Thoughts on Jill Meagher

Jill Meagher, or what will it take for you to believe us?

Yesterday tigtog blogged on the Hoyden About Town website that the Australian police are now holding a man in custody whom they expect to charge with the rape and murder of Jill Meagher, the Irish woman who went missing sometime in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Earlier, there had been a few rebuttals and reposts around the interwebz to Clementine Ford’s conversation centering on the same incident on Twitter. Then there was this post from Ed Butler. I want to be as fair as I can to him by saying that in no way do I think he is the only guy who thinks like this, and in fairness, he does go on to redeeem himself somewhat in the following comments, and in less problematic posts which sandwich that one – go and read them and you’ll see what I mean. So this isn’t a witch hunt by any means. But the post I’ve picked hits on so many bullshit bingo points that it’s the perfect example of a very familiar response that women often get when they complain about the violence committed against them – but it’s not fair to me because I’m not a rapist and now I feel yucky. And anyway you are just totally overreacting. Waaaah!

First of all, I want to address the ‘it’s not fair’ argument.  Look, I totally get that it must royally suck to walk down the street late at night, say, knowing that at least a few women will be automatically wary of your presence. That’s not nice for anyone, is it? But, and while I am officially not a fan of the Pain Olympics™, my guess is that it sucks more to be afraid of being raped and/or murdered. Or, you know, actually raped and murdered. If you are walking down the street feeling, as Butler states, disgusted with yourself, and you are not a rapist/violent attacker, you might want to take a step back and instead of blaming women (or the media) for making you feel like a rapist, maybe start blaming the rapists who rape and the society that very often lets them get away with it.

Secondly, I want to address the other argument – the ‘you’re overreacting’ argument – because it is this that is lethally dangerous. Butler compares the risk of attack to the same kind of risk as getting in a car crash or eating bad sushi. I want to make this extremely plain to anyone who might have the merest shred of doubt about it: rape and murder do not happen by accident. You cannot be accidentally raped. In English law, you also cannot be accidentally murdered – if you were murdered accidentally, that would be manslaughter. Of course, the other side of that is that you can be deliberately poisoned, or deliberately run over, but I think we would agree that while those things happen, they are not the kind of things you would really take general everyday precautions over, unless you were a character from Game of Thrones or a Mafia boss. So the comparison itself is faulty – not eating sushi which looks a bit dodgy is a decision which is up to you. Rape and murder, and I can’t quite believe I am having to say this, are inherently not up to the victim.

See, the thing that makes me table-gnawingly, mouth-frothingly fucking FURIOUS about this kind of response is the idea that we don’t have that much to fear. I wonder if Butler has ever read any rape and murder statistics? It seems as if the answer to that is no, and in fact he goes on to clarify that he is not going to demean his argument with something as filthy as data (I quote), “I’m not digging around data to verify something so unverifiable”. Right, because he can presumably afford to be lazy and complacent about this? Rape and murder victims perhaps do not share that privilege.

I think what he is trying to get at is that the risk of stranger-rape is very low. I want to stress this, because it’s important that we get our facts straight – he is right about this. The risk of being raped by a stranger in Australia is low – you can see the statistics for yourself. But this misses the larger point that the risk of suffering sexual violence seems to me to me brain-crushingly high. The likelihood of suffering physical or sexual violence in your lifetime if you are a woman in Australia is higher than 1 in 2. That does not seem like a minimal risk to me, and it also seems to be a wholly valid reason for being nervous when you are anywhere, not just on the streets. As commenters to his piece pointed out, you can evaluate risk and go about your business at the same time – telling people not to be scared is hugely patronising and thought-policing – and if all women really thought all stranger men were rapists (rather than potential rapists), then they would never leave the house.

The thing is, telling people not to be scared also sends out another, more insidious message – you’re hysterical, you’re gullible, you’re making yourself into a victim, you’re weak, you’re overreacting.

Jill Meagher isn’t hysterical or overreacting. What Jill Meagher is is dead.

What will it take for you to believe our fears are valid? What will it take?

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

Or, self-determination in the age of multiple ideologies.

The Fawcett Society famously produces a t-shirt with the slogan, ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ emblazoned on the front. I love this t-shirt for many reasons – I love the idea of positive self-identification, of visibility, and of variance across the spectrum of that visibility – one of my favourite media images relating to this is the shot of Bill Bailey (hooray for Bill) wearing said t-shirt. Those who know me in meat life will know that I am a tattooed person, and this phrase is one that I seriously contemplate getting inked from time to time.

I also love it for a much simpler reason: truth. But that reason is also complicated (it was ever thus).

I want to use this post to talk about the difficulties in self-determining within feminism, but I would think it would apply to any other ideological stance. Basically, one of the ‘tenets’, if you like, of (western) feminism, and it is a very strong axiom, is that feminism means telling the truth about your own life, and (re)claiming that life (from the patriarchy) for yourself. I am not going to make this a history lesson, but this is essentially what Betty Friedan was trying to get at fifty-plus years ago. Society tells you that you belong to it; the kickback is that you can tell it to fuck the hell off (I may be paraphrasing here).

But there are two issues with this. The first is that the thin end of the wedge of the ‘it’s my life and I’ll do what I want’ mindset is isolated individualism. This is fine if you live in a cave, but generally ideology doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and if you are kicking against a hugely, overwhelmingly dominant ideology, you will need allies, with whom you broadly agree. Strong individualism can often be where faultlines appear in feminism – for example, there are pro-life advocates who self-determine as feminists. While I am absolutely all for free speech and opinion, this jars so uncomfortably with my idea of what feminism is that I have an extremely hard time accepting these people as feminists. And yet if that is what they say they are, who am I to disagree? I don’t ‘own’ feminism – in fact for me that would pretty much be the antithesis of the movement, so as a feminist I have to find a way to synthesise my unease at this kind of stratification with my overall aims (you know, nothing too ambitious, just dismantling the entire hegemonic system of patriarchy and smashing it into the dust with my righteous fists ).

The second issue, which is connected, is that the idea of individualism is a very western concept, which shuts out at the door other global definitions of feminism which, let’s face it, are going to be a far better fit for purpose in the culture they originated in than a post-colonial tacking-on of late 20^th century western ideas. I think we all know what kind of disasters lie down that road. Again, I have some personal ideological issues with this – for me, a woman in a niqab who says she is a feminist: this is hard to admit, but this would bother me, even if I am (rightly) ashamed to admit it. But I have to examine how much of that is just ingrained racism/cultural negativity (and a healthy dose of atheism) and how much fear of feminism’s very precarious gains being toppled. This is the line we all have to walk if we believe strongly in something – there will always be pushback from somewhere, and I think our task as good ideologists is to properly examine our own prejudices and adjust accordingly.

The pro-life advocate feminist may be coming from the angle that sex-selection abortion is profoundly anti-feminist – this is a valid point. The niqab-wearing feminist may be signalling her devotion to a higher power, rather than wordly authority – this too is a valid point. Neither path would ever be where my feminism is going to take me, but before I reject ‘other’ kinds of feminism, I would do better to listen to those alternative voices and what they actually have to say about their motives. This doesn’t mean I am being mealy-mouthed about what I believe – I am about as pro-choice as it is possible to get, and I am hugely against religion-based body-policing. But if I don’t listen to my sisters who think differently from me, then I am a crap feminist – because if these women are telling the truth about their lives, surely the best thing I can do is listen?

I’m going to finish this post with an anecdote. A few weeks ago I was out with friends for birthday drinks. As those who know me know, I am a bit of a glam girl – long hair, make up and high heels. I also happen to have stopped shaving my armpits back in April (for the record, I like it. If I didn’t, I would shave ‘em again). One of my friends noticed, and remarked upon it, and I made some sort of gag about flying the hairy flag for feminism. He was completely gobsmacked, and his words to me, and I quote, were “Fuck off! You aren’t a feminist, you’ve got lipstick on!”. Yes, we were drunk, and yes if we had been sober he would probably have been more articulate, but the whole thing just absolutely summed up for me why, despite its problems, we do need self-determination – because you don't get to define my feminism for me. That is so laughably anti-feminist that I don’t know where to begin!

 

But I do know one thing – my progressive liberal feminist self will continue to bear her hairy armpits and gnash her pearly whites behind the reddest of red lipstick for as long as she sees fit, and for as long as she sees fit to listen to the voices of others. As a very wise woman once sang, I know there is strength in the differences between us, and I know there is comfort when we overlap.

Tiddly Po(e)m

So, apart from my more, hem hem, political rantings, the purpose of this blog is hopefully twofold - I used to write a fair bit of poetry and indeed have a long-abandoned blog dedicated (haw) to this lofty aim. That blog is now defunct, but I feel a bit sorry for the poems, adrift in the ether of the internet. I thought they at least deserve a better home, so now and again I'll be posting them here - and who knows, maybe this will encourage me to start writing again?

A couple of years ago I was trying to tentatively flex my poetic muscles by seeing if I could successfully compose in various established styles, as up until then all I had really written was free verse. This was actually really good fun (#nerd), and this is one of those poems.

I was trying to mimic a kind of eighteenth century sensibility both in tone and form, although the sonnet form itself is older - it's Shakesperean sonnet form, with an iambic pentameter rhymescheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

I wrote it for my aunt, after we knew her cancer had come back, terminally. I never had the heart to give it to her at the time and I think I might have been right about that - it seems now to be to be too didactic. The living should probably not try to tell the dying what to think.

In any case, I thought it apt to publish today. It's my birthday, and I wish she was here to celebrate with me. On that note, I hope you enjoy.


In Language’s Infinity

In language’s infinity I saw
our own immortality, for what thing
could ever dispossess us of that law,
now I can see the threads to which we cling
dissolve as stones abraded by the rain
no longer disclose the names they cited,
whatever their incumbents’ sober pain.
Careful words are by erosion sited
just in advance of meaning’s careless drift;
our luck is to catch sight of some small part
in the brief gleaming of the motes’ slow shift;
and hope this lets enough into the heart
         to crack apart the vain eternal plea
         and grasp the brief and glorious finity.

Solidarity Does Not Undermine You

Last time I blogged I wrote about Twitter. I also wrote about some abject tomfuckery in relation to powerful male political figures' attitudes to rape. In the same week, the hashtag #menagainstrape began to trend. As you can see, if you have a quick look at the tweets underneath that hashtag, this had variable outcomes.

This New Statesman piece by Caroline Criado-Perez highlights some of the ambivalence that many had towards the hashtag - some welcoming it as a show of solidarity in a week where there was a whole fucking shitload of rape apologia going on, some bemoaning it as, variously:

• Obvious, as it is the 'default position' - ha ha, no-one actually supports or defends rape, right? RIGHT? Nope!
• Undermining of 'real' rape - well, I can tweet to that because I'm definitely against rape-rape. You know, the kind of rape I define on my terms. Yep, can defo get behind that.
• Making it ALL ABOUT THE MENZ - feminism needs us, man! They can't do it without us!

The NS piece chiefly discusses that last point - and I will get to that in another post for the sake of everyone's sanity - but I want to discuss the first two...er, first, because while I think there are nuanced arguments to be made about point three, for my money the most important aspect of this discussion is the first.

No-one actually supports or defends rape, right?

Of the innumerable tear-your-eyelashes-out-with-rage conversations I have had in pubs in or around the subject of feminism, this old chestnut gets hoarked out at almost every given opportunity. The default position is that every decent human being* automatically rejects rape, in the same way that they would reject murder, genocide, child abuse and other heinous crimes, and self-righteous flabbergastation follows when one deigns to suggest otherwise. But you know what? I don't fucking buy it. Whether or not you believe we live in a rape culture (full disclosure: I do, and I think those two posts absolutely fucking NAIL why, and how) it doesn't take long to remember that conversation you've had with someone, possibly one of your mates, where the phrase, "she was asking for it" was used. Or when you were at work and someone told a rape joke. Or when someone you know uses a term like "grey rape", "rape-rape", "real rape". Maybe you've used those terms too, or told one of those jokes, or defended a footballer or friend or public figure with some variation on the but she was asking for it line. I probably have too - as Billy Wilder once wrote, nobody's perfect, and no-one likes (to be) the humourless feminist, right lads?

My point is that saying things like that doesn't make you a rapist. Raping people makes you a rapist. But it sure as fuck doesn't pitch you against rape. If you are using the she was asking for it line, in a conversation about rape, then you are defending rape. If you are qualifying terms, such as "rape-rape", then you are supporting rape, because in effect what you are saying is that only some rapes count as rape. In fact what we do in culture and society is defend and support rape all the goddamned time - when we use the term 'sex-scandal' when reporting on a rape case, when we can't believe that someone whose work we admire and like is a rapist, when we, over and over and FUCKING OVER again, blame victims for their own assaults. This is not a society which is against rape. So the argument that we don't need to state we are against something because it is axiomatically true for all humans? All that is is bullshit - comforting bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless.

Rape-Rape, or Where do you Stand on the Rape Apologist's Sliding Scale of Bullshit?

Ah, rape-rape. Helpfully coined by Whoopi Goldberg (you broke my heart there, Whoopi), during a discussion about Polanski, the idea behind this is that some rapes are worse than others. I believe the logic goes something like: the crime of rape exists on a scale which has, for example, waking up to find a current sexual partner's penis inside you at one end, and a violent attack which leaves victims badly physically hurt or even dead at the other. The implication is that events that happen near one end are not as serious as events that happen at the other. On the face of it, this is difficult to dispute - most people would agree that ending up dead is a worse outcome than not ending up dead (euthanasia notwithstanding).

But it isn't really as simple as that. The truth is that every crime is different, and of course there will be some instances of, say, robbery, which end in violent death, and some which end in losing a tenner. The actual point is that the shared element is the crime element. Rape is a crime, we have laws to say so and define it, and sentencing guidlines which take into account the 'severity' of the crime. That is to say, rape is a crime and anything on that scale is rape. It doesn't actually matter if you think one example is 'worse' than another - it is all rape. Its position on the scale does nothing to legitimise it either way - it is rape. The scale also isn't exactly kind to victims, as it implies that there is a kind of Pain Olympics going on with rape - which is just? Fucking gross and wrong. If you have been raped, any feeling you have is legitimate (including not being affected).

So that's the issue I have with the idea that a hashtag, which is throwaway and perhaps lacking gravitas, somehow undermines 'real' rape. Because if you've been raped? I think that makes it very fucking real.


Solidarity Does Not Undermine You

To conclude, the point of my tirade here is that I support men tweeting to the #menagainstrape hashtag, because I do see it as a massive show of solidarity. Both of those words are important. The solidarity goes without saying - because for men** to recognise that there is a problem, with rape apologia and with rape itself, is a huge show of recognition to the victims of rape. It is saying, we believe you. It is saying, we call this shit out. It is saying, this shit is fucking disgusting. I am unapologetically ALL FOR THAT.  And the second word is important precisely because of it being a show - it is visible. Making your solidarity visible is hugely important, because it means people can see who their allies are. And you know what happens when you ally yourself to something else? It makes you stronger, not the opposite. #menagainstrape, your solidarity does not undermine you.










* However the bejesus we define that.
** I know there are a whole bunch of people who will point out - quite rightly - that men are not the only gender which perpetrates sexual assault. But as you can see from the links underneath the Wiki entry (more reliable than Wikipedia itself, for obvious reasons), they are in the overwhelming majority of assailants - as high as 99% in some social data surveys.