Lads' Mags and Little Girls

I am glad to discover that I am not the only person increasingly disturbed by the gauntlet of magazines that little girls (& boys, for that matter) have to walk past just on a trip to the Newsagent.

A family friend over from Auckland took his two nieces to the local newsagents in Kent yesterday and swore never to use that particular newsagent again because he was appalled by the covers of the men’s magazines, at child height that could not be avoided on the way to the counter.

‘Well, Bro’ said his brother, “Looks like you won’t be going in any more newsagents then, because there’s no choice. It’s like that in every one.”

I spend more time than is usual in the company of Kiwi’s these days. But it’s cool, because New Zealanders whether in NZ or in the UK don’t consider feminism to be a dirty word and don’t see why those wanting to access porn in their local newsagents whether hard core or the soft (but uber-misogynistic) type pedaled by weekly lads’ mags can’t just reach up to the top shelf.

I was struck on visiting New Zealand for the first time earlier on this year and Auckland in particular how family friendly the place seemed. In London, particularly if you don’t have children, you can forget that children exist. It is not a child friendly city.

But I do think it’s more than that; I beginning to come to the conclusion that it’s not a particularly female friendly city either. I’ve lived in London for 15 years now, so really can’t speak for other places but my kiwi friends all agreed that the UK is not a female friendly place to live – when compared to New Zealand – of course, I’d prefer it every time over, say, Saudi Arabia or Iran – obviously! But just because London is relatively free and equal for women doesn’t mean to say that it is free enough!

Yes, I find I’m getting more and more oppressed by the increasing sexualisation of women and young girls. It feels like, in London if you’re not walking past a lap dancing club, your walking past a poster for one or running the gauntlet of pneumatic young women all over each other on lads mags.

It is not, as I’ve said many times before that I want to ban anything or spoil consenting adults fun. As a consenting adult, I’m no stranger to fun, but I dare sy you wouldn’t want to know the details and I’m not telling anyway.

And I agreed with the Lib Dem stance on extreme pornography and believe that lap dancing clubs have a right to exist (although I think they need to be regulated more and the women working in them could do with proper employment protection). It may not be to my taste, but matters of taste are neither here nor there when it comes to banning things or censorship.

I do believe that the sexual objectification of women is harmful to both boys and girls (Caron has a great argument about this, in this post here); it encourages and rewards women for acting in an overly sexual way.

I think it harms the ability of young people to form, healthy relationships where they can be themselves and don’t feel pressure to act in just one way. And I accept it is currently difficult to prove the link.

But I do get to say how it makes me feel.

Sex and our sexuality is a vital part of our beings and humanity but it isn’t everything.

Increasingly, Londoners are getting duped into thinking that if we object to the pornographic norm, which only reflects one rather misogynistic view of human sexuality, spread all over our public spaces, then we are being somehow oppressive and impacting on freedom of expression.

But right now, I feel that it’s women and girls that are being oppressed and I don’t see why, just because the likes of John Grey or Peter Stringfellow want to maximize their profits, we should shut up and attempt to free up women from low paid jobs, and domestic violence and horrific rape conviction rates, whilst working around it.

The reaction of the Uncle to these two little girls from Auckland tells me that it’s not just me, and it’s not just women who can see the harm and that there is a different way.

You just wouldn’t have to put up with these things in New Zealand, a country where prostitution is legal and it so could be argued is more liberal than the UK. But in New Zealand, accessing pornography whether hardcore or soft is a choice and a place where if you want to be surrounded by sexualised images of women you can be but you can pop out to buy a Sunday newspaper with your nieces in tow without having to.

Hooray for Canada!

At least Canada has spoken out against President Karzai regressive, human rights busting new laws and putting a question mark under the number of troops they are going to send there.

Now, I understand the strategic importance of Afghanistan and the impact that peace and security there can have on our own security. But really? Are there to be no principles in our international relations?

Also thanks to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the head of NATO for speaking out as well; indeed, how is he supposed to get the Europeans to send more troops. He says:

"I have a problem to explain and President Karzai knows this, because I discussed it with him. I have a problem to explain to a critical public audience in Europe, be it the UK or elsewhere, why I'm sending the guys to the Hindu Kush."

And that's it, a very good point, our young women and men going over there, risking their lives, in some cases dying to prop up a government that is looking to remove the rights of half it's population.

Great.

Public Space, Pornography and what I did on my holidays

Friday afternoon at the Lib Dem’s Spring Conference and it's the Women's Policy Consultation session.

We went through a whole pile of topics, neatly titled in the consultation paper under such terms as 'Can we have it all?, Money, Sex, Love & Relationships and MEN!

One thing we got on to talking about in our group, towards the end of the session is the increasing sexualisation and objectification of young women, particularly in our public spaces.

It seems to me that the norms of pornography are seeping into our public spaces, and I don't just mean billboards in the centre of town, but the media and mainstream internet and the products we buy.

The liberal in me, reckons that pornography does not have to be degrading to women; I am largely a sex positive feminist. The liberal me, that lives in the real world, has to admit however that most of it is degrading to women

The pornographic norm is that women are ready to have sex at all times, they are happy to share their men with other women, that even when the pornography involves gang rape, the women in these scenes, though they may be unwilling to start with soon discover they really, really wanted it after all.

Above all, they must always make an effort to look attractive to men.

A 2005 review found that half of all children have logged on to a pornography website, whilst over 57% of children aged 9-19 had seen pornography online.

But they don’t have to go online; everywhere I look there are pictures and adverts involving women in sexual poses, scantily clad and often inferring some sort of lesbian relationship - but not the type that doesn't involve men, of course.

Even the Daily Mail is running articles looking at gratuitous use of sex to promote products!!

The defects that all of us have, including the models used, are airbrushed out creating a standard of perfection for young women to aspire to that actually does not exist.

Lap dancing clubs, able to operate on the same footing as cafes, have doubled across the UK in recent years. This involves naked and topless women dancing at close 'proximity' to men (often there after work or at lunch time). There is ostensibly a three feet rule but in practice this rule is not enforced.

Honest to god, I'm not a prude - I really, really don't mind what it is that people to get up to, as long as they're both consenting - but I do think that public space should not be given over to the lowest common denominator.

They even advertise lap dancing classes for women and my health club - just along from the crèche – when did the work of a sex worker become so aspirational?

I think public spaces should be available and safe places for children and young people; it's bad enough being a 37 year old woman in these times and being made to feel no good unless you're a size 10 (with at least D cup breast, of course) - who would be a 14 or 15 year old girl, trying to work out a sense of self?

Liberalism isn't just about freedom for people to be and do what they want - that's libertarianism - but is also about freedom from harm and I want to be and I want children and young people to be free from the pornographic norm that suggests that in order to be normal you have to be gagging for sex at all times (whether male or female) and that if you’re female or even just a little girl you primary aim is to look sexy and attractive to men!

As a friend of mine, over in Sydney, said recently when this subject came up at dinner - why should we let corporations and businesses (for it is they that run the lap dancing clubs, the porn sites and push the products with the highly sexual adverts) dictate to us what are public spaces feel like? Why should it always be the freedom of companies to make money through sex that wins out?

I am glad to see that today Jacqui Smith has ordered a fact-finding review into the increasing sexualisation of young women.

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be like this.

I’m not long back from New Zealand plus a long weekend in Sydney. Lucky me!

But lucky New Zealanders as well. Because one of the most striking differences I noticed between the UK and NZ was that there seemed no pressure on women to be sexual objects at all times – although there did seem to be a lot of excessive baking going on.

Perhaps, they’ve yet to catch up with us, but I don’t think that’s it. New Zealand is way ahead of us in many things and especially in terms of diversity, particularly in its parliament. It’s already had two female Prime Ministers and 33.6% of it’s current MPs are female.

In fact when I spoke about how worried I was about the sexualisation of young women in the UK, they were kind of mystified - it was clearly not as much a problem there.

It is hard to say which came first.

Does New Zealand have more female MPs and therefore any over sexualisation of women and girls in public spaces has been nipped in the bud; or do more women feel able to go forward into parliament and are taken more seriously when they get there because they don’t feel any pressure to come over like a sex object?

One New Zealander that I know well, is not sure how New Zealand women became free from the need to be a sex object at all times, but thinks that it may be because women get organised in NZ. Perhaps female MPs and groups would lobby companies that wanted to produce overtly sexist and sexualised adverts and products and therefore preserve their public space for everybody, not just those who want to use sex to make money from it.

In any case, the sexualisation of young women and the pornographication of our public spaces is not inevitable; we can stop it and we can say no to handing over our public spaces to those who would be happy with the lowest common denominator.

If you would like to contribute to the Liberal Democrat's Women's Policy Consultation, you can do so here.

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!

Today is the day I start subsidising my male peers...

How so, you ask? How generous of me!

As I am likely to earn at least 17% less than them, for work of the same value or skill level.

For women in senior management (like me) that gap widens to 25%. And I understand it's worst in London.

This means I am earning less so that my male peers can earn more!

And before you ask that's 17% less per hour between men and women working full time. The per hour gap is far higher between men working full time and women working part time.

Yes, yesterday, the 30^th October was the day of the year when women in the UK got their last pay slip of the day and today they started working for free, when compared to their male peers. It is the reality of the wage gap. Like it was last year.

The wonderful Fawcett Society are continuing to campaign on the pay gap, as they will until it is closed. You can sign the open letter to Peter Mandelson here. (They have a very handy factsheet which you can view here and is where the following stats have come from – scroll down to page 5.

It’s still stuck at 17% no change on last year. And it’s not getting better, not with time, not with better education, not with the fact that fewer women are marrying and having children in their 20’s.

Evidence shows that we are stuck when it comes to equal pay and going backwards when it comes to political representation and being appointed to company boards.

So what to do? Well, the most important thing we need to do is change our culture where women have shoulder the bulk of childcare and unpaid work in the home. This is not an easy thing to do and will changes in legislation and employment law to allow families to share parental leave between them. It will also require men to change their mindset; they need to be just as willing to work flexibly as their partners assume they will have to. But as with all cultural changes, that will only take place over time.

Still irrespective of issues around childcare, 40% of the discrimination that women suffer from is down to simple discrimination.

In the mean time Fawcett are arguing for two clear actions:

1. Mandatory pay audits which would require all companies and organisations to compare the earnings of women and men doing similar work to see if there is a gap.

2. Changes to the law to make it much easier for women to take cases to court, and to allow women to take such cases as a group, with the support of the unions.

As a Liberal I believe in the market and competition; but when the market is not working properly as a result of discrimination then I believe the market needs to be regulated. Greater transparency, in the form of pay audits will do that. And just like Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, employers discriminating against women won’t voluntarily conduct a pay audit. That’s why they have to be mandatory.

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?

My four must reads of the past week, plus an indulgence link (see numbers 6, 32 and 44)

Last week was a good week on the Blogosphere for me and I probably spent far too much time on it, both writing and reading!

Here are four great reads from the last week that I commend to you plus one supplementary link from Alas, a great article which supports Penny Red’s posting. These are all topics that I did not write on myself, so I’m very glad that all these people did! And so well!!!

Andrew Rawnsley wrote an excellent comment piece in the Observer yesterday on David Miliband, which if you didn’t get round to reading then I commend to you. I particularly liked his closing paragraph:

“Bob Marshall-Andrews was wrong to describe the Foreign Secretary's behaviour as 'duplicitous'. David Miliband is being the opposite of underhand. He has erected a neon sign flashing to his party and the country that Gordon Brown needs to be removed and he is ready to replace him. The Foreign Secretary did not knife the Prime Minister in the back. He stabbed him in the front”.

The Labour Party is not my party but you have to hand it to Miliband, what he’s doing is audacious and breathtaking and it’s really rather fun to be watching it from the sidelines.

Lynne Featherstone’s posting on Liberal Conspiracy on Dad’s who don’t live with their children becoming disenfranchised from their education because schools can’t cope with the concept of father’s having a stake in their child’s education even if they don’t live with their mother. I came from a single parent family and my Dad become persona non grata one he left the family home and that was thirty years ago! Many things around dealing with family breakdown have changed completely since then but why are schools taking so long to catch up?

Although I don’t buy into Jennie Riggs’s reasons not to have positive discrimination AT ALL, it was a good post which created a lot of discussion. I couldn’t vote in her poll ‘cos my Open ID has gone do lally but do have a look, even if only to remind yourself that if we don’t start coming up with the goods so to speak we will have to revisit the whole horny subject of positive discrimination.

And, it’s to Jennie that I have to say thanks for pointing me in the direction of Penny Red and her frustration at her physical appearance being public property; which is a must read must read.

And it reminded me of the excellent wondrous Ampersand’s Male Privilege Checklist. I have been meaning to share this posting on my blog, oh, ever since I first read it over a year ago. It all resonates with me but particularly Numbers 6, 32 and 44: I happen to be a very smiley person but I don’t like to be told to do it by strangers…something that happens to be still to this day! Blimey!




This is why I am a feminist

This is why I am a feminist and why I am going to keep going, even when it feels like we are wading through treacle.

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.




No real chance of electing more women into Parliament at the next election

I'm sorry if I'm being a bit slow as this joyous titbit of news (not) first came out from the Electoral Reform Society last week, but I was jet lagged and clearly missed it.

But this is terrible!!

Unless Labour get a 2% increase in their majority (excuse me while I fall off my chair laughing)we won't see any real increase in women in Parliament at all. in fact, even if Labour do get an increase, the increase in women is only by 3 percentage points!!

If the Tories get any sort of majority, whether working or not then the number of women in parliament will fall by about 8 from 2005. And the trend has already started, as we have been replacing female MPs with male MPs in by elections since 2005.

I remember a couple of years ago chatting with one of my local activist colleagues about the all too slow increase in women coming into parliament. He told me that it was going in the right direction and in any case, it was going to be an exponential increase from then on in.

This is clearly not the case and it wasn't the case then.

As Ken Ritchie fromthe Electoral Reform Society says:

“Which ever way you spin it, the next election simply cannot prove a watershed moment for women in politics. Progress has always been hard fought, and the parties are simply not picking their battles.

“1997 was in many ways a false dawn for equality. In the last decade where we’ve needed concerted effort, we’ve seen stagnation. The modest numbers of women in parliament have been taken as a permanent breakthrough. In place of an upward curve we have seen a plateau, in what remains a male dominated institution".

So that's it for the next general election. For those who are interested the Lib Dems in the Electoral Reform Society reckons we're going to get 2 or 3 more women into Parliament from our 2005 levels. That is in effect 3 or 4 as we have reduced the number of women to 9 over this latest parliament.

If one was feeling generous one could say that going from 9 to 12 was a massive increase in terms of percentage increase, but all it does is put us in line with the average in the rest of parliament.

But I'm not feeling generous and we need to be thinking in whole number multiples of increase not percentages..if we wanted to have at least 30% of Nick's 150 MPs in the next two elections to be women that would mean we would have to quintuple (!!??) the number of female MPs. Given that we're not doing that this parliament we're really looking at the next one to sort it out. Rob Blackie did a great of analysis of the nuts and bolts of the scale of the endeavour on Lib Dem Voice last week.

Or are we going to give up and say it's too hard?

The Campaign for Gender Balance has been 'encouraging' and 'training' women since it was set up and if these figures are anything to go by, it's greatest achievement is to stop us from going too far backwards. I support this work (mainly via a standing order) as I'm sure that there are women who need encouragement and training and it is certainly better that we do that then we do nothing a go backwards.

At the same time, part of me rails against this as the approach because it assumes that no one else but the women in the party have to change. If only women would think differently about themselves and undertake a bit of improvement (read: be a bit more like men...oh yes, I can hear the soundtrack to My Fair Lady ringing in my ears now), then it would all be fine!

It's an approach that could be read as intensely patronising, idenitfying women as the problem and it is an approach, as Beatrice Barleon, the ERS women's officer refers to as 'tinkering around the edges'.

I do keep going on about it and am even thinking of changing my blog title to 'Cassandra' but we have to start changing ourselves to make the job of PPC more attractive and feasible for women. We have to stop asking women to change. Instead, we have to start looking at the way we do things, the different 'roles' within the party and the orthodoxy of what makes a 'good' PPC. To do that, we need to look at many other roles within the party. We have to look at broadening the remit of the Campaign for Gender Balance.

Or, we just have to admit to oursleves as a party that we are happy with a situation where men still hold the vast majority of the power and continue to organise ourselves accordingly.

Hillary isn't the only woman in the Democratic Party

Should Barack Obama pick Hillary as his VP? On balance I think not; the narrative that Obama won on was that of a change, a new way of doing things. Hillary, as a Clinton, quite clearly doesn’t embody that narrative (and it’s in the rules of narrative that you have to embody it). To have a Clinton as VP would undermine his narrative and would endanger his election. Plus, it would be very awkward in the White House.

I always veered towards Barack Obama but I was very well aware of importance of Hillary’s position; the first woman to have run a serious campaign for the democratic nomination. I understood, in the face of the misogyny that she endured during the campaign, why she had to keep going. Why it was so important not to let the (largely male) party grandees pat her on the head and tell her to let the man through unimpeded. Even as someone who has leant towards Senator Obama during the campaign, I can see that a woman with a similar CV would’ve been laughed out of the race straight away.

So, do those of us who long for real diversity in politics have to sigh wistfully and just be grateful for all the ways, just by standing for the nomination, that she has made a difference to politics and women’s place in it; as candidates, as voters and as commentators. Politics, in the US in any case, has changed forever as a result. Should we just wait out the next 4 years?

Well, no.

An article from The American Prospect website has got me thinking. Just because Hillary would be the wrong Vice President, it doesn’t mean to say there can’t be a woman Vice President. As Dana Goldstein points out, in the VP contenders women make up 2 out of 3 of the top choices (if you discount Hillary herself). Goldstein goes on to say:

“We've experienced unprecedented interest from male politicos in women's participation in the electoral process. And demands for women's leadership have been given their fairest hearing to date in the United States, with Democrats nationwide expecting Obama to give close consideration to female vice-presidential prospects -- not only because there are a few wildly successful and talented women who would be great at the job, but also as a gesture of good will toward the feminist energy that animated so many Clinton supporters”.

And so:

“…in addition to Clinton herself, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas are among the top three most frequently-mentioned vice-presidential prospects, trailing only Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia.

The Vice President is a funny old job and can be fairly made into whatever the holder wants it to be. However, the VP must be good enough and at no point would I suggest that anybody without the right qualities to become the Vice President should get there just because of their symbolic value.

But if they were to meet the criteria and have a symbolic value, as a role model to half the world population, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

So, I’m going to count up the differences that Hillary has made for women in politics and hope those differences translate from the US to the UK. But I’m also going to hope that Barack obama, a symbolic candidate in his own right understands that value of role models and that leadership of change, of cultural change comes from the top.

Applauding Lynne's use of language...

Well done to Lynne Featherstone in starting off the campaign to remove the system of male primogeniture from our Royal family. Some may think it a rather trivial topic on which to campaign. But, cultural change always come from the top; if the Royal family, Britain and other countries where they are the head of state follow a pointless, sexist tradition then why should anybody else fee the need to change any other pointless sexist traditions.

With male primogeniture in place Britain is telling the world that men are women are not equal, especially when it comes to inheriting the wealth of one of the richest families in the world.

It’s also refreshing to see a Lib Dem use language that is clear and meaningful to all of us and especially women. Every woman I’ve ever met can provide at least one example of how they’ve been subject to sexist behaviour and usually more than one.

So describing it how it is, instead of allowing political and legal jargon to clamber all over it and mask what we’re trying to say in the hope that nobody notices is a positive sign. It shows that we’re reaching out to target issues that matter to women and hold them back in terms of freedom and opportunity. Tackling sexism from the top is just the start!

The Saudi Regime's attachment to corruption is odious, but its gender apartheid is far worse

Riazat Butt posts this piece about her experiences in Saudi Arabia whilst reporting on the Hajj; may I commend it and the comment thread to you.

You know, I can’t help thinking that if the discrimination that was going on in Saudi Arabia was race based (and I know that there is race based discrimination in Saudi, but it is not hardwired into the law like it is for women) then it would be impossible for our Government to cosy up to the Saud family like they do. Instead of inviting them to tea and bribing them to buy our armaments we would be boycotting them and refusing to allow the ruling family to travel in Europe, like we do with African regimes that we disapprove of.

I was and still am tremendously proud of Vince’s stand back in October by refusing to meet members of the Saud family on their visit. The government’s stance over the BAe investigation and Saudi corruption is odious. And of course, we always tag on the end ‘..and they treat women appallingly’ in the way that everybody did when justifying the invasion of Afghanistan.

However, I would prefer if our elected representatives in the Liberal Democrats (or any other party for that matter) did not fell they needed corruption as the hook on which to hang their criticism of the Saudi regime’s treatment of women. It should be a big enough hook for a campaign in itself. The apartheid practised in Saudi Arabia is a gender apartheid not a racial one yet it is just as abhorrent and just as damaging to human rights. Successive UK governments tolerance of it should put us all to shame.

Sexism in the City

This Tuesday the Fawcett Society will be launching their campaign Sexism in the City.

I’ve worked the majority of my working life for Financial Services firms (although not in wholesale or investment banking which I understand are the worst) and most of that has been in the square mile; I can confirm that there is quite a lot of sexism going on.

Sexist ‘events’ or comments or whatever you want to call them happen on a daily basis and I couldn’t tell you if it was getting worse or better. My most recent ‘favourite’ was a couple of weeks ago when I was leading a rather dry but rather complex business requirements workshop. I run a pretty tight ship on these things, especially when there are people on the other end of a phone line as it’s very easy to get bogged down and go off on tangents.

This one guy, oh, probably in his early thirties, already referred to by one of his co-workers as a bit of a loose cannon was constantly talking over other people and several times I had to stop him and ask him to wait a second so that others could finish what they were saying. After about the third time that I had to ask him he announced to the rest of the meeting that he was very glad he wasn’t married to me!

I have to say I was wrong footed by this and it took me a good few seconds to believe that he had just said what he has said in the middle of a work meeting. I am glad to say that the rest of our colleagues looked pretty embarrassed by what he had said and just wanted to move on. Which we did.

Can this man not imagine any role for a woman but to be a potential wife and so feels the need to announce it loudly when someone doesn’t fit the bill?

So, there you go, in one move he attempts to undermine me as a professional in a hope to reduce me to the role of a wife and lets face it not a very nice wife at that…a bossy wife, who doesn’t just let the man ramble on. Of course, a real man like him would never have anything to do with a harpy like me.

And if you think I’m over reacting to how this man reacted to being asked by me to wait until someone else had finished their sentence I wonder if he would have said the same thing to a man? No, of course he wouldn’t.

It was quite an unpleasant thing to say, it was quite spiteful and frankly aggressive but worst of all it was sexist.

Of course, I’m a tough old nut I don’t let something like that get me down, do I? I see it and him for what he is but I wonder what effect it would have had on me had I been younger or slightly more sensitive.

And it is just one more example about how women are objectified in the City. Being a liberal then if my male clients or co-workers want to go and have lap dancers titillate them of an evening that that’s their prerogative. But I have to say it’s a close run thing, as I’m not convinced that it doesn’t do any harm to women. I wonder if they find it so easy to purchase sexual titillation and see women only as something to buy how they manage to switch the next morning into treating the women they work with as equal professionals. Surely, the lines between female colleague and sexual object must blur?

I have no desire to work in an environment devoid of humour or humanity but I do want to work in an environment where my abilities, skills, experience and excellent delivery is undermined by some men’s view of women.

I don’t mind what people get up to in private as long as it is consensual but I am getting increasingly worried by the objectification of women in the media, on the internet, in drinking clubs and (most of all) on billboards around London; basically in public. I think it sends out the wrong message to both girls and boys and I think we are a poorer society for it. And I’m pretty sure that it impacts how seriously I am taken in my professional life, by some people, because I am a woman and that really, really winds me up.

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.