Babies v Buses: Can Men Not Push Buggies?

I stumbled across this article earlier:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/mums_rev_up_for_new_fight_over_pram_ban_1_1965185

Pretty much a rehash of the ever-joyous baby v bus debate that pops up to annoy Lothian Buses annually.

However, it really, really upsets me that this is all about mums with buggies. I won't deny that when I do take the bus, the majority of those getting on with babies are women, but this has sparked an interesting chain of thought: can men push buggies? Are men so pumped up with testosterone that their masculinity makes them baulk at the very sight of those toothless wonders? Indeed, does the penis actually prevent one from pushing a buggy?

And then I remember that, actually, I frequently see men with babies on buses. Heaven forfend, even men with babies in buggies on buses.

It calls to mind the endless scenarios I've seen of parents telling off their little boys: "stop pushing that buggy; you're not a girl!" It saddens me that girls are socialized from a young age to care for children, whilst boys are warned off it - and for what purpose? For the preposterous notion that doing 'girly' things makes them gay? Do we want to see our sons as bad fathers?!

The perpetuation of male breadwinner/female caregiver stereotypes exemplify the everyday fights that we all need to partake in. This may seem like a 'small' issue in a supposedly equal society, but it is in the small things that we find the roots of inequality.

News So Appalling That I May Transform into the Hulk

This is one of the most horrific articles I've ever read: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/turkish-court-reduces-rape-sentences

A 13 year old girl was sold by two men for sex which subsequently resulted in her being raped by26 men. I may have to repeat that: TWENTY-SIX. These men included teachers and civil servants who have been sentenced for disturbingly short sentences (those who sold her for 9 years and the rapists for 1-6 years). Yet now, those sentences may be cut further because she "consented".

?!

How, in the name of all that is good can a 13 year old girl actually consent in this situation? I've mentioned before that I disagree with consent-focused rape laws, but I don't think I've ever given a full explanation of why. So, oh lucky ones, I shall. Gather round and listen to my words of wisdom kiddly-winks...

Consent is, by it's very definition, an agreement reached by two people in a position of equality. Now, I won't go so far as some have, and claim that due to the ongoing power of patriarchy all sex between men and women is not actually 'consensual' as they can never be equal. I think this is a very monolithic view of patriarchy, and if we do not understand the specific permutations at work then we can, in fact, credit it with too much power, whilst ignoring the real battlegrounds.

Instead, I argue that consent is essentially meaningless in the realm of sexual negotiation. The law does not really have the means to provide legislate for the minutae of power relations at work in the sexual realm, so it takes a 'single common denominator' approach. To give consent, in the eyes of the law, is to remain silent, to not fight back, to not kick and scream... This is based on two major misunderstandings: 1) the myth of 'real rape' where innocent young virgins are violently violated whilst their continued attempts to fight are overcome by the sheer strength of the vile offender - for a bit of a rant about this see my post on the Ken Clark controversy earlier this year; 2) a complete lack of forethought about the choices a person is framing during the course of their relationship with that person/the attack. It is all very well and good to say that you'd fight back, but what about if you suspected you would be subjected to further violence? What if the attacker had a weapon? What about if the attacker had threatened your family? What if silence is the easiest way for you to deal with the attack? The coercion and violence inherent in the act of rape as demonstrating power on the body of another takes place at a level the law cannot truly legislate, at least if it continues to rely on the overly broad and meaningless concept of 'consent'.

We don't know what sort of choices this child was framing when she was raped, but placing oneself in the shoes of a child being forced to have sex with adults who hold very real power over you is rape. For goodness' sake, she was SOLD - how can she have consented?!

There are two issues at stake in the more specific Turkish context here too - 1) these men may be released because this legal wrangling is stretching the case past the timeframe for prosecution and 2) killings of women increased 1,400% between 2002 and 2009. I can't even begin to comprehend such a figure.

Massive Killer Pacman Ghosts: Why Frape isn't Funny Part 2

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote Zombie Sheep and Beelzebub' Dinner: Why Frape isn't Funny, which has become the most read post I've written. In it I ranted about how it had become acceptable to use the term 'frape' a contraction of 'facebook rape' to describe someone hacking into your facebook account, and how this has spread into a wider acceptance of rape as something to be joked about. Thankfully, in the intervening months I have seen a much lower usage of 'frape' but it seems that the underlying current that made it acceptable is still strong.

You may have heard about petitions to facebook regarding the proliferation of pages which joke about rape. They include 'You know she's playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway', 'Raping your mates girlfriend to see if she can put up a fight', 'Kicking Sluts in the Vagina', 'I know a silly little bitch that needs a good slap', and 'Riding your Girlfriend softly, Cause you don't want to wake her up'.

Lovely.

Given that Facebook says in it's terms and conditions that "You will not post content that is: hateful, threatening or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence", one would think that it would be easy to have these pages shut down. Alas, Facebook thinks these are all just hilarious rude jokes and to shut the down would be a violation of free speech.

Because we all know that women who have been assaulted and/or raped have a total hold over their own rights. They have freedom of movement, right? They have freedom of speeh, yeah? This week I read an account by Andrea Brenton Rushing entitled 'Surviving Rape: A Morning/Mourning Ritual' in which she describes feeling unsafe in her own home, suffering severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder where she had to take extended leave from her job as a lecturer because she couldn't write, nor even remember things. But, y'know, the fact that she woke up in her own bed to being attacked is funny. Funny because he obviously didn't know to go 'softly' enough.

Now if Facebook is going to be so blasé about this, we can take this as an affirmation of what they're doing. An affirmation of making fun of rape, and rape victims.

Facebook, you are being damned to my own special level of hellfire, along with Catherine Hakim, Ken Clark, and Jane Austen. Oh, and because I feel there would be a splendid irony to it, in that hell I will set massive killer pacman ghosts on you - you may try to run (digitally, I suppose), but you can't hide...

Postgraduatedom in Numbers: Week One

After a year of waiting, 3 months of grappling with the Career Development Loan folk, and innumerable visits to the NLS, I began my Masters this week.

There have been 3 lectures.

One assignment sprung on us with very little notice.

45 hours of working at my job because I didn't know that either of the above were happening.

5 6am starts.

3 1am finishes.

1 expletive filled rant.

1 bout of sobbing.

Oh, and 2,323 words on an assignment on Dual Agency and the Evolution of Thought in the Work of Fatima Mernissi.

I'm pretty tired, but I'M BACK, baby.

Surely that's a Misprint? and Deals with the Funding Troll

This week I was invited to a panel discussion entitled God & Sex. Sounds interesting, and particularly relevant to my research. Alas, on further investigation this does not seem to be the case. Indeed, it would seem that God really doesn't have much to do with it at all:

Does the Church talk too much about sex? Are any of the Church’s traditional teachings on sex relevant today? Should Christians rethink their approach to sex? Or stay out of the discussion entirely?

This panel discussion on God and sex, held at the University of Edinburgh, features:

Richard Holloway, outspoken ‘after-religionist,’ former bishop of Edinburgh, and champion of LGBT causes
Dr. Sara Parvis, lecturer in Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, feminist, and devout Roman Catholic
Fr. Ian Paton, rector of Old St Paul’s

Chaired by the Rev. Harriet Harris, Chaplain to the University of Edinburgh.

Now I'm not saying that this isn't a very valid and necessary discussion to be having, far from it. The way the church treats sex and sexuality is pretty dire in my opinion. I also like the idea that Christians should rethink their approach to sex, it brings up all sorts of images of a Cosmopolitan-esque magazine imploring Christians to branch out from the missionary position, or even giving more 'holy' names to existing, erm, approaches. Anyhoo...

However, I get rather irate when 'God' and 'Christianity' are treated as synonymous. This may be a case of miscommunication, but there is certainly a very virulent vein of thought in which Christians either forget that other people have a claim on God as well, or in which they are so arrogant that of course their idea of God is the only true conception and they, and they only, have the right to use the term 'God'.

*Did you notice that I was keeping an eye out for how it would affect my research? That would be because I have finally come to an agreement with the funding troll - that he can follow me around for the next four years shouting in my ear that I owe him money - in order that I can do my Masters. Induction happened on Thursday and I start back proper tomorrow. Eek!

Erotic Capital: The Rationalisation of Rape

Catherine Hakim, an LSE sociologist has a new book out at the moment: Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. Nice.

Her basic thesis seems to be that men want sex. More sex than women are prepared to give, and so this provides a bit of a vacuum in which any self-serving women will exploit to her benefit. Apparently women have now noticed that they can use their 'sex-appeal' to get ahead, a fact which the 'patriarchy' has attempted to cover up: "Patriarchal ideologies have systematically trivialised women's erotic capital to discourage women from capitalising on it – at men's expense." You can read a rather fantastic interview with Ms Hakim here.

This theme, that women don't have to go all the way and fulfil men's desires, but only to look pretty and make the guys think they might has been picked up in this jaw-dropping Daily Mail article. Ms Brick is a delightful young women, who is quite happy to spend a large proportion of her time flirting away in order to get exactly what she wants (which it seems is make-up and clothes - a touch of a vicious cycle going on there). Happy days for her. Interesting that last year she wrote this article entitled How TV is run by sexist pigs, where she wrote of how it was only through hard work she got on in her career despite sexual harassment. Anyhoo, it's the Daily Mail so I won't hold her up as an example.

However, Hakim's thesis doesn't just make my blood boil because she is boiling women down to sexual fantasies for men. I think she is pedalling a very dangerous ideology.

I came to this realisation when re-reading Catharine MacKinnon's section on Rape in "Toward a Feminist Theory of the State". She draws on the popular image of women as teases who control their sexuality in terms of consent. Men initiate sex, women consent . The terms of the initiation, consequences of refusal, and the situation a woman is placed in when deciding whether to consent or not are generally ignored. "Fundamentally, desirability to men is supposed a woman's form of power because she can both arouse it and deny its fulfilment". (MacKinnon, 1989:175) However, this notion of women as 'teases' rationalises force. She's stringing him along, thinking she will give in to his desires, but at the last second leaves him standing. Well of course she wants it, hasn't she just been giving all the signals? Perhaps she's trying to get him to work for it. Never do we consider that she actually doesn't want to have sex with him. "Consent in this model becomes more a metaphysical quality of a woman's being than a choice she makes and communicates." (MacKinnon, 1989:175)

Hakim is perpetuating this image of women as teases, even encouraging women to take ownership of her erotic capital and use it for her won ends. Unfortunately she hasn't thought it through. This isn't the dawning of a new feminine overcoming of the patriarchy, but it is lending academic credentials to a dangerous piece of misinformation.

For that reason, Hakim is being damned to my own personal hell, as detailed in previous postshere, here and here.

Arrogance and Ignorance: Religion vs Sprituality?

Facebook has been abuzz this week with debates about this wee article. Such buzz has even spread to the blogosphere, in the ever erudite thoughts of Chris, but I felt the need to put my own thoughts out there for anyone interested.

This whole article is symptomatic of the insidious arrogance and ignorance that we see in the Church every day. Ms Daniels has created a false dichotomy of 'religion' vs 'spirituality' where she makes up her own implicit definitions. Spirituality is something one creates for themselves because they are scared of the hard slog of working out one's religion in community, which is in vogue for those wishing to set themselves apart from traditional religion. Religion is about experiencing God "in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition", and is about community. Notice that she talks about experiencing God through intermediaries, rather than directly. And can someone please, for the love of all that is holy (as agreed by a council of appropriately appointed people over the course of thousands of very trying church council meetings), tell me what someone "who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses" is like?! Sounds like someone who has had one too many acid trips to be honest...

Ms Daniels has taken one of the most basic tenets of theology - the presence of God in the natural world - and has actually argued against someone experiencing God that way. How lovely, can you imagine meeting her for pastoral care?

"Parishioner: I totally felt God's presence the other day! I was walking along the beach at sunset...

Minister: Oh reaaaaallllyyyy? And was there a cloud of witnesses? A passing prayer group? No, ah, that wasn't God then. That was your own selfish interpretation of what God is like. Stop being so bland and become part of the all-encompassing community, that is original."

Delightful.

Not to mention that she seems to be advocating a theology in which God would only answer the prayers of the church-going. That would be an interesting conversations too:

"Plane dweller: So God...

God: Yes?

PD: Yeah, it's a bit choppy up here. Or is it down here for you? I get confused.

God: I'm all around. Although if you thought you saw me on that mountaintop, that was actually a selfish LIE made up by yourself.

PD: Well actually...

God: Oh ME, you're not one of THOSE are you?

PD: Those?

God: Yeah, those. Those folks who think they can rock up when the going gets a bit tough and expect me to answer their prayers?

PD: Um...

God: Honestly, I'm a busy deity, and I've got over a billion followers across the planet, why would I waste my time on you? You have to undertake at least an alpha course and three months worth of Sunday meetings before I'll be bothered with you..."

I know if I were on an 'airplane' (whatever that is) experiencing turbulence, I'd absolutely rather sit next to the person willing to share their innermost thoughts about how they relate to the world than by an eye-rolling minister, disinterested in my opinions because they don't take the exact form of their own. That, and sitting next to the heretic is surely a dangerous seat to be in...