Sexist, lazy bullshit music reporting on BBC 6 music

So right now there's a programme on the radio about Sleater Kinney.  It started 3 minutes ago and I'm already furious.

The presenter described Sleater Kinney as a band who have transcended gender.
Edit - it's bloody Gideon Coe who is presenting!

*Rage flail*  No.  Just no. Sleater Kinney have not transcended their gender.  What you mean is you, a male journalist, have deigned to overlook the fact that they are women and decided to pay attention to them.  You have decided to grace them with your esteemed musical criticism.  Sleater Kinney have just written, played and recorded music.  You are the dick that has trouble seeing past their gender.

*You* have transcended their gender, not them.  When was the last time the music press described a male band as transcending their gender?  I'll bet never, that's when.  Because male bands are seen as the default starting block and women bands are seen as a bloody aberration that have to prove they are good despite there femaleness.

Female bands don't hide, or move beyond their gender, It's the male music industry that has to do that.  Except that they don't because it seems that 99.9% of articles about female bands talk about their gender and want to talk about what it's like being a female musician .  The music industry is bloody obsessed with gender, there's no transcending it.

Sleater Kinney have never tried to move beyond their gender, or ignore it. They are feminists, They are female.  This is an important part of their work.

Gods save me from male journalists who think they are granting us a favour by saying that female bands have transcended their gender.

Visit Sleater Kinney's website here.

Batgirl 37 - did y'all miss the appropriation of ASL?

I finally read Batgirl 37, and yes I agree with the rest of the liberal internet community, that issue relied on tired old tropes and cliches for trans people and was all in all clumsily and hurtfully done.

Why have I not seen anything about the use of ASL in the issue?  For those that don't know, ASL is American Sign Language, used by the Deaf community in the States and is a different language to all the other sign languages in the world.  Like English is different to all the other spoken languages in the world.  Even other English speaking countries have sign languages that are different to ASL.  E.g. Australia has AusLan, the UK has British Sign Language (BSL) and the languages are not interchangeable.  Got that? Good.

Back to the comics.  My ire is particularly directed at this page:

Some background - Babsgirl goes to an art show and it's full of floor to ceiling photographic images of someone dressed as Batgirl, pulling all sorts of stupid poses.  Babs is obviously horrified as everyone thinks it's the actual Batgirl in the pictures.

When the show has ended Babs does some investigations and looks up an ASL dictionary.  A quick google search brings up a variety of different images for ASL dictionary, none of which look like the book Babs is holding.  Harrumph.
After looking in the book Babs concludes that the stupid poses were actually ASL signs, a code to her, saying 'Below Burn Side Bridge 10pm'.

Arrggghh!  OK, before we get into how the signs work, let's just look at how this secret message would work.

The plot assumes that no one else at the show, or who would be consuming the images at a later date, understands ASL.  Like it's some ultra secret hidden thing, that you only get to learn once you're in the club.  Not so.  This article gave the number of ASL users in 1974 at half a million, at a very conservative estimate.  For crying out loud, America has a University for the Deaf where everyone uses ASL!  That's not even counting those for whom ASL is a fluent second language, or those who have studied ASL and use it in their jobs or for fun when out with friends, for example.

So, I do not hold that Babs will be the only person ever seeing those images who can work out that it's ASL.

Next, the signs.
Full disclosure here:  I don't know ASL, I know BSL.  I have no idea about ASL vocabulary, but I do understand the grammar of sign languages and the ways in which they can be represented.

The photographs in this comic are 2d representations of a 3d language.  It can be hard to accurately draw vocabulary from sign languages because you need to show movement, speed and relation of the sign to other parts of the sentence.  But it can be done.  Off the top of my head The That Deaf Guy comic strip does it well, as did some of David Mack's Echo/Daredevil comics.  Peter David's Deaf Supergirl and Young Justice issues also did OK.

These Babsgirl panels do not do this.  Yes, you can see that the handshapes are correct - so some tell me, others say they aren't so I guess there's some regional variation in the signs there.  If you look at the image for burn, I'll bet you anything that the ASL for burn is not static and is similar in construction to the BSL sign for burn or fire, e.g. the sign includes movement and without the movement the handshape is meaningless.  Here are some clips of the BSL sign for burn and fire.

Oh look, I've remembered I'm online and have just looked up the ASL sign for burn.  What it ain't is someone clutching their chest and looking wistfully/sexily at the sky.  Facial expressions, shoulder position, head position all count in ASL.

Here are the other signs in that panel:
Below
Burn
Side
Bridge
10
Pm or any other indication of time isn't even in there, as far as I can see.

Taking handshapes from just one part of the sign is akin to writing down 'cial' from facial and expecting everyone to know you mean facial.  On twitter I said that movement wouldn't have worked in the context of the comic.  I take that back.  They could have shown movement, they could have done lots of superimposed images of the fake Batgirl's hands moving through space.  Bet they still could have made it sexy if they wanted.

Finally, I'd expect Burnside, as a trendy area of Gotham, to have it's own sign and not be an amalgamation of Burn and Side.  It might not be in the dictionary, but I bet you, within the fictional DCU Deaf folk have their own sign for it.

This comic bothers me so much because it reads like cultural appropriation of ASL, it's nominally in there just to move the plot forward and show how awesome Babsgirl is.  It doesn't do anything for Deaf studies, Deaf awareness or ASL.  It's like Gwen Stefani's harajuku girls or white folk dressing up as Native Americans for Halloween.  Or like that godawful French film that was recently released.

I know I'm hearing, and some would say it's not my place to say this, and really it's probably not, you'd be better off reading Deaf bloggers views of the comic, and I'd point you to them but I'm out of the loop on Deaf blogs and I have no idea where to find Deaf comic bloggers (particularly political ones), and particularly fans of the DCU.  If anyone knows any please point me in the right direction!

I'm not trying to say my viewpoint supercedes any Deaf people viewpoint. It doesn't.  But I can't believe that no one else has spoken up about this.  Regular readers know I get my knickers in a twist quite regularly, this is one of those times.  If no one else is going to speak up so that I can comment on the blog and link back to it, I'm going to mouth off.

Many thanks to @matttygurney75, @unikornus and @adreanaline for talking through my ideas with me on twitter.  As @adreanaline said:
"Comics is about capturing 3D motion onto 2D pages.  That is why ASL Deaf artists should be hired.  They know how to do ASL."

Incidentally, she is a Deaf cartoonist and author of How to Write American Sign Language.  So she'll know.

A statistical breakdown of pregnancy outcomes

This was done by a friend of mine:

It makes me even more furious, and scared, and hollow, and feel like I've had my teeth kicked out and all those emotions I don't want to face.
The wheel is plotted from 2012 data and uses these stats:

• Around 1 in 5 pregnancies ending in miscarriage
• 1 in 200 ending in stillbirth
• 1 in 200 resulting in termination for medical reasons
• 1 in 45 births classified as having some form of birth defect
• Insufficient data available to include neonatal deaths as an outcome

Remember that miscarriage includes the death of a baby up to 24 weeks.  After 24 weeks the death is classified as a stillbirth.  7 in 10 babies die in the first 28 days of life - that's a neonatal death.

PS, I hate the term pregnancy outcome, nearly as much as I hate the term pregnancy loss.  It makes it sound like there's no child involved, no other human, like it just something that happens to the woman.  Fuck that.

Why the FUCK did no one tell us stillbirth happens.  How the FUCK do doctors and midwives think they have the right to decide what we should know.  If the baby was born breathing they wouldn't shy away from giving us all the information.  Instead we get vague cautions given in wishy washy language.  The baby is distressed.  They can have problems.  You don't want to risk anything.  That means FUCK ALL if they don't tell you that there's a risk of death.  If they don't say that a distressed baby means it's not getting any oxygen.  They make it seem like all problems can be fixed.  Fuck right off.

If you've been affected by this post support is available at Sands.  Sands is a UK stillbirth and neonatal death charity.  They support forum is here: www.forum.sandsforum.orgwww.uk-sands.org/.  The main site with all the information on is here: www.uk-sands.org. 

Reeva Steenkamp

Oh fuck, I've just seen the news about Oscar Pistorius murdering his girlfriend.

She was shot in the head and the hand four times.

Oh my gods. :(

This is why I attended the Norwich Rising part of One Billion Rising this afternoon.

Fuck.  Somehow it seems worse when celebrities do this shit, but it's not worse, because every act of violence against a woman is horrific and must stop.  One act is not more important, or less deserved, than another.  They are all disgusting and nightmarish and the only way they will stop is to teach people that women deserve respect.

A brilliant, articulate, moving, well said open letter to Andrew Turner MP

Obviously I am not referring to anything I wrote.

Last week the House of Commons voted on whether or not to legalise same sex marriage.  They said yes.  About bloody time.  I felt very mixed during the whole run up to this.  On the one hand I wasn't too worried about the Commons voting against it because I was thinking it's 2013, who on earth can possibly still be against gay people getting married?  After all I thought, there's some opposition but that's from old stuck in their ways dinosaurs with no relevance and no real influence.  And anyway, there's only a few of them.

Then I was reading the live tweets about the Parliamentary debate and my blood was boiling.  Turns out there are a lot of ignorant, bigoted, hateful fucks in the Commons who were spewing some right awful bile.  The result was 400 for same sex marriage and 175 against.

175 of our elected officials view people wanting to commit to a same sex marriage (I won't say gay couple because that excludes same sex bisexual couples) as somehow second class.  As worth less.  As not allowed the same dignity, rights and privileges as opposite sex couples.

I am privileged to live in Norwich.  It is an open minded progressive city and I see very little homophobia.   What biphobia I see is unintentional from people who think they are paying you a compliment.  Maybe there are problems with homophobia here, but I don't see it as I am privileged to have a male partner.  Although I would argue that being bisexual and having a long term partner of the opposite sex isn't all glory and kittens, at least not when you are attempting to assert your bisexual identity.

I was genuinely shocked at the shit being spilled from our MPs mouths.  Then I got angry.  The news that the vote came in for same sex marriage made my night and made the day after much better.

Which is where this open letter comes in.  It's written by Howard Hardiman, creator of The Lengths and The Peckham House for Invalids.  I think Howard is about my age and everything he writes (apart from experiencing homophobic violence) applies to me.  Swap the bits about male gay role models for female gay role models and that was my life too.  I will re-blog it in it's entirety because it's important.

The Dangermouse art that goes with this post is also by Howard, and you can contact him if you would like something similar.

----------------------------

 

Dear Andrew Turner,

In light of the vote yesterday to afford equal marriage rights to all, I thought it might be a good moment to reflect on the social changes that have happened during my lifetime.

When I was growing up, the only representations of gay men I’d encountered were on Are You Being Served (I was a little too late to catch Round the Horne). Gay men were seen as either weakly inoffensive or paedophiles. Growing up as a young man aware that I wasn’t heterosexual, this was quite confusing as I knew I was neither. I came out the same year as the Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign and immediately was confronted by prejudice that said people like me deserved to die of a horrific wasting disease. 

Moreover, many of the partners of those dying from AIDS were not allowed to visit them at the bedside because they “weren’t family”. It was a cruel, frightening and depressing time. Surrounded by a hostile rhetoric that said I was pathetic, immoral or deserved to die, I became depressed to the point of being suicidal. That’s the lesson that young people were being taught at the time. If you’re not heterosexual you deserve to suffer and have so little place in society that many would be happier rid of you.

I was not taught about relationships in school in a way that was at all meaningful to me, even though some teachers were kind enough to try to talk to me about being gay, even if it could have cost them their jobs. It built a conspiracy of fear and danger around something as simple and normal as love.
You’ve consistently supported Section 28.

The age of consent was lowered, first from 21 to 18, then eventually down to 16. I became eighteen shortly before the law was changed. Where other boys my age were able to have relationships, if I slept with someone around my own age, I was a paedophile in the eyes of the law, and if I slept with someone over the age of consent, then I was a de facto victim of child abuse, even though I was old enough to vote. It’s not a situation that exactly encouraged the formation of healthy relationships. This was the age where I should have been able to learn about relationships and to be able to talk about my experiences with other people to be able to understand them. Instead, if I dated a young woman (which I’ve done on and off), it was socially acceptable and seen as normal, if I dated a young man, I was a criminal. Equalising the age of consent was a powerful message to people my age that perhaps I deserved the same chance at a decent life as others.

You voted against this.

Still frightened by early relationships, and caught up in the need to stamp one’s identity on the world, I took all of the hatred and turned it into a game. I was a little rebel, a young man who’d defend himself by provoking people who were scared of my sexuality. I got called names on the street, I was spat at, a few times I was physically threatened by strangers. I felt the gulf between me and the rest of society at a time when other men my age are learning their places within it. I was reaching an age where my school-friends were starting families, but I was not allowed to even consider being a father because of the enduring stigma that gay men are paedophiles. Were I in a relationship with a woman, suddenly I’d be allowed to adopt. In 2002, Parliament finally voted to allow people like me to adopt. Once I was able to adopt, I still could not formalise a relationship with someone. The Civil Partnership Act changed that and meant that should I die, a male partner would not lose the home we lived in and should I be ill, he would be able to make decisions about my care.

You voted against all of this.

I faced discrimination at work and continued abuse in public should I dare to hold hands with a partner or to not be ashamed of what I am. The introduction of the Human Rights Act offered a ray of hope to many people that we would secure further civil liberties and be safe from discrimination.

You voted against this.

I had to be selective about where I chose to work, knowing I had no protection against discrimination. I eventually became a freelancer in part because I could not feel secure in a workplace where I could lose my job with no protection on the grounds of whether my partner was male or female at the time. Were I to be in a Civil Partnership, I was required to out myself on every encounter with a form which asked marital status. There was no protection against someone refusing me employment when they saw that. I did not enter a civil partnership because it felt like capitulating with a system that enforced the idea that some relationships were worth less than others. In 2007, finally, this was no longer the case, as the Sexual Orientation Regulations came into force.

You voted against this.

People could still legally slander gay people with impunity until the following year, when the government introduced laws to protect me from incitement to hatred.

You voted against this.

Still, I was separate but equal, as David Lammy described it yesterday and you repeated today. I was not normal in the eyes of the law, I would still remain short-changed in the social contract that exists between an individual and the state. Yesterday, an overwhelming majority of MPs moved to end that distinction and ensure that young men growing up and realising now that they are not heterosexual should not feel in any way lesser to their peers. It calls for an end to mandatory disclosure of sexual orientation in official paperwork. It calls for all loving, committed relationships to be treated as not just equitable or equivalent but equal in the eyes of the law. It marks a point where it’s closing the last few wounds inflicted on a group who in the last century have faced genocide at the hands of Nazis, would be hounded to death or prison should they not hide their romances, who were denied access to healthcare during a plague, who were subject to ridicule and, as Mr Lammy inferred yesterday, apartheid when it came to basic rights like family or privacy.

You voted against this.

I’m absolutely delighted that you have been consistently overturned on this. No thanks to you, young men, women and transgendered people will no longer grow up being denied education, healthcare, employment rights, freedom from discrimination or the right to family. No thanks to you, that inflicted shame will slowly fade away to the point where differentiation on the grounds of sexuality seems as irrational as denying women the right to vote does now. No thanks to you, LGBT people’s lives have been saved by this sequence of advances towards a fairer society.

Britain should be very proud of what happened in parliament yesterday. I’m just deeply saddened that no islander can say that they had a hand in it.

I will not vote for you, because you think I am worth less as a person than you. No-one who believes I am as entitled to civil rights as anyone else will vote for you. Yesterday was not an attack on religious freedom, but a doorway to it for so many people who’ve been denied a full spiritual and civil engagement in society. If your vote yesterday were a matter of conscience, I suggest you consider the lives you have wished on young LGBT people under your care, because they are so much better off today than when I was growing up and you’ve done everything in your power, which is the power entrusted to you by the people of the island, to oppose that.

I’m proud to be British, but your words have made many ashamed of being Islanders.

Yours sincerely,
Howard Hardiman


--------------------------------------


I know it's wrong but when I hear speech and viewpoints like those spoken by Andrew Turner I just wish the person concerned would fuck off and die.  I am not proud of myself for saying or feeling this.  Viewpoints like his, actions like his, made it very difficult for me growing up, as a young bisexual woman trying to work out what she was.  Laws that he voted for, or against, contributed to an atmosphere where I was fucking terrified to tell any of my friends I liked women.  Where I internalised a fear and a worry that I could never truly be truthful to those closest to me.  Hopefully in 15 years time bisexual and gay teenagers will have the confidence, self assurance and pride in themselves to be able to come out to their families, friends and workplaces without fear of reprisal.

I have never formally come out to work colleagues, present or past (of course some may be reading this...) and I have always hated that continual checking of myself, making sure I don't let anything slip.  I am slightly more talkative now about mental health issues, but even then I do not talk freely.  I think it is fair to say that my mental health issues and my sexuality are linked.  Not because being bisexual makes me crazy, or is a symptom or cause of being crazy, but because it's really fucking difficult to live in the closet, whether it's by choice or by being put in there.  We wouldn't need a fucking closet if our leaders and politicians and fellow citizens weren't such huge bastards and didn't treat us so badly.

We are Norwich organise counter demonstration against racist EDL march

A racist fascist organisation called the English Defence League are marching in Norwich today, because they are upset that a man was selling Islamophobic, hate motivated leaflets.  Well boo fucking hoo.  It is, quite rightly, illegal to sell leaflets containing hate speech.  I was furious when I found out the EDL were marching in Norwich, and very pleased when I heard a counter march was being held by We Are Norwich.  But I'm not at the march, mostly because I heard there might be violence and I'm scared (also because I have house stuff to do, we may be moving soon).  I don't want to get caught up in the fights (if there are any).  But I'm also ashamed of myself for not going, because I'm giving in to their tactics.  If you give in to fear then they can spread and win.  That's not right.

But there you have it - I'm afeard, and I'm at home blogging about it, and not there.  I am following it on twitter though - search for #wearenorwich, and I'm very proud of my friends and everyone else who is there.

Fuck I'm still furious those bastards dare to turn up in my fucking city.  Piss off EDL.  We don't want you and we don't support you.  Go back to your poisonous little rock.

#EverydaySexism

I went to buy a new rucksack a few weeks ago.  I needed something fairly small as I don't want to strain my back and I use a pannier on my bicycle for big things.  I headed into the local Cotswolds shop and found their only small rucksack.  It was purple.  Well that's ok, thought I.  Purple is quite nice.  then, whilst searching for the price, I found the description.

What? Whaaaaatttt?  It's a fecking rucksack.  There is more:

The blurb says:
This women's specific rucksack makes a great companion on the hill, whilst the internal organiser makes it ideal for commuting to school, the office or the gym.

The internal organisiser is a useless bit of material separating the main space from the back of the rucksack.  The internal pocket is non existent.  I feel patronised and fooled because I've bought an inferior product (inferior because of the stupid non existent internal pocket).

For reference, this is what it looks like.  It's by Berghaus:

 Arrrggggghhhhjjjj!


(Title is hashtagged for the benefit of twitter)

Teaching women how to act and how this corresponds to rape

I just found this on One Dark Angel's tumblr, and it's brilliant. I've read something liked this before but it bears repeating, particularly because it articulates it so well (trigger warning):

If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.

And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.

Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”

Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”

Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.

Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.

Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.

Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.

People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.

And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.

Abortion Laws in the States

So between twitter and the radio I've been hearing a lot about GOP, Santorum, Rush Limbaugh, abortion, contraception, trans vaginal scans and rape.  But I hadn't really paid much attention to it.  Until my Dad sent me this Doonesbury cartoon from today's Guardian newspaper.  Go click on the link, it won't allow me to post a clear picture of it here.

Pretty awful, no?

Then I read the part of the email where Dad said this cartoon had been banned in Texas.  I enquired if he was joking and he sent me this article which I shall cross post in it's entirety:


Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau has defended his cartoon strip about abortion, which several US newspapers are refusing to run, saying he felt compelled to respond to the way Republicans across America are undermining women's healthcare rights.
The strip, published on Monday and scheduled to run all week, has been rejected by several papers, while others said they were switching it from the comic section to the editorial page.
In an email exchange with the Guardian, Trudeau expressed dismay over the papers' decision but was unrepentant, describing as "appalling" and "insane" Republican state moves on women's healthcare.
About 1,400 newspapers, including the Guardian, take the Doonesbury cartoon. The Guardian newspaper is running the cartoon as normal on Monday.
The strip deals specifically with a law introduced in Texas and other states requiring a woman who wants to have an abortion to have an ultrasound scan, or sonogram, which will show an image of the foetus and other details, in an attempt to make her reconsider.
It portrays a woman who turns up at an abortion clinic in Texas and is told to take a seat in "the shaming room". A state legislator asks if she has been at the clinic before and, when she says she had been to get contraceptives, he replies: "Do your parents know you're a slut?"


Later, she says she does not want an intrusive vaginal examination but is told by a nurse: "The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10-inch shaming wand." The nurse adds: "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape."
The Kansas City Star is among the papers not running the cartoon in its normal slot. "We felt the content was too much for many of the readers of our family-friendly comic page," an editor told Associated Press. The Star will use a replacement strip offered by the organisation that syndicates Doonesbury, Universal Uclick, and move the abortion one to its editorial pages.
Sue Roush, managing editor of Universal Uclick, said: "I can't say how many papers will choose ultimately to run or not run the series, but we've had inquiries from 30 to 40 papers asking about the substitutes."
Abortion, contraception and other social issues have resurfaced in politics in recent weeks, partly because they have been highlighted by the Republican candidates in the presidential race. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh referred to a student giving evidence to a congressional hearing in support of contraception as "a slut".


Trudeau told the Guardian he thought the issue of reproductive freedom had been settled while he had still been at school: the supreme court 1973 ruling Roe v Wade, which removed restrictions on abortion.


Trudeau wrote: "Ninety-nine percent of American women have or will use contraception during their lifetimes. To see these healthcare rights systematically undermined in state after state by the party of 'limited government' is appalling. "In Texas, the sonograms are the least of it. The legislature has also defunded women's health clinics all over the state, leaving 300,000 women without the contraceptive services that prevent abortions in the first place. Insanity."
Trudeau is dismayed by the newspaper reaction. "I write the strip to be read, not removed. And as a practical matter, many more people will see it in the comics page than on the editorial page," he wrote.
"I don't mean to be disingenuous. Obviously there's some profit to controversy, especially for a satirist. If debate is swirling around a particular strip, and if its absence creates blowback, then I'm contributing to the public conversation in a more powerful way. But I don't get up in the morning and scheme about how to antagonise editors. Some of these folks have supported me for decades."
Asked about the use of the word "rape" to describe what was happening to women seeking abortions in Texas, he said it was perfectly apt for the compulsory insertion of an object into the vulva. "That falls within the legal definition of rape. Coercion need not be physically violent to meet the threshold. Many people here are now referring to trans-vaginal sonograms as 'state rape'. That seems about right to me," he wrote.
"However, if you just mean the topic of rape generally, it's not something I would avoid simply because I work on a page where children can occasionally be found. People know what to expect in Doonesbury. Certainly children do, which is why they never read it. And editors have long known what they're getting; I first wrote about rape in the late '70s, devoting an entire week to a mock rape trial."


The Texas governor Rick Perry, who dropped out of the Republican presidential candidates race in January, signed the abortion measure into law in May 2010.

His press spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, asked about the Doonesbury strip, said: "The decision to end a life is not funny. There is nothing comic about this tasteless interpretation of legislation we have passed in Texas to ensure that women have all the facts when making a life-ending decision."

Scary, no?  Then I read this article about a 15 year old child facing imprisonment for 'depraved heart murder' - or miscarrying at 36 weeks because she took coke.

What?  How is anyone taking this seriously?  How can you jail a child for miscarrying? How can you jail anyone for miscarrying?  What next, we jail women because they don't eat enough greens or take enough supplements during pregnancy?

I feel sick.  These are hate laws, pure and simple, directed at women.  If these people actually wanted to reduce the number of abortions they'd provide free contraception to every woman and girl of child bearing age.  They would educate children about consent, and healthy sex, and contraception.  But they don't do this because they actually just seek to slut shame and control women's bodies and pass judgement from nigh on high above, where they will never ever ever have any idea what it is like to be pregnant, bear a child or bring one up.  They have no idea about women's lives and they have absolutely nor right to try and control 51% of the population.

I am disgusted.

Dc: redefining Captain Marvel to be grim

Argggfffgghghhhhhh.

Captain Marvel, one of the few sueprheores that is really about unbridled childhood joy.  Now he's grim and moody and snarly.  I've written about Captain marvel over at New readers...start here!.  I'd hoped he and his family would be revived, as more childhood fun, with no angst, just innocence.  But oh no.  everything's gotta be grim and moody.

aggggghhhhhhhh.

I'm really having an awful monday.

Boys look at things and girls look at faces

I am fuming. This is partly due to eating badly and drinking too much over the weekend, partly due to stupid comments from otherwise intelligent people, and partly due to my own stupid reactions about baby clothes. Let me explain.

You see, this weekend my mum and I organised a surprise baby shower for my sister (who’s due in 1 month!). Miraculously we got to the day, and the minute she walked in to the house without her knowing anything about it, (plus points to everyone involved). It all went well, she opened and like the gifts, sandwiches and cake, and was genuinely surprised and touched by and happy by everyone who had made the effort to be there.

The talk all afternoon (well, for the 2 hours of the party) was of babies, and labour, and pregnancy, which I probably shouldn’t have been surprised about, but I was kind of hoping we’d be having other conversations too, alas, apparently not. I think that people, mostly women, tend to have something in their brain that just switches when they meet a heavily pregnant lady, and all they can talk about is babies. Anyway, baby talk is fine, if a little dull. That doesn’t matter, it wasn’t for me, it wasn’t about me and my sister had a great time, which is the important thing.

What really annoyed me was the talk of baby clothes – you know, how difficult it is to buy things when you don’t know the sex of the child, and of the differences between male and female babies. Someone actually said that that ‘boys look at things and girls look at faces’. Another one was ‘you’ve got to get them in the right clothes or they won’t know what they are’. I could have screamed. These are otherwise intelligent women. Why does their reasoning faculties short circuit when it comes to babies?

I’m not denying that male and female children act differently, but they act differently because of how we, parents, wider family, and society, bring them up. And of all the stupid things to say, boys look at things and girls look at faces....

Now I’ve heard the maxim many times that goes ‘if you don’t challenge sexism and oppression then you are as bad as the oppressors and the sexists’ and I take very great umbrage at this. Sometimes it’s not possible, safe or polite to challenge people’s views. If I’m out late at night, drunk, and I hear other drunk people shouting at someone else for being a queer, if I were to challenge this I’d probably get lamped. If I had challenged these stupid gender essentialist views at the baby shower It would have been very rude. If you challenge every single thing that you hear that perpetuates oppression you’ll become a sanctimonious old windbag with no friends.

So, I didn’t say anything, I stayed silent and groaned inwardly.

Reflecting on how folk at the party were talking about clothes etc led me to think again about how I viewed baby clothes. I’ve always thought that it would be easy for me to buy clothes for a little un – I just don’t buy pink for a girl or blue for a boy. Because I’m contrary I’d be happy buying the opposite colours, or neutral ones, but I for sure wouldn’t buy pink for girls and blue for boys. Then on my hunt for baby clothes I found myself thinking in terms of gendered clothes, and only wanting to buy ‘gender appropriate’ things. I’m so cross at myself. I discovered that I felt ok buying clothes with trucks and stuff on for a girl (well ok-ish, I consider trucks very boring and would rather buy something with dinosaurs on, but you know what I mean), but when I considered buying something cute with flowers, or ladybirds on, I found myself thinking ‘but what if it’s a boy?’ I try to fool myself into thinking that it’s cause I don’t know how the parents (my sister and brother in law) will feel about having their (possible) boy child in ‘girly’ clothes, but let’s be honest, it’s not them, it’s me thinking this way.

Ugh. I’m reminded of another quote – ‘it’s easy to bring up your girls like boys, but it takes real courage to bring up your boys like girls’. It appears that I blanche from encouraging boys to be like girls, and I’m so cross with myself for thinking in this way.

All in all this has led to me having a particularly shitty Monday as I fume about all the genderised shit in the world.

#Spartacusreport : challenging the government

Over 2011 a group of disability activists got together and decided to challenge the government's welfare system reforms.

Headed by Sue Marsh, blogging on Diary of a Benefit Scrounger and tweeting on @suey2y, and by BendyGirl, blogging at Benefit Scrounging Scum, they conducted interviews, researched the meanings of the proposed reforms, analysed the data and developed conclusions on the proposed changes.  This was all pulled together into a document titled Responsible Reform and launched last Monday.  The twitter hashtag is #spartacusreport.

Before Christmas, Sue found out her application for DLA had been rejected.  Instead of appealing that, she elected to continue working on the report.  Several activists involved with the report made themselves ill and ended up in hospital, because of the workload.  These activists are all sick or disabled themselves.  The reforms will directly affect them.

There wasn't much national media coverage on the Monday, or the Tuesday.  Despite the fact that national organisations such as Mind, The Papworth Trust, Scope and United Response support the report.

But on Friday Sue Marsh went on Newsnight, with Chris Grayling, Employment Adviser to debate the Thursday night discussion in the House of Lords.

This is a victory for grassroots activism, and a victory for the cause itself.  It is amazing what these activists have done, and it amazing (in a very different way) what the government is trying to do.

Mega mega kudos to Sue and her colleagues.  Take a gander at the links, especially if you live in the UK.  I reckon most people who don't have direct personal experience of sickness or disability won't understand the implications of the proposed reforms.  Why would you?  But they ain't good.  They are being proposed purely to save money. 

This government is placing a greater importance on saving money than on providing a decent quality of life and standard of living to it's citizens.

This government thinks money is more important than people.

"...And that's what your holy men discuss, is it?" [asked Granny Weatherwax.]

"Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example." [answered Mightily Oats.]

"And what do they think? Against it, are they?"

"It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey."

"Nope."

"Pardon?"

"There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."

"It's a lot more complicated than that--"

"No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."

"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--"

"But they starts with thinking about people as things..."

--from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.

State benefits in the UK

I've been following Diary of a Benefit Scrounger for a while now.  It's a campaigning site focusing on the proposed cuts to welfare benefits in the UK.  There's a few posts I think people should read.

The Very Definitions of Irony -the writer of the blog has severe Chron's disease, osteroporisis and malnutrition.  She takes chemo shots every 2 weeks, has had major seizures and a stroke.  Her application for Disability Living Allowance has been turned down.
3 Claimants die after being found for fit for work
An open letter to Iain Duncan Smith
Did you know this about your ESA50 form - Given how strict we are about data protection, why do royal mail sorting officers open the ESA50 applications, and sort them in the post office?  What's it to do with them?

Who is the most deserving? - Since 2008 75% of applicants got gurned down for Employment Support Allowance.  Apparently they weren't sick or disabled enough.
We all know someone who could work but doesn't - don't we? - Hidden, secret disabilities and illnesses.

Bristol's Deaf Community feel under seige

Cross-posted in it's entirety from this article at The Guardian.

Last week, it was announced that Bristol Deaf Centre, which celebrated 125 years of serving the local deaf community just two years ago, will lose £240,000 worth of funding from Bristol city council. This money paid for their core funding, equipment service and special projects. As a result, the centre is faced with closure, with many staff who have worked there for years served with notices of redundancy.
This comes on the back of the University of Bristol's decision a year ago (despite a campaign that gained international support) to cut a key course at the Centre for Deaf Studies. This year, the student intake for the deaf studies BSc course has stopped and as a consequence, by 2013, the number of deaf studies staff – many of whom are deeply skilled, with years of experience in their field, themselves deaf – is set to be cut by more than 75%. This is a groundbreaking, world-renowned research centre that was the first in the UK to undertake sign language research over 30 years ago.

These two cuts to deaf hubs in the city look like being just the start. In December, the future of Bristol's specialist school for deaf children, Elmfield Deaf School, was placed in doubt after Bristol city council launched an informal consultation about whether its pupils could instead attend units in mainstream schools. Crucially, due to many specialist deaf schools closing across the country, the school also serves many children from far outside the city itself. Elmfield has taken new pupils for this year's intake but its future remains in the balance as staff and pupils await a new council review.

Perhaps just one of these decisions to cut or try and cut, particularly in the current climate, wouldn't seem like the end of the world. But when this all happens in one place, you see how a community can feel under siege, with the very psychological and physical landscape of a city for the deaf people who live there seemingly set to irrevocably change. Jobs are about to be lost, or are in the balance. Deaf and hearing people who currently work together in the deaf community wonder whether it's time to move away, or change careers – if they can. Meanwhile, children wonder whether the environment in which they are educated will completely change, just as older deaf people see a place they have known all their lives, received services from and often contributed to, on the edge of extinction.
We're only just beginning to understand how cuts are affecting deaf services nationwide, most starkly in this online map from the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) showing local authority cuts to education services for deaf children. But never before have we seen so many cuts bite in one place, and so quickly.
Bristol's run of cuts and attempted cuts could be an anomaly, a freak series of decisions that happened to land in the same place at the same time. But there's fear now within the deaf world that it may instead be just be the start. Deafness at its heart affects communication. Are cuts to deaf services seen as an easier cut, when they hit people who use sign language or lipread to communicate, and, as a consequence, may be perceived as being less likely to be able to articulate their concerns to the media and the wider world? As we see services, jobs, places and institutions come under threat and disappear, very few deaf people both in Bristol and elsewhere can now hope to escape the impact of the cuts unscathed.

England riots

I want to write about the riots but i'm a) really tired and b) out every night this week.  This causes a problem.

Basically, lots of teenagers and kids are running around big cities in England (not Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, you'll note) and muggin people, setting fire to things and looting shops.  It started last weekend after a guy got shot by the police in London and a protest was organised.  It's no longer a protest (in my eyes, though undoubtedly some of the kids think they're protesting) and it's pure criminal damage.  People have died, others have been put in hospital, many have lost their livelihood as their businesses are burnt to the ground.

My city isn't affected but my friend's cities are.  It's not caused by social media, tuition fees, bad diets, alcohol, single mothers or video games.  It is a fucking nightmare for the people in the areas where the kids are rioting.  It's not even organised riots, just many seperate gangs of kids.

Now they're talking about bringing in the army, rubber bullets and water cannons.  The poor police have not got enough coppers in the force to maintain control.  Personally, I'm swinging more towards arresting all the rioters and chucking them in gaol, cos they know full well what they're doing.

I'll leave you with The Clash, singing London's Burning.

Fit for Work?

Cross posted in it's entirety from this Guardian article:

Larry Newman was assessed by an Atos staff member and awarded zero points. To qualify for sickness benefit he needed 15. He died from lung problems soon after


Larry Newman attended a work capability assessment in March 2010, when a degenerative lung condition made it impossible for him to go on working in the wood veneer showroom where he had spent much of his career. His weight had dropped from 10 to seven stone, and he had trouble breathing and walking.

The Atos staff member who carried out the medical test awarded him zero points. To qualify for employment and support allowance, the new sickness benefit, he needed to score 15 points, and in July he received a letter from jobcentre officials stating that he was not eligible for the benefit (worth around £95 a week) and would be fit to return to work within three months.

He was devastated by the decision, and dismayed to note a number of inaccuracies in the report that accompanied the letter. He decided to appeal against the decision, but before three months was up he died from his lung problems.

His widow, Sylvia Newman, recalls that one of the last things he said to her, as doctors put him on a ventilator, was: "It's a good job I'm fit for work." He was trying to make her laugh, she says, but it was also a reflection of how upset he had been by the conclusion of the medical test.

"He was so hurt by it. It made him so upset that they thought he was lying, and he wasn't," she says. "I think it added to him just giving up."

Mrs Newman has lodged an official complaint, with the help of Citizens Advice staff, highlighting 12 inconsistencies in the report by the Atos assesser. It said her husband had been unaccompanied. "I was with him, although in his medical report they claimed that I was in the waiting room," she says. The report says that Mr Newman's pulse was fine, that he had no scars on his chest and that he managed to climb on to the examination bed without any problem. Mrs Newman says that her husband did not get on to the examination bed, that his pulse was not taken, and that the assesser did not look at his chest, otherwise he would have seen scars.

"He never touched Larry, he never took his pulse.There were endless inaccuracies," she added, describing the report as "make-believe".

They were both dismayed by the assesser's casual attitude. "At one stage, he took a phone call. We were trying not to listen, but it seemed to be a personal call," she says. "It went on for a few minutes. It wasn't very professional."

Although they had given written permission for Atos to seek written medical reports from Mr Newman's hospital consultant, who had diagnosed extrinsic allergic alveolitis, the assesser said that he didn't have a copy of his records or the questionnaire that he had filled in when he applied for the benefit.

"They could have just got a report from the hospital to see how sick he was. It seemed a pointless exercise," Mrs Newman says, profoundly distressed as she recounts what happened.

She is angry at the treatment she and her husband received from Atos staff.

"They are charging the government a lot of money for these assessments, and I know that other very sick people have been treated as Larry was. I promised him I would pursue it. It wasn't a fortune, and we were struggling to survive. It wasn't anything he wasn't entitled to."
An Atos official said: "We are sorry to hear that Mr Newman has died. We cannot comment on individual cases. We do expect the highest standards from our staff. All complaints are taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated."

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This not an isolated case.

Murdoch gets a pie in the face and we all forget about what else the Tories are doing

Namely, forging ahead with their plans for privatising the NHS.  The following is crossposted from here:

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The government will open up more than £1bn of NHS services to competition from private companies and charities, the health secretary announced on Tuesday, increasing fears that it will inevitably lead to the "privatisation of the health service".

In the first wave, beginning next April, eight NHS areas – including musculoskeletal services for back pain, adult hearing services in the community, wheelchair services for children and primary care psychological therapies for adults – will be open for "competition on quality not price".

If successful, the policy, known as "any qualified provider", would see non-NHS bodies allowed from 2013 to deliver more complicated clinical services in maternity and "home chemotherapy".
Andrew Lansley – admitting that the government's initial plans for competition in the NHS were too ambitious, and stung by criticism from Steve Field, the senior doctor called in by David Cameron to review the reforms, that the proposals were "unworkable" – has slowed down the rollout of competition.
The health secretary said his plans would now "enable patients to choose [providers] ... where this will lead to better care".

Labour questioned the policy, which the shadow health secretary John Healey said was "not about giving more control to patients, but setting up a full-scale market."

His colleague Emily Thornberry, the party's health spokeswoman, added that "today is a good day to announce the policy because everyone is preoccupied with telephone hacking. (They) hope no one will notice it". This theme was picked up on Twitter with a stream of comments about "it being a good day to bury bad news".

Critics warned of "huge dangers lurking in the plans". The trade union Unison said that "patients will be little more than consumers, as the NHS becomes a market-driven service, with profits first and patients second. And they could be left without the services they need as forward planning in the NHS becomes impossible."

A spokesman for the British Medical Association questioned "the assumption that increasing competition will always mean improving choice. The ultimate consequence of market failure in the NHS is the closure of services, restricting the choice of patients who would have wished to use them."

The Department of Health dismissed these charges and argued the policy would benefit patients by bringing many services out of hospitals, which would make it easier to access healthcare. As an example the policy could lead to patients being able to walk into a retailer on the high street or local GP's surgery for a blood test rather than being forced to go to hospital.

One of the new policy's aims is to promote innovation, highlighting the "Tony Blair example". Abnormal heart rhythms, such as those suffered by Tony Blair, no longer need the immediate attention of a cardiologist. Instead, a concerned patient could today be treated by using the telephone to measure the heart beats and give an instant diagnosis, followed by a call from a nurse advising on whether the patient needed to go to hospital or not.

He said the former prime minister's abnormal heart rhythms could today be treated by using the telephone to measure the heartbeats and give an instant diagnosis, followed by a call from a nurse advising on whether the patient needed to go to hospital or not. "You could cut dramatically the number of hospital admissions like this."

There were also major savings that could be made. The department cited the example of chronic leg wounds, where the NHS pays out £18,000 per patient over four years, often without curing them.
One not-for-profit company – Wound Healing Centre in Sussex – manages to treat patients successfully for £720.

Lansley's commissioning tsar, Dame Barbara Hakin, said the NHS must push ahead with the agenda to offer patients more choice despite the financial challenges and the period of "significant transition". The NHS must save £20bn over the next four years in efficiencies.

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Screw you David Cameron.  I don't know how you sleep at night, you insipid, cowardly, greedy bastard.

Eu says bugger it to our countryside

Sort of.  I came across this post on one of the RSPB's blogs today:

(fully crossposted)
---------------------------------------------
It’s been a shocking week to say the least! And it’s only Tuesday!


The RSPB announced today that the EU are planning to sever a rather important leg from our Common Agricultural Policy. That all sounds rather jargonny I know so i’ll try to make it as simple as possible. Our old friend Mark Avery couldn’t have put it better himself.

Farmland covers a whopping 75% of our region and is a vital part of the ecosystem for some our most loved (and threatened) wildlife. If President Barroso makes this decision, the money that goes directly into conservation and farming to ensure that our countryside stays fit for wildlife will vanish, along with our turtle doves, our skylarks and many more species along the way.

I for one, couldn’t think of a worse scenario to be in. It worries me greatly that our European leaders think that this is a GOOD idea! If our UK farmers were to lose this vital stream of income and organisations like the RSPB were to lose funding for major species and habitat recovery projects because of this short-sighted approach, then we can all kiss goodbye to a countryside full of birdsong for our grandchildren.

There is something we can do. By signing this e-action you will be pledging your support to the RSPB and perhaps we can get this decision reversed.

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How about you all go and sign the e-action, huh?  You've got till the 29th of June to make a difference.

Cass and Steph get benched in the new DC universe

Crissposted from DC Women Kicking Ass:
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Notes from the DC Roadshow: Well, that’s that, isn’t it?

Bleeding Cool has posted reports from yesterday’s road show in Texas. And here you go:

You won’t be seeing Donna Troy yet in the new DCU, nor the Stephanie and Cassandra Batgirls. They haven’t been killed off though, just benched.

And the new readers they are targeting?

The target audience are men age 18 to 34 though they do realize that they have readers in other demographics.

I’m going to take a few moments.

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MOTHERFUCKERS

The referendum was not a success.

40% turn out, only a third voted for AV.  Well done Britain, that's screwed us out of having a decent electoral system for about another 30 years.  I hope you're proud.

*scowls*

I'm narked and people are stupid.  So, to cheer myself (and you guys up) I looked at a couple of posts by notintheface.  One shows Jaimie Reyes mother and the other shows Lois kicking ass in a wedding dress, with a champagne bottle.

Jesus. 40% turn out.  With results like that this nation doesn't deserve a decent elctoral system or a decent government.