We're not in Afghanistan to protect women's rights...

I watched one of the best Panorama's I've ever seen last night (doesn't Jeremy Vine have the easiest job in television - how much does he get paid for that topping and tailing?).

And I'm not the only one thinking about Afghanistan today, as Iain Dale has noticed, Sunny Hundal has done a very interesting post on the subject on Pickled Politics.

It was on the subject of Afghanistan and how despite 'so-called' democracy women are still treated abominably. In Herat on one day four women, in separate incidents, set themselves on fire to get away from their husbands.

They had a lady, whose teenage son had a British soldier killed in Afghanistan watch the film brought back from Afghanistan and ask her whether it's still right the the UK should be in Afghanistan - whether in fact, her son had dies in vain?

She said, that it was, that was important that we helped change Afghanistan given the treatment of women.

But that's the wrong thing to show her because we are not and never have been in Afghanistan to help the women who live there.

We're in Afghanistan for reasons of national security. The Taliban and Al Qaeda base themselves in that region on the Afghanistan/Pakistan borders (must I really call it AfPak?) and from there they plot and train people to bomb and harm British, American and other nationalities in their own countries and abroad.

It's right that the programme concentrates on the efficacy of aid going into Afghanistan and how much of it falls prey to corruption. But the only reason we give aid and the only reason we risk our soldiers lives is to shore up our own national security.

After all, we'd never gone near Basra if we really cared about women's rights and security in Iraq.

And nor would we be busy helping out British Aerospace continue to bribe and fund the decadent lifestyles of the Princes of Saud by dropping fraud enquiries.

Nope, the question of whether we pull our troops out of Afghanistan should be tested against the case for putting them in there in the first place. I foresee in the next few weeks some Lib Dem hand wringing about our role in Afghanistan, after all, everybody else is. Personally, I would prefer we sorted out Al Qaeda and the Taliban so they couldn't bomb us, and so, think we ought to keep the in there until they are incapacitated (I did International Relations at Uni not strategic studies, so I'm in no position to take a view on whether this is the best way to beat Al Qaeda - I get to define the end state without worrying about the military delivery of such an end state!).

Let's not kid ourselves that anything about UK foreign policy in central Asia or the middle east has anything to do with women's rights - it doesn't and never has.

Which is not to say that I think the that's the way it should be - I was really pleased when Labour came in in 1997 and Robin Cook put forward an ethical foreign policy and I have been very proud of Vince when he has challenged the decision to stop the investigation of the SFO into BAE by Tony Blair.

I just think we should be clear on whether UK foreign policy is working with an ethical dimension or not and our presence in Afghanistan has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with National Security.

Keira Knightly and domestic violence

If you want to find out more you can click through to the Women's Aid website here.

Cricket & women's rights in Afghanistan

Sometimes, you wonder that those who layout The Guardian don't see the irony.

On the front page they lead with the horrifying news that Afghanistan is hurtling back into the dark ages (or at the very least, lets face it, the previous century) and bringing in laws to make marital rape legal and requiring women to ask the permission of their husbands before they do a job, get an education or go to the doctor!

Apparently this is Kharzai attempt to win votes from conservative Muslims.

Well, perhaps they should have just said conservative Afghans because none of that behaviour is less specifically religious but more cultural. However, whether is is backwards cultural or religious practices it further serves to undermine the idea that Karzai is the man to lead Afghani's, all Afghanis.

It seems international diplomacy is horrified but apart from strong words doesn't seem to feel there is much they can do.

Oh dear.

However, over in the Sports section, I spy (and admittedly it's a major miracle that I spent that long on the section) in the top banner a sign post to an article on the success of the Afghan cricket team.

The Afghan cricket team has been on a very steep trajactory and have some very talented players. In fact, they struggle to find anywhere to play in Afghanistan and are often helped out by the cricket boards of Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

Apparently, it's become really popular because they've started to win and the whole nation has taken to it.

Afghanistan are now set to do well in the world cup.

But I say, boycott them. Would we let Burma play cricket in the cricket world cup? No! So why are we writing jolly little articles about the loveliness of that nice (male) Afghani cricket team when their president is looking to remove human rights from half the country.

I say, hit them where it hurts and don't let them enjoy sports success if they're going to do this.

Am I the only one that doesn't wonder of the irony of these two pieces in the same paper today?

Women Liberal Democrats Reclaim the Night

Hooray! Women Liberal Democrats are going on the Reclaim the Night 2008 march with the Women Liberal Democrats banner!

I went last year with my Mum (yes, that's us in the picture) but there was no organised Lib Dem presence.

This year, inspired by the Finn McKay, from The London Feminist Network, speaking at the WLD fringe on Domestic Violence, they're going. Finn was great at the fringe and spoke with real passion but I did smile as she called out to us as 'comrades'!! Not what you normally hear at a LIBERAL Democrat fringe!

I was absolutely chuffed that I was going to be able march under the Lib Dem banner this year until I realised that I'm actually going to be in Bath for the weekend...something which has been booked up since the dark ages. Hrmph!

But, you can still go if you want to!

It's women only on the march, I'm afraid but guys are allowed at the post-march rally.

If you would like to march (if you're female that is) under the Women Liberal Democrats Banner then meet at the ticket hall of Embankment tube station on Saturday 22nd November 2008 between 6.00pm and 6.15pm. If you want to march incognito then the start of the march is at 6.30pm in Whitehall Place.

The rally (with speakers and stalls) for women, men and children will be at the Friends Meeting House, Main hall, Euston road - you can find out more details at the website here!

At what point does this start becoming a men’s issue?

I only ask, because I'm wondering how many men woke up to the Today programme to hear that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) had been reducing rape victims compensation if they had been consuming alcohol before the event and felt so strongly that this was an outrage that they had to do something about it? If a blogger they might choose to blog about it, or perhaps, a man might start up a conversation about it with other men or women, say, after Georgia and the Olympic Games had been dealt with? I'm only aware of one male blogger to do this so far this afternoon, but if I have missed others then please let me know.

Because we all know that the only person responsible for a rape is the rapist, right? And because of the legal definition of rape, whilst both men and women can be victims of rape, only men can be the perpetrators of rape. So to my mind, this places the responsibility for rape and doing something about its frequency firmly with men. So, why the silence? Why the assumption that women either don't need or don't want the vast majority of the male population who abhor rape to have any public opinion about it at all. Silence is not the same thing as condemnation.

Well, that's me angry enough, even when using my habitual 'people are fundamentally good' approach to the problem. But actually, I'm much crosser than that because I don't even think that we've settled, as a society, that the only person that is responsible for a rape is the rapist. Clearly not, as can be evidenced by the actions of CICA up until recently. Oh yes, Bridget Prentice can say it is not her "view that a victim of rape is not in any way culpable due to alcohol consumption. It is never an individual's fault if he/she gets raped; regardless of how much he/she has drunk". But you don't have to go much further to find that CICA following a misogynist policy of sending out letters suggesting that the victims "excessive consumption of alcohol was a contributing factor in the incident,".

That, I would venture, is prima facie evidence that the change in culture required, although starting at the top, like it should, hasn't got very far down and through state and quasi-governmental institutions, let alone into being a norm of society. And, as we know from that infamous Amnesty international Poll from a few years ago that identified that 30% of people believe a woman wholly or partly to blame for her rape if she had been drinking.

I admit that cultural change in organisations, where most of my experience lies, is not the same as cultural change in a whole organisation but there are I am sure not too much that is different in the way of approach. Firstly, and thank goodness this is in place, we have to define what is and isn't culturally acceptable in the law. That is a very good start. But you not only have to define your acceptable culture or behavioural norm but you have to a) las a leader embody it and b) communicate it to the whole organisation or community.

Now, one hopes that those in government do embody this, at least in their own personal behaviour but if they don't then they must go (and in fact be prosecuted). But at the moment the government is failing to embody it in it's organisation as can be seen by CICA.

Secondly it has to communicate to the community that it wants to influence what is acceptable and not acceptable and I see no evidence of that. Cultural change starts at the top but it is peer pressure that finishes the job off; just look at the way drink driving was socially acceptable 30 years go despite being illegal but today the drink drive is a pariah in most communities.

There are many organisations, including Amnesty International, The Fawcett Society and Reclaim the Night which campaign on a women's right to be free from rape and violence. The picture, by the way, is of me and my Mum on the Reclaim the Streets march last November. It was our first ever protest march!

But, empowered though I feel about those marches and organisations their protests will never be enough to effect a change in the culture of a whole society. Yes, us liberal progressive types will pick up on it eventually (perhaps, but with 50,000 rapes a year, the chances are that some of them are undertaken by men who consider themselves liberal progressives) but the majority without any overwhelming peer pressure will continue to see rape as a problem for women that frankly, most of them bring upon themselves. Easily avoidable if only women changed their behaviour.

One amazing organisation that recognises that it is peer pressure that can make the difference to cultural change is the White Ribbon Campaign an organisation upon whom I've blogged before. It is a male run campaign that seeks to go into universities and sports club and use peer pressure to educate men about the unacceptability of being violent towards women, whether sexual or not.

But we cannot leave it just to the White Ribbon Campaign.

If the government was serious about reducing the number of rapes, of increasing the conviction rate of rapists and increasing the number of women coming forward to report rapes it would do something concrete about it. Cultural change doesn't just take place by osmosis; it doesn't just start from the grass roots. It is not rocket science either, the Government can do something about it.

The could start with a well funded educative campaign, with billboards, newspaper ,posters in pubs and clubs and television adverts backed up with classroom material and workshops in universities. We put this effort and funding campaigns on getting people to change their behaviour around drink driving, take their sat nav with them when parking their car and even the consumption of salt! Why is it so ridiculous to put it into campaign that would place the responsibility for doing something about rape not with women but with the men? When are we as a society going to make rape a men's issue?

Why we need women to be in power...

…and working in journalism*, and the police, the army and the courts and more or less anywhere. And I mean In positions of power not just support.

This is an excellent article by Linda Grant on Comment is Free.

She is talking about her work in investigating claims of mass rape in Bosnia during the Balkans Conflict. She identifies it was the first time that rape was generally recognised as a weapon of war at the same time that the war was going on and that it was women being involved that made that happen: She says:

“What was different in Croatia and Bosnia was that this was the first war that had been monitored by women's organisations, which received reports and collected data.

It was also, perhaps, the first war in which women were, in increasingly large numbers, gaining high profile positions in journalism. After the piece came out, I was contacted by Veronica Waddley, then features editor of the Telegraph (now editor of the Evening Standard)”

I know that many people say that it doesn’t matter what gender or race a person is, they can still represent all humanity. And in theory, I agree. I wouldn’t like to think that I would discriminate in my compassion for others, on the basis or their gender or race.

However, I note that in practice, that it just doesn’t work like that; it has needed women getting into positions of power to start recognising that rape is used as a weapon of war. It did take the increases (however paltry) to the number women in parliament in 1997 to bring in some of the flexible working, maternity and childcare legislation and provision over the last 11 years.

So, although in theory it doesn’t matter what groups are in power and what their gender is, in practice is seems to. This is why diversity is so important. Diversity is important, to have not just a woman’s experience but both men and women’s experience when making decisions on things.

To me this is so important that I am not prepared to wait until there is equality ‘naturally’. I don’t think that will ever happen; we need to rebalance it in women’s favour.

I appreciate, some men out there may not feel particularly advantaged: there are always those who have the merit of being the right colour, the right class, having the right amount of money and having gone to school with the right people. However, as can be shown through the numbers, the biggest advantage there is in politics, in business, in anywhere where power exists, is to be male.

And I can’t see how this is going to change, given the stagnation that has happened in the numbers of women being elected into parliament without some form of quotas. In the Liberal Democrats we do in fact have gender quotas for most bodies, from the FE & FPC, to selection committees, shortlists to PR election lists; why do we refuse to bring them in for the most vital, the most likely to effect positive change for millions of women? Why do we not have them for winnable parliamentary seats? Why do we not have a good long look at how we define the various roles in the party, especially those of PPC and agent to make them fit women’s lives more easily instead of insisting that women’s lives fit them?

In the Labour party they do use All Women Shortlists (AWS) and their women’s organisations have real strength within the party, are taken seriously and listened to by both men and women.

It always makes me very sad to see how few men turn up to the usually very interesting fringes that Women Liberal Democrats put on; we’re supposed to believe that they are able to represent all our experiences but they don’t both to do the most simple things to find out what they are.

Even in the Tory Party, Cameron at least goes on Woman’s Hour and sounds like he wants women to join and take part. I listened to the Women’s House podcast when he was on a few months ago – I tell you, he was very compelling! When are our leaders going to be going on Women’s Hour asking for the listeners to get involved?

Nick Clegg has said that if we don’t sort it out within two parliaments then we are going to have to look at AWS again. Well, from the data that the Electoral Reform Society has come up with that’s not going to happen in the next parliament so that only leaves one more. Why wait for the inevitable? Why wait another parliament of nothing changing when bringing forward change would make a real difference for millions of women’s lives? Why should all that be sacrificed for the sake of the ambitions of 30 odd male approved candidates? I know that the sacrifice of the individual for the group does not fit with our liberal values but I think we are cutting off our nose to spite our face if we don’t do this. I truly believe that more diversity will lead to better lives for all.

I’m very interested to see what the newly incepted Speakers Conference comes up with; I do hope it is going to deliver real action and not just wishful thinking! I’m also looking forward to hearing a bit more about what the Bones Commission in the Lib Dems has to say about sorting this problem out. I’m kind of hoping that it will and that will explain why Nick has been so quiet on this topic over the last 7 months.

*How many lobby correspondents are women, by the way…have you counted recently? Quite a few national newspapers don’t have any women reporting from the press gallery. I went to a press gallery lunch the other week that Nick spoke at and I’m trying very hard to remember but I don’t think there were any questions by women and was told that most of the women in the room were not in fact journalists but invited as the guests of journalists (as I was). So a lot of men asking other men questions about things that interest men.




The Carnival of Feminists

The 55th Carnival of Feminists is up on Penny Red right now (time seems to run faster over there), with my posting from yesterday on domestic violence as part of the carnival.

For those of you who dismiss feminism as man bashing then have a read of this blog, from the carnival.

Calling all men who don't like violence

Saturday was International Women’s Day. I didn’t get any flowers, or a cup of tea in bed or anything like that. Am I not an international woman?

And I didn’t even get to go to the Million Women Rise March in London because I went up to the Liberal Democrat Conference for the weekend. I did though comfort myself with the Women Liberal Democrats (WLD) fringe session in celebration of the day. I would like to thank Cllr Bobbie Chettleburgh for bringing up the issue of domestic violence in the UK in the session; I had been preparing this blog on rape and domestic violence for some days and it was good to know that I wasn’t the only person up there getting more and more concerned.

Although I didn’t make it to the march this Saturday, I did go, with my Mum, on the Reclaim the Night march last November. My favourite slogan was:

“Whatever I wear, wherever I go
Yes means yes and no means no”

Which in a country, like ours, where the conviction rate for rapes hangs around the 5.7% mark is something that clearly needs repeating; and I did, very loudly, all the way up Charing Cross Road that Saturday night!!

5.7% It’s an appalling statistic, isn’t it? And a statistic that the police know that they’ve got to improve on, as much of the problem is as a result of victims dropping out of the process:

“research shows that attrition - or cases dropping out - happens at every stage from initial complaint to trial. But Yates said the biggest attrition rate was with the initial police investigation. If inertia followed a complaint, "what was always going to be a difficult case can often become an impossible one"

By the time the police have got involved, it’s already too late, the crime has been committed. Our aim should be to stop the crimes in the first place.

All types of violence against women, not just sexual, is very, very common. One in four women will experience some kind of domestic violence during their life time. (I realise domestic violence is a far wider category than rape, but stick with me for the moment).

And if that many women experience domestic violence it means that there are a lot of men out there being violent towards women.

So, how many? Well, I don’t know and nor does anybody else, because it’s not the kind of thing we talk about in polite company. But what if it was, for example, a 3:1 ratio to account for say more than one woman being subject to violence from the same man or the few women who receive violence at the hand of another woman? That’s still millions of men and that really is shocking. I can hardly believe that number myself and I don’t find domestic violence hard to imagine at all; I know women who have experienced domestic violence and I’ve witnessed it. Yes, me the epitome of middle class, female professional!

Violence towards women is one of life’s great levelers; in both victims and perpetrators it crosses class, income group, educational attainment, colour, nationality, race, religion, political views, language and age.

And it makes me wonder, how many people have to be doing something before it becomes a cultural norm?

It’s not a new fangled thing, sweeping the nation like bird flu could. I think it has always been ‘acceptable’ to be violent towards women, behind closed doors.

I think the situation may even be improving, it’s hard to know. What is good is that the police now take it more seriously and don’t stand there like a bunch of lemons, as they used to in the seventies, in people’s driveways refusing to come across the threshold because ‘it’s a domestic’ and therefore none of their business.

Improving it may be but it’s not gone. Making something illegal doesn’t change whether it’s culturally acceptable. Proactive prosecution of the crime, when it comes to light is definitely a start but we need more than just the law.

Silence about something, not mentioning it, like we don’t mention the prevalence of domestic violence, is tantamount to being complicit.

And this is, of course, where the solution lies. Last year, I blogged about the White Ribbon Campaign. I was very excited because this is a campaign by men to stop male violence against women. Domestic violence is too often treated like a women’s issue. But it’s not a women’s issue, it’s a man’s issue. And whilst men are the problem they are also the solution.

The White Ribbon Campaign aims to get men to create the new cultural norm that it’s not acceptable to be violent towards women. It works by getting men talking about it and promoting that there is nothing masculine about hitting women.

You know, I am pretty sure, that me blogging about the fact that it’s wrong to hit women isn’t really going to have any impact on a man’s behavior, if he is that way inclined. He probably already knows that women don’t like it; but if he overhears, perhaps at the pub or in the office, another man start talking about how unacceptable it is, how unmanly it is, then that might just make a difference.

So back to the issue with rape.

I was interested to read on PC Bloggs how many of the commenters on a recent post about rape were concerned about the inability to work out what has happened if the woman is say, drunk or not. But this I think is missing the point and ignoring what consent is.

Positive consent is not the absence of dissent. It should be very clear to a man when a women is consenting to sex, there should be no mistake. If a man waits for a woman to give positive consent to sex then he is not in danger of raping her. There should be no waiting for a woman to say no. If she can’t say no, because she’s too drunk, then she can’t say yes, can she? A woman who is playing hard to get is not giving positive consent.

As the chant goes, it doesn’t matter what a woman is wearing only yes means yes and no most definitely means no.

Again, the solution is in changing the norms of behavior or in other words the prevalent culture that finds an absence of dissent a case for assuming there was consent. It is men who need to be demand positive consent from their sexual partners and not go forward without it, not women who need to be clearer. It is men who are the solution.

So, to all you guys who have read as far as this, I say: Please, don’t think because you would never dream of being violent towards another person or not getting anything less than positive consent that you have no part to play in changing these pernicious norms of society. Even though you may not be aware, it is likely you will know women who have experienced domestic violence and probably the men who have perpetrated it.

I am looking at those men, who know that violence is wrong and who understand what positive consent means, to help spread the word to all men what is and isn’t acceptable.

If you want to find out how then join the White Ribbon Campaign and pass it on.

Comment is Free contributors may well be able to write, but they don't all seem to be able to read very well....

Grrrrr! Is it me, or if you are going to be given a platform on something as well read as Comment is Free, might it just be a little bit reasonable for you to check your facts before launching into an attack on what somebody is suggesting?

A while back, Brian Paddick spoke about making public transport at night more women friendly by putting guards on certain trains late at night. He was reported as saying such in the Guardian which reported it as 'women friendly'? That's not women only, but women friendly. The article goes on to say that:

"...the designated tube carriages would aim to offer a safe environment for women and old people, but would be open to everyone".

So that's not segregation, just a suggestion of some people that such a policy might benefit.

Yesterday, Cath Elliott wrote a Comment is Free Post railing against Brian's proposals. Although she mentions the carriages as women friendly, she goes on to spend several paragraphs arguing against single sex carriages suggesting that that is Brian Paddick's proposal.

You know, it wouldn't have taken long for her to look up Brian's Transport Manifesto to see what he actually said; it took me, oh, 3 seconds.

I happen to agree with her about single sex carriages; they are a terrible admission of failure and her concerns about them are all fair and valid. But that's not what Brian is suggesting!!

The Comment is Free piece was written a whole week after the article in the Guardian; was she so lacking in inspiration that she had to misrepresent Brian's policy in order to write an analysis of why single sex carriages are wrong?

You know, I went on the Reclaim the Night march last November and will no doubt be going on it this November, so I'm with the programme, so to speak. But it really is irritating to have such a strong analysis of why women should not be pushed to the margins in the face of sexual violence based on a suggestion that nobody had actually made!

It's lazy journalism and lazy thinking.

Is it really only 80 years?

As Ros and Jennie have already noted, it is 90 years ago today that women got the vote. 80 years since they got the vote on the same terms as men and 50 years since they were allowed to enter the House of Lords.

And, although all is technically equal on the legal front, we are still having to loosen, finger by finger, the grip that men have on power and money. We have just 19% of our MPs female, even less running our top companies and the pay gap, well, it's still the pay gap and interestingly (or if you're me, bloody annoyingly) gets wider the higher up the career ladder women go! I reckon, that we're about 20% down the road to equality; you know, real equality, in how we live our lives, as opposed to equality in the eyes of the law.

Women's unpaid labour is still not included in national accounts, with all the implications for public policy that that entails, rape conviction as a proportion of reported rapes is frightenly low and I don't seem to be able to walk down the road or get on a bus without having a highly sexualised image of a women presented to me at every opportunity. My favourite one to hate at the moment is one advertising a programme called 'Skins'; I really enjoy having to look at that at the bustop surrounded by primary school kids.

There's an excellent article in the Guardian about it where Katherine Rake, the Director of The Fawcett Society.

It's a wide ranging interview looking back, as well as forward, but for me she really hits the nail on the head for me when she says:

"We are only half way through the revolution: there has been a huge change in women's lives but very little in men's. We have got to look at what happens in men's lives in future, in terms of a fairer division of labour and getting the benefits and costs of that."

Such completion of the revolution means wading into the private sphere to challenge the very way most of us live our lives, but Rake remains unapologetic. "There has to be a day that happens. This is very much a part of [Fawcett's] heritage. Unless you talk about changing the rules, about social transformation, the fundamental rules don't change and you are not going to be offering equality for women.

"We have done as much as we can levering women into a system designed by men for men. Now we have to work for a society where the rules are fitted for everybody."

Don't worry! I too, the good liberal that I am, get nervous when people talk about wading into the private sphere, but she has got a point.

To be honest, I think this is what we've been trying to do in the Lib Dems for too long; we have been focussing on getting women to change and to go on all sorts of training so we can play the selection game the same way the guys do.

When we get our heads around the fact that diversity is not about looking different on the outside but, in fact, about doing things differently and that it's possible to believe in liberalism but approach the practice of politics differently, we will start to make some progress on diversity.

And changing the way we do things (the rules) means everyone, including men and I think that will make politics and liberal democrat politics, in particular, better for all of us, not just women! Hooray!

Cosmo 'Man of the Year': one for the boys.....

On Tuesday night I went to another WAFE (Women Against Fundamentalism and for Equality) seminar at the House of Lords. As always these events are thoroughly engaging but always leave me in the confusing state of feeling both uplifted and despairing at the same time.

There were as ever many very interesting women speakers about whom I will blog later (especially the Finnish MP Johanna Sumuvuori; and no, not just because we share a name!).

We also had Chris Green, the Executive Director of the White Ribbon Campaign (UK) come to speak, who has in the last few weeks been named as Cosmo Man of the Year, no less!! Who is this man, I hear you gasp, and what has he done to deserve such an accolade? Surely some sort of sex god? Well, no perhaps not quite, but he’s something much more compelling and a man that I am very grateful is around campaigning today.

The White Ribbon Campaign is a global campaign to ensure that men take more responsibility for reducing the level of violence against women. It is not a campaign about bashing men but instead asks those men who know that it is wrong to hit women, pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. The stats on male violence against women in the UK are truly shocking.

I find it an attractive campaign on two counts: firstly, it is about creating a norm in society that makes it quite clear that this type of behaviour is unacceptable and that to ignore it is almost as bad condoning it. Secondly it places emphasis for action onto men, as something men can resolve, as men listen to other men; especially young men. It does not leave it to women to solve and resolve the problem over in the ‘women’s issues’ corner.

And as the blogosphere is so overwhelmingly male I have the perfect audience to highlight this campaign!! Sunday 25^th is the UN’s International Day to End Violence Against Women, worth taking note of because, even in the UK, 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.

This means that you will almost certainly know a woman who has experienced domestic violence, even if you’re not aware of it; it’s not the sort of thing a woman sings from the rooftops or you can tell from just looking at her. This then also means, the chances are, you may know a man who has either been violent towards a woman or thinks it’s OK to be so.

Personally, that’s a thought that sends shivers of fear down my spine; but when I heard about the work of Chris Green and the White Ribbon Campaign (all volunteers) I felt utterly inspired by the humanity of the campaign and the men who sign up to it.

Is mysogyny on the rise across the world? And how would we tell if it was?

Chris K , Rob Knight on Liberal Review and Jonathan Calder have all blogged on the horrific news that a gang rape victim had her punishment, yes, her punishment of 90 lashes increased to 200 for having the cheek to appeal her sentence.

And last week, we heard reports from the Chief of Police in Basra that 42 women in the city had been murdered between July and September for not covering up; which makes me wonder how many women had been beaten or assaulted for the same ‘crimes’? This is not just happening to Muslim women but Christian women as well.

And there! We can see the game is given away; because this sort of behaviour towards women is not as a result of religion as often assumed, but, as a result of militant misogyny.

The UN undertakes country comparisons related to Gender as part of their reports on Human Development. There is the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and also the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The GDI measures all the same things as the Human Development Index but just splits them by gender, male and female. The second, GEM, looks at the proportion of women that work as political representatives, or are managers, senior officials or work in professional or technical positions. Now, it very easy to pick many, many holes in these two measures and some of the assumptions around what is deemed as being ‘developed’; but they’re there and they’re better than nothing.

But they miss out the day to day impact, which the two examples of rampant misogyny above, have on normal women’s lives. ‘Cos, you see, wonderful though it is that 33% of Iraq’s MPs are women (just under twice as many as in the UK), that doesn’t seem to be helping the women of Basra right now. There will be no direct reduction in the GEM of Iraq as a result of these killings even though, I would suggest that women are seriously less empowered now than they were 4 years ago, as a result.

And of course, Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow women to be empowered at all, but there is a different between a woman getting gang raped and given 90 lashes and one being given 200 lashes. Again, I can’t see where this sort of degradation in women’s rights and quality of life are being measured – although, if anyone does, then do let me know!

I think its time we have a different sort of measure of women’s freedom and rights; one that measures the qualitative impact of misogyny on women’s lives. So one might be able to see that in recent years, Afghanistan’s has gone up as women are at least now allowed out of the house but Iraq’s has gone down because of the type of thing that is happening in Basra. I am not suggesting that this would be easy to do, but we need more than a clutch of newspaper reports to measure these things.

And in the UK, well how does the fact that so few reported rapes actually end in any sort of conviction (5.3% this year, when it used to be 33% in the 70’s) figure in any UN measure of women’s empowerment? Or the fact that so many people think that a women who goes out late at night holds some sort of responsibility for her rape, if she is raped.

Next Saturday, 24^th November will be the ‘Reclaim the Night” march in London at 6pm; last time over 1200 women marched in support of women’s right to go out onto the street free from fear of violence or rape.

Our misogyny may not be hard coded into our penal system as in Saudi and thankfully the women of London are not subject to militia’s going around killing us for being ‘inappropriately dressed’ as in Basra but there’s still plenty of misogyny here, if 1 in 8 men think it’s Ok to hit a woman if she’s been nagging or if a third of us, both men and women, think a women is partly responsible for her own rape if she flirts, has been drinking or is dressing sexily.

Sometimes, it feels to me that as Liberal Democrats see feminism as surplus to requirements, because as liberals we would not discriminate against anybody of whatever sex; but on days like today I know that if we are going to achieve better lives for women all over the world we have to be clear and say that feminism has a vital role to play and has a long way to go before misogyny is overcome; we need to be proud to be feminsts!! Laws (of the legal rather than the David kind) help but they are not enough.

Reclaim the Night

In a couple of weeks there will be the 2007 ‘Reclaim the Night’ March from Euston to Soho. It’s a girl’s only gig, followed by a mixed rally at the University of London Union.

The march will highlight the fact that women have the right to be able use public space without fear. These are our civil liberties at risk; it is not good enough for society’s response to rape to be to tell women they can’t go out!

My Mum’s coming down to visit that weekend, and she doesn’t know it yet, but, she’s about to embark on her first political protest. Still, it's not as if it's in the middle of the night..it starts at 6pm and there'll be plenty of time to go and have dinner afterwards!