News flash - women not people, do not have feelings

Or at least, that's what you'd think if you spent more than a millisecond in most internet forums.

Allow me to elaborate. On New Year's Eve a group of friends and I went to see one of our favourite bands play in Camden. Not only was it a great gig, but by some turn of co-incidence we ended up backstage afterwards, drinking, chatting with the band, generally having a lot of fun. All in all, it was a brilliant night.

While we were backstage, a photographer asked if he could take some photos of us, and we happily obliged. Then tonight, we happened across his blog where he had posted one of the pictures. The reason we found the blog is because is someone had posted a link to it on the band's forum. And later, in the same thread, someone posted the photograph of my friends and I.

And that's when we ceased to be people. Because we were women, and we'd dared to go out in public we'd surrendered our humanity and become objects to be stared at, jeered at, rated and ridiculed.

Some of the men (boys?) on the forum took it upon themselves to start commenting on the photo, reposting it several times, making comments about our appearance and ranking us in order of who they wanted to have sex with first.

I have never felt so degraded and dehumanised in my life and I'm a model for fuck's sake, it's practically in my job description. Who the hell do they think they are, literally treating us like pieces of meat on a restaurant trolley? They don't know who we are, they don't know a thing about us, yet they feel OK openly judging us, on a public forum? FUCK THEM.

Did they really think we wouldn't see? Given that we're fans of the band it's hardly unlikely that we'd occasionally go on their official website. More likely they just didn't think at all. They didn't think about the consequences of their actions, they didn't think that we're real people with real feelings that might get hurt. They didn't think about how they would feel if they found people doing the same to a photograph of their mothers or sisters. Let alone themselves. It'll be a thousand years in the future before men find their bodies viewed as public property in the same way that women do now.

No, they didn't think at all, because it's just a joke to them. And that's the saddest thing. That in our supposedly enlightened society, where I'm constantly told there 's no longer a need for feminism because "men and women are treated equally now" people still think this is completely normal, acceptable behaviour. It's just such a shame, too, because the band themselves are genuinely lovely, intelligent people; you would think they would attract like-minded people as fans, but clearly that's not always the case.

The only good thing about it is that the sexists are identifying themselves, so in future women will know not to approach them with a ten foot pole. It's hypocritical really, these pathetic little creeps, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet talking about who they'd most like to fuck, when in reality they're clearly such horrible human beings that staring at a photograph is as close as they're likely to get to a real woman without paying her.

So thanks, random internet misogynists, for ruining my memories of a great night. By way of equality, I tried to rank you in order of who's most Troglodyte, but it was a tie - you're all losers.

Update: I am genuinely touched by the kindness I have received from people who have read this and got in touch. Thanks especially to the lovely photographer whose innocent photo got mixed up in this for his support and to the moderators and others from the forum for deleting the offensive stuff and for general awesomeness. Consider my faith in humanity and music restored.

Oh no you did not just say that

I was catching up on my procrastination when Hairy Bloke (the manly man himself) twittered this, in hipster magazine Platform. And I know that anything he refers to as "impressively, deeply, deeply offensive stuff" is probably going to be bad.

So I read it.

And then I frothed at the mouth.

And now I blog.

The article is titled "Ways Not To Fuck Up A Fuck". I hereby suggest it be retitled "Lessons In 'Nice Guy' Douchebaggery and How To Be A Misogynistic Arse".

The first how-not-to is called "Lying about having already done it", and the result is, apparently,

"Two things then happen: she feels totally violated and refuses to talk to you (this shit is worse than rape for some girls), and the guy tells everyone what a fucking loser you are for lying about it."

Oh yes. Because some silly skinny-jeans wearing trust-fund "artist" tells his friends he's had sex with you in order to mark you as "his", this is somehow worse than rape. I wonder if Robert Foster has ever found himself agreeing with the sentiments "she was wearing a short skirt so she was asking for it" or "having her handbag stolen is more traumatic".

On to the next section, titled "Getting mad that it’s not happening":

"After a few weeks of being a nice fucking guy (probably about a month of talking on the phone, meeting on lunch breaks and staying over but getting nothing) things get pretty frustrating. If nothing at all has happened at the six week mark, leave it, because she knows what the fuck is up but she just doesn’t find you attractive and the best thing you can do is walk away, cos if she’s the kind of self-involved bitch that keeps a sucker hanging around for 6 weeks then she’ll miss the attention and be on your dick in no time".

Buh? Maybe, Robert Foster, she didn't want to jump into bed with you straight away because she had an inkling that because you're a "nice fucking guy" you are actually a woman-hating entitled dickwad who thinks being nice to someone with tits and a vagina automatically results in you being able to put your penis inside her. Here's a tip, Robert Foster: no, it doesn't.

Furthermore,

"If you haven’t been intimate with someone but they gave you the gift of their number or their BBM, they might be a little into you, which is totally fair enough, you’re a nice guy and you were funny and you bought her a drink but didn’t force her to hang out with you overly long, follow her around the bar like a psycho cos you got too drunk or wink at her or any of that shit."

Still doesn't entitle you to a shag. Ever. Do you know why, Robert Foster? Because you bought her a drink. She gave you her number. It's not an all-access pass to her vagina. But it's ok, because you're a "nice fucking guy" who equates dating-but-not-having-sex as ruining some poor man's life.

But Robert Foster doesn't stop there.

"Sleeping in their bed and trying it on over and over again
If you’ve been trying and trying with a girl who’s not so sure but at least keen to talk to you, and it gets really late and she says you can sleep over at hers, but then stipulates a ‘no funny business’ clause in the verbal contract of you sleeping in her bed, then you’ve got to suck it up and take it, pal. ‘No’ does sometimes mean ‘yes’, but if she’s been firm about it before you’ve got under the covers, then just roll over and go to sleep, safe in the knowledge that you’ve made some healthy baby steps towards wetting your dick but tonight is not the night.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you really did read that right.

"'No' does sometimes mean 'yes'"

He said it.

What. The. Blithering. Fuck?

Really?

You know what that is, Robert Foster? That, Mr "nice fucking guy" is called the Women-Hating Rape Apologist's Favourite Line. And it's BOLLOCKS. No =/= yes. It is that fucking simple. They are two entirely mutually-exclusive answers. Opposite answers, in fact. No is used to express refusal or denial, and yes is used to express permission, acceptance. If you, or anyone else, is having issues confusing the two, might I suggest a quiet evening spent with the dictionary, or possibly a role-playing scenario. Or therapy.

The entire article is a stream of women-hating douchebaggery, of the worst variety, because it tries to come across as funny and cool. It's not funny. It's not even a little bit funny, it's just offensive. It's just nasty. It's misogynist claptrap. And it's really, really not fucking hipster.

Love all?

So Wimbledon is finally over, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief for two different reasons. First of all, I don't enjoy tennis; it's dull as anything and so far as I can tell, designed exclusively for the upper classes. Who else would pay £12 for strawberries? However, for the week Wimbledon was on, I happened to be working in an office full of people who think tennis is the sport of kings, or possibly Gods, and as such the big screen in the reception area where I worked was duly switched to the BBC for all day coverage, leading to there constantly being a gaggle of suited bankers hanging around my desk all day chatting almonst themselves (or worse, to me) about the tennis. This, in case you were wondering when I was going to get to it, leads me to the second reason I'm glad Wimbledon is over: it brought out amongst these men and women such misogyny that I had to spend seven hours a day restraining myself from reaching over the desk and smacking them in the mouth.

I speak, of course, about Venus And Serena Williams. Now I never heard anyone once comment on Andy Murray's physique (a bit weedy looking, if you ask me) or ponder if the male player who was 6'7 had an unfair advantage. But when it came to the Williams sisters, two dedicated atheletes who are famously known for having the muscular physiques of, um, a dedicated athelete, the bile poured.

"Oh, I hope she doesn't win - look at her, she looks like a man", "yuck, I hope she gets knocked out, she's revolting, so manly", "it's unfair for them to get this far, they look like men", "I prefer Venus to Serena, at least she's a bit more feminine looking..." - yep, my charming colleagues, male and female, were rooting against two talented players because they don't have the most feminine of physiques (I'd also ask whoever wrote the book saying muscles were a masculine attribute, but I fear that's a different topic for a different day).

It just goes to show how thin the veneer of equality we have these days truly is. Yes, we can have female atheletes but heaven forbid they actually *look* like atheletes. Women players now get equal prize money to men, but we only really approve if they remain slim and delicate, and you know, non-threatening. Because that's what it's about, isn't it? We, men and women, don't like strong women, still. Women should be fragile, delicate, submissive, or so the Patriarchy would have us believe, so we freak out when someone comes along who challenges that ideal.

Add to that the fact that Wimbledon officials have admitted to putting the most attractive female players on centre court, regardless of ranking, or the importance of the match (hence Serena Williams, 2nd in the world found herself playing an important match on court number 2, which attracts virtually no tv coverage while two unknown but nubile blonde beauties battled it out for the cameras on the centre stage) and the constant lingering close-ups of whichever women in the audience that day had made the sartorial mis-step of wearing a low-cut top in the sweltering heat, and I think we can all agree tennis is a strong contender for the prestigious title of Most Sexist Sport Ever.

Horny Hernu vs. The Front Page Campaign

What is it with the name “Piers”? The first that springs to mind is of course Mr. Morgan, but lately it’s been his equally slimy, paunched namesake getting (he wishes) on my tits; Piers Hernu, sometime Daily Mail contributor and, as I have had to hear twice on the radio this week, former editor of Front magazine and contributor to FHM. Journalism is of course the world’s second oldest profession – but no more so than in Mr. Hernu’s case does one suspect it was only an excuse to sidle a little closer to the oldest.

The reason for the BBC’s infliction of his dulcet tones is the Front Page Campaign, which, having recently won lottery funding, is now also receiving some media attention, leading to on-air debate between its founder (Amy King) and Piers Hernu. The campaign’s stated aim is “to protect children from offensive media and restore choice for adults”, particularly regarding “sexually explicit photographs and language”. In practical terms, this is a demand that such material be age-restricted and placed on the top shelf, out of sight and reach of children, but still perfectly accessible to adults. So what’s all the fuss about? Horny Hernu’s ego, apparently.

The first broadcast took place on 5live on Monday. I wondered at first if he's got real live friends to go out with at the weekends, because Hernu still sounded drunk; judging from his second performance on Radio Ulster on Wednesday, he’s either an inept alcoholic or has mugged one for their baseless bravado. When he wasn’t busy sniggering or talking over Ms. King (a tactic most of us leave behind with ill-judged haircuts and notes home from the teacher) Hernu repeated a couple of MENSAesque points over both interviews.

Firstly, lads’ mags are “clearly not sexually explicit” because “um, you know, I think that there’s a, a big, ermmm” – *wheezy silence* – “problem here with, with, with mistaking, erm, toplessness with pornography”. Well, quite. After all, the term definitely wasn’t “sexually explicit” rather than “pornography”, and anyway tits and ass have absolutely nothing to do with male heterosexual arousal – it’s really all just an NHS-sponsored biology campaign. Everybody else can tell that lads' mags are sexually explicit – why doesn't one of their own contributors have the Nuts to admit it?

Then, on Wednesday, he squawked that “if you were to suggest this to any other country in the whole of Europe, they would laugh you out, you know, th- they would just laugh at you, because the rest of Europe has a much more enlightened attitude towards nudity and sexuality”.

Question: has Hernu ever been to the rest of Europe? I know it’s a funny foreign place all the way across the channel, but had he ever lumbered aboard a Eurostar, he might conceivably be aware that, actually, the rest of Europe wouldn’t need to “laugh… out, you know, laugh at” anyone for starting a Front Page Campaign, because they simply don’t have a comparable lads’ mag “culture” to protest in the first place. Their “enlightened attitude towards nudity and sexuality” would balk as much at Zoo as it does every summer at its escapees’ yearly migration to Eye-beef-fah. (And if we really had a problem with “sexually repressed morality”, we might have less of a problem with teenage pregnancy which – oh look! – is the highest in Europe).

So far, so dense. But he wouldn’t be a proper little sexist without a good bit of cliché thrown in, would he? Never fear, he’s on the case; “it’s usually some embittered old harridan who’s got- who gets on her high horse about this, and, and, you know, nobody actually listens, ’cause this has come up time and time again, you know, various women have fronted these kind of campaigns and, as usual, it, er, it turns out that there aren’t lots of people up in arms about this, there aren’t lots of children traumatised by this, it’s just, it’s just not the case that people are bothered about it”. Well yes, of course; “women” – the word spat out like curdled milk – taking issue with it is entirely different from proper “people” doing so, isn’t it?

Ms. King’s citation of surveys indicating that 98% of the general public agree with the campaign was met with further bluster, and burblings about young men being “slowly broken in, as it were, to the harsh realities” – *snort*– “of the sexual world”. But whose sexual world? Lads’ mags have nothing to do with the delicate flowering of male sexuality and everything to do with the entrenchment of male sexism. An airbrushed, submissive, surgically-enhanced, Aryan model flaunting her knickers and knockers isn’t sex; it’s wank-fodder. Wank-fodder, no less, for the spotty teenager who can’t get a real girl because he doesn’t know how to - and Nuts and Zoo sure as hell aren’t going to teach him.

Well, maybe if he's really lucky he'll grow up to be as “embittered” about “various women” as poor old Piers Hernu himself. Sexual enlightenment, my arse.

Sleeping With The Enemy

Normally I try to offer some kind of comprehensive argument in postings, with background, both sides of the debate and proposed solutions.

But this time I’m just going to put it out there, because I am stumped.

Several conversations have been had recently about the so-called ‘rules’ of dating, and it’s slowly been eating away at me to the point where I am actually pissed off.

Dating etiquette states that women are not supposed to ‘put out’ on the first night, ideally not until the second or third, if you’re actually serious about taking it further: getting down and dirty early doors, apparently, means you are easy and is akin to wearing bells on your ankles the word “unclean” daubed on your face in menstrual blood.

For example, an English friend of mine always goes for it on the first date because, well, what’s the point in going out with someone if you’re not compatible sexually, something a lot of Northern Europeans seem to think too. She has a very good point, but most of the men she dates it seems disagree. “Job done” appears to be the overwhelming attitude. Now neither her nor I would suggest everyone follows her lead but, surely if the man is comfortable getting to ‘it’, then he is as responsible as the woman?

The implication is that that a woman has to act all coy and prim for, like, 10 hours, and then let it all hang out as if some mystical chirpse-threshold has been passed.

The man, meanwhile, is just a cock-on-tap ready to go when the light shines green but is tied inexorably into the ludicrous assumption that somehow following a pointless manifesto makes them any more or less desirable.

This is, well, insulting, to both men and women.

What do people think? Why is it that women are thought of in lesser terms when they do what most men would be prepared to do? Shouldn’t the fact that we are allowed and encouraged to sex each other outside of marriage have rendered such protocol redundant?

I am not sure. I know where I stand (not giving a fuck, if you’ll pardon the pun) but what about my fellow Femis? Answers on a novelty Sarah Palin condom packet please.

Last Post on the Sexually-Harassed Bugle

It is sadly common for feminists to be accused of hating men; all the more so feminazis, presumably bitter at male rejection of our Hitlerian moustaches (because all howwid feminininiths of any description are ugly hairy lesbians in want of a man to turn them, doncha know). Over the last few days, this blog could to the untrained eye have appeared to be conforming to this stereotype, what with all our decidedly unwomanly protestation at uninvited male attention. I'm sure we'll be back to attacking the other sort of Mail soon enough, but I couldn't help giving one last hurrah today.

Like any self-unrespecting binge-drinking ladette at the root of 25% of violent crime, I went out last night. I went out in Temple to be precise, which being at the opposite end of London to where I live, involved lots of walking and night buses. I was actually pretty lucky, though; I was only harassed twice all night. There was nothing remarkable about either incident, but it got me thinking, in my remnant rage this morning, about the worst cases I or my friends have encountered before. So, in no particular order, I give you...

Passing Pervert Top Trumps

1. "C'mon... I hit women all the time".
I was 15, he looked about 12. This was the last trick up his salacious sleeve after following me through an arcade in the middle of the day, asking me if I gave blow-jobs. His two little brothers looked on.

2. "But, you are ugly".
She was 15, he was in his early 20s. She was not, and never will be, a minger. He and his friends, spending their Friday nights surrounding groups of underage girls in shitty nightclubs, most definitely were.

3. "I'm not going to stop running until you stop walking".
I was 16, he looked about 14. As I strode back from school one afternoon, he puffed his laboured way along beside me for a good ten minutes before I outran him for the last sprint home.

4. "Ssss, ssss, tsk tsk".
Repeatedly, over the last ten years, in a variety of locations. The most memorable was a middle-aged man accosting we two 14-year-olds in a lunchtime market... with his wife and two children a metre or so behind him.

5. "You look fifteen, let me take you out for dinner... I just wanna know you".
I'm 23, he looked in his late 30s. He was the cashier in my local Tesco's, and spent several months trying to chat me up at the check-out, following me around the shop, and latterly throwing temper tantrums when I persisted in telling him that I was not interested and to leave me alone.


Those are the first five I can think of off the top of my head. Other charming non-verbal advances have included the threat of a hit-and-run when the guy drove his white van up onto the pavement for a closer look, and miming slitting our throats and/or shooting us.

Honestly, I don't know what we silly women are complaining about.

Those Mad, Mad Men

On Valentine’s Day I went out with a couple of good friends who have offshore, foreign girlfriends and were thus at a loss while other couples PDA-ed all over town and singles stayed in and cried. As we all were living local, we opted on going out in leafy suburb Richmond.

The topics of conversation flitted between football, hard rock and the perfect murder, but at one point it switched to the excellent US television series Mad Men, which two of us were enthusiastically gobbling up at the time.

The non-believer, who is a Czech lager commie (one rung below champagne socialists on the liberal elite ladder) pointed out that he had watched an episode with his (admittedly faintly pretentious) partner and that the two found it chauvinistic, sexist, racist and outdated. CLC, as he shall be known from hereon in, went so far as to jokingly accuse me of being a misogynist for liking the show.

Now, my friend clearly missed the whole point of Mad Men - to the uninitiated it is a beautifully crafted and scripted drama set in a New York advertising agency at the start of the 1960s. An arena in which men dominate everything as unscrupulously as one could possibly imagine. But here’s the catch - the beatniks are taking over the world, segregation is falling apart, Kennedy is in office and - crucially - the pill just came out and abbos are legal.

In between getting hit on by a really wrinkly guy who was a dead ringer for Max Clifford (we were in a gay bar full of old boys looking for trade. Safest option after hours in the 'burbs), I explained that most of the male characters are nasty, sexist pigs, and that we are not supposed to sympathise with them. What they say and do is funny, but then Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and Alan Rickman in Die Hard have some cracking lines and awesome killings but, clearly, they are not meant to be the good guys.

Yes, the main protagonist - shady creative director Don Draper - cheats on his wife, but we are shown that to be the result of a repressed desire to escape from the shackles of the convention he wears to escape a troubled past and identity. He shouldn’t even have a wife, but society has dictated that he conform to a nuclear family that he develops affection for but instinctively resents. Unlike his hissing, wolf-whistling male colleagues, his infidelity is shown to be born from deep unhappiness and an emotional complexity he is struggling to fathom - much like the philandering of many the female characters.

It is this emotional sensitivity that makes him so good at his job: he senses, knows what people feel and want, for good and bad. It is also this instinct that leads him to take what was then a huge professional risk in promoting a young woman from the secretarial pool to junior copywriter, much to the derision of his superiors and subordinates. He encourages and develops Peggy as he feels she deserves it and - crucially in a capitalist context - knows that her insight into the powerful female market that his contemporaries dismiss is a key to a new, untapped market for the advertising industry.

Anyway, enough of this, but what stuck with me most from this discussion was the somewhat casual accusation that I was a sexist. I hauled CLC up on this, asked him to justify it and pointed out that it was as serious an accusation as one of homophobia or racism and one that should not be tossed around like rocket in a salad dish. He apologised and admitted that he “only said it to wind me up”. I then pointed out that, as a regular contributor to forums on women’s rights and issues, I would have a greater claim to lay for being a feminist than he does as he rarely discusses or even thinks about such matters.

And this is when it almost kicked off. CLC scoffed and said “you can’t be a feminist, for starters you’re a man, and furthermore your attitude to sex and relationships is as casual as a burberry cap, England away” (his actual words, I love this guy really).

Wooooaaaaaahhhh. Hang on there son. You’re meant to be this Guardian-reading ultra liberal who always thought New Labour smelt of shit and marches for peace on a monthly basis. Since when did feminism require membership to a specific gender group? Since when did being in a monogamous relationship have any bearing whatsoever on gender equality? B-b-but sexual freedom and the discrepancy in accepted behaviours between men and women are some of the key debates here? No?! I also pointed out that my conduct re: dating was significantly less anarchic than that of the majority of our co-drinkers, only heterosexual - yet no-one would call those big, hunky bears sexist, dammit!

Here lies the problem. There appears to be a misconception of what feminism means. Educated, liberal men and women who - without realising it - sympathise with feminist views still think that a. all feminists hate or want to dominate men, that b. feminists oppose any representation of female physical beauty and that c. a heterosexual man cannot, by default, be a feminist. Jebus, the last girl I was seeing had this view; she even said that she hated feminists, citing Valerie Solanas as a case study (ironically, perhaps, this girl has an almost identical job to Peggy in Mad Men, and indeed originally worked in an agency that is considered macho by modern standards). That would be like saying Al Qa’eda represent all muslims - which is considered an ultra-right view - except, it seems, a lot of people think this.

I thought feminism was about equality, bridging the gender gap in pay and opportunity, ensuring women have control of their bodies, addressing the heavy female skew in sexual assault victims and campaigning against unnecessary objectification of women in mainstream media. Right? Am I wrong?!

Now we, of course, know better than this, but we are not helped by negative, extremist portrayals by those mad folk who tied themselves to a tacky but harmless University Beauty pageant, and that crazed, shouty Twisty woman who thinks men should all be neutered and that any dissenting voice is one of fascism. Please, stop. You are doing as much good for our cause as those Al-Muhajaroon nutters that used to hang around Finsbury Park mosque were doing for Islam. We don’t need you.

You, however, need us. “Us” meaning “men”. The math, as our American friends say, is quite simple.

Half of our population is male; half is female. Of the female half, the majority will, if encouraged and allowed, support women’s rights. A significant minority - even if unleashed from the restraints of domineering men, which remains unlikely until victory is achieved - will retain a natural submissive streak that is manipulated and fostered by partners or family members. Same happens to chaps too. But this natural function of diversity leaves less than half of the population - already lagging behind the dominant half - to challenge the status quo.

What I’m slowly etching towards is this: Yes, we fucked up for several thousand years. Yes, we waste an inordinate amount of time watching musclebound chaps in shorts running about trying to stick a leather penis substitute between some hoop or other. Yes, we smell. But if men are excluded from the debate and the action, women are doomed to lose.

Let us in. Most of us are actually alright, given the right guidance. You need us as much as we need you - and we make a mean risotto.