I’ve just been getting very hot under the collar in an online debate on the question of whether or not the niqab and burqa should be banned. I found myself pissing in the wind, arguing against the ban in the face of a deluge of heated opposition, with most posters adamant that the niqab and burqa are abhorrent affronts to women’s rights.

I’m not entirely unsympathetic to their concerns. Yes, I loathe the attitude that women have a duty to cover themselves up, that merely by existing, by having breasts and legs and faces, they are a sinful temptation to men and responsible for men’s lust and actions. I cringe and want to punch the wall with anger when I hear some Muslim women justify the wearing of their particular form of “modest” dress on the grounds that “If you left a piece of meat unwrapped on the kitchen table, you wouldn’t blame the dog if he ate it, would you?” I don’t know how women can collude in their own objectification and excuse their own abuse in this way.

But I don’t believe you can ever emancipate women (or any other group) by dictating to them what they can or cannot do.

Nor, in a Western European context, do I buy the argument that a ban on the burqa and niqab is necessary to prevent women being coerced into wearing these garments against their will. Time and time again, I see people on messageboards and online debates blithely claiming that obviously no woman would ever choose to wear the niqab or the burqa and the vast majority must have been forced by their families. Actually, scores of studies have shown that the majority of burqa- and niqab-wearers in Western Europe voluntarily chose that form of dress and in many European countries the vast majority of women opting for the extreme forms of covering are converts, who don’t even have a Muslim extended family. It seems to me that the kneejerk circular argument that so many people resort to when this topic comes up – “I think the burqa is oppressive, therefore I can’t imagine that any woman would freely choose to wear it, therefore any woman who does wear it must have been forced to do so (regardless of what she says or the overwhelming evidence that most European burqa-wearing is voluntary), therefore it must be oppressive” – is insulting to both women and Muslims, patronisingly pigeonholing both groups as easily-brainwashed patsies who are incapable of making an informed, independent choice.

I’ve also met the argument that, while European burqa-wearers may choose the garment to make an extremist point, they are immature poseurs, irresponsibly promoting a garment which is mandatory in many Middle Eastern countries and thus making the oppression of women in those countries more culturally acceptable. But it seems to me that legally prohibiting the full veil on those grounds is equivalent to banning T-shirts with pictures of Che Guevara or other communist iconography or slogans, on the grounds that it is legitimising the oppression and human rights abuses in undemocratic communist countries like Burma. I don’t see that the fact the people in one part of the world are forced to accept a practice against their will ever justifies curtailing the freedom of expression of people in another part of the world – even if they use that freedom of expression to show support for undemocratic or oppressive regimes.

I also refuse to accept that wearing the niqab or the burqa is always about accepting a view of women as the temptress that needs to be hidden for decency’s sake and to protect men from their uncontrollable urges. For some women, it is more a pragmatic choice – they don’t believe that in an ideal world they should have to cover themselves up, but while we live in a culture where many men still believe they have the right to vocally appraise any female stranger on the street and where many people, male or female, judge women on their looks in a way that they do not judge men, covering themselves is a way of preventing that and reframing social encounters in their own terms.

Then, of course, there are Muslim women who now choose to wear the full veil because they are fed up with the way that the Muslim world has been attacked and stigmatised since 9/11. Watching the west bomb the crap out of Muslim countries and seeing even the most moderate of their faith publicly branded as potential terrorists may have made them more willing to visibly assert their faith and stick two fingers up at mainstream British society in a way that they did not do before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just do not accept that every women who wears a full veil is doing so because she sees herself as a sinful temptress or a piece of meat.

My main reason for opposing a ban on the full veil, though, is that, at gut level, the idea of any woman being forced to reveal a part of her body when she doesn’t want to – whatever her reasons – appals me. I see little difference between a law insisting that a woman must reveal her face and a law insisting that she must reveal her tits. For me, central to the notion of women’s rights is the idea of bodily autonomy. When I read men arguing that they have the “right” to see the faces of women they pass in the street I feel as offended as when I hear women comparing their bodies to a piece of meat that should not be left unwrapped on the kitchen table.

The recent ruling of the employment tribunal in the case of former Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly is a double cause for celebration: not only does it send out a welcome message that the law will support older women who feel they have been thrown on the scrap heap for no good reason, but, at first sight, it also seems to have been a landmark case in terms of wider social attitudes. It has been interesting and gratifying to note that many socially conservative media outlets which usually dismiss campaigns for women’s rights as “political correctness gone mad” have backed O’Reilly to the hilt on this.

O’Reilly is, of course, not the first older female presenter to gain public sympathy and support after being ditched or passed over for promotion by the BBC: the dropping of Arlene Phillips as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the end of Moira Stewart’s career as a television newsreader and the decision to hire Toby Buckland as the main presenter of Gardener’s World rather than promote Carol Klein after Monty Don’s decision to take time out after

 a stroke all caused widespread public disquiet. In the case of Gardener’s World, viewing figures dropped alarmingly after the BBC’s decision to “refresh” the show by marginalising its older female presenter, so if the BBC really does believe that the public wants its factual programming to be anchored exclusively by young, sexy presenters, then it seems to be mistaken. Nonetheless, the media kerfuffle over the Countryfile case seems to have taken the public indignation at the treatment of older women on screen to a new level.

I’m not sure, though, that the widespread public goodwill to O’Reilly necessarily indicates a new dawn of woman-friendly attitudes in society. Many of the normally reactionary, normally anti-feminist voices who have spoken out in O’Reilly’s favour are doing so because they perceive this primarily as an issue of ageism, not one of sexism (a view apparently shared by the employment tribunal itself, which, while upholding her claim for age discrimination, rejected her accusations of sex discrimination – rather puzzlingly, since they themselves acknowledged that women are more vulnerable to this kind of age discrimination than men). I suspect that, in many cases, the powerful tugs of middle-class and middle-age tribalism have merely temporarily overcome a deeper distrust of the feminist agenda.

Moreover, in many of these cases of age discrimination which have captured the public imagination, it is younger women in the media industry who have been cast as the villain. In the Strictly Come Dancing row, for instance, Alesha Dixon bore the brunt of the public backlash, not the TV executives who chose to hire her or her male co-presenters. It seemed that both her supporters and Phillips’s accepted unquestioningly that there was room for only one token woman on a panel of four judges – they merely disgreed on what type of woman it should be. That perhaps there was a place for both Phillips and Dixon on the judging panel didn’t seem to cross anybody’s mind.

It seems that, increasingly, any woman in factual programming or TV journalism who happens to be under 45 and passably attractive is dismissed as an “autocutie” who can’t possibly have a brain or any relevant experience for the job she is doing. Fiona Bruce, Emily Maitlis and Katie Derham all have Oxbridge degrees, but you wouldn’t know it, from the constant sniping about “sexing up and dumbing down” that female newsreaders face.

The Madonna/Whore dichotomy appears to be alive and well in broadcasting, with audiences apparently believing that a woman can be a young hottie or an authoritative expert, but not both. While the BBC management seems to think that women exist only as eye candy and should be banished from the screen as soon as they fail to set heterosexual men’s pulses racing (and even then they fail to recognise that older women can be “hot”, too), that a woman who is not young and sexy has no right to be on TV, large sections of the audience and media who oppose the BBC’s attitude seem to fall into the opposite error, of believing that a woman who is young and sexy has no right to be on TV.

Why can’t women be treated as people, as subjects, whose sexiness or lack of is purely an incidental factor, as it is for men, rather than a defining feature of their worth?

Nonetheless, I still feel that, as a society, we are making progress, slow though it may be. I remember when Angela Rippon and Anna Ford began their careers as newsreaders in the 70s there was much comment in the press to the effect that no woman could ever have enough “gravitas” to be an appropriate person to present the national news. I don’t think many people would seriously argue that today. And voices like those of Nick Ross (who has commented that O’Reilly’s sacking was justified, because it is “natural” for people to be attracted to older men but younger women) and Cristina Odone (who has brought up that old chestnut about this legal ruling harming women’s employment chances, as it will make media employers more wary of hiring female presenters in the first place if they know they won’t be able to sack them on a whim) seem to be being treated with the ridicule that they deserve.

I know that it is true that the media is a rarefied world and that O’Reilly’s victory does not necessarily improve the lot of ordinary women outside that charmed circle, but O’Reilly winning this verdict is still, in my view, a lot better than O’Reilly not winning that verdict.

In the spirit of sisterhood and women friendly spaces, some friends and I recently had a women and children only weekend and piled into one house for a night of cooking, chatting, recharging and connecting. Between us we had 4 school age children, one baby, three dogs and a lot of catching up to do. It was brilliant- the power of strong female friendship is something I’m starting to really appreciate as I head towards my thirties. The only dent in the weekend arose on the Sunday morning. The children were watching TV as we sat round drinking tea and trying to come too, and then an advert break came on. There were about 8 adverts in this break which occurred on a national TV channel, during a Sunday morning kids program. The adverts were highly gendered- 4 aimed at girls and 4 at boys. There wasn’t a single advertisement which wasn’t obviously gendered. The adverts didn’t even feature a single child of the opposite gender, if you catch my drift.

So, that was infuriating point number one. Infuriating point number two can be found in the types of products aimed at girls and boys. Aimed at girls were kits to make soap, fridge magnets, a doll and a toy kitchen. Aimed at boys were two types of skateboard/scooter, a gun and a set of armed forces action figures and vehicles. The clearly gendered division of those adverts can be broken down to indicate that girls make things- useful things no less, and care for others; boys do physical activities and engage in strategic and destructive games which train them to engage in ‘manly’ pursuits.

If this is what we’re teaching children with the toys we buy them then really we’ve not come that far in terms of gender equality. Boys can care and make things as nicely as girls, girls can be as physical as girls. To suggest otherwise is to further participate in a mysogynistic culture which harms children of both genders.

So the headlines blazing across the Sunday Papers was the story of how the Coalition intend to ‘make’ benefit claimants do unpaid work for a specific period or risk losing their benefits. At first glance it seems a good idea, being out work takes it toll on your mental state, so why not do some unpaid work whilst looking ? Firstly, job hunting takes time, the internet searches, the rehashing of the C.V and even the time to travel to employment agencies (as my favourite champagne socialist Polly Toynbee found out and expressed in Hard Work). Secondly,  most people already do unpaid work, its called voluntary work which, if you’re lucky enough not to had to trudge to the dole before, you have to declare as part of your job hunting plan, but you’re not allowed to do ‘too much’ voluntary work nor state that you have made  a fixed time commitment less it stop you from landing a ‘proper’ paid job. So , if the government makes you do unpaid work because you are guilty of  the crime to be out of work in the middle of  double dip recession what gap are you filling? Why! the gap made by public spending cuts, think tank genius! The third sector is awash with recent graduates, the long and short term unemployed already,  so I can only presume that the newly unemployed  (fresh from the spending cuts, low level civil servants , librarians etc) are going to fill the gaping gaps left by the shrinking state. However, there is another kind of unpaid work done by nearly half of the planets population that the Coalition government never mention, a gap that is always filled due to social construction and that is the unpaid domestic labour provided by Women.

According to to a paper commissioned by the UN, the unaccounted economic activities performed by women include:-

• Cleaning, decoration and maintenance of the dwelling unit
• Preparation and serving of meals
• Care, training and instruction of children
• Care of sick,infirm or old
• Transportation of the household’.

Sound familiar? All that day to day stuff you do is worth nothing to the government and my argument is that it should be for several reasons. Firstly, these unaccounted activities are presumably unpaid because financial sustenance comes from a partner or the state, which as everyone knows is complete rubbish. Only the elite and upper middle classes can survive on one wage per household.  Single mothers live on a pittance and even when in work often end up hovering just above the poverty line . Secondly we also have to factor in the concept that women’s work is a relic of the industrial revolution,-  the Woman offers emotional and maternal support to the man who ‘is’ the wage slave ( the Women being a non economical unit). This concept is problematic now as Woman in this country have long been visible in the public sphere and now Woman  finds she is a wage slave Herself but but still endures the double burden. This is  nothing compared to our Sisters in developing countries but non-the-less, equal,sexist free Britain? Thirdly even if you don’t have children, Women are socially immersed into ideals of being this caring, nourishing being, via the media (domestic goddess that can whip up a four course meal in 10 minutes,drop everything for your friends, look out for your neighbours). Women have always been the volunteers that filled the gaps left by the state’s policies, the PTA’s that raise money for schools (mostly women), the coffee mornings for charity, Women activists that march and lobby at grassroots level , keeping your eye on that neighbour who you know is taking abuse from their  ’other half’, saying hello and engaging in conversion with an elderly person who you know, probably hasn’t spoken to anyone all day. If I where to categorize our ‘unaccounted economic activities’ as paid work then the list would be this;Nanny,Counselor,Lobbyist,Community worker,Fund-raiser,Chauffeur, PR,Carer, Nutritionist, Personal shopper. All validated, trusted positions,  economically viable but not so if the work is unpaid.If as the DaveCam puts it we are ‘all in this together’ then why is unpaid ‘domestic labour’  economically irrelevant in these days of the Big Society? We fill the gaps!

Did you notice that last week the fire service threatened to strike on bonfire night? The New Statesman posed the question is it an abuse of power? No actually its not, it strikes at the heart of the public’s fear of unsafety. So why is it that Womens strike day this year was largely ignored by the media? Well you know why,Women in the west are still seen as unpaid labour, economically irrelevant, whining when we have so called political rights.If we were were to strike, can you imagine the gap?  This is what I say, mind the gap left by Women, the void is too vast to cross safely, society would as we see it would crumble. Women fill the void left by the shrinking state , unpaid work for women claimants creates a triple burden. Marx once wrote’ We stand on the shoulders of giants’ but that’s rubbish we all stand  on the shoulders of women and society is taught that those strong shoulders are irrelevant because of a chromosome. MIND THE GAP!

A call for papers comes via the Filament magazine FB page, Feminst Porn Studies is looking for papers between 3000 and 7000 words from both sex industry workers and academic writers.

Oxford University’s Left Review is looking for submissions for Issue Three, which gives you two weeks to submit if you have any sociological, radical politics or economics papers.

When it comes to Filament magazine, I’m still in two minds about it. Yes, I like looking at sexy men and yes Ii think women should be able to access porn if they want to.  What I can’t actually bridge is the gap between the following-  when did I start thinking it was OK to view men as sex objects when most feminist thought dictates that women must not be seen purely as sex objects? Surely as a result,  neither should men.  What is this female gaze discussion all about?

The female gaze can be seen as  binary to the male gaze, but how do we truly know what the female gaze is?  If it is the  opposite to the male gaze then where is the space for Lesbians and Trans men? I know that all men do not not desire the slim blonde identikit archetype offered by the media, and all women do not desire the chiseled  jaw six pack ‘hunk’ also offered by the mainstream.  Nor are all women ‘secret bisexuals’, so why are the main images in this magazine oiled up and laid out for the ladies pleasure?

As a critic of post-feminism, I could simply say that this is  a new and improved way to control women’s sexuality, to mould us as sexually subservient to men. Don’t be fooled by embracing the so-called power of what I truly think the female gaze is . The male gaze is digested in the consciousness of women, who then internalise and invert this gaze because ultimately  men have power. To seize this power you must be seen as this veracious, ironic being who sees women as the media do- as a consumable product . Ariel Levy in her excellent investigation ‘ Female Chauvinist Pigs’ explores this notion within both heterosexual and homosexual culture and illustrates this perfectly.

As a woman in the ‘real’ world, having been socially conditioned to what is ‘hot’ and what is not (lets not be naive here), maybe Filament is a good  thing. I enjoy reading the feeds on FB  asking for what kind of image the readers would like to see ( I can’t help but think that it may sink into a readers boyfriends/husbands expo).  Most of the articles are pretty good and I don’t think I’d ever put it under my bed to avoid detection. That said, can any sexual objectification ever be justified?

I’m passionate about music and waste away far too much of my time surfing internet music sites and I’m wondering if I’m the only one who regularly seethes at the way that female musicians and fans are often marginalised and humiliated in the fan community?

One expression that’s doing my head in at the moment is “girls’ band”, which seems to be routinely hurled as an insult by male fans of one group at a rival group. The principle seeming to be that if too many girls like a band, that automatically proves that it’s a rubbish band with no credibility, as girls don’t understand music and have no taste.

All too often, on music message boards and forums there appears to be a widespread assumption that if a woman keenly follows a male musician, it can’t possibly be because she understands or appreciates his music, it must be because she fancies him.

This is strange, given that most of the time women get told that only men are visually stimulated and that (if we’re heterosexual) it’s natural for us to choose a partner for his nice personality, not his looks, otherwise we’re “superficial” and “mean”. And yet, when it comes to pop musicians, we apparently become raging balls of hormones who fork out oodles of money for CDs and concert tickets, regardless of the musical content, merely because we can’t resist being swayed by a pretty face. Even if the musician concerned is the wrong side of 50 and looks like Mr Potato Head.

Of course, I’m exaggerating a bit, here. I have also interacted with male music fans on the internet who have been courteous, friendly and genuinely interested in what I and other female fans had to say. But all too often, as elsewhere on the internet, anything posted by a user with an obviously female-sounding user name gets ignored, while exactly the same point made by a male fan a few posts later gets rapturously applauded and fawned over for its wisdom and perceptiveness.

And it’s not just female fans that get patronised or ignored, it’s female artists, too. One male artist I particularly like recently collaborated with a female singer/songwriter. I wasn’t at that point familiar with her work, but I knew she was respected in the industry for her technical proficiency (she was classically trained) and had gained critical acclaim for her debut album, which had been considered daring and innovative. Which of these aspects of her work might have drawn my favourite musician to work with her? Intrigued, I logged onto a fan forum devoted to him, to see what other fans thought.

“Do you think he’s fucking her?” was one of the first suggestions posted by male fans pondering this question, followed by a lengthy discussion of her physical attributes and a debate about whether other male fans would do her, as well, had they the chance. That a male musician might wish to work with a female musician because he was genuinely excited about her work or looked up to her as a songwriter or instrumentalist apparently didn’t even occur to them.

You would think that female artists might at least be safe from sexism from their own fans. You know, fans? People that allegedly like the artist? Alas, no.

While visiting a blog devoted to a little-known, long-deleted female indie singer, I was surprised to see that one male fan had confidently, but completely wrongly, attributed the writing of all three of the artist’s (self-penned) albums to her male accompanist. The most worrying thing is that he seemed a pleasant chappy who was obviously devoted to the artist in question and clearly hadn’t meant it offensively – when corrected on his assumption by another fan, he apologised, explaining “I read somewhere that he played the keyboards on her albums and I was led to the wrong conclusion that he had written her songs”. Well, yes, easy mistake to make, he had a Y chromosome, he was somewhere on the record…a far more “obvious” conclusion, apparently, than that the woman with her name on the front of the sleeve might be capable of a little creative autonomy.

This widespread tendency of fans and journalists to underestimate the creative input of female artists to their own work has been remarked on by many well-known musicians, including Sharleen Spiteri:

“No one ever wants to give the credit. There has to be a man up there pulling the strings.”

and Bjork (thanks to my friend Yoana for pointing this quotation out to me):

“I have had this experience many, many times that the work I do on the computer gets credited to whatever male was in 10 meter radius during the job. People seem to accept that women can sing and play whatever instrument they are seen playing, but they cannot program, arrange, produce, edit or write electronic music.”

Still, if even the god-like genius that is Bjork gets subjected to this kind of crap, perhaps it’s some small comfort to the rest of us, next time our opinions and ideas are belittled because of our gender, to know we’re in such exalted company.

Friends sometimes tell me it’s pointless getting worked up over something so trivial, that there are bigger battles to be fought, that in the scheme of things it doesn’t really matter that much whether my opinion on electropop gets listened to or not. But, for me, this is symptomatic of attitudes elsewhere – just another part of the everyday process whereby women’s experience is marginalised and women’s intellect, expertise and creativity doubted in our so-called “post-feminist”, “gender-neutral” society. And that’s what makes me seethe.

Warning: This post may be triggering for Sexual Violence survivors.

Standing up to a ‘minor’ sexual assault.

Picture the scene:  you’re a woman who is gaining confidence in who she is and what she does. Upon entering Higher Education (something you never ever thought you had the brains for) you find yourself looking at the top spot on the student union and thinking to yourself  ‘I can do that’ . You run for office, you succeed. The college administration has respect for you because you unearth diplomatic skills you never thought you had, students like you because everything gets sorted and at the top of your ‘to do list’  is student welfare, every single time.

You help to organise the end of year  ball, and  you dress up-  not in a posh frock, but in a ringmaster’s costume (because some wag said the student union was a circus). You turn up to the ball,  and naturally people want to talk to you and take photos because you are one of the few that has turned up donning fancy dress. You have a couple of drinks and go outside for a cigarette.

Its dark outside but that doesn’t matter this place is familiar to you, it is safe. Suddenly you feel someone place their hand on your arse and stroke right across the cheek. You turn around to see someone you barely know, another student. You tell them to ‘fuck off’ . The person towers over your five foot six small frame by at least a six inches. You figure the verbal warning was enough but the person takes it as a challenge and proceeds to do it again. Again you tell them to ‘fuck off’!  The person explains that you must be ‘up for it’, otherwise why would you be talking and joking with every one?  Why would you be in fancy dress?

You don`t move from your position because it’s the only way you can show you won’t be cowed. It happens again, then a male friend comes around the corner and the person runs off. You try and shake it off , after all, you’ve worked in bars for years and put up with all sorts of sexist shit, but this time it feels different-  the experience was threatening.

You shrug it off and drink some more and get back to the ball but you find yourself unwittingly clinging to your male friend. You find yourself talking to your male friend outside and then suddenly the perpetrator comes walking past you and  addresses your friend saying that you’re a ‘slag’ and asking  ‘what are you doing with THAT mate?’  Next thing you know you’re cleaning blood off someone who has tried to help the perpetrator,  after he decided to put his head through a glass door.

You wake up in the morning and realise the danger that could have occurred!  How can the behavior of this individual go unpunished? He`s clearly a danger to women and to himself what do you do? Your best friend advises you to call the police and register a complaint; you were touched without consent in a sexual manner and also verbally abused.

The next day you are visited by a lone male police officer, you give your statement and hand over clothes for DNA analysis. You feel foolish, like you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, after all you’re thirty something tough cookie, you put it to the back of your mind and get on with things.

You explain what happened to your boyfriend, he`s sorry that it happened, it wouldn’t have happened if he was there, then if not me who would it of happened to? Would they have handled it the same way as me, what if my friend hadn’t walked around the corner , what if I was by myself when the verbal assault happened? No-one would have seen, they were all inside. Had he done this before ? Why didn’t I move? What if?  What if?

You go to the shops you start to see tall skinny men just like him, is it him? Your heart quickens and you freeze- what do you do if it is him? You walk through the park, see tall skinny men, is that him? What do I do?

You examine in detail what you are wearing, you dress down more than usual, a bit less make up, looser jeans. But then you look in the mirror and you realise it’s stupid- it’s not about what you wear.  In fact it’s not about you at all. It’s about him.  It’s not about sex it’s about power. He didn’t get what he wanted and he put his own head through a glass door.  This guy has serious problems but that’s not my concern. I want to stop being scared of what ifs .

I talk about it with close friends,  and the more I talk about it, the more I get angry, the more I want to get some people to go after him and kick the shit out of him. The rational part of me says it won’t solve anything. But what will happen? Will the police take it seriously? The P.C informs me that he believes me and he is reporting to a sexual assault ‘Tzar’ in the Thames Valley Police.  Why does a PC need to tell me that he believes me?  I’m smart, I’m in a position of trust, I don’t normally display intense emotional responses with complete strangers. I said I was willingly to take it to court without having certain protections such as a video link, instead of appearing in court in person. I know I’m right to report this I’ve never called the police in my life but I know deep down this individual has to stop and examine what he’s doing and what he thinks is normal behavior to females.

I go and report this to the principal ,she’s behind me one hundred percent as are two of my tutors , I find a different response with the third tutor who implies that I’m aggressive.  Aggressive how? Ok, I’m forceful but that’s my personality and anyway isn’t that a cop-out? Aggressive personalities don’t deserve to be sexually assualted anymore than anyone else. Examining my personality, this tutor knew me and knew that deep down I wouldn’t have taken such steps if I thought it was just a bit of `party banter’.

I go to the women’s officer, a Marxist feminist, and explain the situation and how I’m feeling. I was seeking support in bringing the case to the college authorities- I know he’s done this to other women on campus who for their own reasons won’[t speak up. The next thing I know its all about him according to our ‘Feminist’Womens Officer ‘well he is from a council estate you know’.  Erm…well so am I and believe me most males from a council estate would never act like that. Yeah I know he`s got problems but does that make it ok to act out in a sexually aggressive manner? A male friend of mine commented that every pat on the back side from a male to a female has two thousand years of patriarchy behind it. Well I never think that deeply I just thought the situation was bang out of order.

The P.C rang me up ‘we nicked him’.  Great.  Now what?  When questioned (after a night in the cells) he claimed that  ‘it was that sort of night…it was banter..I thought she’d be ok with it’. He claimed the time between taking photos and chatting was immediately prior to the assault. In short his word against mine, and therefore the CPS won`t take it up. ‘Well at least he got a night in the cells, that’s not very nice’ said the PC. No mate, but neither was the self evaluation, the anger, the fear and the retrospection. The feeling that no matter how much I gain confidence there’s always a patriarchal pat on the backside that can make me question my personality, my appearance and what  makes up my identity.

Apologies to all for lack of posting on the site , Suzi and myself have been going through last term of  academic year hell and I’ve also made myself a glutton for punishment and been voted in as  Student Union President (again).

Pursuing my interest in the doctrine (or non doctrine) of anarchy, particularly the action, or non action of  forum use and the ‘feeling’ that being, in these anarchist forums is to them, a space of free thinking (or, to use Hakims Beys definition, a ‘ temporary autonomous zone‘)  I started a thread on an online anarchist community. So far so good. In a second year of degree act of stupidity I made too good an argument, leading to a situation where the forum users just blankly agreed with me.

Thing is, I used an androgynous handle (name) so I decided to stir things up a little and reveal explicitly that I was female-  can you guess what happened dear reader? Yep, the thread wasn’t pulled, but, my explicit reply was!  I  e-mailed the sites administrator to ask why my reply was pulled and  he replied that my mentioning radical womens squats ‘marginalised’  a lot of the forum users!  I’m sorry I forgot there are no female anarchists! My topic was valid and a useful talking point, oh, pat on the head for me then for being clever, erm WTF?

I’hm not immune to the notion that there is inerrant sexism in the world and on the net ,I just thought that there may be a little less sexism  on the net.  The net is a place of deception as well as a place of truth telling and yes you could argue that my handle gave no clue to my gender, but should it matter  on an anarchist website? In an anarchist utopia we are all equal and not subjected to the mindless actions of blokes in balaclavas smashing up shop windows and ‘us’ women keeping the collective home fires burning. We are elders as we always (and have been ignored for many a generation and governmental policy) have been within the collective, just as men pass on their wisdom, so do women.

I know I may sound naive but I really feel that this is 2009, I’m a working class, single parent woman and I am  free to be educated, select partners etc, however, I have to also acknowledge that  I’m blonde ,’skinny’, white with technological advantage.  I have to acknowledge this privileged in off-line life , but do I have to on-line? Why, if the Internet is a virtual space where everyone is supposedly equal am I bombarded with adverts for pink computers, dating sites and online bingo halls? Its time to campaign against on-line sexism as well as offline sexism.

I watched the last episode of Pulling. It was ok at times its quite sexist towards men. However,  hey how many times to you see a BBC programme where the women get the funny lines?

I`m reading ‘The Dispossessed’  by Ursula K.Le Guin. Anyone else read it? I’ll do a review in a few weeks time.

Ever felt your money wasn`t good enough when you walk in a shop?  Or been completely patronised, ignored or at worst treated like the only customer in the shop because of your sex? If you’re a woman then yes, let’s see if your experiences match mine.
I was in an upmarket pub/restaurant a while ago with Suzi and her partner, Lovely Admin, who is in fact, a dude. We ordered a lovely meal and were served by a waiter, who was sporting a recently received black eye. Incidentally, I mention the black eye because I thought to myself , if one of the waitresses had turned up with a black eye, would she have still been ‘allowed’ to work and to walk around and tell the tale of heroics associated with obtaining said black eye?  Would the reaction of the party of men lapping up this tale of a partner in distress, and the other partner obligingly stepping in to resolve the matter, and,  receiving ‘a good kicking ‘ for their trouble, have been the same if the waiting staff was female. Would they have assumed that a woman could of got into the same kind of scrap and not been the victim? No, I didn’t think so either.
Anyway, overpriced but delicious food was served,  and we argued about the bill as per usual.  Suzi slipped off to the loo and I requested the bill from the waiter. The waiter presented Lovely Admin with the bill – he then explained that I was paying  (well that’s what student loans are for sometimes!)-  and the waiter looked a little embarrassed and then presented me with the bill.
I went to P.C World with the express mission to buy a laptop, I was clued up enough to know exactly what I wanted because I hate to shop, I like to go in, make a purchase and get out. The laptop section was at the rear of the shop, and there was desk close by that seemed to be the ‘consulting desk’ .  Two suited men who had name tags on were discussing some important postmortem comparison notes from the night before, so I decide to just have a look over at the laptops to ‘show’  that I may wish to purchase one. Big mistake.  I saw that several customers, mostly men had decided to use the same tactic as myself,  except for some reason their use of the tactic had worked and said salesmen completely ignored me when I said ‘Hi ,could you help me?’ (apparently men don’t have to say that in shops).

After being ignored for a good ten minutes I decided to go over to one of the salesmen (who wasn’t with a customer) and say “I want to buy a laptop ,this model in fact’”.   I didn’t even get mid sentence as the salesman said ‘I’m just with a customer’ . “What what the hell am I ?”  I said . Obviously some kind of penniless ghost given the lack of service .
I went into an electronics shop (the geeky computer hobby kind of shop) to get a refund on an item that I’d mistakenly bought.  The (by now) inevitable wait to be recognized as a paying customer was remarkably quick as I’d learned that standing at the sales counter just wasn’t going to work, so I looked for the manager. I explained to the manager that I wanted a refund, I needed the next model up and explained (as it was a geeky tech shop) exactly what I did need and what I planned to do with it. The transformation in service was instantaneous; the manger summoned one of the sales staff to get the stuff I needed, transaction done big smiles all around.
Like I said you’ve probably had these kinds of experiences . I could put the first example down to be dressed like a scruffy student, but we were all dressed like scruffy students.
I could put the second experience down to being short with a chameleon like ability to blend into the background, except that, even with wishing to having the chameleon like superpower at times, I don’t.

I could put the third experience down to being an informed consumer who the staff was happy to interact with, except that I had to take steps before I could prove I was a ‘worthy’ customer.
All three experiences were, in my opinion,  down to gender socialised roles.  Men always pay and women don’t know anything about computers . I don’t get that sort of treatment on-line , I know there, that I’m an anonymous consumer and the only time the website requests my gender is to market the ‘pink’  products in their store,  so I avoid it .The only trouble is (call me old fashioned) I actually like to go to the shop, have a good look at the product and compare before I buy. Why should I have to be conscious of my gender when going into a shop and receive inconsistent degrees of service ?

Reading this article today, I sometimes find it hard to believe I live in the 21st century. Yet again, it’s an example of the commodification of sex, in the boundaries of a sexual relationship. This time as a ‘gift’,  rather than a bargaining chip orrevenge tactic .

“Hmm, what can I get my partner for their birthday?  Oh!  I know-  sex everyday for the next year !” When sex is gift wrapped, it is implied that it is paid for, made attractive and, ultimately,  only for the enjoyment of the recipient. Any comparisons between prostitution and the gift of sex is obvious. We all know that sex is important, but it is in fact,  a physical and emotional exchange between consenting adults and not something on a ‘to do’  list.

We all lead busy lives- there’s work , mundane day to day stuff to do and so on.  Should sex be seen as a item on a list to tick off ? I say no. On hearing experinces of couples trying to concieve they often say having sex to order, made sex just an act, a means to an end. Men and women often say they’d like more sex,  but is it because that is what the media portrays to us ?  If we aren’t having great sex and lots of it we are obvious inadequate and unattractive.  Is this why this woman decided to give her husband the gift of sex?