Here’s a video of my speech from Saturday’s Million Women Rise rally in Trafalgar Square.
And yes, it is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
For more piccies, words etc on Saturday’s demo see:
The Women’s Resource Centre Blog
When a million women rise….
March 9, 2010 · Leave a Comment
→ Leave a CommentCategories: campaigning · feminism · me · misogyny · rape · violence against women
Beijing +15
March 3, 2010 · 3 Comments
You may have missed all the extensive media coverage (snark), in which case you may be completely unaware that for the next two weeks New York is playing host to the Commission on the Status of Women’s (CSW) fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
This is important stuff. However, it seems that already all’s not going entirely well, especially for the NGOs. As Zohra Moosa reports:
“This morning NGOs found out that not only would there not be an outcome document from this year’s CSW, but the political declaration that would be serving as the official output from the conference was already agreed.
Just ten minutes before the declaration was due to be tabled and approved, UK NGOs received hard copies of the text. It totals less than two pages and is as general as it is brief.
According to the document, the text has been in circulation since late February. Yet even the official NGO Committee on the CSW didn’t have copies of the document before today. It fell to an NGO from Austria to share the information.
Most of the UK NGO represenatives I’ve spoken to are unhappy with the text, not because there is anything in it that is a problem, but because there isn’t much to it at all. Having received it late and almost after the fact, it is even more disppointing for them to have found that it is so weak on content.”
Meanwhile Margaret Owen, in a piece entitled Disillusionment, Anger and Protest says:
At this Tuesday morning’s NGO consultation we women from the NGOs, attempting to participate in the 54th CSW, finally collectively erupted, en masse
These meetings will take place every day for the duration of the Session at the New York Salvation Army building, several blocks away from the UN because there is “no room at the Inn”, that is, the UN building, where in previous years we always met. Is there some dark conspiracy that facilitates the process of making us women feel so unwelcome, so redundant, and so belittled ?
Throughout the day, wherever and whenever one met women queuing, exhausted, harassed, and often livid with frustration – women who had spent vast sums of money from scarce resources just to get here – the anger, nay hot fury, was evident. It was scandalous that we women should be so treated by the UN, so badly served by them, so disregarded.
I wish I had her name and country, but this morning, a fiery trade unionist woman stood up and was cheered loudly by everyone when she listed our complaints. The interminable long waits, up to eight hours or more, queuing in icy streets simply to get our passes to have the right to enter the UN building. The appalling chaos of the arrangements made although the UN has had months to prepare itself for this 54th Session of the CSW. “It was unthinkable that men, for example, turning up to attend the G20 meetings would be subjected to such treatment.”
The conference is only into its third day now with another nine to go. Let’s hope these are just teething problems and that the whole thing doesn’t degenerate further into some kind of farce.
To keep up with events, follow the Open Democracy bloggers covering the conference here: 50.50
→ 3 CommentsCategories: blogging · campaigning · feminism · gender · misogyny · violence against women
ZOMG! Biased Beeb in pc gaaawn mad scandal!
March 1, 2010 · 2 Comments
I don’t know about anyone else (well actually I do, ‘cos there were numerous tweets during last week’s QT asking whether JSP was pissed) but I found Janet Street Porter’s performance on Question Time last Thursday slightly bizarre. I was interested to see then that she has a piece in today’s Daily Mail where she talks about her appearance on the programme.
The article itself is about as as muddled as her responses were on Thursday, with her on the one hand complaining about the programme being male dominated, especially with regard to the panellists, and on the other complaining because on Thursday March 11th, during International Women’s week, QT will be having an all female audience.
Street Porter evidently sees this decision as some kind of affront, and argues that there’s no need to treat women as a special case. She also asks “Why should women ask different questions to men? After all, women aren’t one big homogenous group. They are old, young, single, straight, married and bisexual, rich and poor.”
Yes they are, but to be honest I haven’t actually seen anyone suggest that the all women audience will be asking different questions. Maybe the point is that women are more likely to stick their hands up and actually participate in the debate if the environment is a little less macho. Or maybe, and I realise this might disappoint the frothing right-wingers like Ian Dale who think the all women audience idea is just some kind of pc gaaawn mad gimmick, maybe the BBC just wanted to find a way to mark International Women’s Week, and this seemed like a fairly uncontroversial way to do it.
If that is the case the Beeb apparently misjudged it – type “Question Time all women audience” into Google for instance and up pops this article: BBC accused of political correctness over all women version of Question Time.
Oh but hang on, look again, it’s another one from the Mail…
→ 2 CommentsCategories: Daily Mail shite · I read crap so you don't have to · blogging · cynical? what me? · feminism · misogyny · the world's gone mad · you really couldn't make this shit up
Nadine’s not a feminist, but….
February 26, 2010 · 6 Comments
I found myself in the unenviable position this week of actually agreeing with Nadine Dorries about something. But don’t worry, it was a short lived affair.
Now despite the fact that I appear to be one of the few lefties she hasn’t yet blocked on Twitter, I’m not renowned for holding Dorries in any high esteem (see here for example), so you can imagine my surprise when she tweeted this:
and I found myself nodding along.
Yes she’s right, the political new media is dominated by men – in fact it’s something I’ve been intending to write about for a while now. Jennie Rigg wrote a great piece about it last year: Where are all the female bloggers, where she explained how part of the reason men dominate, or at least are seen to dominate the blogosphere, is that “men link to men” on their blogs as well as “recommend posts by men to other men.” She also argued, and this is where I think she hits the nail on the head, that part of the problem is a definitional one, that unless you’re writing about party or Westminster politics, if you’re writing about feminism for example, you’re not regarded as a political blogger. Says Jenni:
“Dan Dan the Wikio Man and I had a similar discussion about The F-Word and various other feminist blogs. Wikio had them listed under
General, becausefeminism isn’t politics. The narrow definition of politics to include only geekery about party politics and the Westminster Bubble excludes women.”
Exactly. I regard myself as very much a political blogger, and feminism as an integral part of my politics, but I only get linked to from the big boys’ blogs when I write about party political issues. And search for this blog on Wikio and, just like the F-Word and other feminist blogs, you’ll find it categorised under the “General” heading. Liberal Conspiracy on the other hand, which I also write for occasionally, and where posts from this blog sometimes get cross-posted, is firmly listed there under “Politics.” So does that mean that when I write here I’m just a feminist blogger and when I write for LC I’m a political blogger? Even though often-times it’s the same blog post in both places? Hmmm, perhaps someone from Wikio could explain to me how that works…
Laurie Penny has also written about this recently, and I have to say I completely agree with her criticism of the What Difference Does Political Blogging Make? debate, hosted by the Westminster Skeptics, in which the panellists, Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, Nick Cohen, Sunny Hundal and Mick Fealty, were all men. In fact I had actually planned on going to the debate to make exactly that point, that having an all male panel at an event like that really doesn’t help, especially when we’re all busy bemoaning the invisibility of women in both politics and political blogging. But in the end I had to pass, ‘cos I was off that day doing other, more girly, less political things, like presenting a workshop on trafficking and prostitution at the National Rape Crisis conference. And yes that is a snark, because if anyone really does think there’s nothing political about that, then sorry, but I beg to differ.
→ 6 CommentsCategories: FFS! · Pro-life nutjobs · a bit of politics · blogging · campaigning · feminism · me · the Internet
Petition for a change to the stalking law
February 24, 2010 · 1 Comment
Because the original piece has now moved off the front page, I’m moving this comment, that was posted yesterday on the thread, into a post of its own.
“The Claire Waxman case has now opened a Government petition – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/clairescampaign – to get stalking laws changed and the introduction of psychiatric assessments for these stalkers – please can you all sign this petition and lend your support to this noble cause”
Here’s the blurb from the petition if anyone’s wondering what this is all about:
“Claire Waxman’s stalker Googled her 40,000 times, slept in her car and even caused her to have a miscarriage. For seven years he infiltrated her life, yet was jailed for just 16 weeks.
Claire says: “The legal process I experienced throughout my ordeal was sometimes as bad as the stalking itself. There was a total lack of consistent legal representation. Often I would arrive at court to find yet another new face from the Crown Prosecution Service working with me. I was forced to write my own précis of my case so that every time a new person came on board they would at least have the essential outline.”
In the UK, stalking affects around 1.5 million people a year. Some of you may be experiencing stalking or know someone who is. You have the power to help Claire – and thousands like her – who live in constant fear. Claire has launched Claire’s Campaign, asking the Government to make the following changes:
1. ‘Vertical Prosecution’ by the Crown Prosecution Service in stalking cases. This means the same specialist prosecutor see cases through from beginning to end.
2. A review of the guidelines on sentencing and the minimum and maximum jail term that can be imposed.”
There’s also an excellent piece about this in this week’s Now magazine (which by pure coincidence I read yesterday in a dentist’s waiting room before the comment went up)
Anway, I’ve signed the petition and I fully support the campaign. And no pressure or anything, but just in case you missed it, here’s the link again:
→ 1 CommentCategories: campaigning · fear · feminism · health · mental health · stalking · violence against women
