when I ordered my alcopop and the look that said he’d see me later when I questioned the pint in his hand.

HE responded he ‘didn’t remember’ when I said I would make him pay for what he had done to me.

HE blamed it all on my fantastical teenage head.

HE laughed as he fought us children off and away from our mother.

HE thought it was funny when we sprang to her defence.

HE said I would burn in hell when I challenged God and spat that he really didn’t exist.

HE said he’d have to teach me a lesson, I said “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”.

HE yelped in pain when I bit him on the nose and it hurt when the punches rained down but inside I was smiling because I had finally hurt HIM. HE was getting weaker.

Or I was getting stronger.

HE tried to knock down the door to my safe place and I called the police on him instead. HE was told to leave or HE would be going to jail so HE did but HE never let me forget this.

HE tried to kiss me when I was just 15. HE told me no one would believe me if I ever told the truth.

HE said he’d heard I was a slag so HE thought HE’d give it a go.

HE found me with some of my innocence intact and proceeded to chip away at what was left.

HE would cry and beg forgiveness for attempting to penetrate me without my consent.

HE used me, pushed me around, and turned all my friends against me.

HE told me I wasn’t pretty enough to be his main girl. HE said it was my own entire fault.

HE said his mother was a ‘vessel’.

HE would ‘share’ me one day with his friend. HE didn’t even deny it when I said that it was rape.

HE knew I was broken and that’s the only reason HE made any impact at all. If I saw HIM now, I would laugh in his face.

HE would promise the world but never deliver.

HE would tell me I was the prettiest girl in the room but at home he’d treat me like shit.

HE said I was mediocre and I’d never be anything but a girl from The Rock.

HE said work was more important, his friends were too and I would just have to like it or lump it.

HE said I was a slag, a whore and all the other things too.

HE said I was only good for a shag.

HE said my illness was all in my head. The mind being a powerful tool.

HE said he wouldn’t pander to me any more (there was pandering?)

HE would let his friends intimidate me.

HE didn’t bat an eyelid when some of them rubbed up against me, at full mast.

HE said I was lying when I disclosed advances from one of his other freak friends.

HE made me feel unsafe and uncared for.

HE denies it to this day. (There’s a pattern emerging here)

HE said he loved me but that wasn’t enough. HE said God’s love meant more.

HE said I was alright now I was on the ‘white side’.

HE said now he’d tried Asian, he’d never go back.

HE said he was only joking when he called me a slag and would apologise every time he’d say it but this wouldn’t stop him from saying it again.

HE tried to force me to do a job he thought would be good for me. A nursery nurse to his SAC.

HE said I was silly for thinking I was a feminist because I didn’t hate men.

HE said for us to be together, I’d have to follow him wherever his career took him.

HE didn’t like it when I said no.

HE would snarl and shout and make me feel small.

HE would scan my entire body for rogue solitary hairs and grimace as if they were the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen.

HE kept company with people who thought of me as nothing more than a Paki.

HE didn’t like being challenged. One day HE simply refused to pick up the phone.

I sold the diamond ring HE gave me.

HE said I wasn’t in any physical pain, despite the two operations I’d had on my back.

HE said I should think before I speak, my life’s woes were none of his business. HE just didn’t want to know.

HE said he understood my request for an open relationship but then changed his mind.

HE was either my lover exclusively or a therapist shagging some random girl.

HE has been standing over my shoulder, breathing down my neck before I was even born.

HE defines my role, my character, my options and my path.

HE’s not allowed into my life anymore but still, he lingers.

HE’s on my TV, on my street, in my dreams.

HE is always the same; it doesn’t matter what colour he is or how tall he might be.

HE is patriarchy and HE oppresses me.

From an angry feminist to the men up to no good (TW)

It’s a simple world where the good man dwells. He has ideas about the role he plays in society and he works hard to maintain the way he is perceived. He loves his children and brings breakfast to his wife’s bed. He talks to other men about their balls because men don’t talk enough about their balls so he seeks to redress this, and for all his endeavours, he expects a pat on the head. What’s the point in being so damn good if nobody notices it?

The Good Men Project falls short at its name. We all know a ‘good man’ or a ‘nice guy’ who is keen to point out their goodness and niceness from the first time they speak to you. They’re so good, EVERYONE takes advantage and they always finish last. They’re just waiting for the right woman to come along and it will have all been worth it. But the reality being what it is, she doesn’t exist to please him (and why the hell should she)? This is when good men go bad. Much like teh menz over at The Good Men Project, good men have an idea of what they need in their lives to enable the good man to flourish from within.

Good men like a good woman. Don’t be angry now wimminz, good men don’t like it when wimminz shout. Or have an opinion for that matter. Actually, a good woman is allowed an opinion because ‘naturally’ that opinion will echo that of the good man. In this way, the good man is free to work out his biceps whilst the good woman is happy to play wifey to her man. It’s not like it’s his fault 1 billion women across the world are experiencing violence or oppression because of their sex. And just because there are billions of men beating and humiliating those other women, doesn’t mean we have to be angry at the other billions of men who are not abusive, we just need to be better at seeking the good ones out. Oh wait, which ones were the good ones again?

To paraphrase: “I was really angry right, cos some men sexually abused me once but I got over that cos these other men do these lovely things for me”. Nondescript men, or decent people, do nice things for other people cos it’s being human. Many men have been nice to me but I tell you what, they didn’t make the pain of being violated more bearable.

Oh, thank you for my perfect birthday weekend nice man, it really made up for that time the mosque teacher slid his hand up my 9 year old thigh. All better now.

Gosh, those flowers are amazing! I don’t think I’m ever gonna think about the time I was gang raped EVER AGAIN. I can stop being angry now; I know not all men are the same. I love all teh menz!

Are you fucking kidding me?

The Good Men Project published this piece in all seriousness. As if sexual violence was the only thing spurring on billions of women to fight against the oppression they face, they found a poor soul with an all too familiar story and a warped sense of her role in a patriarchy, so much so she believes these minor gestures of love and affection (that are her RIGHT and a bare minimum of human decency) are somehow to be commended, and ran with it as their answer to the angry feminist threatening their male goodness.

Feminism exists for more reasons than a good man can fathom, evidently. As feminists we are fighting for bodily autonomy. We are angry for the demands put on our bodies, from puberty through to pregnancy we are controlled by the patriarchy. Our breasts aren’t big enough or they’re so big we tempt strange abusive men into having a go. Pubic hair is more often than not groomed to please the eye of the beholder; we have very little choice over how we look down there. Teh menz invented labiaplasty for those whose vulvas resemble that of a grown woman. I’m not a big fan of porn (ahem) but in the interests of research, I’ve seen the patriarchal ideal shift. Women’s bodies have changed drastically from the 70s to present day, in appearance and also the ways in which they are used. Newspapers and magazines bombard us with images of ridiculously tall white cis gendered wimminz with tans in ridiculous suggestive poses (legs akimbo/shaking a tail feather) and anyone falling short of this ideal just isn’t worthy. We are constantly fighting the battle for the right to choose what happens to our pregnant bodies. Some of cannot be pregnant, some of us will be forcibly impregnated and many more will break their backs working right up to the birth for fear they will lose their jobs in this patriarchal man’s world. And before Junior cracks his first smile, we’ll be leaking breast milk at work, crying in a toilet cubicle, torn between needing to be with our young and needing to work in order to survive. But wait, patriarchy has an answer! You need a manz to provide! He’ll be earning more than you for a start. Even if he beats you, cheats, uses your body at will. Know your place woman; pregnancy is vulnerability and teh menz like the sound of that. Good Men will even do the hoovering, cos they’re good like that. Just keep your gold stars handy and they might even do it again.

“I certainly had a lot of reasons to be angry. I was sexually assaulted”. That’s one reason, Good Men Project writer. Where were your words regarding the systematic control of women in the workplace, the streets and at home?

“The truth is that most men are not rapists.” That is not what my male friends tell me. But then I guess this depends on your definition of rape. Do you mean rape or ‘bad sexual etiquette’?

“Of course, I had a right to be angry at the men who hurt me. But I didn’t have a right to hold all men everywhere responsible for what happened to me. And by being angry, I was shutting down the possibility of love”. I have every right to hold patriarchy responsible for the ways in which it controls women. Unfortunately the patriarchy is mostly made up of men. I am angry but there is love in my life. It surrounds me and supports me. Anger at the patriarchy is one of my redeemable features and shock horror; there are men that get why! And totally dig it.

“For example, my brother steadfastly believed what happened to me and validated..” STOP. Were your experiences more or less validated because he is a man?

“And so did the mac and cheese he made me when I was sad, and the hours of Nintendo-playing we did when I was too down to do anything else.” This is why I love my girlfriends. I don’t need to thank them for providing me with distractions; it’s just how we roll. All of the time, and mostly with little significance.

“He turns up the heat when it’s cold. He walks the dog when I don’t want to go outside. He puts gas in the car.” He basically functions as humans do. Respect.

“Men love survivors of sexual violence every single day” Can you believe it? Have they no shame..? I’m sorry, but what exactly does this line mean?

“Most men are horrified by sexual violence and its impact on those they love.” Unless you’re asleep and it’s the second insertion of the day, you’ve already given consent and it can’t be violent if there weren’t any bruises.

“They want to help, but feel powerless – and afraid to say or do the wrong thing.” They feel this way because they are aware of how big patriarchy is and they know they can’t battle it alone. They stay silent because it’s too risky.

“If we want men to join the movement to end rape and sexual violence, we have to stop talking about all the things men do wrong, and start talking about all the things that men do right.” I know a few honest men who deserve genuine praise. Generally they read, retweet and shut the fuck up. They don’t dare to presume what women need in order to achieve equality. They are there to support us, not take over (take note you fucking good men). They have an appreciation of what thousands of years of subjugation has done to womankind. As our allies, they are happy for us to take the floor.

Unlike the good men and the nice guys who, under threat that the wimminz might take over (we’re a few hundred years off that sonny jim), use every vulnerable/disillusioned woman (who may or may not have listened to angry feminist folk music..)  they can find to undermine our crucial movement.

Feminism isn’t fun and sexy, it’s angry. Fighting oppression and for our basic rights does this to us.

May your anger over floweth and the good man/nice guy fadeth away. A-wo-men.

All Coppers Are Suspicious

#TrustYourInstincts say Metropolitan Police without a modicum of self-awareness. They want us to trust our instincts to help them clamp down on troublesome individuals who might be involved in terrorist-y activities. I might be wrong but Britain’s a funny old racist at the best of times. Britain instinctively blames the weakest whenever it’s in a spot of bother, whether it’s all them braaaahn people taking all the jobs or the sick and disabled after an easy ride, I wouldn’t trust Britain’s instincts to boil an egg without a timer.

My instincts tell me not to trust an authority with as much coercive power as the police. My instincts are somewhat better informed than your average Josephine in that I’ve worked closely with the police and know how it feels to stumble into a copshop canteen minus the blue uniform. As a child I would instinctively reach for the phone and dial 999 whenever I felt the people around me couldn’t do anything. We had the emergency services visit us at school, as small children you are frequently reminded of what to do if you feel unsafe. But working with the police initiated a shift in my instincts. I instinctively knew the bits of information I had to keep from them. Emotions mainly, they couldn’t understand how a woman beaten by her partner could still be in love with him. I would instinctively withhold such information because I knew they would judge my client differently. They wouldn’t be as prepared to go the extra mile or as I like to think of it, the bare minimum of human decency. I instinctively distrust an IPCC investigation because let’s see, it’s hardly independent. I instinctively distrust a shootout between the police and a member of the public; after Jean Charles De Menezes this is hardly surprising.

I’ve been thinking about and discussing the role of the police a lot recently, especially in my work and in my role as a woman working for women. There were many success stories and without the cooperation of the police, these would have been impossible. Thanks to organisations coordinating the joint efforts of agencies, there are more systems in place to make all accountable. But they don’t police inappropriate interaction between agencies, especially when there is an unspoken belief in keeping the other ‘sweet’. Despite this I spent a long time advocating for the police with people who believe them all to be bastards. “But what about all the clients they’ve helped?” and “What about the time I got burgled?” I even wanted to be a copper once upon a time, in the vain hope that I could be the bridge between the brown people in my community and the white people in power. And yeah, they did these things, they helped get some of my clients into safe houses, they were sympathetic during a rape exam, there was a feeling of solidarity whenever a prolific perpetrator went down. But it’s only recently dawned on me what I would need to do in order deserve cooperation. And the reaction I would get if I ever dared complain about inappropriate conduct.

There was a lot of flirting and I was banned from saying I was a feminist working for a feminist organisation. One copper would tell me he wouldn’t employ because at age 27 I was only liable to get pregnant. Also, it was really funny that I used the turn of phrase “kettle of fish” cos it was a really British thing to say (what the fuck am I if not British?) Another would always refer to me as madam but not in the hierarchical copper way but more like a sleazy you’re-a-female-and-one-that-thinks-she’s-a-princess-therefore-I’m-gonna-make-a-point kind of a way. At another one of my agencies, the DS used to call me up for a chat every coupla days and sometimes turn up unannounced at the safe house just so he could give me a lift to the station (5 minutes down the road). Despite all this, I was convinced the police were a force of good. I just wasn’t radicalised enough yet, I guess.

That all changed during the counter demo against the EDL in Walthamstow. “Who protects the Nazis?!” “The police protect the Nazis!” That chant will stay with me forever. I had a bruise on my arm where I was grabbed and pushed along for unfurling a banner. What the fuck kind of threat am I? Their instincts tell them to use aggression against me, 5ft1 and 55kg. But the skinhead, swastika tattooed coked up meatheads of the EDL got themselves an escorted tour of a town they have no business being in. A particularly scary cop in a blue cap threatened to do me for using the word “fricking”. That’s a word I use when I don’t want to swear. His instincts were to arrest me. What was the justification there?

I have an instinct that the police maintain the patriarchy. Every time they issue a press release and use language to describe a child victim of statutory rape as having had sex with a perpetrator, they are reinforcing patriarchy and its use of women’s bodies. I have an instinct that the police only see black and white and none of the bits in between and that black is usually troublesome whereas white is to be believed. My spidey sense is on high alert when perpetrating police types are routinely acquitted of crimes they have committed but then sacked for gross misconduct because a member of the public was in fact killed, or given appallingly inadequate sentences for using their immense powers to pervert the course of justice. Ryan Coleman Farrow being case in point.

What do your instincts tell you about the Alfie Meadows trial? Does anyone remember what actually happened to him?

Instincts are dangerous, they are biased.

Instincts are personal and they are bigoted.

And so are the police.

Let The Sun go down

Anyone with an ounce of decency is rightfully disgusted by the latest ‘splash’ on the cover of The Sun, shamelessly presenting a victim of domestic homicide as a piece of meat to be ogled at by the paper’s unashamed readership. What kind of country do we live in where we devour the dramatized last moments of a woman’s life as though she were an actress on a soap and not a real life victim of a murder perpetrated by the person she was most intimate with? One Billion of us rose yesterday and she met her end, on Valentine’s Day where it seems many of us lost our sense of moral right and thought it ok to ‘joke’ about it being a bit of a bad surprise. What a sudden and vital moment to be reminded of why we were rising in the first place? Caitlin Moran (nnnngghh) also reminded of us of we have taken feminism to the next level. She was one of the ‘jokers’ and even her apology seemed to be a bit of a gag. She felt sympathy for the perpetrator and that’s why she malfunctioned. Where’s the sympathy for Reeva Steenkamp, Caitlin? And her family?

The tabloid press is truly vile. The Mirror refers to previous incidents between the couple as incidents of a ‘domestic nature’ which is 1970s speak for domestic violence. All the papers are saying the same. It seems he may be a prolific perpetrator of violence against women but rather than take a stand against this atrocity, they sensationalise it and degrade the actual course of events. Journalists might argue that they were not able to take down the exact nature of the incident and instead are relying on press releases from the police or courts; if this is the case then we have to put pressure on the these authorities too. But what if the police say some of what is printed in the papers is not true? The Mirror also writes South African Plod are very surprised by the burglar speculation, telling reporters “These allegations are not from us”. There is a very sinister picture emerging and not the Slasher movie The Sun are trying to peddle.

I signed the Page Three petition and I’m no longer afraid to admit it. I didn’t read the blurb, I reacted to a little piece of patriarchy and I put my name to it. I didn’t think too much about it. I’ve always hated page 3, for its representation of women yes but also because it is in The Sun and I hate all of the content and the people who read it. That’s why I signed the Page Three petition because I hoped that the boobs were, so to speak, holding up the readership. I don’t have an issue with boobs, I want more boobs everywhere. In babies mouths initially, we’ve still got a lot of work to do, but in the world and with about the same frequency that men take their shirts off.

If Murdoch is listening to you, you’re doing something wrong.

If we ‘re going to make our world safe, we’ve got to get rid of these papers. We’ve got to make a stand against this vile arm of patriarchy and cut it off dead the way we did with the News of the World. Milly Dowler was dead. They didn’t care. They just wanted to make money off the misery they pump out there into our communities. Reeva was also tragically and brutally murdered and they’re doing the same again. It can’t be one rule for the NOTW and another for this other parasite, The Sun. We have to target the advertisers, even if they once said The Sun was safe from a similar fate. Why is it safe? Because it is “a corporate matter”? What does that mean? Associating yourself with a toxic brand has consequences, you can’t separate the two.

The Sun is not a family paper. It is a racist, sexist piece of patriarchal trash and it harms people. It exists to breed hate and hostility between people, it is the fan that keeps the shit flying, the spoon that stirs the shit once the fan’s clogged. It is depraved. And dangerous. And the world would be infinitely better without it.

Here are some examples of tweets you could be sending (just copy/paste). Compose your own as RT’ing is not as effective.

Hi @sainsburys Pls withdraw support for The Sun unless you are happy with them sexually objectifying a murder victim #BoycottTheSun

Oh @O2 will you be standing by The Sun despite their horrendous objectification of #ReevaSteenkamp on today’s front cover? #BoycottTheSun 

Hey @MorrisonsOffers I don’t believe you could be happy advertising with TheSun in light of their front cover today. Are you? #BoycottTheSun 

Hi @asda Do you think it’s for Th Sun to objectify murder victim #ReevaSteenkamp? If you don’t, please withdraw advertising #BoycottTheSun 

Hi @UKTesco Pls reconsider ads with The Sun unless you are ok with sexual objectification of murdered women #BoycottTheSun

We did it once, we can do it again.

Violence against women is pandemic (TW)

Whilst Sunny Hundal points his finger at the whole of India for its burgeoning rape epidemic, Jim Davidson has been arrested for sexual offences. In what seems to be a never ending spectacle of horror, Britain’s ‘National Treasures’ are being outed one by one for their abuse of women and children. The lead singer of The Lost Prophets has been charged with conspiracy to rape a child under 13, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child under 13 and making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children. Rape Crisis Scotland responded to 12000 calls in the space of 12 months. End Violence Against Women revealed 41% of women aged 18-34 have experienced unwanted sexual attention. Meanwhile a New York police officer is accused of plotting to kidnap, rape and EAT women.

On doing a Google news search for rape, I went as far back as the 20^th December only to discover that rape seems to have vanished from our streets. There were a couple of local reports of women being attacked by strangers in parks but the first 12 pages speak of India’s fall from grace. The whole world is rightfully appalled at the horrific way our sister met her end. But it seems to have had a magic effect on rapists the world over. Have they stopped raping?

I would love nothing more than for this to be true. But I feel it is unlikely when, on New Year’s Eve I stood waiting for a friend to collect me from Aldgate East station. It was 2am, I’d left one set of friends to meet another. As it drizzled, I stood under the canopy of the entrance, rolling myself a cigarette, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed. A group of lads exited the station and immediately gravitated towards me. I braced myself, angry that they would dare to do so. The leader of the pack stood in my personal space, less than a foot between us and stared at me square in the eyes. He had a sick cocksure smile planted on his face and leaned towards me. “Happy new year” he sneered. Of course all hell broke loose and I told him to fuck off in as many ways I could muster but he stood fast, my words barely making an impact. His friends were either side, all staring at me as they thought things and I felt sick. I remembered the woman from Delhi and I thought of whether she’d felt the same, did she think the approaching group of men were ‘just being a nuisance’? Did she know what they would do to her? Who could predict such a thing? It felt like they were there forever but then a male friend showed up. He saw me shouting at them and rushed over. I babbled at him, and he turned to them “if a girl tells you she doesn’t want to speak to you, you fuck off!” The whole party started shouting their excuses, denying their part, with no intention of backing down. A man passing by joined us and stood shoulder to shoulder with my friend. He threatened the other boys. So they skulked off.

I was shaken by this. I am no match for a group of men. My friend wasn’t much of a threat to them either. It was only as my situation drew attention they appeared to lose some of their power. Later that evening another group of strange men would surround my young friend and tell her she was a slut and should cover up with one of them stating Allah had granted him the right to put her in her place for being an apostate. This man was white with a ginger beard. Crowds of people stood around as they threatened us. Nobody spoke up.

Patriarchy is controlling each and every one of us right now. It’s telling us that the Indian rapist is a new breed of perpetrator, so horrific in his methods that we need to focus our attentions on sorting THAT country out. An epidemic suggests a rash of incidents, as if it’s a new problem or that somehow it has gotten much worse. That’s what patriarchy wants you to believe. India has always had a problem with rape. Just like the UK has always had a problem with rape. That’s how patriarchy works. And it keeps you battling the very same problems because it tells you it happened elsewhere. By pointing the finger at India and referring to the woman from Delhi as the Indian girl, it has become someone else’s problem. Instead of the global virus that it is. Rape is very widespread in India. But it’s widespread here too.

Damini’s rape will change India. It already has. Women are taking to the streets in solidarity. Global pressure and bad press will force Indian to review its penal code. If the mobs are successful, rapists will die. We hope. But when this happened to Mary Anne, what did we do?

It was 2006. Mary Anne was 16. She and a friend were abducted and then raped and tortured for several hours. The perpetrators had forced them to take drugs and they were repeatedly told they were going to die. Mary Anne eventually died from her numerous stab wounds. Her friend miraculously survived a bullet to the head. Where was the outrage for Mary Anne? Why are we not still angry?

Patriarchy minimises rape: “Do you honestly think a woman is treated the same in India as in the UK? REALLY?”. It defines it for you. When something like this happens to a woman, the menz trip over themselves to mansplain it to us. Instead of thinking, fuck those Indians need a telling off, why not think, fuck, rape is an evil thing and rapists need taking out? And then do something about it. Make it unacceptable to laugh or joke about rape lest the rapist thinks he’s got a friend in you. Raise your boys and girls with a clear understanding of consent. For a start, reason with your children why they must brush their teeth instead of forcing the brush into their mouth. Show them why it’s good to ask for permission.

Smash male privilege.

Smash the patriarchy.

Don’t feed the trolls.

This is not a race issue (which is one of patriarchy’s more evil inventions); this is about power and control of women by men. The only way to change things is to highlight them and keep the pressure on ALL governments. Let the rapist know we’re watching.

We’re watching the Indian ones right now.

Who’s watching ours?

White feminists, now will you listen? (Trigger Warning)

The more I think of the way she suffered, the more I feel an anger rising up amongst the bile. My stomach twisted as I heard of the ways in which she’d been savagely assaulted; having been violated with an iron rod, her intestines had to be removed. She was raped for over an hour by a group of men who did this only because she was a woman.

She could be one of my friends. She could be me aged 23. The rapists didn’t think about her family or her career as a paramedic. They weren’t bothered by her male chaperone. She wasn’t a person to them, just a thing to use, an object. While she lay fighting for her life in a hospital bed, another young woman ended hers. Oblivious to India’s extremely negative profile on the world stage, police officers in the Punjabi region of Patiala advised a 17 year old victim of rape to withdraw her allegations and accept a cash settlement or instead marry one of her attackers.

I am yet to understand the thought processes in this kind of practice. Growing up, I was exposed to a lot of Bollywood I might have chosen to switch off myself. It was a sort of link back to their (my grandparents) old country (even though they were from Pakistan). They just weren’t as in to Pakistani cinema (possibly because it was crap). Sex and sexuality were forbidden in old Bollywood. Romantic liaisons would end in a nose to nose display of lust and yearning and just as their lips threatened to touch, it would cut and zoom out to an image of a tree. The viewer was left feeling like a kiss had taken place and the mere suggestion of this was enough to fire my unbearably strict grandfather into an anti-Indian tirade on how they were all sinners and destined for Allah’s hellfire. “Like dogs!” He’d bark. “Rabid and starved!”

My dislike of my grandfather’s xenophobia aside, I would personally squirm in my seat. This was one side to the representation of sexuality in Bollywood I could begin to understand, however uncomfortable it made me. The snatched glances, inhaling the other person’s smell as they waft past, all little indicators that were the cameras not there, they’d be fornicating and enjoying it a helluva lot. It was either this or the other. Bollywood sexuality was very black and white.

The alternative was rape. The phrase “izaat looti” meaning “stole her honour” describes rape. The rapist stole something from the victim, the most important thing in her culture. And the only consequence to such an incident is certain death. I was horrified whenever I saw an actress fake plunge a dagger into her own chest. Her body and her reputation irreparably sullied so that only death can purify her. An honourable action some might say. Honourable for the men, maybe, seeing as they were the ones to invent the practice. Or maybe she was killing herself to avoid another kind of fate. The kind where the victim is made to marry her attacker. Just like the 17 year old from Patiala who, in the year 2012, was advised to do the same.

Where has feminism been for these women?

At present, we in the West are experiencing a second wave Backlash. The year 2012 gave a voice to the patriarchy in which they blamed victims for bringing abuse on themselves. Victims are not doing a good enough job protecting themselves against the animalistic urges of rapists and paedophiles and rape isn’t even rape unless the perpetrator agrees it is. For a while now, Western patriarchy has been feeding us the lie that they don’t treat us like the savages over in the East treat theirs. The recent focus on India and the lack of women’s rights may make our great land seem positively equal and fair. Except patriarchy thinks we haven’t been watching this past year when in fact, we have, with concerted efforts.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/2012-the-year-when-it-became-okay-to-blame-victims-of-sexual-assault-8432716.html

Perpetrators, Paedophiles and Patriarchy http://wp.me/p1V5N4-9c

Privilege Top Trumps http://wp.me/p1V5N4-94

2012 might have been the year where victim blaming was the norm but it will also have been the year when intersectionality became mainstream. Feminism was borne out of the need for equality. For some this meant equality in the Western world for white men and women. But true feminism is intersectional. It has to be. Otherwise we’ll have wise asses like the white friend (of a man married to an aunt) who praised non-white women for knowing who wears the trousers in a relationship. “The problem with our white women is that they don’t cook for us. They wait for you to get in the door and they’re off out drinking with their friends. Asian women take care of their men”. Hm.

The images of our Indian sisters protesting against the patriarchy swell my heart and enforce a renewed vigour with which we must now battle. Together. I am Savita, the woman who died in the name of Catholicism when she miscarried the foetus whose right to life undermined hers. I am Malala Yousufzai and I will fight to the death to be heard. I am the millions of women raped for being women, for (*amendment) identifying as women and not conforming to the patriarchal cis gendered stereotype. It doesn’t matter where we are, what we wear, what our life choices are; we have the right to move freely without fear of attack. All of us.

2012 – The year feminism came back with a vengeance. The year feminism fought for all women.

This time round it will work. This time we’ll have billions more women on our side.

Patriarchy won’t know what’s hit it.

Perpetrators, Paedophiles and Patriarchy

It’s been a while since I was a teenage girl but I can remember how I used to feel. I am one of an identical set of twins. Identical, but different still. I was the quiet studious one, she was the pretty one all the boys wanted. Identical remember? I was a few pounds heavier so this made me the fat one. Pounds, not kilos or stones. They said I had a bigger nose even though most people couldn’t tell us apart at first glance. I was a coupla inches taller than my younger sister by four minutes, but patriarchy doesn’t care for a healthy body mass index just sex appeal and next to me; she was a little bit skinnier and more talkative, especially with the boys.

She was 12 the first time a boy called her frigid. He was the cock of the class, advancing through puberty with straight As and all the girls wanted to be his girlfriend. I did too but I can’t remember why, it was just what we did. We weren’t thinking of losing our virginities, heck, we didn’t quite understand how that all worked. The gesture of the finger through the hole was frightening, what on earth did it mean? My sister was called frigid for refusing to let this boy kiss her cheek. In fact, she thought he’d already gone too far by holding her hand! A little while later we’d heard he’d cheated on her with a girl a coupla years above us. Everyone said they’d had sex and everyone called that girl a slag. But everyone gave him a pat on the back and whispered about who’d get to be his next girl. This behaviour was considered normal.

Teenaged girls are walking the tightrope to acceptance. I’ll never forget how an ex described how happy and reassured he was that his recently tweenie daughter was funny; a skill that would help her fit in with the boys. He actually said that it didn’t matter if a girl was not so attractive as long as she had the ability to charm them over with her wit. It was then I understood that he understood patriarchy and how it controls women. To fit into this man’s world, you’ve gotta make yourself attractive to them, on their terms.

And so we start shaving the baby bird down we sprout when our bodies start changing. We aspire to be the girl the other girls don’t like; they’re only jealous. We want a boyfriend but that’s only because so and so has one and if we don’t it’s probably because we have herpes. The word virgin makes us cringe and it’s only when we lose our virginities that we realise it’s too late, now we are sluts and can never be a virgin again. Some of us will have to have our hymens sewn up so that we can pretend it never happened. It’s that or risk death in the name of patriarchal ‘honour’.

In light of the Savile enquiry, with hundreds courageously coming to the fore, our society has had to think seriously about the way in which we silence child victims of sexual abuse in this country. They have been scorned and accused of making their allegations up; because it’s easy to present as a victim of systematic abuse? Only it’s not. How is one hardwired to think of people being so duplicitous as to convince a jury that they have been horrifically violated, sexually, against their will? Imagine replaying those incidents over and over in  your mind until one day, when you feel for the first time people are actually listening, you dare to share the crimes committed against you, hopeful that you will have finally have support. Except.. They say that you are lying, that they don’t believe you and this is something you have conjured up for financial gain.. Why would anyone risk putting themselves through this unless they are telling the truth?

Even if you are telling the truth and the judge believes you, convicts the perpetrator and locks him away, there’s a message in it for you still. It doesn’t matter that you’ve just only just left primary school, haven’t even had all of your jabs, the fact that you were there shows you were willing. This is what Judge David Farrell QC had to say whilst passing sentence on Roshane Channer and Ruben Monteiro, jailing them both for just 40 months because he accepted the perpetrator’s defence that she was ‘willing’ and looked at least 14.

Judge Farrell said: “Despite her age it is accepted that she was a willing participant, but the law is there to protect young girls from this type of behaviour and to protect them from themselves.

“The girl had clearly been subjected to systematic sexual exploitation and you willingly used her for your own sexual gratification. It is aggravated by the fact that the event was being videoed.”

I disagree, Judge Farrell. The law is there to protect children from men like you. And you are there to implement the law, not make a mockery of it.

But he’s the not only one. Last month Steven Pollock admitted to violating a 13 year old girl. He was duly convicted of sex with a minor yet somehow managed to walk free from court with just an order for community service and undertaking that he should attend a sex offender’s programme. He obviously knew he was committing an offence when he told his very drunk victim to pretend she was 16. The CPS changed the original charge of rape because they could not establish whether she had given consent.

CONSENT?

How is a minor able to give consent? Is this not a clear cut case for statutory rape?

Lord Turnbull has difficulty answering this question. “It is important to understand that the offence arises out of consensual conduct rather than any form of force, grooming or manipulation.”

MINORS CANNOT GIVE CONSENT.

DRUNK 13 YEAR OLDS CANNOT GIVE CONSENT.

THIS IS CALLED RAPE.

When the judiciary are sending out a clear message to victims that they brought it on themselves, how is it any wonder that Savile’s victims remained silent for so long? Even when they convict offenders they have to slip in a warning (control) for all victims. Anthony Parry was recently convicted of rape and sentenced to 6 years imprisonment. His victim awoke to find Parry raping her. Despite this and the fact that Judge Niclas Parry found the defendant guilty, he added that the victim had “let herself down badly” by drinking heavily and taking drugs on the night she was attacked. He told her she had made herself “easy prey for a rapist”.

Take this as a warning women, you should all just accept rapists exist and that they will rape you if you don’t do a better job of immunising yourself against this sort of thing. Stop drinking, stop having fun, change your clothing (but don’t cover up too much lest they think you’re a Muslim, and what a can of worms that is) and for chrissakes, stop sleeping around, or you’re just asking for it.

Sign this petition, not because I believe it will ultimately change anything for the big menz in power but because it is raising awareness by its very existence. RT it, forward it on to your mailing lists, keep talking about it. The more we say, the more we can do to affect change.

Judge Niclas Parry, apologise and retract your victim blaming comments:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/judge-niclas-parry-apologise-for-and-retract-your-victim-blaming-comments-to-a-rape-victim

The patriarchal media and its victims

It’s hard being a victim. The very word implies submission to a violent or aggressive act, one in which we were overpowered and controlled. It makes us feel helpless and vulnerable. Being a victim or coming across as one leaves us open to further victimisation. And so we prefer to say we are survivors. We were able to overcome the horrific circumstances that threatened to shut us down and because we have survived we deserve praise for our resilience and ability to rise up. To do this, we need recognition. Firstly to recognise for ourselves that we fought hard and that it wasn’t our fault. Our clothing is not to blame, nor our looks or the time of day. Secondly, that our supporters believe us and in doing so protect us from further harm, defining the line for what is acceptable, ensuring that we do not begin to believe the lies our media and politicians spin in order to control our movements and associations.

A sex scandal is what happens when a supposedly happily married media ‘personality’ cheats on their long suffering, eternally loyal partner. Why it is any of our business, I won’t pretend to understand but for the sake of a comparison, that is how it reads to me (and I hope for most people). My aversion to the phrase aside, I strongly object to those words being used to describe CHILD ABUSE/STATUTORY RAPE (where patriarchy calls the underage victim willing and ‘older than their years’). In one article exposing the child abuse/sexual violence perpetrated by the voice of Elmo (yes, really), he is described as having ‘sexual relationships’ with underage ‘accusers’. Minors cannot consent to ‘sexual relationships’.

NON CONSENSUAL SEX IS RAPE.

(You can read the article here http://huff.to/WMoubA)

The writer of this article calls it underage sex and suggests the voice of Elmo continues to experience ‘misfortune’ as a result of the allegations. Hey Elmo, it really is bad luck that you’ve been caught abusing children. Maybe if we tarnish your young victims with the sort of language that implies something sexual happened but they’re only making it known now cos they want to see you go down, you’ll be spared a proper punishment and the victims will be ridiculed instead.

What do Berlusconi, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Jimmy Savile and Elmo have in common? They have raped and abused and violated women and children without their consent. In the British press, they are all allegedly involved in ‘sex scandals’. There are numerous attempts on behalf of the patriarchal press and media to silence the victims by giving a platform to the perpetrators (‘I’m not an abuser and that’s the end of that. Now give me money’) and using language to convince you of their innocence. Victims do not want to be associated with a sex scandal. It is sordid and implies they were actively involved in some way. By implicating the victims and suggesting that they are in some way to blame, patriarchy ensures that survivors remain victimised. It creates a barrier for other victims to speak out too. It normalises abuse by rebranding it as just sex and the ‘accusers’ as jilted lovers or scroungers after their 15 minutes. Just like the many women who believe partners have more rights to their bodies than they themselves do (wish I’d been there when patriarchy invented this one) even when she doesn’t feel like it, the message we are consistently given is that there are levels of rape and your rape isn’t even rape rape. In fact rape rape is extremely rare so in this way patriarchy has convinced you that sexual violence against women just isn’t even a thing (what rape culture?).

This is one of many examples I could give regarding the way news is reported in a patriarchal system and how it influences society’s attitudes to victims of gender related crime. In as many weeks, 2 perpetrators of domestic homicide murdered their wives before committing suicide. Neither case was reported to involve domestic abuse. There was an emphasis on the behaviour of the murdered woman in the run up to the incident, perhaps she liked a drink and was ‘bubbly’ (read overly friendly/in your face). There were no indications as to the behaviour of the perpetrator except maybe he’d had a spell of depression (sympathy please) and don’t forget what an amazing personality/leader/sportsman he was and what a loss this will be to the world. The language used attempts to invoke sympathy for the abuser; it paints a tragedy not a brutal murder.

It is powerful and influential and they know this.

..Don’t even get me started on child ‘porn’.

Why I’m STILL A Feminist (and evermore proud)

It’s freakishly daunting when your close male friends plead with you to think of all men as rapists. You laugh nervously, a little unsure of what to say, and somewhat annoyed that they’d fuel your natural paranoia. Most men don’t rape, I like to think, but the few that do; control all women. To hear that most men are in fact capable of rape and have thought of it is unfathomable, right? I insisted it couldn’t be true, I was too horrified to accept it. But then, in the debacle that was the Assange defence, politicians and media types tripping over themselves in a bid to redefine rape, in a man’s world, it all became glaringly obvious; my male friends were right. The world was in a frenzy because there was a serious risk that the definition of rape as victims see it would raise serious questions over their own sexual histories. No means no. It doesn’t sometimes mean yes. It doesn’t matter if you fall asleep having just had sex, waking up to find someone inside you is a violation. The person penetrating you whilst you slumber has not registered enthusiastic consent. They have selfishly chosen to tend to their own desires; your body is merely a receptacle. Now, because we are programmed to believe we are receivers and our bodies are there for pleasure, many of us believe this behaviour to be NORMAL and wrongly think that this is not rape. NON CONSENSUAL SEX is rape.

Being followed on the high street is a violation too. Wolf whistles, cat calls, honking horns…  Daily reminders that menz are all around you, and you exist for their viewing pleasure. Nice tits. Fit arse. “Keep it up”. I’d have a go on your missus (this actually happened). Once, I was sat on a bus into work. A slimeball sidled up and sat next to me and proceeded to rub his leg against mine. Believing it to be a mistake, I moved my leg away but he just spread his legs further and continued to invade my space. Livid, I shot up and bellowed at him to move out of my way. “You fucking princess,” he spat. I had the audacity to call him up on his violation of my body and personal space. Fellow passengers looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, as if I’d just phlegmed up my breakfast. I was shaken but proud of myself. Maybe he’ll think twice the next time he picks on a seemingly short Asian girl (I’m 30 for the record).

It’s all fair and well interviewing a few privileged white women (or token black women with blonde hair) and coming to the conclusion that feminism is outdated or repugnant even, but here’s what I  (an ex Muslim, British Asian woman of Pakistani/Kashmiri descent on a below average income, very much below average height) think. Feminism is thriving and it’s about to explode. Patriarchy is rubbing his hands with glee  right now, he’s got his best puppets in government so he’s feeling comfortable expressing himself, happily contorting reality to fit his own sexual needs. This makes Feminism very angry. He’s stomping down on independent women; shrinking down the job market, ensuring that women cannot stand on their own two feet. Independent mothers are the scourge of Broken Britain so he makes them pay and leaves them underfed and unable to break away from violent partners. I predict a riot; feminists of the world are uniting as we speak. Heck, I’ve made some wonderful friends these past few weeks.

Whenever I see an article condemning feminism, I don’t think “oh no, I think I’m the only one”, I think “ha, the bastards are really shitting themselves” and give myself a big pat on the back and a chocolate éclair. Patriarchy is the 2 year old that believes he is the centre of your world and you do everything for him. He thinks he can hurt your cause by denigrating it.

Instead, he comes across as a two year old saying ‘shit’ repeatedly just so he can get your attention.