"... what can be done to make it less unpleasant for young women to report these atrocities, to provide a more supportive environment for those who have been violated like this, and to make it more likely that bastards like these will be caught?"

(picture by Jackie Fleming for the Truth about Rape)

• Firstly, she's lucky that anyone believed her, as she'd been having underage sex, making her a slapper at risk of teenage pregnancy and him a wide boy, doing well for getting his end away so young; already her status is lower than his.
• She broke up with him, and then insulted him, diminishing him in the eyes of his peers; many would find his reaction understandable, even if they didn't condone it, because rape is about asserting power, not about sex.
• They'd already been having sex for a period of time, so even though she had broken up with him and even though she didn't want it, many might think that it didn't make much difference, once more didn't matter.
• She was 15, out on her own; it might be argued that she shouldn't have been.
• Having sex with a woman while one's mates look on has been popularised by "roasting" sessions involving footballers and female fans, whether they consent or not, and where there have been allegations of abuse, no-one has been prosecuted; again, this normalises the situation in a society obsessed with celebrity, and makes it clear that rape is a low-risk activity.
• The popularisation of "date rape" as opposed to normal rape also sends this message that the act isn't really rape, and the media furore about the naming of men accused of rape sends the message that many women make up accusations of rape, thus making it less likely that she will be believed, causing her to exercise self-censorship and not report, and thus diminishing the possibility of negative consequences for him.
• Even were he to end up in trouble, he could rely on at least some of the police, the CPS, the judge, the jury and the lawyers holding attitudes that disadvantage her and privilege that nice young man, coached and scrubbed up well, in the interview room or (unlikely, but it does happen) in the dock.
• No doubt, many members of his community and perhaps his own parents would consider the incident a "youthful indiscretion", which shouldn't derail his prospects of university and a happy life.
• And if he cared to look at the record of reporting and prosecuting rape, he comes to the conclusion that society doesn't consider it important enough a crime to put resources into combatting.

8/12/2005 06:59:11 PM|||Antonia|||I didn't necessarily want to say this in the post, but I think it's worth saying here that I don't subscribe to the idea that all men are rapists, and that I believe that men who experience rape or sexual assault should have dedicated services to support them too.8/12/2005 08:42:23 PM|||ms. b.|||Spot on! Thanks for laying it all out so clearly, I'm having a hard time detangling my feminist thoughts from the bare facts of this case, being so close to it and all.8/13/2005 01:47:33 PM|||Chris Ward|||Whilst I agree with the fact that any form of assault is abhorrable, especially rape, I am slightly concerned by the male-leanings of your post.

Somebody I know from back home was raped by a woman outside a pub. He was traumatised from it - and at points was even scared to go into school (she was in the same place).

I know you cleared this up in the first comment after your post, but the final sentence of your post was quite concerning, particularly when you commented "every young man", as if women are incapable of committing sexual offences themselves.

I know this isn't true, and in fact, the result of that image was quite damaging for the person mentioned above. Instead of getting his case taken seriously, he was merely laughed at and it was dismissed.

I have lost count of the times I have (or my male friends have had) girls grope our backsides (trying my hardest not to go up my own arse here.. that's not the point I'm trying to make) in the students' union - when we plainly don't want them to. Try going to a bouncer and reporting that. If a bloke did the same thing to a girl, they'd be out and barred.8/13/2005 02:37:44 PM|||Antonia|||Chris, I really hope that you're not trying to set up an equivalence between rape and getting your bottom grabbed here. I feel sorry for the sexual assault your friend suffered, no matter who was the perpetrator. As I said above, I hope he's getting support and seeking criminal redress.

BUT I am so tired of anti-feminist men trying to make out that men suffer DV and rape and discrimination equally to women. They don't; the stats show it, but also it's clear from the most rudimentary knowledge of history.

Rape is about power, not about sex, it's about reasserting the historic power men have over women's bodies.

Let's try a comparison: anyone getting murdered by hanging is horrific, but if it's a black man in the deep South hung by a white man, the history of that symbol, quite aside from any racist intent on the part of the murderer, makes it doubly powerful and doubly horrific. That's how I feel about rape.

I'm interested to hear your perspective, as a young man, on how we can stop rape.8/13/2005 02:40:58 PM|||Antonia|||While we're on the subject, this article from the US pointed up to me quite how hideously powerful the religious right is getting:
The wait in a Catholic hospital after rape.8/14/2005 12:38:25 AM|||PS|||I agree with an awful lot of whats written above, most of which is sensible and important and should be implemented as soon as possible. However, I think not allowing cross examination is a step too far. As a law student, I'm almost certaint his would contravene the right to a fair trial enshirned in the ECHR. Remember that while nothing compares to the sheer torture of rape, beeing falsely accused or posibbly wrongly convicted is a rough ride in itself8/14/2005 10:06:57 AM|||Anonymous|||To PS - you're missing the point of what Antonia said:

Judges must stop allowing defendants' lawyers to bring up a woman's past sexual history or allow defendants to cross-examine rape survivors.

The point she was making is not, as you seem to think, to stop victims of rape being cross-examined at all, but when the defendant chooses not have be represented by a lawyer and is the one doing the cross-examining rather than lawyers.8/14/2005 11:51:06 AM|||PS|||My mistake. I apoligise.8/14/2005 05:59:28 PM|||Jayanne|||Somebody I know from back home was raped by a woman outside a pub. He was traumatised from it - and at points was even scared to go into school (she was in the same place).

Many men are raped, Chris (most by other men); the official figure's 0.2 per cent, but the true figure is probably higher. The SARC centres Antonia mentioned are for anybody; Rape Crisis Centres give men information about support groups; the Rape Crisis Centre's web page gives further information.
http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/

and Victim Support will of course help your friend8/14/2005 06:42:36 PM|||Emma|||I have lost count of the times I have (or my male friends have had) girls grope our backsides (trying my hardest not to go up my own arse here.. that's not the point I'm trying to make) in the students' union - when we plainly don't want them to. Try going to a bouncer and reporting that. If a bloke did the same thing to a girl, they'd be out and barred.

You're having a laugh aren't you? Unless you have some kind of utopic students' union they are as much a hotbed of casual misogyny and unwelcome sexual contact from men to women as the rest of the world. While I'm sure that having your butt groped is deeply unpleasant, one might argue that it takes on a different resonance in a world where 1/4 women experience rape during their lives, and the groper belongs to a group which is not only bigger and stronger than yours, but also has its reality privileged above yours.

Antonia, I think this is spot on. As an ex-RCC volunteer, I was also wondering what you think of the working structure of the RCC movement, and whether you think it needs to professionalise to offer the services that women need?8/14/2005 09:35:38 PM|||Antonia|||Emma,

I've never worked for an RCC, so anything I say is from an outsider's perspective. I do work in the women's sector, though not in service delivery. I bow to no-one in my admiration for the volunteers that deliver the services, and nothing I say is meant to impugn their hard work and dedication.

I think for me, the discussion needs to start from what makes a difference for the victims of rape, not from the perspective of what would make a convenient organisational or ideological structure for those of us who care about the issue.

As I said above, I think it might be time for a more reliable, professionally-delivered (though not necessarily professional) always-on crisis/first response service, backed up by ongoing one-on-one or group-work to support survivors longterm face-to-face, delivered locally by women volunteers and professionals. I'm also anxious to find a solution that means that your postcode doesn't get you a better service. Finally, I would nver want to lose the sense of defiant community self-defence that the women pioneers of the rape crisis movement brought to it, in a time when services for survivors were non-existent.

I think the crisis line must be delivered by government funding, as voluntary funding (community donations and fundraising) and institutional funding (local authorities, grants and trusts) have demonstrably failed to deliver a sustainable long-term support service. This doesn't mean that government should deliver the service: the 24 hour DV line is funded by government and Comic Relief but delivered by a partnership of Women's Aid and Refuge, with a national call centre in Bristol, staffed by professionals and volunteers. I'd follow that model.

Only a national organisation could have the resources and credibility to run the national phoneline, but having that back-up for local areas is crucial in terms of supporting women. Crucially the DV helpline works because it is able to refer to local services (refuges etc) that can provide intensive ongoing support. I'd like to see a network of women-run and community-owned centres that can provide face-to-face and remote support through counselling and groupwork, as well as practical help through the court process where necessary.

To deliver this vision, I'd like to see a national federation of independent local RCCs, autonomous as they are at the moment, but with stable core funding from national or local government. The national federation should set minimum standards and quality-assess local projects, but they should be free to develop to meet local circumstances.

Now, this picture isn't perfect: I do have some problems with the idea that some local control of centres and helplines would be devolved upwards to a national federation. I don't think that national voluntary organisations are necessarily responsive enough to local circumstances, I think they tend to impose one-size-fits-all solutions. But the savings in terms of quality control, support for financial and administrative issues (because too many small community organisations are terrible employers) and the national voice, campaigning for women, may be worth making the sacrifice for.

My main worry is that any engagement with national and local government will mean losing the woman-centred-ness of the movement: although the SDA makes exemptions for service delivery to women where the all-women nature of that service contributes to its success, the political pressures about making a grant to women-only organisations would be difficult to manage. No matter how often we made the argument that rape is overwhelmingly a crime against women, the pressure would be on to open the service to men who'd experienced assault, because their numbers are so small that an appropriate national service to meet their needs is a practical impossibility. Unfortunately, that would decrease the effectiveness of the service to women, as it might lose its poliical edge.

Losing some of that politics might be no bad thing, though: I've read of crisis lines refusing volunteers because they were trans, and because they'd served in the IDF. Now those are some attitudes I'd be happy to leave behind.

What do you think?8/14/2005 11:31:01 PM|||Emma|||Antonia

I agree with you, wholeheartedly!

I think that in Scotland we are probably a little bit closer to the model that you're describing: we have a national network of autonomous centres and are working towards a joint set of policies and practices.

I am jealous of American centres, which seem to be so much better resourced than ours, but I don't know very much about how they operate.

As well as trans issues, I would also like to see some of the resistance to the idea of women as perpetrators of CSA fade.

Emma8/14/2005 11:45:24 PM|||Chris Ward|||Firstly, just because I'm not a feminist does not make me an anti-feminist.

Secondly, I apologise for my example on the "butt groping", it was meant to highlight a separate point, but I clearly didn't emphasise it that well. What I was trying to say was that from seeing what happened to the person I know, men who are sexually assaulted (albiet a vicious rape like my friend, or just an arse grab in the union) by a woman tend to get laughed at.

In regards to dealing with rape. I was involved in our date-rape campaign at Surrey when I was head of the student newspaper, and I made it a particular concern of mine to make sure students were safe on campus and had a way of getting home.

Unfortunately, like cutting the amount of murderers, cutting the amount of rapists in this country is a difficult task. Luckily, we have very few serious physical sexual attacks in Guildford, although recently a student was victim of an exposure.

In the situations where you are worried about anonymous attacks simply from walking down the street, there are ways we have always said may help:
1. Carry a personal alarm, most student unions sell them (and if they don't they should) at quite a cheap price.
2. NEVER walk alone in the dark unless you have to. If this is unavoidable, get a taxi. If not possible, ensure that somebody knows when you are leaving and what time you should get to your destination.

Of course, most of my research was into drink-spiking, so I don't claim to be an expert.

All I'll say is that all sexual assault is abhorrable - and to be frank, I don't give a flying toss which sex is committing the crime - the gender doesn't make it any less wrong. That's the point I was trying to put across.

And in regards to the "power men have over women's bodies", what is your explanation for females raping men, if there is such an objective reason as the one you gave for men raping women?

And no offense, but I don't want to have any power over a woman's body... I'm happy with my lovely man thank you very much ;)8/15/2005 06:41:41 PM|||Emma|||I was involved in our date-rape campaign at Surrey when I was head of the student newspaper, and I made it a particular concern of mine to make sure students were safe on campus and had a way of getting home.

I think that this is really laudable, and I know that I really appreciated the work done by the SRC at my university to do similar good work.

Luckily, we have very few serious physical sexual attacks in Guildford

I don't believe that for a second! They may not be being reported, but even if we take the BCS figure of one in 20 adult women experiencing rape during their lifetime, then there's an awful lack of reporting going on in Guildford.

Your suggestions about street safety are good ones, although men are more likely than women to be assaulted in the street. Sexual violence usually happens in the home, or its environs, and its usually perpetrated by someone the victim knows. Women have very little (relatively!) to fear from strangers.

I don't give a flying toss which sex is committing the crime - the gender doesn't make it any less wrong. That's the point I was trying to put across.

You're right, of course, in one way. To the individual I doubt very much whether it matters which gender the perpetrator is. In fact, as rape by men against women is more common, its probably easier to feel commonality with other survivors if your experience matches that.

The difference is akin (if you'll pardon the analogy) to the difference between a white man in pre-civil rights Mississippi hanging a black stranger, and a black man in pre-civil rights Mississippi hanging a white stranger. Although both acts would have the same effect on the individual, and both would be objectively reprehensible, one would perpetuate a structural inequality and one would just be a random act of violence.

And in regards to the "power men have over women's bodies", what is your explanation for females raping men, if there is such an objective reason as the one you gave for men raping women?

That's a good question, and one that I don't have any answer for. Rape perpetrated by women against men is so under-reported and analysed that it's very difficult to speculate as to its cause(s). It seems likely that this is because it is very rare.8/11/2005 09:31:00 PM|||Antonia|||

Horrifying:

Tonight I rang a friend of mine to check she was ok after a split with her boyfriend of one year. She’s 15, and was smitten with the guy. Yesterday night he raped her.
The story plays like too many I’ve heard before; boy meets girl, girl splits with boy, boy takes revenge for being humiliated. She argued with him in the street, whilst out in the evening with a female friend. The boy and his group of friends, all 15, appeared to leave, but showed up again as the girls walked home in the semi-light, following them and shouting taunts. Eventually they caught up, dragging my friend into the bushes surrounding the local cemetery. She was told she wanted it really, and that she’d “better give it up”. She was frightened, humiliated, as a group of boys watched while her ex took off some of her clothes, and proceeded to rape her.
The telling of it was also like too many retellings I’ve heard before. She didn’t call it rape. She said he was “mean” to her because she “pissed him off”. She said she “had to let him do it”. I didn’t push her, but tried to suggest he had done something abhorrent, illegal, greatly wrong. She was adamant it was “just one of those things”.

And the worst of it is, he'll get away with it. Less than 5% of women who report rape see their attacker convicted. Odds are this young woman won't report it at all - and why would you, if that means sitting in a striplit room talking to at best a well-meaning police constable who can't promise anything because it's your word against his and he's such a nice young man, and at worst a sceptical police officer who wants to know what you were doing out on your own at that time and raises his eyebrows just so when you say that you'd had a drink / slept with the guy in the past...

|||112379237398120203|||This is what rape looks like8/12/2005 12:54:47 AM|||tamanou|||this is unspeakably awful.

what can be done, with your YWCA policy & campaigns hat on, to make it less unpleasant for young women to report these atrocities, to provide a more supportive environment for those who have been violated like this, and to make it more likely that baatards like these will be caught?8/12/2005 06:54:12 PM|||Antonia|||Started to reply here, but it got too long, so have written a new post above.8/11/2005 08:14:00 PM|||Antonia|||

Pootergeek's post parodying the bespectacled one was pretty funny in the first place, but the comments after the enraged fans of Anastacia got hold of it there and here are priceless.

|||112378776529363508|||Don't mess with Ana!8/10/2005 02:58:00 PM|||Antonia|||

Follows on from my previous post.

Well, after bracing myself for an hour of horrible telly, I watched it, and was really left with the feeling, "so what?" The subject of the programme, David Akinsanya, clearly wasn't happy with his life, despite appearing to have a profession he enjoyed, somewhere nice to live on a canal boat on the Thames, and a loving circle of friends. I just don't understand why he thought going to Love in Action was going to sort out the problems he was having, particularly as he wasn't coming from a faith background.

Weirdly, the staff at LIA seemed very nice and reasonable, albeit with their religion worn on their sleeve - not the monsters I'd been expecting. It was a very subtle form of homophobia, designed to create and reinforce shame as a tool to change behaviours - nothing I saw looked as if it could change orientation. The fact that so many staff had been participants and so many participants had stayed longer than their original 28 days gave the impression that LIA was a comfort blanket - that the effect was to change behaviour within a controlled environment with the support of others, but that it wasn't replicable or continuable in the outside world.

I did want to scream when he talked about a well-meaning therapist he had visited when he first came out, who said there was no such thing as bisexuality. I hope, however gay positive and enthusiastic to affirm gay lifestyles they are, therapists nowadays would recognise that statements like that are unethical and surely not helpful. Certainly, without support from a family or gay peer support group and without the tools to build healthy relationships from an education system that wasn't and still isn't willing to discuss heterosexual relationships in any depth, let alone gay relationships, I can see how you can end up on the scene night after night looking for fulfillment and envying the settled relationships of your straight peers. There is a problem with "the gay community" that too often it's about drinking, clubbing and sex, and those of us that are "non-scene" or in relationships are far less visible, simply because you won't find us in the Jolly Farmers propping up the bar every night.

Throughout, I couldn't help feeling sorry for David, who seemed to get little but pain and shame from the experience. In the end, the sole benefit of the course to him was the realisation that although he couldn't change from being gay to straight, he could change his behaviour and go for a period of celibacy to allow time for self-reflection; surely he could have got to that point by working with a reputable therapist or self-help group?

I'm also having mixed feelings about the role of the BBC in commissioning the show. It was a challenging hour of viewing, even if the journey didn't really lead anywhere, but I felt it the premise was insufficiently explored. Okay, David, so you're sad to be gay. Why is that? What have you done to change the way you live and what you do that might have an effect on that? Why do you keep insisting that being gay means you can't have a family or children? I'd have like the BBC to film him up with a gay family for an afternoon, perhaps. It just didn't seem balanced to me. (But then, if I had my way, we'd send in an undercover reporter to an ex-gay ministry to film, in the manner of The Secret Policeman.)

I also hate the implied statement in the title: "Sad to be gay". There must be people who are sad because they're gay, but admitting it makes me feel really uncomfortable. Is that because doing so challenges my sexuality? Is it because gay people have had to struggle so hard to get past the obstacles thrown up by a heterosexist society that to admit weakness, that to admit something isn't right in the beautiful garden of gay, undermines us all? A few years ago we could have dismissed that feeling, saying that it's homophobia that makes people sad to be gay. For many (vast numbers, too many) people it still does ruin their lives, but David wasn't experiencing visible homophobia, so there must be something else going on.

|||112368233629139500|||Sad to be gay - mark II8/13/2005 03:19:10 PM|||Anonymous|||I was so pleased this chap made this documentary. I agree with him although I would never fly off to try the God Squad or look back on my childhood. My partner slept with her ex boyfriend a few years back, became pregnant and told me, "it's not what I want for my child" as she dumped me. She was a clubber, a serial heartbreaker and a general stereotype before her newfound suburban respectability. It's left me feeling like an outcast. Me... the respectable professional who is very lonely. Too proud to advertise myself in the Lonely Hearts, too much the Lady to do go clubbing at the age of 42 and wondering whether in fact the ex was right. Celibacy is OK and far better than sordid one night stands or meeting rather intense gay women but it does get lonely. The highlight of the last week for me was the Big Brother Final.x8/13/2005 03:25:15 PM|||2Springy|||I picked up on your comments trying to find an email address for David. As a bisexual man I think the programme really did fill an important gap, and wasn't, in the way you describe it, missing the point at all. David was careful to point out that he couldn't find any other group that seemed relevant to address his 'problem'. I think we must take this at face value, and not insist it has to objectivly make sense. All I can say is, having had a completely different childhood, ableit born in the same year, the experiences and feelings of being bisexual, or whatever you want to call it, as described by David, really rang true, and I imagine did so for an audience larger than we might imagine. David, for me, presented a valuable role model, whom I can relate to, and validate my own experiences.8/07/2005 08:08:00 PM|||Antonia|||

Seriously. They're a front group, destabilising society as a precursor to a coup in the UK. And there was me thinking that it was just their obvious views that made them odious. (Thanks Tom).

|||112344179061696608|||It's all the fault of Fathers4Justice!8/08/2005 08:12:38 AM|||tamanou|||Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Oh dear.

Oh dear.8/08/2005 01:10:16 PM|||Mike|||Wibble wibble wibble.8/07/2005 02:26:00 PM|||Antonia|||

On Tuesday, BBC Two's running a documentary about a guy who wants to find out if he can "unlearn" being gay, so he goes to one of the American "ex-gay" ministries:

David Akinsanya hates being gay. He has been living as a gay man for 20 years but if he could take a pill to make him heterosexual he'd pop it without a second thought. In Sad to be Gay, David sees if it's possible to go straight. David believes his homosexuality is learned behaviour, but will it be something he can unlearn?

David decides to attend a controversial treatment centre in America that promises "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ". Many of the centre's staff and its clients are also "struggling with same sex attraction".

David makes a revealing and tearful admission about his unhappy past to the group - yet he starts to doubt the centre's methods, and begins to question whether its prayers and support will succeed in making him straight.

The documentary follows the ups and downs of David's turbulent journey and asks whether being gay is something you can change.

Now, I'm obviously uncomfortable with the premise (which I believe false) that it is possible to change one's sexuality, but I can see that this may well be an interesting documentary. The interesting thing is that the programme that David attends, Love in Action, has been the subject of recent controversy in the US, above and beyond that which attaches to these programmes in principle from their stalwart detractors in the gay and religious communities.

For a start, they are particularly heinous: the Director of Love in Action, John Smid, has said:

"I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no recovery."

And then, in one of those happy accidents of timing (serendipity?), the founder of "Love in Action", has said, in a public letter, that it doesn't work.

But most of the controversy has arisen earlier this year, when a young 16-year old blogger called Zach was sent there by his parents to get the the homosexuality religiously cleansed out of him. Zach's visibility ignited fury in the LGBT community in the US - there's more information at the Queer Action Coalition, and a rundown of the incident is at the Wikipedia page.

So, all in all, I will be watching BBC Two on Tuesday night with interest.

|||112342128847204972|||Sad to be gay8/08/2005 11:27:16 AM|||Katie Hanson|||Having grown up in a church which taught that homosexuality was (a) learned behaviour and (b) sinful, I will be interested to watch this.

There used to be two "ex-gay" groups here in Britain, the Courage Trust and the True Freedom Trust. However, in 2001, the Courage Trust dramatically changed its policy, admitting that it was not possible to change people's sexuality. The Trust's Director, Jeremy Marks, wrote:

"After ten years, however, six spent running residential discipleship courses, followed by years of weekly group meetings, it was increasingly clear that however repentant people were, and however much dedication and effort they put into seeking change, none were really 'successful' in the long term in 'dealing with the deeper issues'. This is not to say that people gained no benefit! Many matured greatly. A few married (though their same-sex attractions remain an ongoing issue for them). But the kind of change everyone really hoped for - to re-orientate and reach a point where their struggle with being gay was over - remained elusive. We never saw the fruit we longed for."

As a result of this policy change, the Courage Trust was expelled from both the Evangelical Alliance and from Exodus International (an international federation of "ex-gay" groups).

The Courage Trust's policy became that same-sex relationships were a matter for the "private judgement and conscience" of Christians. This was unacceptable to the Evangelical Alliance, said that it "recognised the validity of a ministry strategy which seeks to minister to those of homosexual orientation without seeking necessarily to alter that orientation", but having a sexual relationship which "expressed" that orientation was unacceptable. This is fascinating, because the Alliance appears to recognise that you can call on, or even require, your members to be celibate, but you are wasting your time trying to change their sexuality. Given this, it makes you wonder what they think the purpose of the "ex-gay" movement really is!8/08/2005 05:37:17 PM|||Chris Ward|||There have been many times that I have been tempted to attend one of these "meetings" from "ex-gay" groups. Coming from a Catholic upbringing, there are quite a few loopholes in the entire Christian gay argument.

Anybody know of any near Guildford? It'll be amusing if nothing else. ;)

If I can't find any, I'll just march into the Conservative office. Maybe they'll know of one or two in the area.8/08/2005 06:14:24 PM|||Antonia|||Thanks for that Katie - I didn't know that these groups were operating in the UK.

Chris - is it really a good idea to go marching in to one of these groups? Must admit the pure undiluted hate coming my way as a "practising homosexual" doesn't sound like my idea of a good night out...8/09/2005 03:46:17 PM|||Tom|||I heard David Akinsanya on the radio this morning - he did make it sound as if the main reason he didn't want to be gay any more was that he didn't really like gay nightclubs very much.8/09/2005 09:37:23 PM|||Chris Ward|||Watching it now. Blatantly an exploitative cult. Sign up for 28 days, then three months later you're still there.8/09/2005 10:23:03 PM|||Jo|||That was bloody horrible :(8/09/2005 11:00:46 PM|||Chris Ward|||It was a positive end though. To be honest, most people see these groups as a bit of a lost cause, otherwise there'd be a lot more of them.

It's an unfortunate way that many gay people try and push it away. It's a massive shame - I had 12 years of Catholic school (ironically, my grandparents, including my Grandad who originally was training for the priesthood, were really good about it), and that can really mess with your head. You spend years repressing it.

These groups are a dying breed, and liberalism in society is becoming more and more common. There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel.8/06/2005 06:55:00 PM|||Antonia|||

Robin Cook's dead. Fucking hell.

UPDATE: 18:57 - It's just this moment come up on the BBC.

UPDATE 19:12: Sorry for that bald post. I was sat at the computer when it came over news 24. I'm sat here feeling enormously sad this man, who we all hoped would be brought back into the Cabinet as a sign that those of us who opposed the war from inside the party were right and principled to do so, has died. And I'm remembering a man sat, just three months ago, in Sabir's front room, surrounded by leaders of Oxford's Muslim community, making the argument that despite their anger, a Labour vote was the right one.

|||112335097286660790|||He's dead8/06/2005 07:07:03 PM|||Bloggers4Labour|||F**g hell indeed - ouch. If indeed it was a heart attack, he'd be just a year older than my Dad, who went that way. He was a big fan of Cook, as it happens.8/06/2005 09:29:00 PM|||broke|||Jesus. I'm completely gutted by the news. Hadn't realised how much that resignation speech had meant to me. He stood up and said what so many of us were saying outside parliament.8/06/2005 09:38:58 PM|||Anonymous|||On the other hand:

http://isfullofcrap.com/oldcrap/2005/08/saddam-appeaser.html8/07/2005 03:21:00 AM|||Bloggers4Labour|||Anon, you're an idiot.

I've collected some articles about Robin Cook here.8/07/2005 01:12:16 PM|||Antonia|||Fantastic argument on that page, Anonymous. Cutting, incisive, insightful and above all graceful. Clearly contributes a greater understanding. Thank you.8/11/2005 10:43:13 AM|||Nicholas|||see http://henleylabourparty.blogspot.com/ for comments on Robin Cook8/05/2005 04:43:00 PM|||Antonia|||

This post is an interesting take on the debate. Thanks Tom for pointing me to it.

|||112325659993258427|||Tired of the pro-war left?8/04/2005 09:04:00 PM|||Antonia|||

Or did you take off your shoes and socks to get on a bouncy castle before 1986?

The Beeb and the Oxford English Dictionary need our help to come up with the first written uses of a whole range of words (first recorded use in brackets):

back to square one [1960]
balti [1984]
Beeb [1967]
boffin [1941]
bog-standard [1983]
bomber jacket [1973]
bonk (sexual intercourse) [1975]
bouncy castle [1986]
chattering classes [1985]
codswallop [1963]
Crimble [1963]
cyberspace [1982]
cyborg [1960]
ditsy [1978]
dosh [1953]
full monty [1985]
gas mark [1963]
gay (homosexual sense) [1935]
handbags (at dawn) [1987]
her indoors [1979]
jaffa (cricketing term)
Mackem [1991]
made-up [1980]
minger [1995]
minted [1995]
moony, moonie [1990]
muller [1993]
mullet (hairstyle) [1994]
mushy peas [1975]
naff [1966]
nerd [1951]
nip and tuck [1980]
nit nurse [1985]
nutmeg (football use) [1979]
Old Bill (police) [1958]
on the pull [1988]
pass the parcel [1967]
pear-shaped [1983]
phwoar [1980]
pick'n'mix [1959]
ploughman's lunch [1970]
pop one's clogs [1977]
porky [1985]
posh [1915]
ska [1964]
smart casual [1945]
snazzy [1932]
something for the weekend [1990]
throw one's toys out of the pram (or cot) [1989]
tikka masala [1975]

What a fascinating idea! There's more information about the individual words here, although some of the suggested derivations seem a bit odd to me. For example, for handbags at dawn:

Wanted: Printed evidence before 1987.
When did people start to brandish handbags ('at dawn', 'at three paces') instead of pistols? Was it before 1987 - and does it have anything to do with Margaret Thatcher? Like 'sick as a parrot' it's often associated with football matches.

Isn't this more likely to be homophobic in origin rather than about Maggie? Handbags at dawn is a comment on two men falling out, without settling it with fisticuffs, which clearly makes them poofs. Seems an ideal insult for the all-male environment of a football match, reinforcing the heterosexuality of the speaker despite his presence at an male bonding session whilst casting doubt on that of a pair of other men!

Thanks to Grammar Puss for the tip.

|||112318598978017826|||Were you gay before 1935?8/04/2005 06:30:00 PM|||Antonia|||

This morning I was listening to Dr Zaki Badawi on Radio 5 Live advising Muslim women to remove their hijab if it made them feel vulnerable or exposed them to harassment. His argument was that as hijab is supposed to protect women from harassment, if it was no longer doing so, then it was better to take it off.

Now on the one hand, this seems like an eminently sensible piece of advice. And it has a PR payoff, that, at a time when Muslims are perceived as being inflexible and intolerant of difference and incapable of change, a prominent Muslim leader is able to display flexibility to a changing climate. But on the other hand, isn't it a bit rich to blame women for harassment because of their clothing decisions? We've accepted that the argument "she was wearing a short skirt, so she was asking for it" is nonsense, so why should this be any different?

Another thought, on a less serious note: one of those moments when I wish I had had a camera with me happened just recently. I was walking through Greater Leys when I saw a young girl (probably eleven or twelve) in a karate outfit and hijab. Just struck me as unlikely, is all. I mean, we're all used to London hijab - beautiful highly-fashionable young women with well-cut jeans, heels and a brightly-coloured sparkly-pinned veil - but karate hijab?! Clearly she needs to pay a visit to the Hijab Shop's sports hijab page!

|||112317567264035258|||Hijab8/04/2005 07:12:43 PM|||Unity|||I don't think he's blaming women for harassment here, merely pointing out that wearing clearly identifiable Muslim garb may, unfortunately, put them at risk at the present moment due to ideas held by others.

Accepting the idea that the argument "she was wearing a short skirt, so she was asking for it" is nonsense does not mean that that idea ceases to exist, it just means we no longer accept it as a valid defence of someone's actions.8/05/2005 01:46:22 AM|||Neil Harding|||If I was a Muslim girl (hard to imagine I know!), I'd probably be more inclined to wear a hijab now, than ever! Most of the wearing of hijabs at present seems to be more down to rebellion against Western prejudice than religion, believe it or not. Being a teenager once myself, I know all about rebellion.

Clothes are not offensive, whoever thinks they are is a jerk, Muslims and everybody else should tell these idiots to go back to the 12th Century where they belong.

Even though I think religion is a load of tosh, I support people's freedom to say, do and wear whatever they like as long as it doesn't incite violence.

On your karate observation, I remember seeing a Muslim girl with a headscarf at an indie gig once, but with doc martins on. Now that was cool, double rebellion!!8/05/2005 08:27:21 PM|||Paulie|||Sports Hijab - what a find!

Like Neil, I'm not really a credible empathiser with Muslim girls. I think that the mini-skirt / hijab comparison slightly misses the point. But two broad comments:

1. Imagine you are a 12 year old girl in a British Muslim household. Your parents are first generation immigrants. The weight of tradition, communal expectations etc on one side - and the charms of consumerism on the other (drugs, sex, booze, shopping, career, gender equality, intellectual life, rationalism, other good stuff etc). Then your ABSOLUTE BITCH of a SIXTEEN year old SISTER COW decides that identity wins out for her and she wants to wear a scarf. Then it's a life sentance for you. WHAT A BITCH!

2. By stressing the 'war on terror' and 'islamofascism' and 'apologism' (and, as a secular rationalist I'd suggest that the latter two are tempting positions to take) we are turning it into a battle of identities.

Part of the pathology of British Islamists (two were Afro-Carribean converts!) is based upon identity injustice. It seems to me that a lot of this is less about The Prophet and more about an incohate response to casual racism.

So the moral? Positively assert secularist values (and oppose the drift towards more 'faith schools' and other capitulations to medievalists). And take more responsible for coherent, pragmatic and workable strategies to reduce racism in all of it's forms.

How on earth can anyone disagree with any of that? (hic*)

(*just back from a few early-evening pints...)8/02/2005 08:52:00 PM|||Antonia|||

I've added a bunch of new blogs to the blogroll. These are ones that I enjoy reading when the bloglines notifier goes.

Some feminist blogs - Echidne, Feministe and Pandagon from the US, and GenderGeek from Scotland. This post of hers about young people and abortion is particularly worth reading.

And also some politics blogs - Dirty Leftie, Drink soaked trots for war and qwghlm.

Finally, two bloggers who I know in the real world: Mike's little red page and Trees for Labour.

|||112301244505035537|||New blogs on the blogroll8/02/2005 09:43:23 PM|||Emma|||Thanks v. much for the link.8/03/2005 07:44:20 PM|||Mike|||Ditto - ta comrade!8/02/2005 06:13:00 PM|||Antonia|||

... or has a post from last night entitled "Books and Grammars" disappeared entirely?

Here it is again, in case you can't see it:

So yesterday's post has been linked pretty widely for anything I write. Rob's talking about the Labour party, socialism and why he's still new Labour, Neil's talking about PR (sigh!) and Talk Politics is talking Stephen Pollard's politics. So that's satisfying. Meanwhile, Peter Wilby has been commenting on Nick Cohen moving from left to right, apparently. I don't quite see it, although the grammar schools stuff is disappointing, and neither does Norm.

Thank you to everyone who recommended books to me. I've got a lovely pile awaiting me. Plus what is suggested below, Dan has lent me "The vote: how it was won and how it was undermined" by Paul Foot, "Bush's brain: how Karl Rove made George W. Bush presidential" by Moore and Slater, and Rebecca Solnit's "Hope in the dark: the untold history of people power", which he assures me is great, despite the front cover quote from George Monbiot. I've also been recommended "Death and the Penguin" by Andrey Kurkov via email from Jo's friend in Aberystwyth. Thanks for the dykey suggestions, Stamp - the first two I've read (my thesis back in the day was on lesbian and female same-sex sexualities in the twentieth century, and whether sexuality could be considered a constant, so you'd worry if I hadn't), but I'll definitely look up the other. Jo is beginning to create a bookshelf for us over at her place, if you're interested, though I don't share her taste for odd cod-Arthurian mysticism.

Before I go anywhere, I've been meaning to link to Mike's post on the IWCA for a while. If you don't know the Independent Working Class Association, be thankful, but have a read anyway.

|||112300298474968943|||Is it me...8/02/2005 07:29:28 PM|||Scribbles|||Hello! Found your blog through Rob Newman's.

Can I just recommend, "The Ascent of Woman - a history of the suffragette movement and the ideas behind it" by Melanie Phillips. Well written and delivers exactly what the title suggests.8/02/2005 08:03:31 PM|||Antonia|||I had heard of it, but i dismissed it because I thought, well, written by Melanie Phillips, it's bound to be a hatchet job... So it isn't?8/02/2005 10:58:47 PM|||Jo|||I've heard that "The Ascent of Woman" is quite good despite the author...

Oh, and The Wanderers series is about Irish mythology, nothing to do with the Arthurian myths!