Why the Clinton/May Feminist Utopia isn’t good enough for me (#SorryNotSorry)

At least it’s better than Boris and Trump…

As obscene as this sounds, I chose to sit Brexit out. There was (still is) so much going on and enough think-pieces out there to make even the most die-hard of Guardian readers slump into a political coma. No one needed to hear my two pennies worth as well. I am of course, devastated, and once again disappointed that fear and ignorance have won over 52% of the country that I live in. From a gender perspective I am also devastated that we are turning back the clock and will be left without the much-needed human and women’s rights legislation the EU provides. I feel embarrassed and defeated but as the dust starts to settle I decided to write about something I do feel strongly about. As Wednesday evening Theresa May will be the next (unelected) Prime Minister of the United (the irony) Kingdom. She has reached this position mostly by sitting back and letting all of the ‘leave’ politicians and other candidates simultaneously self-combust in one way or another. Let’s get things straight, she has IN NO WAY reached this point because of her merit, gender or even less so a ‘feminist ticket.’ Conversely, across the pond, is Hillary Clinton, a woman who has arguably marketed herself on the feminist ticket and in some ways can be considered as such. She looks (god willing) likely to become POTUS in 2017. With the new all-female Ghostbusters film out this week some feminists could be led to believe that this is it, the turning point we have all been waiting for. There will be women in the oval office and number 10 and even the new Iron Man film will feature of 15 year old black girl. Surely we can all go back to the kitchen now?

At a surface level, these are, of course, achievements for the feminist movement. If only Clinton or particularly May had any intention of making other women’s lives easier. Much like Thatcher it looks like they will be breaking through the glass ceiling and taking the ladder up with them! Whilst Clinton has done some laudable work for inequalities and minorities in her own country it does not erase the fact that her campaign is and will continue to be propped up by questionable Middle Eastern financing including from Saudi Arabia where women are still yet to vote in their first elections. Meanwhile, her foreign policy record suggests she will continue the US tradition of reaping brutal havoc in the Middle East to the vast detriment of women and girls. Meanwhile Theresa May is no feminist. She is ultimately committed to the austerity model that has already torn apart rape crisis services in this country and most substantially disadvantaged women and girls. Furthermore her stint as Home Secretary has seen her show an incredible lack of compassion for refugees and asylum seekers whilst she reigns over questionable detention facilities such as Yarlswood where sexual assault and human rights violations rumours are rife. Don’t get me wrong, that women have reached these positions is progress but I don’t think we should be popping Champaign just yet. Perhaps I am wrong and should be more optimistic but that’s not really worked out so well for me in the last decade of British politics. Still, let’s see what happens. The image above is taken from a Torygraph piece entitled "The Women are Coming" which ha a certain euphoric yet apocalyptical feel to it that I kind of like...

19 May 2016: Feminist News Bulletins!

I’ve been too busy to blog recently so this is all I could manage this week but weekly posts will be back soon!

1 of 219 Chibok Girls Rescued from Sambisa Forest

Yesterday it was reported that the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) in Nigeria recognised and rescued one of the 219 missing ‘Chibok girls’ from the outskirts of the Sambisa forest. Amina Ali Nkeki was 17 when the Boko Haram insurgents abducted her from her school in Chibok, she is now 19 and has a two year old child. Her father passed away while she was away from her family. She reports that most of the other girls are still alive and being held within the Sambisa. Unfortunately, we already knew that from Christina Lamb’s expose of the silence around the girls. This rescue is a drop in the ocean of work that needs to be done for women and girls affected by the Boko Haram insurgency and Amina herself. The stigma surrounding her experience, particularly given that she has a child, fathered by (unfortunately likely by rape) a Boko Haram militant, means it will be difficult to reintegrate her into her family and community. This is a challenge faced by many women and girls returning to their homes after such traumatic experiences. A proper holistic aftercare programme needs to be put in place by the government alongside advocacy to reduce the stigma attached to survivors of sexual violence. We cannot see 1 of 219 as a success and we cannot underestimate the silences that remain from governments the world over about not just the Chibok girls, but also the thousands of women and girls affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Robin Wright’s Equal Pay Victory

Robin Wright who plays the honourable Clare Underwood in the American political drama ‘House of Cards’ has hit the headlines this morning for her equal pay victory. The actress who features in all 52 episodes of the drama, arguably as the main character is series 3 and 4, has fought to be paid the same as her co-star, Kevin Spacey. Those who have read this blog before will know that I have an undying admiration for Clare Underwood and House of Card’s feminist undertones so it is amazing that these politics are being carried off set by Wright herself. It also, once again, sheds the spotlight on the television and film industry’s pay gap problem. The fact that producers even tried to pay Wright less than Spacey staggers me given she is equally as prominent as him throughout.

EU Referendum Politics

Is anyone sick of the EU referendum yet? I am. I also completely agree with MP Steve Baker’s claim today that the debate has transcended into petty smears and playground politics. As I have written before it makes absolute feminist sense to remain in the European Union but I also want to see women’s voices heard. I am sick of opening the papers to see yet another ‘male, pale and stale’ member of society voicing their opinion on the referendum! Women have opinions too and there are many high profile women such as Karen Brady who are very involved in both the in and out campaigns.

High heels at work

As a closure can we just all agree that forcing women to wear high heels at work is absurd and belongs in the 15^th century? How anyone could think that wasn’t sexist is just beyond me. I guess that’s what happens when you live in a cushy feminist bubble.

Over and out.

#WhenIWas 21 I was horrified by Twitter

Yesterday the Everyday Sexism project started a #WhenIWas thread on twitter which asked (mostly) women and girls to document the sexual harassment they can remember from ages as young as 5 or 6. It exploded on twitter and ended up trending worldwide. Feeling shaken by some of these tweets I decided to cook myself dinner because I find cooking weirdly therapeutic. While I was cooking I turned on my radio, it happened to be tuned into Radio 1’s evening ‘Newsbeat.’ The two top stories were Lily Allen’s interview detailing how she was stalked and consequently victim-blamed by the metropolitan police and the enquiry launched yesterday by the UK government into sexual harassment in schools. A government that, by the way, recently announced that sex education would no longer be compulsory in schools. However, this is not tory-bashing blog post for once it is a reactionary and perhaps emotional call to action:

I already knew that the sexual harassment reported under the #WhenIWas thread existed; of course I did but for some reason it still shocked me. It still shocked and appalled me that girls as young as 10 years old can recall being sexually harassed as they walk down the road in their schools uniforms, it still shocked me that there were almost 20,000 tweets reporting situations where rape was absolutely insinuated. It still shocked me that Lily Allen was essentially told to ‘hush up’ about the way she was victimised and stalked by a man who broke into her home, where her children were sleeping. It still shocked me hearing the reports from teachers and students, female and male, about their experience of sexual harassment in schools. The #WhenIWas tweets revealed just how normalised, prevalent and accepted rape culture is in the UK today and around the world. From telling girls in schools what not to wear on non-uniform day to avoid being ‘distracting’ to boys and teachers to being cat-called on the walk home from school, to being groped in public spaces or sexually assaulted in private ones, these tweets paint a picture of modern Britain that frightens, restricts and angers women. Rightly so.

(N.B. Of course, sexual harassment does not just affect women as a troll so kindly pointed out to me. The #WhileIWas thread predominantly documented and targeted women’s experiences and women do tend to experience harassment more widely. BUT reconceptualising gender roles in regard to sex would also involve removing the stigma and silence that shames men also.)

Everyone remembers the first time they are cat-called walking down the road in their school uniform or groped in a night club. That’s just part of being a girl, right? And everyone remembers the first time they try and speak out about it to ripostes of: “Don’t take yourself so seriously” “It’s a compliment” “Oh boys will be boys” or worse, “Don’t be so frigid.” From the minute to the very extreme, rape culture joins the dots between girls being groped on public transport from as young as 13 years old to grown women being silently raped in their bedrooms. This is not a world where I want to raise a child. In a world that boys are taught that sex and women are public property they are entitled to and girls are taught that their sexuality can be reduced to feeling ‘flattered’ by an old man in a white van honking his horn. I fear for my 17-year-old sister although she’s probably already experienced some of the above, I fear for any young boy assaulted at school and silenced because he ‘got some action’ and ‘should be proud.’ Whilst the enquiry launched by the government is a step in the right direction it is nothing without education. Consent education, sex education, and relationship education. Education that teaches girls and boys not only that to rape or be raped is abhorrent but also that lifting a girls skirt up on the stairs on the bus ‘as a laugh’ or calling boys ‘frigid’ for ignoring advances from their teacher is also wrong. The taboo surrounding sexual harassment in this country must be broken and education is the only way to do that. Only by breaking that taboo and teaching girls and boys, women and men about sex properly and publically will the #WhenIWas horrors be stopped.