Why have girls done better than boys? How very dare they?!

A brief response to this tripe on the BBC website today. It asks the question: why are girls outperforming boys at GCSEs? There are many opinions proffered, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Ben from London suggests, for example, that feminism has created a slew of women who waited to have children and are now desperate to find a man who earns more than them to look after the children that they are equally desperate to have.

As a result the country is full of 30-year old childless women longing to meet a guy who earns significantly more than them so that they can settle down, but they can’t. Women are attracted to strong men who can provide security for their children, but, because men are no longer earning substantially more than them, they are having a hard time of it. This is the one failure of feminism, and both sexes are suffering as a result. Thoughts anyone?

Yes, Ben is clearly very enlightened and has nailed that debate for all of us (and has not veered off the point at all). When I meet and marry him, I just hope he’s earning more than me so that I can be looked after propa.

But now for some sense. Linda from Scotland is correct when she says:

It took women centuries to even have equal access to education, a right still denied to many in certain areas of the world yet it takes only a few years of the boys coming in second for questions to be asked. Maybe this is why girls do better – even at the age of 16 they have realised that equality does not really exist and they have to be proven to be better than their male counterparts to stand a chance of getting anywhere.

Yes! We live in a society where the very notion of women and girls achieving any sort of educational and economic success is still so abhorrent that, though boys out-performed girls for years, this new trend has everyone recoiling in horror and asking how the hell it was ever allowed to happen. Maybe girls are doing better now because they have to. With the amount of misogyny and discrimination they’re going to experience for the next 60 years more apparent than ever, they have to make sure at a young age that they have the tools to compete in the stakes. We should be congratulating these young women for their efforts and not lambasting them for trying to get above their station. Because, frankly, that’s all this debate is really about.

Tags: feminism, misogyny, women, sexism, education

Are there any no-go, research-not-allowed areas?

Attacking what academics choose to research and how they do it seems slightly odd to me. I have no romantic ideas about freedom of academic thought but I do suppose people end up researching general areas in general ways because they are drawn to them. I think of research as an endless stream of fairly random coloured bits that sometimes come together to fill in part of a big picture we will never comprehend. Time passes and the shapes we thought we had figured out change, but new research brings new bits of understanding.

This is a very interesting post from Laura Agustín about academic research and comes on the back of a comment by Julie Bindel who criticised the author’s research on sex workers stating that there “was a lot of terrible anthropological research concerning women in the sex industry, and that they should not be treated as an anthropological field research group”. Agustin counters the argument, in part, by suggesting that it is not only anthropologists who research sex worker, and that it may be that Bindel is criticising a certain research method (ethnography). Agustin asked the question: What does it mean to suggest any subject should not be researched? I ask the same question here.

As an academic researcher who conducts research with vulnerable people, I am constantly aware of the ethics of such research and the effect that the research may have on the participants. I am, after all, going into their world from a very privileged position and I have to ensure, for example, that the research is not exploitative of, or will cause any distress to, participants. Indeed, when researchers are seeking ethical approval for their work, one of the main stumbling blocks is around the effects of the study on potentially vulnerable groups. But does that, simply put, mean that there are, or that there should be, no-go research areas?

In short, are there areas/ groups that should not be researched? And why?

Tags: academia, feminism, research, science, sociology, women

You’ve turned your daughter into a SLUT!

There’s a new nightmare on the block for femisogynist moms. Now that they’re all grown up and settled down with teenage daughters of their own, they’re shocked to find out that the sexual empowerment they’ve been championing for decades has backfired on them. How has it backfired? Well, the femisogynist moms are finding out that sexual empowerment has really turned their daughters into slutty teens.

If you need a quick hit of misogyny and slut-shaming this Friday afternoon, look no further than this link.

Sexual liberation has made all our children SLUTS, don’t you know! The piece uses the word ‘empowerment’ in the same paragraph as the word ‘whores’ so quite obviously doesn’t know what it means. No, it’s clear that, from the author’s perspective, ‘empowerment’ is a very dirty word when it is related to women. Indeed, women are just dirty, period, this author thinks. (Oh, see what I did there! Filthy periods!) It’s ironic, given that she’s a women herself, but it wouldn’t be the first time. She’s terrified that women and girls can have any sort of sexual agency at all, and that they could possibly enjoy sex on their own terms. She would prefer it if women (but not men?) practised pre-marital abstinence, and fathers controlled their daughters’ (but not their sons?) sexual activity.*

But, ultimately, let’s face it, she’s wrong. Feminists don’t actually complain about their ‘slutty’ daughters because feminists don’t slut-shame. (We know that the author and her mates are able to do plenty enough of that already.) She’s mistaking a discourse about the hyper-sexualisation of young girls (which arises from the patriarchy and not, what she hilariously terms, ‘femisogynists’) for some sort of generational hysteria amongst women. Misogynists may certainly despise a woman for her sexual choices, but feminists most certainly do not.

–

* Because, after all, purity balls aren’t creepy at all.

Tags: despair, feminism, women, women's rights, social control, slut-shaming

Calling out Darfur is not racist

Violence, rape and little or no education is a fact of life for many women all over the globe. While the feminist movement took off in parts of the Western world, many women are still treated as second class citizens. Many endure violent daily events and manage to persevere and take care of their children in hopes of a better tomorrow.

This piece describes the 10 worst places in the world to be a woman. I’m not sure where all of the evidence for the list comes from (though some links are provided) but it contains the usual suspects nonetheless (DR Congo, Darfur etc.). We have all read in a variety of publications and forums what the piece claims, and there is little doubt that it’s factually correct. It does not make for happy reading.

There is some interesting discussion in the comments, however, that the article is faulty in a number of ways. First, it’s racist (because it “smacks totally of ‘look at all these stupid black/brown people with their backwards laws and regressive attitudes to women’”); second, it’s not constructive (because it does not discuss solutions to any of the problems), and third, it’s elitist (because it’s written in such a way that it makes westerners feel better about themselves and how enlightened they are).

I take those comments with a pinch of salt. For a start, I don’t think that the piece sets out to suggest solutions; rather, it presents a few facts about each country to raise awareness of the abuse of women. Also, there were no claims made in the article that westerners are any more or less enlightened than the inhabitants of the named countries, and I certainly did not get any feeling of smugness from reading it. But most importantly, it is a fact that what is written about these countries is true, and that the women living there ARE abused – at the hands of men – in ways in which we westerners will probably never understand. (Does that reflect cultural attitudes towards women in these countries? Possibly, or maybe even probably, but that doesn’t make the article racist.) Yes, there is misogyny and mistreatment of women in the west, as there is everywhere, but unsafe as I feel here sometimes, I’m certainly not at extreme risk of being gang-raped on the way to work every morning. If pointing out that fundamental difference between my life and the life of a woman in Haiti makes you uncomfortable, then you’re missing what’s really important here and that’s what’s happening to these women every single day. So let’s not shout racism when misogyny and hatred is the real issue here.

Tags: feminism, human rights, privilege, women, women's rights

Reading etc.

Please vote in my poll, dear people.

Tags: books, poll

Fear dictates Ireland’s abortion policy

I’m very much behind on my posts and have too many posts sitting in drafts waiting to be finished or, at the very least, cobbled together.

This piece which was recently published in the Guardian resonates greatly with me. As a pro-choice and pro-abortion women who has spent most of her life so far living in Ireland, I know that there is such a climate of fear around abortion there that pro-choice and pro-abortion women (and men) are often frightened to speak their mind about abortion. The anti-abortionists/ anti-choicers in Ireland are very powerful, and they of course have the full backing of the Catholic Church and, by extension, the Government and legal system. Nothing changes in Ireland unless the Church says it can change. But it’s more than just taboo; it’s an unspoken and pervasive acceptance that it is very unlikely that abortion will ever be discussed rationally, fairly and purposefully in Ireland in our lifetimes. The anti-choice movement has become so prominent there that it has become almost impossible to stand up for abortion rights.

It has always taken guts to stand up for abortion rights in Ireland, north and south of the border. Straight off, you’re likely to be hit by a slew of strident invective from the pro-life lobby, trailing pictures of aborted foetuses in their wake, and nameless bloggers will fall over each other to brand you a baby-murderer. Sure enough, the three women trying to overturn the Irish abortion ban in the European court of human rights were immediately accused on anti-abortion sites of having “travelled abroad to have their children killed”. … Why expose yourself directly to such hatred? Such nasty outbursts could be dismissed as so much ridiculous hysteria, were it not for the fact that the anti-abortion lobby, with its scare tactics, “prayer vigils” and wild accusations, has effectively been allowed to define the situation in Ireland, shifting the entire discourse on to moral grounds.

It’s not just the anti-choice movement which suppresses debate, however; it is the Church itself. I have had numerous discussions about abortion (see also, sex before marriage, divorce, homosexuality, race, women’s rights) with the more sanctimonious members of my family and they were quite enough to make me wary of who I get into discussions with in Ireland. In short, Catholicism is allowed to rule all of these debates, and the Catholic Church is allowed to stipulate who discusses what  and where in the public domain. If you agree with the Church, you have free reign to be as outspoken as you like; if you do not, you will shut up. And the religious right is always secure in the knowledge that nothing it has this backing from the Church.

But the real issue here is not necessarily the debate, or the lack it it; it’s about the women who are not still not allowed to make a choice about abortion in Ireland. And these women, as the piece states, continue to travel in their thousands every year to England to abort. If there’s one thing we know about abortion, it’s that women will access it – legally or illegally – and will travel to wherever it is available, despite the variety of costs. It is also not news that abortion is often a difficult, emotional, and traumatic experience. Forcing women (many of them very young) to travel many miles to an unknown place to abort is not only wrong but completely reprehensible and it’s about time the Government of Ireland had the courage to stand up to the Church for the sake of its electorate.

So the situation in Ireland remains in stasis. Those who are pro-choice continue to be unable to air their views in public, those who are anti-choice continue to bully and harass those with whom they disagree, abortion is still illegal, choice is not available, and women continue to lose.

Tags: abortion, catholicism, feminism, misogyny, social control, sociology, women

Women are happy to let feminists get bashed (Guardian)

Well ain’t that the truth?

Yes, it is.

For it is a lamentable idiosyncrasy of feminism that, unlike other rights movements – the campaigns against prejudice based on race, class, or sexuality – its beneficiaries take their emancipation and run. Many women will not even countenance the F-word, being prepared to concede only: “I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist, but…” But what? That I like being paid an equal wage, having the right not to get raped in marriage?

What the hell is that about?! Women who deny the importance of feminism, who openly abhor it as a movement, are happy to (nay, demand to) benefit from equal pay, the right to own property, the right to justice for domestic violence and rape, access to birth control and abortion, and the right to wear what they want and speak to whom they please. But feminism!? No. Feminists are just a bunch of hairy-arsed lesbians who are too angry to hold down a day job or a proper boy-girl relationship. Feminism is, it seems, irrelevant to so many.

Grow up, women! Feminism brought you all of the above, and continues to fight to maintain it and to bring you more. If you want to live in a world without feminism, go back 200 years where you were owned by your husband, chained to the sink (and the bed), disallowed a say in any Important Matters, and allowed to speak only when spoken to. If you really think that feminism is irrelevant to your life, live a week in 1790 and see how you get on. Alternatively, lift your prejudice, open your eyes, and applaud feminism for what it has given you instead of slapping it in the face.

Tags: despair, disgust, feminism, misogyny, sociology, women, women's rights

When ineffective satire = woman-hating

There are about 100,000 ways in which this video is absolutely filled with misogyny. Here’s a step-by-step guide for making your own.

• Start with the phony accent and inflection that will remind everyone just how stupid, vacuous and irritating women truly are.
• Then introduce an ‘ironic’ quest for beauty that will really drive that vacuousness home, and emphasise just how self-absorbed women can be.
• Then insert a series of jokes about filthy women and how they need to be scrubbed clean. (That’s literal and metaphorical, you see!)
• Finally, finish with a good healthy dose of slut-shaming, and be sure to throw in a whole host of tired jokes about women who work in the sex trade and how dirty, whoreish, ugly, laughable and reprehensible they are.
• Oh, and don’t forget to give yourself a massive pat on the back when you’re done, and remind yourself that because you’re so clever and important, you get to make an ‘ironic’ video about how above it all you are.

Because what’s really important in the world you live in is making assumptions about a life you clearly know nothing about and posting 2.5 minutes of rubbish on youtube at others’ expense. Good work. Sleep well tonight in your obliviousness.

Tags: despair, disgust, feminism, misogyny, satire, slut-shaming, women, women's rights

Anti-depressants now kill your unborn child

There’s one thing I’m tired of and that’s hearing how ‘research’ has found that anti-depressants are bad for you. (Do you know if you take them for too long, your limbs fall off one by one?) Every time I read such a finding, I think of Tom Cruise’s rant about anti-depressants and how evil they are. I mean, for the love of the Gods (of Scientology), if Tom Cruise says it’s wrong, we know it must be right.

Anyway, the latest anti-anti-depressants decree maintains that anti-depressants are linked with a higher risk of miscarriage. The study, which was conducted at the the University of Montreal, examined 69,742 women from a a pregnancy register compiled in Quebec, 5,124 of whom had had a miscarriage. Among these women, 5.5% had had at least one prescription for an anti-depressant during their pregnancy, compared with 2.7% of the control group (presumably, those who were not on anti-depressants). Researchers calculated that those women who were on anti-depressants had a 68% higher risk of miscarriage than those who were not, and concluded that the findings indicate that the risk was greater for women who used two or more classes of anti-depressants.

Now, I don’t know the details of how these researchers did their analysis, but I’ve done some statistical analysis myself in my time. I’m thinking that it’s fairly unlikely that the very small proportional difference between those women who miscarried who were on anti-depressants and those who were not (5.5% vs. 2.7%) would be statistically significant, never mind that the likelihood of the former miscarrying was 68% higher. The difference between the two is so marginal that I cannot see where they could have got 68%. They also have not indicated how many women who were not on anti-depressants miscarried or how may who were did not. There is a lot more going in here than you first think.

And ultimately, this isn’t about warning the medical fraternity of the dangers of anti-depressants, it’s about contributing further to the swell of ‘rules’ that come from the medical industry which dictate what women are and are not allowed to do with their bodies. They should breast-feed, they should not be given drugs during birth, they should eat greens, they should not have caffeine. The lists go on and on and your choice during your pregnancy is constantly mediated by what ‘science’ dictates to you to do. This latest decree is particularly dangerous, however, because depression during pregnancy is very common and it is considerably more serious and important to consider than the effects of the odd cappuccino. It’s all too possible that new research will be released next week which will refute these findings and carry with it another rule about pregnancy, but we have to wait for that with baited breath.

In the meantime, I’d like to see a study coming out which concludes that women know what’s best for their own bodies, whether they’re pregnant or not, and that the decisions on what they do with their bodies should be left to them.

Tags: academia, cynicism, feminism, research, science, social control, sociology, women, women's rights

In brief: overwhelming

Tags: politics, brevity, war