Ladies and gentlemen, your confected moral outrage du jour is….an actor who used to do porn daring to read a book in the same room as some children. Some of the more depressing and scandal-obsessed corners of the web are currently a-buzz over the news that Sasha Grey, a “porn legend” who moved into mainstream film and TV a couple of years ago, went to Emerson Elementary School in LA to read to a class of first-graders. She did so as part of Read Across America, a charity initiative to promote childhood literacy. Parents, predictably, got wind of what happened and complained to the school. The school in turn responded by denying Grey had ever been there, a claim which was somewhat undermined when celebrity gossip-mongers TMZ published photos of the event:

Neither the reactions of the parents at the school nor TMZ’s gleeful reporting of the whole affair are remotely surprising, but both are sad reflections of widely-held attitudes to pornography and to female sexuality in general. Would it have been appropriate for Grey to have gone to the school to talk about her experiences in the porn industry? Of course not. But that’s not what she was doing. She was there to read a book – a children’s book – to children. That’s all. Even if she was still appearing in porn films, it would have no bearing whatsoever on her suitability to do that.

Equally irrelevant are questions about the ethical status of the porn industry as a whole. The porn industry might be damaging and exploitative to women (both those who are performers in the industry and in society at large), but if it is, Grey’s surely a victim of that exploitation, not a perpetrator of it. (And, as an aside, she’s well-known for publicly arguing against the idea that there’s anything particularly exploitative about appearing in porn [link NSFW] – though since she’s clearly been far more successful than most, her experience is unlikely to have been typical.)

What lies behind the outcry at Grey’s appearance at the school is a deeply unpleasant Victorian-era view of sexual morals. In the eyes of both the parents and TMZ writers, because she’s been in porn, she’s now a fallen woman, and as such has no business being around the innocent little cherubs of Emerson Elementary. (This is perhaps best illustrated in the sidesplitting suggestion by TMZ staff in the video above that the book she chose to read was Dr Seuss’ Horton hears a Whore; everyone loves a bit of casual misogyny with their gossip, right?) But a porn actor visiting a school isn’t going to magically corrupt the children she meets. The only people at the school who could plausibly have known how she became famous would be the staff, and you’d hope they’d be mature enough to deal with it. Should Grey also avoid ever having a family of her own, lest the stain of her terrible sin of having consensual sex on camera be passed onto her children?

Practically every adult who’s ever worked with children will have been sexually active at some point. Some of them might even have been filmed doing so, or been paid for it. But so long as all a person’s sex partners were consenting adults, their love life has precisely zero bearing on whether they’re well-suited to being around kids. Claims to the contrary are prudish, puritannical, sexist rubbish, and should be treated as such.

This is a guest post by Lauren O’ Donnell. A longer version of this article can be found here.

Nadine Dorries, the self proclaimed ‘feminist’ MP of Mid Bedfordshire, has cooked up yet another of her insane ideas; “The Right To Know”. In theory, the bill would assure that women who have an abortion do not feel that they are pushed into it by their GP, and that they are aware of the possible risks of abortion.

Now, at first glance, this idea seems pretty sound. But, like many recent ConDem policies, you peel away the layers and it’s actually a gingery, ineffective non-policy. For people that are familiar with Dorries, this will come as no surprise. Her blog entries are riddled with errors (both grammatical and factual) and misinformation, a complaint she rarely addresses. She’s not exactly the epitome of professionalism either (http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2011/01/proof-nadine-dorries-lies/) but this latest move seems a step too far.

In making the case for The Right To Know dorries makes a series of inaccurate arguments, and engages in fairly reckless scaremongering. One thing that Dorries says she is very concerned about is the psychological impact of abortion on the poor “damaged” women who have it done. According to Dorries, “a landmark paper published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2008 has shown that pregnant women who abort are 30% more likely go on to develop mental health problems than those who do not.” Now that sounds scary, I’ll admit. But on googling this paper, you come to realise that Dorries not only took that fact out of context, but actively distorted what is known. Not only has this study been dismissed as inaccurate, it’s also been pointed out many times that it is extremely hard to measure the causal impact of abortion with regard to mental illness (due to the fact that is impossible to qualify whether the abortion was the trigger of the mental illness, or an entirely unrelated event). The conclusion of the paper itself is this; “The evidence is consistent with the view that abortion may be associated with a small increase in risk of mental disorders.” Note the ‘may’. Not ‘is’, but may. She fails to mention that this study was NOT carried out in Britain, but was carried out in New Zealand, and therefore is NOT an adequate reflection of the effects of the NHS abortion process in Britain. And then, in a blog Dorries wrote on the 29th of March, she suggested that a spokeswoman from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is a liar, because the woman in question said she agreed with the following guideline; ‘Women should be informed that most women who have abortions do not experience adverse psychological sequelae.’ Now, even if we were to believe Dorries’ questionable statistics, 30% is still the minority. It means that 70% of women experience no adverse mental issues after abortion, and 70% is bigger than 30%. Perhaps Dorries could Brush up on her maths.

Not content with having wrongly represented the mental state of women who have abortions, Dorries also takes to slandering GPs and “abortionists” by basically portraying them as uncaring, unsympathetic chauvinists who are forcing women into having abortions they don’t want.

Take, for instance, this little titbit I took from the Right To Know webpage; “Face to face post-abortion counselling is only provided if the woman returns to the abortion clinic and very often, it isn’t available at all.” Not only will private clinics offer counselling, but any woman can go to her GP and be referred for a free NHS service, at any time. Anyone can get counselling if they feel they need it. Clearly, Dorries knows this, but has decided to twist the truth in order to shock readers and win supporters.

Dorries also seems to have a problem with the fact that most people on the council responsible for providing guidelines on abortion are “abortionists”, obstetricians and gynaecologists. Rather than thinking that perhaps with all that experience and knowledge in the relative field that they would be the best qualified for the job, Dorries accuses the RCOG of having a “vested interest” in making women have abortions. It makes about as much sense as saying that it’s wrong that brain surgeons are responsible for drawing up the medical guidelines for brain surgery. She also takes the trouble to try and dispute their process of deliberation and research. Who else would she rather have deciding these guidelines? 20% of women referred for an abortion decide not to have one after having their initial consultation with an “abortionist”, which hardly demonstrates that they’re being strapped down and cut open against their will. In reaction to the campaign, Clare Murphy of BPAS said: “The bottom line is that like any other medical procedure, women have to consent before they receive abortion treatment. We have no interest in pushing women into procedures they do not want. We are about giving women choices”, something Dorries clearly isn’t all that bothered with.

Her tone throughout all of her blogs and her articles on Right To Know is also questionable; that she refers to women as “damaged” and “vulnerable” is, to me, downright offensive. Her real campaign is to make the abortion process gradually harder and harder until there is none at all. Her idea that women should have a cooling off period of two weeks between consultation and abortions is completely ridiculous, and could make the difference in many women’s cases between taking a pill and having a surgical procedure under general anaesthetic, therefore making the process more traumatic.

She has claimed that: ‘Women are treated like they are unable to emotionally deal with the information surrounding abortion. Vital information is withheld from them”. First of all, her campaign is effectively doing exactly the same thing. Second of all, what information is being withheld from us? Any google search will come up with hundreds of NHS pages or those of registered abortion charities explaining, in detail, the risks involved, from the pain it can cause afterwards to the remote possibility of early labour in later pregnancies. Maybe Dorries is just upset by the lack of literature pointing out how morally wrong it is.

The idea of this bill can really be boiled down to this; women can’t be trusted with their bodies. We need to have a whole bevy of people on call to help us make decisions because, given free will, we’ll end up “damaging” our already “vulnerable” selves. We need to be “protected. But we’re adults, we can decide for ourselves. The whole idea is insulting; it’s degrading and patronising.

EU gotta be kidding!

Yesterday’s vote in the European Parliament’s to extend maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay across the EU should be welcomed by anyone who believes the work-life balance in the UK needs to be seriously revised. If approved, which is far from certain given Conservative opposition in Britain, it will also encourage more women who want to start families to feel secure in starting a career. Contrary the dribbling Daily Mail headlines, and the jerking knees of my Europhobic Third Estate colleague, the EU can actually do some good things. But unless paternity leave is equalised with maternity leave, the reform may do almost as much harm as it does good in the long run.

Despite strict equality laws, a report earlier this month from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found that women in the UK earn on average 16% less than men. That this gap widens to 27% for women over 40, who are more likely to have started a family, is significant. Maternity leave – a fundamental necessity of modern society freeing women from having to choose between family and career – has had the unintended consequence of reinforcing the glass ceiling effect they experience in the workplace. All other things being equal, employers find themselves predisposed to promoting men to senior positions because they are unwilling to promote women who may take much lengthier and more costly maternity leave if they choose to start a family. This is one of the reasons women make up only 5% of the executive director positions of the top 600 British companies.

At present, women are entitled to 39 weeks maternity leave, with 6 weeks at 90% of their pay and the rest at a flat rate of £123.06. Men, on the other hand, are allowed only two weeks paternity leave at £123.06. The EU’s proposal will make those two weeks fully paid, but it will dramatically increase the gap between the two benefits by giving women ten times the amount of time off on full pay.

There are obvious reasons why maternity leave should be more generous than paternity leave. For one thing, men don’t have to go through the pain of childbirth. Nor can they produce milk. However, in a society where employers exploit pregnancy and maternity leave as a reason to underpay and underpromote women, increasing the gender gap in parental leave may throw up new obstacles to narrowing the gender gap in the workplace. Moreover, it reinforces the notion that the woman’s role is that of carer and the father’s that of the breadwinner. The only way to tackle both problems is to equalise paternity leave with maternity leave.

Ironic that that best way to promote female equality is to give men more rights.

So, there’s been a huge amount of pixels spilt on Lady Gaga. I don’t want to get into every aspect of the debates, but there’s one aspect which I find strange, and it isn’t just relevant to feminism. To quote one blog in particular, here’s Gender-Agenda:

She is also an innovator. Working with famous fashion designers and her own Haus of Gaga, she has infiltrated the fashion world, disseminating shoulder pads, robot-like body structures, underwear as outerwear and surrealist forms throughout the glossy magazines and high street clothing racks of the land” [which is taken to contribute to] “stretching gendered boundaries, and presenting a form of sexuality which clashes with accepted notions of the feminine.”

One of the strange things about high fashion, like art music, is that once something has been done, it can’t be done again and called innovative: instead, it becomes derivative, retro, vintage, something ‘coming back into fashion.’ But it’s not genuinely innovative, even if it is reflective of the contemporary world. Wearing a lobster on the head is obviously a strong nod to the original Surrealists, and the big shoulder pads are just an 80s throwback. Of course these contain comments on what our world has become, but they don’t make a comment on themselves and the fashion world, or at least nothing beyond Zoolander (and certainly not as insightful as the still-vapid Devil Wears Prada).

All this is simply a hit at the idea of Gaga as a great artist or innovator. But there’s a bigger problem here, which is the ignoring of Gaga’s total objectification of the female body through fashion, and the use of ‘high fashion’ and innovation as an excuse for this. What I think is going on here is a confusion between fashion as fantasy and as reality.

Leeloo in the Fifth Element - Art.

Fashion as fantasy is probably best shown in the film Fifth Element, costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier. The heroine (‘Leeloo’) has an unforgettable bondage outfit; the aliens swan around in huge cloaks with appendages and ribbons; the camp acts at the space-cabaret are unbeatable for expressing the idea that the future is ‘out-there’ in style as well as distance. But all the while, the fashion isn’t meant to be imitated or sold; there is no market which the film kicks off. Arguably the costumes could have sparked off a big artistic shift in the fashion world, but while they’re inspirational, the real hero of the piece – Bruce Willis – is dressed in your standard sci-fi rogue t-shirt, jeans and gun-in-holster number.

Gaga’s fashion, however, is made to be sold, either as the ‘Haus of Gaga’ (an interesting bit of pseudo-European schlock more reminiscent of Häagen-Dazs than Sophia Loren) or as a part of the Gaga-product. While the Fifth Element’s fashion was an expression of fantasy, of a world come and not one in the here-and-now, Gaga is designed as a model of imitation.

Now, while I’m sure an argument could be made that Gaga is so much of a commodity that she’s outside of market forces, I think that would be a load of bull. It’s a product, a theatre piece – and as such, working purely in the realm of spectacle, is not about some free part of desire or liberation, but is just a high expression of the subsumption by capitalism of every part of life. The writhing bodies and sex-slave fashion of Telephone is not only offered up to be imitated and sold, but this is completely emphasized through the rampant product placement. Here, buy your mayonnaise alternative, and while you’re at it, would you like an alternative woman with that?

Miracle Whip & Lady Gaga - commodities

The so-called sexualisation of children has been all over the news this week with a report for the home office being published by Dr Linda Papodopoulos. Amongst recommendations are those about softcore men’s mags such as Nuts and Zoo being made to be top-shelf publications, as they are often seen by eight to fifteen year olds. All of this is said in the language of sexual liberation, and a rejection of, as Papodoulos puts it, “fake breasts” and “fuck-me shoes” (incidently I’ve never really been interested in fucking a shoe.) The problem though, is that the agenda here has nothing to do with women’s liberation, or at least if it has tried to be about that then the project is completely misconceived.

The fact is that children are sexual beings. Sex and sexuality is without a doubt one of the strongest forces in our society, and to imagine that innocence is preserved in a society such as this beyond the point at which language and human interaction is developed is to do a massive discredit to all young people, and furthermore can lead to the belief that sex is a bad thing.

Of course there are problems with images in these magazines, with the fact that women in general, and not just children, may feel the need to emulate them, but these are undoubtedly wider societal problems, and one does not cure a disease by treating a single symptom. The attempt to get restrictions on softcore porn changed are mere prudishness, which is why the conservative party are so willing to embrace them.

The fact is, though, that if we are serious about addressing these issues in society, then the last thing we need is prudishness. Some of our readers may remember the issue that surrounded the publication of the children’s book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin in the 1980s, which the Tories kicked up a huge fuss about, finally resulting in section 28. This is the same politics returning. Papadopoulos is a tad more trendy than Mary Whitehouse, but just as wrong and just as dangerous.

Would it not be more concerning to live in a society in which no 15 year-olds wanted to look at breasts? If, upon coming of age young men and women were given the choice of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge regardless of the fact that this very knowledge is there social condition? Of course we must protect children from damage that can be done to them, just as we should protect any person, and in many ways children are a vulnerable group. But it is a mistake to believe that childhood is a special place separate from all other parts of life. The preservation of such a Christian ideal is the preservation of no life at all.

If we are to ever promote plural sexualities, sexual liberation, self-identity, self-control, and radical approaches to gender, then we must open up the sexual sphere for discussion and education. A starved man will eat anything, whilst a man with a plentiful supply of food will be able to develop taste and appreciation of some foods, and distaste at others. In proposing that we keep our children de-sexualised, we run the risk of never allowing them the critical moment in which they can differentiate between sexual practices they like or dislike, approve of or disapprove of.

We must, as socialists, always fight hegemony in the social sphere. The problem here is that Papadopoulos to be fighting the against the social sphere in toto. Just because one particular image of a woman may be highly problematic for those who believe in women’s liberation, we should not take that to mean we should ban all images of women. We must fight for a world which is ours, rather than a world that is no-one’s.

This is a guest post by Francesca Rose Lewis.

Much has been written recently on the malaise (if not quite death) of feminism. In 2006 Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs bemoaned the desire of women to become sex objects in a perverse re-reading of female power. Germaine Greer went on Celebrity Big Brother, and, in the popularity stakes, Girls Gone Wild would have won any contest. Last month, Natasha Walter’s new book Living Dolls arrived, restating the argument that feminism has decayed and that a new generation of women have chosen to ignore the years of struggle for women’s rights and the shattering of the glass ceiling. My generation has, apparently, blithely thrown it all away for the right to emulate a character from Sex and the City, and drive men wild with just the right tight dress.

Walter is a spokesperson (ahem) for that very group of women who feel betrayed by skimpily attired neophytes; who rage against the encroachment of raunch culture and the neglect of the fight for women’s advancement. While their reading of the situation may be narrow, there’s no doubt that something is stirring within that original women’s movement. It seems, amazingly, that many of those who first broke through the glass ceiling have hit another, impenetrable, barrier: the grey ceiling.

This is not just a feminist issue. People have been losing their jobs for no good reason other than their age for a long time in Britain. In Germany, lawyers and politicians continue to work until they choose to retire – gerontocracy rules. Yet, in this country, many corporations have compulsory retirement ages. This allows the young to be promoted, but it also robs companies of experienced and knowledgeable employees. And when it comes to high profile roles where image (gasp!) might play a factor, the first to go are always the women. First Moira Stewart and Arlene Phillips, and now Miriam O’Reilly – a presenter of Countryfile, a programme I admit I didn’t even know existed. All of these women work or worked for the BBC, a corporation committed to representing all of British life and culture… except when that life is female and over forty.

O’Reilly’s case is particularly interesting because she is the first to take the BBC to a London Employment Tribunal, alleging that she has been on the receiving end of discrimination and victimisation on the grounds of age and sex. O’Reilly has worked for the BBC for 25 years, including stints on Women’s Hour and File on 4, and is the recipient of several broadcasting awards: the British Environment Media Award for Best Environmental Story; the Foreign Press Award and the Royal Television Society Award for Best Documentary. When Countryfile was moved to a new primetime slot, O’Reilly and the other three female presenters (all over forty) were told to pack their bags. The male presenters were kept on.

It all comes down to image. Our television screens are full of greyly distinguished men, with Huw Edwards and Jeremy Paxman leading the pack of silver foxes. According to O’Reilly, the ideal BBC woman is “a size eight, unlined and with a taut neck. You cannot have a saggy chin and wrinkles under your eyes, like normal women”. Her last years at the Corporation were full of snide remarks about wrinkles being more visible in high-definition, and that she was a ‘rare breed’ still allowed to broadcast.

After the sacking of Arlene Phillips from the judging panel of Strictly Come Dancing, stories began to appear alleging that a culture of ageism was endemic at the BBC. O’Reilly was suspected of starting the stories, and her participation in almost all other BBC projects was quickly curtailed, with no explanation. A senior male executive telephoned to admit that, for the first time, he felt ashamed of the BBC.

There is definitely something wrong with the way we perceive older women. O’Reilly wrote a stirring defence of her choice to take the BBC on in the ‘FeMail’ section of the Daily Mail. Her story was interspersed with links to other stories in the same section: “Botox in a bottle: The £125 moisturiser that promises to freeze time… by mimicking the paralysing effects of snake venom”; “Time to look pale and interesting… whatever your age”; and last but not least, “Can a haircut make YOU look younger?”

When I’m asked if I am a feminist, I hesitate. It is as if admitting to that tendency presupposes a kind of militancy, which I think is outdated. Feminism should not be about getting ahead of men – it should be about equality. Miriam O’Reilly’s case demonstrates that such equality is still outside our grasp. So girls, it might be time to put down the five-inch heels – and support the women who fought for the opportunities that we now take for granted. Otherwise we risk a lot, and gain only a little.

The taboo on relationships between older women and younger men is one of the stranger and more persistent ones in modern Britain. No one seems to think much of Rod Stewart being married to a woman 26 years his junior, but the love lives of Sam Taylor-Wood and Iris Robinson are the focus of a kind of fascinated horror. In the latter case, there’s been a kind of depressing predictability about the way that the juicy details of Robinson’s affair with the then-19-year-old Kirk McCambley garnered far more attention than Robinson and her husband’s alleged financial misdeeds.

The weirdest example of this disgust at relationships where women are older – at least of the stuff I’ve read – has to be this Liz Jones column from today’s Mail on Sunday. The general gist of it seems to be that when men have relationships with younger women it’s perfectly acceptable because men are entirely motivated by sex, (and everyone knows that nubile twenty-somethings with huge tits are the only attractive women in the universe). Women, on the other hand, don’t really like sex, so if they enter into a relationship with young  (and presumably libidinous) men, they must have some other dark, underhand reason for doing so. More specifically:

A woman embarks on a relationship with someone much younger than her because she believes she can manipulate him, boss him, steal his sperm and then nurture him as she would a child or a pet.

In return for these (doubtful) benefits, Jones suggests, the woman in the partnership provides financial and career assistance to her young lover – a leading film role in the case of Aaron Johnson, Taylor-Wood’s boyfriend (he plays John Lennon in recent biopic Nowhere Boy), and a dubious £50,000 loan in the case of Robinson and McCambley. In arriving at these conclusions, Jones also claims to be drawing on her own (apparently somewhat disastrous) experience of being married to a man 15 years her junior.

Finally, by way of a parting shot, Jones insinuates that Robinson’s affair is a sign of something far worse than ‘a trendy, cougarish predilection for toy boys’, on the grounds that she was  willing to risk her marriage and political career over it, though she isn’t very specific as to what this might be. She mentions Humbert Humbert (the protagonist in Lolita), but that isn’t particularly helpful. It doesn’t seem very fair to equate having a romantic relationship with a 12-year-old (as in Lolita) and having one with a 19-year-old (as Robinson did). And even if it was, that still doesn’t really provide any sort of insight into what drove Robinson to put herself in such professional and personal jeopardy. Perhaps more bizarrely, Jones also seems to be suggesting that relationships between older women and younger men are almost totally devoid of sexual desire, since according to her younger men only pretend to find their older partners attractive, while the women simply don’t enjoy sex at all.

More than anything, this column makes me feel deeply sorry for Liz Jones. By her own admission, she’s basing her arguments on her own experiences, which rather strongly suggests that it’s Jones, not Robinson, Taylor-Wood or any other older woman, who hasn’t enjoyed sex since her ‘teenage crush period’, who sees younger men as willing suppliers of sperm who are easy to manipulate, and relationships with them as a kind of cold commercial transaction. I hope that isn’t true – it doesn’t sound like a very happy existence – but it looks fairly plausible.

I’m not denying that there are many reasons to dislike and criticise Iris Robinson (her homophobia, for starters), but tenuous armchair psychoanalysis based on your own experiences seems a pretty flimsy basis for that. I don’t know – any more than Jones does – what Robinson or Taylor-Wood’s precise motives were when they started their respective relationships. But I really can’t see what grounds we have to suppose that there was anything more Machiavellian going on than there is when older men have relationships with younger women. It’s almost as if the Mail has some sort of agenda against women who step outside its narrow Victorian vision of acceptable female behaviour, but I’m sure that’s just crazy talk.

So the Tories want to incentivise marriage? Who says romance is dead?

I got married two years ago (please contain your disappointment…). Contrary to popular belief I did this by choice. It hasn’t made one iota difference to our relationship, it does however change how others treat you (I now get patronised even more by bank managers). We could easily have just continued co-habiting.

However, there’s a certain romance after 5 years of living together of ‘sealing the deal’ in front of witnesses. Also, my husband is Australian and with this government changing visa restrictions and residency rules almost annually on a whim there was a constant unease in the back of my head that we could be forced into a difficult and inconvenient situation in the future.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make – as a feminist the symbolism sat uneasily, as an atheist even more so. So we solved the problem by sodding off to Vegas, rewriting the ceremony removing all traces of god and obedience and letting friends and family give some staggeringly inappropriate readings instead. Then we had alcohol. It was a good day. It was our day. It was our choice.

Should I be rewarded for that choice? No. We didn’t even have a wedding list – why should every taxpayer in the country give us presents?

I am really surprised the Tories want to offer tax breaks for married couples for two main reasons:
1) In this economic climate surely new unnecessary tax breaks are an unaffordable luxury? Aren’t the Tories supposed to be the party of cuts?
2) Aren’t they also supposed to be the party of minimal state interference in people’s lives?
The whole ‘family values’ thing is a strange anomaly of The Right. For example, in America the Republicans are pro-choice in everything from the ‘freedom’ to bear arms and an open market for healthcare – but anti-choice when it comes to ‘pro-choice’.

I don’t think marriage should be specially commended in tax law. There are commitments that I believe should be rewarded more thoroughly – carers of people with disabilities and long term terminal illnesses for example – but all I did was sign a public declaration of love for my partner (he’s that needy…).

The Tories seem to see marriage as a sort of salve for societal ills but it’s not – it won’t make you a better person and there’s no proof it will make you a better parent. And if you need a piece of paper to stop you running away from your partner every 5 seconds then my guess if that you’re probably not suited to long term commitment of any kind.

It’s no coincidence that the Tories have made their policy announcement in the first week of January – a month which traditionally sees a spike in the number of couples filing for divorce (Christmas’ll do that to you). Statistics show that if the economy picks up, it’s likely the divorce rate will too. Which seems on the face of it to suggest that marriage is an economic situation as much as a social one. However, if, as the stats seem to show, many of those people endured being trapped in a difficult marriage for financial reasons, one has to question whether incentivising them to stay married is a good idea.

Luckily, it looks as we’re all safe for now because it turns out the Conservatives are talking complete cant.

Look closely at the fine print in the following associated Cameron proclamations:

It is something we want to do, something we believe we can do, it’s something, within a parliament, I’ll definitely hope to do.

(Translation: “we have almost no chance of achieving this and I know that”)

Recognising marriage in the tax system is something I feel very strongly about and something we will definitely do in the next parliament. We will set out exactly how in due course.

(Translation: “we have absolutely no idea how we would go about achieving it anyway”)

Phew…

Next Friday my Students’ Union will host a ‘Playboy Mansion’ themed club night. Over the past few weeks at what is still quite a new University for me I have been more and more bothered by the sexualised atmosphere promoted by the union’s venues. But, with my attentions largely elsewhere (on job cuts, the fact that Joe Glenton is imprisoned just down the road and the small matter of a Masters Degree), this has mostly taken the form of low-level grumblings with like-minded individuals. However, this seems to be the last straw, and our Womens’ Officer, to her credit, launched a facebook group against the theme on Thursday.

I should make it clear that I agree with her, and the campaign is being conducted in exactly the right way. Women (and men) should be allowed to dress however they like, but Students’ Unions should not be promoting such hyper-sexualised objectification. This is not about censorship, it is about what is appropriate for the Union. The fact that some people find it fun should not trump our commitment to equality and liberation. Promotion of such a narrow conception of sexuality compromises that commitment. However, this isn’t what I wanted to post about. Instead I wanted to share some of the appalling comments that have appeared on the facebook group from those defending the night:

“sounds like [NAME DELETED]  needs a good shagging to me….”

“im extremely worried for you girls as you are acting like feminists which is just as bad as being sexist”

“But it is scientifically proven that women have smaller brains and less brain cells, as a result women are considered inferior species.”

“you’re just an ice queen in need of a good humping”

“i propose that women shud not be allowed to dress up in any clothing. problem solved.”

“WTF, get over it you mardy bitches. No one is asking you to take your clothes off. Sort your life out and do some uni work instead of making pointless Facebook groups.”

The extrardinary level of sexualised vitriol aimed at young women who have a problem with this (largely from men, though not always) is terrifying. It’s almost like it proves a point about women’s liberation being a long way off, or something…

The statement which inspired such aggression:

At the start of the term, the SU organised and planned on holding a Flirt event themed as ‘Playboy Mansion’ in Sub Zero. Though this was cancelled, they have now re-scheduled this event for the 4th of December! Why is a Union like ours, which promotes equality, allowing such sexist and degrading events to take place?

Events like Playboy Mansion simply degrade women solely to sexual objects! In the past we’ve had other similar events like Bunny Auctions held in Sub Zero, which were justified by the SU as trying to ‘strike a balance’ between differences of opinion, as it has been argued that some women find such events liberating. However, is this not because we are constantly being exposed and normalised to these sexist views in our daily lives through the media and other sources, that some have come to accept that this is liberation?!

An academic institution supposedly representing the students should, of all places, be the last to organise and promote events like ‘Playboy Mansion’!! Essentially what the SU have done is sell nights to private companies who organise events to make money, without putting thought into ethics or the student welfare. We want our Union to be a place exempt from discrimination towards women. Let’s bin the bunny!

Let’s fight sexism on campus and fight for true sexual liberation for all – Join us in our Campaign to oppose such SU events from taking place!

If anyone wants to add their name onto the list of signatories, feel free to do so by messaging the group Administrator.

Signatories:

• Zeynep Koc (Women’s Officer)
• Hannah Prime (Women’s Committee & NUS Women’s Delegate)
• Balqis Abdulkadir Mohamud (Women’s Committee)
• Kaileigh Clarke (Women’s Committee)
• Emma Milne (Women’s Committee)
• Mark D. Bergfeld (Campaigns Officer)
• George Papaioannou (Ethics and Environment Officer)
• Jevanni Letford (Black and Ethnic Minorities Student Officer)
• Nibras Hadi (Equality and Diversity Officer)
• Robert Wayman (LGBT Officer)
• Beatrice Blois (Charity and Fundraising Officer)
• Saul Jones (UAF President)
• Elizabeth Mantzari (Stop the War Soc. President)
• Iolanda Gomes (Portuguese Soc. President)
• Sam Potter (Campaigns Commitee)
• Waleed Rahmati (Campaigns Committee)
• Joe Poser (Campaigns Committee)
• Nathan Street (Ethics and Environment Committee)
• Sophie Parr (Ethics and Environment Committee)
• Daisy Blench (Ethics and Environment Committee)
• Munira Abduletif (Equality and Diversity Committee)
• Kate Douglas (General Rep)
• Savin Koc (1st Year Rep)
• Nathan Bolton (1st Year Rep)
• Dan Swain (Mature Students Committee)
• James Burch (UAF)
• Miguel Borba (SWSS)
• Oliver Lowe (SWSS)
• Stuart Burrows (SWSS)
• Tim Allen (Workers Power)
• Rix Payne (Workers Power)
• Waheed Raja (Stop the War Soc.)
• Izzat Shamroukh (PSC)
• Max Morris
• Charlotte Doman (Red Radio DJ)
• Matt Hutton
• Margarida Santos-Silva
• Louis Gigon
• Hannah Rebecca
• Matt Murray (SU Equal Opportunities Officer 07-08)
• Professor Peter Lynn (Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Colchester)
• Anna Rocks
• Eloysius Nightingale
• Carlos Rivera (PHD Student, U of E Psychology Dept.)
Katrina Suzanne Michel

Across the left there has been an explosion of mockery and outrage at the formation of men’s societies at Oxford and Manchester universities. This is, in part, because of the reputedly dubious activities of the Manchester men’s society in particular. Equally there has been an instinctive – and to some extent reasonable – reaction against the presumed idea that men’s societies can play an equivalent role to women’s groups within a society characterised by male privelege. Jim Jepps of the Daily (Maybe) has been amongst those leading the charge. Nonetheless, it is my contention that students’ mens societies have a potentially progressive – and perhaps  even irreplaceable – role to play in the sphere of gender and in the struggle for male and female liberation.

Over on facebook, many of my friends and  comrades have joined a group set up by a number of leading student lefties to protest the creation of mens groups. The reason given for such opposition is stark. The group description states, under the subheading of ‘why?’ that ‘men are not oppressed’ before listing the huge number of ways in which women genuinely are shafted by present social circumstances. As such it is suggested, there is no need for men to explore their interests as men.

Nobody with a brain would suggest the position of men in western society is remotely comparable to that of women. Yet with this said, relations between men and women cannot and certainly should not be understood in terms of two people sharing a cake. The fact that women have less does not mean that men universally and collectively have more. And while the gendered expectations that permeate our society are clearly most oppressive to women, this does not prevent the dominant notions of masculinity from bringing shame and unfreedom to the lives of men.

This all may seem a little abstract. Yet I am reminded of some government propaganda that I witnessed from the 1920s. With Britain gripped by an  unprecendented wave of strikes, the Tory government tried to shame men into going back too work by telling the country that these hideous creatures were failing to ‘provide for their families’. A decade earlier the same men had been cojolled into the trenches with deeply gendered ideas of heroism and cowardice.  The point here, is that while the ideas of men as providers or as soldiers have characteristically confirmed the subordinate position of women, these same ideas took a heavy toll on certain men. As the gender historian John Tosh reminds us, notions of masculinity do not simply mediate relations between men and women but between men and men. In these cases, masculinity was a tool through which the men of the ruling classes could shackle the men of the lower orders. Today a man who, like millions, loses his job is faced not only with material hardship but with the cultural onslaught that arises from his failure to live up to gendered expectations.

Relations between men and women are not, I repeat, a zero sum game. That men happen to be priveleged relative to women does not mean that men cannot have a legitimate interest in collectively addressing what it means to be a man.

And thus the stated aim of the Oxford Men’s Society is to explore the meaning of masculinity today. Now we may not expect them to  come, necessarily, to the conclusions we would like -not least given rumours of ‘beer and top gear’  that surround the Manchester mens soc. Yet the fact that this question is being asked – and that a space is being created in which it can be asked, by men, is undoubtedly a step forward. If you doubt this, you need only consider the now-well-syndicated reaction of the loaded editor to the issue of men’s socs. In a statement – that for some fucked up reason was quoted approvingly by Jim JEPPS – the editor said, presumably in a deep voice:

“”I don’t think men are remotely confused about what it takes to be a man. They just get on and do it. My generation would not sit round and build a website about being confused. It’s complete navel-gazing bullshit.”

The implication is that men ‘just know’ what it is to be a man, as though it were something innate. Against this background, the idea that men might actually get together to discuss what masculinity, and perhaps even exersize some agency over its meaning surely opens an important door.

And the attitude expressed by some opponents of mens socs to the idea of men exploring masculinity is, i’m afraid, rather stupid if not appalling.  On the front page of the anti-mens socs facebook group, prominence is given to comment by Kent Student Aaron Kiely, who tells mens soc members that   ‘If you want to campaign on the issues of gender and identity, the LGBTQ society and liberation officers should be able to help you out.”   His thoughts are echoed – again quoted approvingly – by another student who asserts that “since this is more a gender identity issue than one of a bias against men as men, I agree that it falls under the remit of the LGBTQ.”

Amazingly these people cannot imagine that  heterosexual men have reasonable interest in discussing, let alone challenging the dominant gender norms. It is a view that is incredibly simplistic and in fact deeply pessimistic.  It barely needs saying that the gender roles ascribed to both sexes are indterdependent and mutually reinforcing. And if people cannot percieve the need for the 90 odd per cent of men who are heterosexual to discuss and reconsider what it means to be a man, then there is little hope of liberation for any of us.