Oh, Hello Mr Mohan

On Saturday an unusual thing happened. The Sun (almost....in a round about way) acknowledged our existence.
You see for the last 7 months they have done a rather sterling job of pretending we're not here at all. I mean , ok Rupert Murdoch replied to a supporter but he didn't acknowledge us and other than sending out an ex-deputy editor to trawl out the same old, old arguments in favour whilst stating, quite without irony, that he would never take it home because his wife didn't like the children seeing it (I kid you not). The current Sun staff have been deafening in their silence towards us. Then yesterday a supporter sent us this...




Ohhhh interesting we thought. They are talking to us...I mean we assume it's us as they seem to be referring to a "sisterhood" and whilst we bloody love our sister supporters who stand shoulder with us we also have many, many supporters who wouldn't necessarily identify themselves immediately as feminists and we have thousands and thousands of male supporters, fathers, grandfathers, brothers etc who simply want to see women shown some respect.
Add to that those running the country who feel that page 3 has become a national embarrassment http://nomorepage3.org/letter-to-the-editor-signed-by-mps/ a list which is growing day on day because they seem to think (and we agree) that we are really rather better than this. We did after all just stage the Olympics?
Of course there is a real, proud element of sisterhood in our group support http://nomorepage3.org/orgsupport/ including some groups who support victims of rape, sexual assault and violence and backed up by groups trying desperately to promote positive body image or women in sport against the backdrop of this overt sexism. All of these groups have their own very serious reasons for asking for the end of a "National Institution" which objectifies, sexualises and belittles women's place in society.
So yes, many are joined in solidarity with the (give me strength) ..."Pretty Tunisian girl" who firstly isn't a girl..she is in fact a 19-year-old woman and who is not trying to look "pretty" or provocative in any way but is posting her own topless pictures of herself in an effort to promote her own bodily integrity and ownership, in a culture which seeks everyday to remove that right from her in multiple ways.
So why, the Sun asks, if we support this young woman, do we "look down our nose at Zoe 24 from Coventry"
Wow! Erm...where to begin?
Well firstly... WE ARE NOT LOOKING DOWN OUR NOSE AT ANYBODY! Not 24-year-old Zoe, not 18-year-old Suzy, none of them. We have never been against the glamour models in any way. We support all women's choice to do what they choose with their life and if they make an informed choice towards the glamour industry we have no issue with that. The issue with page 3 is about context and the choice of where these pictures go is not made by the model it is made by the editors who for 42 very long years have somehow felt it appropriate to put these post watershed images just inside the front cover of a national family newspaper.
Well here Mr Mohan,/Mr Murdoch /The Sun is the thing.... We in the UK don't live in a culture that reinforces to women that their body should be covered and limits their freedom of choice or movement in numerous ways. What we live in is a culture which limits women everyday by reinforcing, through images like page 3, that they should be of a certain size, shape, colour. A culture where the biggest image of a woman in the press is one of her standing in just her pants, exposed and posing provocatively. Not in a publication with other similar images or one with similarly sexual images of men, but in a newspaper with men in suits running the country or playing sports and the contrast is glaringly obvious. What is reinforced everyday, in the homes into which this image infiltrates, is that a woman's place in society is to decorate it and be sexually available to men. It isn't freedom of speech. These women are not given a voice and the young women in these homes learn that the most important thing about them is not what they think or feel, not what they may be capable of, their talents or abilities but above all else their appearance and their sexual availability. It's hard to see therefore any decision to go into glamour modelling as one that isn't strongly influenced by this constant reinforcement, particularly for those who may have watched the significant men in her life looking at page 3 and commenting on the models throughout their upbringing.
No, No more page 3 supporters do not look down their nose at the page 3 girls at all, but what about the newspaper in which their pictures are showcased? How much are these women paid for their work in comparison to the profit made? How are they respected when the "News in Briefs" mocks them and suggests they can clearly have no intelligence if they are attractive or choose to pose naked? How do the page 3 fans show respect to these women when they go online and rotate them 360 degrees like cattle paraded at market or comment and refer to them as "wanking fodder"? How does the Sun choose to represent a young women who after years of page 3 conditioning is so utterly depressed about how the size or shape of her breasts isn't "normal" that she turns to her GP who recommends surgery on the NHS? So appalled is the Sun about this that it then has the young woman pose topless in its paper, un-airbrushed (unlike the page 3 models) to ridicule and mock her, perpetuating a torrent of abuse against her which litters everybody's Facebook and twitter feed. Sorry...who was looking down their nose at who....I forget.
Who used these images to mock, ridicule and belittle Claire Short when she tried to stand up for the 100's of women who had written to her in support of her plans to ask for a ban on page 3, including the 12 women who had told her they had page 3 mentioned to them whilst being raped. Who supported Seth MacFarlane's ridicule of Hollywood actresses by printing pictures of all the breasts he had mentioned including some from rape scenes that were depictions of true stories?Who is it that "respects" victims of assault by running the story with a picture of the victim posed in sexy underwear completely undermining the seriousness of the crime?
You can see my confusion.... I think if we are looking for those happy to look down noses at women you will struggle to find them in the sisterhood or anywhere amongst all of the 89 000 who have signed the no more page 3 petition. The easiest place it seems to find it is sadly amongst those publishing these images in the mainstream who have been quoted as saying these women are "as stupid as they look", amongst the page 3 supporters who have said if "slags want to pose naked we should let them" and who refer to those of us who want an end to this as ugly, fat or with crap tits because they can only assume our motivation must be jealousy.
So yes, we do rather love the bravery and importance of what Amina Tyler is doing (that's her name by the way Mr Mohan/Mr Murdoch, perhaps you couldn't find it on the internet?) but seeing as you ask we think Page 3 is totally different in the context of our western culture, well to be frank in any culture. None of the European journalist, American, Australian, Mexican people understand it and many of your own readers seem so embarrassed by it that we watch them skip straight to page 4. You see..it is so terribly old hat isn't it?
We are so much better than this.

Newsbeat rape coverage

Following this http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21016808#TWEET659531 seemingly awful and biased mis-reporting of rape figures I made a formal complaint to newsbeat. This is their response -

Dear Ms Clarke

Thank you for contacting us regarding ‘Newsbeat’.

We understand you had concerns about a news article which related to a recent CPS report on the number of false rape claims made in proportion to legitimate claims prosecuted.

We passed your concerns to Rod McKenzie, Editor, Newsbeat who has responded with the following:

“This was a story commissioned to specifically examine what it was like to be falsely accused of rape. To help contextualise the story we reported on a 17 month study carried out by the Crown Prosecution Service which set out to establish how common such false rape allegations were. In the past we have published many stories highlighting the issues surrounding rape and domestic violence, specifically targeted at our core audience of 15 to 24 year olds. Please find links for two such stories below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17230648

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17238674

On this occasion we chose to look at those young people – usually men – who are occasionally wrongly accused. We know from our audience research that among this group concern over this issue is commonplace – we sought to contextualise this anxiety. I do not agree we misrepresented the study, or published an article that might somehow put people off reporting such serious crimes. However, having considered feedback I agree we were not clear enough in our wording. For clarity we have replaced a word in the second sentence from ‘common’ to ‘unusual’.

In the fourth line of our story we quote the Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer who says false rape allegations are ‘serious but rare’. In the accompanying video he makes the same statement within the first fifty seconds. Whilst our story hears from a young man who says he was wrongly accused, we ensure that rape victims are given a voice by running quotes from Dianne Whitfield from Rape Crisis. We also feature a video which contains a Nottinghamshire Police spokeswoman who says their starting point is always to believe allegations of serious sexual assault. She goes on to explain how thoroughly they investigate both sides of any allegation. Far from downplaying the seriousness of rape we finish our article by publishing the phone numbers of advice lines for people who believe they may have been the victim of rape or domestic violence.

On the day this story was broadcast we received a big response from our young audience, and we openly invited feedback on this challenging topic. Whilst some people did say our reporting of false accusations was damaging to real rape victims, on our Social Networking sites false accusations were described as “disgusting”, and one young man told us that he felt the bigger problem was that these claims make life harder for real rape victims to be taken seriously. On Twitter another young male listener told us "Allegations of rape not only waste police time but wreck the lives of those accused! And another wrote... "My 23 year old nephew was recently accused of rape. He then killed himself. The girl did it again to another guy."

Our view is that all aspects of this story merit coverage and debate and we will continue to do so."

Thank you again for taking the trouble to get in touch with us.

Kind Regards
BBC Complaints
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints
Not impressed quite frankly...

No More Page 3 Campaign from strength to strength

Life in No More Page 3 HQ is a roller coaster of emotions. From the highs of passing another milestone on the signature count (at time of writing 86 117) to the sadness and horror of hearing one woman's story of being sexually assaulted surrounded by images like page 3. From the frustration of fielding diatribes of misogynistic trolling to the inevitable silliness of tit jokes that we share when letting off a little steam.
The place is a hive of ideas, activity and humour from a team of truly inspired and extraordinary women. I say women, at the time of writing we are excited about expanding our team to include two  more amazing supporters including our first male.

New members are entering the campaign on a real high following our most successful move yet, hitting the Sun where it hurts, in the pocket. So upset was one supporter, with the promotion LEGO were running in the Sun for the 5th time (a promotion aimed at children collecting tokens to redeem for toys) that he started a petition to draw the toy manufacturer's attention to the inappropriate nature of pointing children towards a publication containing objectifying, soft pornographic images. The petition attracted 12 000 signatures and after that and 100's of tweets and emails LEGO announced that no further promotions would follow. Yay!!

This is an important victory and we now look to other Sun advertisers and stockists to consider the image of their brand and whether the sexist and degrading dinosaur that is The Sun with page 3 truly fits that image. When the revolution comes will they want to be left looking silly for not having acted sooner?

Yes people, the revolution is coming! The revolution tackling media sexism in the UK starts here.

Things are going well....really well...imagine something going well, well it's better than that!

We are forging on with signatures, our Facebook likes are over 8000, Twitter followers at over 13 000. NUS women's conference backed us 100% and so to add to the 6 universities currently boycotting the Sun in support of NMP3 numerous others are now pushing for the same including Nottingham and Derby.

Labour women's group are on board. The Sun has dropped page 3 4 times so far this year, (more times than in the whole of 2012). Murdoch has mumbled something incoherent about fashionistas which nobody really understood but which earned us over 20 000 extra signatories.
We have so many exciting developments I'm struggling to hold my bladder let alone my tongue and I am over the moon to be a part of this.

I am working with an amazing team and doing sometimes quite bonkers things I had never dreamt of but more than that, I am standing with over 86 000 others and saying -

For pity's sake it is 2013! It's time we saw more women in the press that we can aspire to be, women being the amazing, funny, talented and beautiful 51% of the population that we know we are, in all of our clothes, standing up straight, without a pout, making news.

Proud PC Crew

So following his infamous tweet appearing to suggest his disquiet with the pornographic content of his newspaper a few short weeks ago the PR wheel rolled on and Mr Murdoch tried to calm things a little by suggesting its all an overreaction by the PC crew?
Hmmm... Interesting choice of words. PC...politically correct. A term so often banded about as a negative, reactionary thing but just a little bit of analysis is required to break that down...analysis and maybe a little historical knowledge.
So when Page 3 first came out in 1970 the moral zeitgeist was such that married women generally stayed at home and bought up the children whilst men went out to work.
Many of the Oxford colleges were not open to women, the stock exchange was not open to women. Women who were in the workplace were not well protected. Harassment and in particular sexual harassment were not covered by legislation and there were no safeguards in place if a boss or co-worker "felt you up" (or sexually assaulted you) up against the coffee machine or work bench. There was no come back if you were asked what colour your knickers were that day and if you were "on the rag" as you were in such a narky mood and it's not hard to believe that any woman who did try to speak up against these remarks would be seen as over sensitive or ridiculous as "what did she expect" in a male orientated work place. Here in 2013 things are different. Whilst we know (thanks to the Everyday Sexism campaign) that sexual harassment still happens in work places it is now covered under employment law and women can seek redress in court.
When Page 3 first came out in 1970 women within a marriage were still effectively the property of their husbands. Some banks still insisted on a husband or father's signature before a woman could open an account and a man could, if he chose force sex upon his wife at any time because there was no such thing as rape within marriage. We now have laws which reflect what we now know about rape being used as a weapon against women in domestic abuse and we would never dream of suggesting that a woman who was raped by her husband was not raped BECAUSE it was her husband or that she not have her own independent financial means.
As a child in the 1970's I remember watching comedians such as Jim Davidson making jokes of black stereotypes and thinking nothing of it. That type of humour is now deplorable. It was the 1970's which allowed a prolific child abuser open access to young girls in TV studios and thought nothing of scenes openly sexualising young school girls in sit-coms and films.
I could go on all day but my point is this.....
Without people standing up and pointing out how things were wrong, pointing out how people were being hurt or damaged and showing us all that we each have a responsibility to protect each other, particularly victims of abuse or harassment, repression or bigotry. Without the "PC" people we would have made no progress whatsoever.
Times move on and things move on but not on there own. It is people that make this happen.
It is clear that within 4 decades our understanding of the media and its effects on society are far greater. With that knowledge comes responsiblity. Responsibility to not just mirror society with a media that reflects back to it what it already is, or gives it or what it wants but provides it with a potential rallying point and allows change of those values through education. We know the Sun already accepts this responsiblity, running many valient campaigns including support for British military personnel in action, campaigns against domestic violence and protecting children from sexual abuse.
So Mr Murdoch... I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the PC crew as you so nicely put it, because it is the PC crew that has given society the progress it has made and stands with you in the good works of the Sun and what I ask you is the alternative?
Looking at the "Keep page 3 " petiton started a few weeks ago seemingly by the page 3 models themselves and directed at Rupert provides some insightful answers about the current status quo.
The status quo is a situation where "supporters" of page 3 girls show their "supportive" reason's for signing largely with combinations of the words tits, boobs and wanking material. There are also occassional references to crazy feminists and suggestions that people should leave this country the f*** alone and get rid of immigrants too. The alternative presented here is a status quo which supports young women not surprisingly concerned about losing their percieved platform and spring board into a better life by speaking of them sometimes as beautiful, but at least as often in a derogatory fashion as wanking material and as nothing more than a sum of their body parts. If these supporters refer to their beloved page 3 girls this way how I wonder do they refer to the other women in thier lives?
Truth be told I am also a little bemused as to the premise of this petition in the first place. The wording suggests that these women would have to lose their charity work and their visits to troops? Why? Why would that have to stop? As one twitter supporter put it - these girls do their best work with their clothes on. I find it hard to understand why they couldn't continue this simply because they were unable to get their assets out in a family newspaper? Has The Sun lead them to believe that if they stop the soft pornography they will also have to stop the charity work? If the constant presentation of young women in their pants day in day out stops but their other work is supported to continue perhaps, over time, the respect for and the language used in connection with these people would improve and indeed in turn perhaps that for the rest of the female gender that these supporters meet on a daily basis.
My suggestion therefore Mr Murdoch, were I ever asked, would be to continue the charity work theme and indeed extend it. Open up the opportunity to talented young people, of both sexes actors, comedians, artists, musicans. Allow them to showcase their works in your Newspaper and take them abroad to entertain the troops, but perthaps, just perhaps, you could stop encouraging them undress for the privilage? Just a thought, but hey.....maybe I'm just too PC?

No More Page 3: The Inside Story

Wow! Quite a lot has happened since I last wrote a blog about the No More Page 3 campaign for Beestonia. At that time I was involved on the outskirts, with quiet determination, trying to draw support and signatures to a campaign that , for reasons I didn't completely understand had captured my heart.
I ran two local demo's that were both well received. Then over Christmas things went quiet. I thought nothing of it at first when the usually buzzing facebook group seemed less busy and put it down to the distractions of the season, but well into new year there still seemed to be little sign of life and I all but thought the campaign may be about to fold. Then something amazing happened. The fabulous, bubbly, determined young woman Lucy Holmes who founded the campaign and who I had only seen in her comical online videos about it sent me an email, a long and heartfelt email explaining that she had put quite literally everything of herself into this campaign and was spent. She was reaching out to a small group of us that she had spotted through the networks for help and she seemed less than confident of a positive response. My goodness did she get one! We were all excited, thrilled and flattered to have been picked out and there are now 8 of us on the No More Page 3 team or NMP3HQ as we call ourselves. Most of us have never met and the whole thing is co-ordinated online through social networks. We are all busy people with jobs, often young children and lots of other things going on but we have this amazing determination in common - to improve the representation of women in the UK media starting by removing the sexist 1970's dinosaur that is Page 3.

Within 24 hours of the new group forming our private site was alive with ideas - involving more students, universities, schools, going after The Sun's advertisers, drawing more popular support. Amongst the ideas that Lucy had noted down was tweeting Rupert Murdoch himself and we started to do this straight away, giving him an occasional update. Then after a day of Men against Page 3 was really well received across Facebook and Twitter we decided to run the following Sunday with a "Tweet Rupert Murdoch day". He must have received 100s of tweets but responded to just 1. A supporter named Karen who simply suggested page 3 was "So last century". The rest is a bit of history now that was splashed across national media for much of the following week whilst we at NMP3HQ attempted to deal with press interview after interview. Interestingly we have done a hell of a lot of international TV and newspaper interviews with most of Europe seemingly fascinated by this story and all utterly perplexed at the "strange Brits" having something like Page 3 still around. They, without exception see it as bizarre. It was all a bit of a whirlwind of activity but with us never quite making it onto our own TV screens owing to the pope who decided to retire the next day. Most inconvenient timing.
So this just about brings us up to speed, with the issue now constantly ticking away in the media and the pro-page 3 mob clearly very rattled. Presumably not helped by the fact that, despite the awful coverage of Reeva Steenkamps tragic death/murder, page 3 has been absent from The Sun 3-4 times already this year which, we have on good authority is unusual. It seems the end may be in sight, except we all know it isn't an end....

Yesterday I was interviewed (little old me *snort) by a Times journalist who quotes me in an article saying “The Sun, as the top-selling paper, has a brilliant opportunity to change things for women in this country, and to present them in an equal, non-objectified way,..But unfortunately, it chooses not to accept that opportunity. Page 3 is part of that, but it’s certainly not the whole picture.” I was over the moon to have the opportunity to say that and it should have been a really good day. Sadly two other things happened yesterday -The Sun ran again with no traditional page 3 but instead photographs from a playboy bunny beach shoot (the model wore a bikini top! Whoop de doo) and a petition was started, seemingly by page 3 girls who were up in arms that they may no longer be able to pose topless as they want to in the newspaper and would no longer therefore be able to continue their important charity work and their morale building visits to troops in Afghanistan etc.

I have had a sleepless night (again) trying to marry this reality with the world that I like to think I'm living in.

You see....in the world I would like to be in there are newspapers with news, current affairs and features. These papers may at times focus on sex or sexual issues, they may also focus on glamour but they do it proportionately and equally. They ensure that nobody of any particular gender, race or creed is singled out for exploitation or public undressing. These newspapers make sure that at the very least when a woman is brutally beaten or murdered by her partner the murder/rape/assault is treated as that. As a crime against a woman who is worthy of respect by a man who allegedly has behaved in a deplorable fashion.
The world I would like to be in has newspapers and media that showcase young people's talent.  Sometimes that may be their looks but it may also be their hard work and ability. The media support these extraordinary young people in carrying out charity work. They take amazing young musicians/artists to Afghanistan to entertain the male and female troops there. They may even take a model sometimes, female or male.

The world I would like to live in would stop putting pictures of young women in a national newspaper for men's titillation (there are other publications for that which don't make it onto family dining tables and into family restaurants) and start treating all women, regardless of their allure with respect. It would certainly not however immediately stop supporting the models it has encouraged to pose topless all this time but would continue it's fabulous charity work and indeed expand the opportunity to give all young people a chance to be a part of that. It wouldn't in a million years consider only supporting, in this charity and overseas work, a certain demographic of young, mostly white women of say, below size 14 dress size and it would surely to goodness not only take the ones who are willing to undress for the privilege? Surely not!

Sadly when I wake up it seems this is not the world I am living in, not yet anyway. So until then on with the fight...

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

My Choice

I wanted to give a very personal (not TOO personal, don't panic!) account of my own relationship with my reproductive system and with abortion so here goes....

I always felt that abortion and the access to it, was a very important freedom of choice for women. I am lucky enough (or cursed) with the ability in most areas of my life to be able to see things from many angles and for this reason I do understand that for some people the sanctity of human life, even at it's most minute and fragile is precious and I would suggest, for these people, who feel so strongly about it, that they avoid abortion for themselves. These were my arguments at 13 when I debated in school on the issue but little did I know, sitting at the front of my RE classroom how important that freedom would one day be for me.

Firstly I am 38. I'm not a young thing unable to manage the psychological or physical impact of pregnancy and childbirth. I'm no free-spirited singleton desperate not to tie myself down. I am (sadly) a proper grown up with my own home and a responsible job and I am quite independent thank you with an absolutely lovely partner.

I have 2 children of my own who are growing up at a rate of knots and the baby days are long behind me. The baby days were not easy days for me, I have lost 4 pregnancies that I desperately wanted to continue and the grief of those losses was unique in each case and sometimes profound. I won't go into it here.
The miscarriages happened, I found out after the third, because I have a chromosomal abnormality. I have a balanced tranlocation of chromosomes 7 and 12 (look it up its fascinating stuff). Which means in short, some of my important bits of information are in the wrong place. Which has no ill effects on me but has a potentially massive effect on my childbearing. My daughter has the same abnormality sadly and it's very common, approximately 1 in 400 I believe.

Every time I get pregnant there is a 50% chance that the foetus has an unbalanced number of chromosomes which would result in MASSIVE abnormality. Not a small deformity but something fundamentally wrong, probably with spine and brain. They can't be specific as every translocation results in different problems.
In my last pregnancy I had to wait until 15-18 weeks to have a CVS (my choice)in order to find out if the baby I was carrying had the problem and then, after a 3 week wait, I would have the choice, based on that result, as to whether or not to continue with that pregnancy.

I was very lucky. I was carrying a baby with a balanced translocation, the same as me and there was every chance she would be perfectly healthy. Thankfully I never had to make that choice myself but lets be very clear that choice would have been mine, with my then husband's support and no one elses. Not a man in a suit, not an MP, mine.

My choice would have taken into account the discomfort and pain of continuing a pregnancy that was incredibly unlikely to result in a surviving baby. My choice would have considered the pain of delivering that baby and probably having to take in some horrendous malformation and then watch it die. It would have taken account of the massive life changing impact that the care of that child (should it survive) would have had on everybody including my then young son, my parents, grandparent and other carers. It would have considered the distinct likelihood of having to end my career as a nurse.

I know that it this point many are shouting by now that the situation is entirely different if there is an abnormality. Well yes, at present, in the UK it is. But not all women are so lucky, only just accross a small stretch of water I would have had no such tests and no such choice. And why anyway should my right to choose whether I want to continue to be the vessel for a foetus only apply if the foetus is abnormal? What of all the other considerations of life, money and means?

I have found in the last few years since divorcing that keeping the baby days behind me is not as easy as i would like. As an older woman accessing contraceptives has been incredibly difficult. I won't go into the ins and outs but cuts to community health care are such, in some areas, that if you're over 21 and not eligible for the pill there are only a limited number of trained medical staff who can, for example, put in a coil and getting an appointment can be hard particularly outside working hours.

A few months ago, due to a potentially misplaced, usually reliable contraceptive device I thought I was pregnant. I cannot begin to explain the cold fear this struck in me. I was horrified and for 24 hours hit near breakdown.

I amin a new and very happy relationship with a lovely man and we decided very early on, that more children was not on our agenda. Despite a good career my income as many other's, has shrunk during this recession. My home is too small for the 2 permanent and 2 visiting children, my partner and I. Our income is stretched to the limit, holidays are non-existent and there are very few treats and THEN there is the reality, the awful memory of the extra stress that one of MY pregnancies involves. I knew, in my heart that if I was pregnant I would not go ahead with the pregnancy, I couldn't. I knew that it would be such a difficult choice after losing 4 pregnancies to give one up voluntarily, but I also remembered the pain of losing the babies I had so wanted, the desperation for them to hold on and I knew that to bring a child into the world with anything less than that desperate need would be unfair on us both.

One day my daughter, my beautiful doe eyed 11 year old, may consider pregnancy and the risk of potential miscarriage and abnormality and facing the choices of tests and abortion will be her burden. I have long wondered if medical science will offer her more choices for genetic selection or earlier screening and I have wondered how the knowledge would affect her choice of action should she find herself unexpectedly pregnant, at an earlier age, when not ready and with the knowledge that this will be even more stressful for her than most. In all my years of considering how hard it will be to watch her go through it and how I will support her in this I had never once considered that for her the choices would be less not more. It is my generation's responsibility and my responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen. It can't, surely! How would that be progress?

It’s not satire

 (Trigger warning)

 

The subject of jokes about rape was first bought to my immediate attention last autumn when a new acquaintance, also new to feminism, told me of a campaign she had some involvement in that was asking comedy clubs to ban rape jokes http://rapeisnojoke.com/

I had mixed feelings at the time. I've been a live comedy fan for many years and have laughed at and been entertained by some very rude and risky material in the past. I have never been a fan of censorship and feel that satirical comedy about issues, such as terrorism for example (think “Four Lions”), can be a good way to draw attention to how ludicrous something is.

 

I forgot all about the conversation until about one month later when I was, as usual pottering around my lounge of an early evening doing umpteen jobs as my son sat scrolling his Facebook newsfeed. Mid washing folding he alerted me to a picture "joke" from a facebook site he had followed or "liked" called Tony Stark https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tony-Stark/165357510187553?fref=ts

This is the picture/joke in question -

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll pause here and let you take that in for a moment.........

 

Because that's what I did. After being initally totally taken aback and verbalising to my son  how awful I thought this was I did precisely nothing except think about it.  

I got on with making dinner, I fed the family, I cleaned up and for about 48 hours I thought about it a hell of a lot. I later looked for it again but couldn't find it (I like to hope it was deleted) I did however find this one on the same page –

Both pictures had been commented on - "LOL", ""This is joke", "Hey *****, you slut this could be you" - comments along those lines. They had also been shared numerous times.

So what did I do? Honestly? Nothing, for another 24 hours by which time I could no longer find either picture on any newsfeeds.

I didn't stop reflecting on them though. I couldn’t get them out of my head. I'd like to say I haven’t had a sheltered life, I have seen abusive and offensive things many times in the past, (I have been a nurse for 20 years for goodness sake) and was used to shruggling it off but there was something about my response to this that was different.

I couldn't place it at first, then I read an article by Laura Bates on Rape Culture and it suddenly fell into place. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sites-like-uni-lad-only-act-to-support-our-everyday-rape-culture-8360109.html

These are not innocent jokes or even satirical jokes, they are not harmless banter or simply bad taste, they are dangerous. They add to the creation of an environment where "victims are silenced and perpetrators encouraged to see crimes as merely ‘banter’ - just part of ‘being a lad’"

There have been many more rape jokes since these first two and although the nature of the jokes alters in subtle ways there are common themes.

 

Firstly the picture itself –

 

It often shows a young woman or girl in a vulnerable position, sometimes quite exposed and often passed out cold. The first concern then in the mind of those seeing this (with any conscious at all) has to be - what was going on here? Is this person ok? What happened, why were they photographed and by whom?

Sometimes however the photograph itself is innocent or, as in this case, an initial joke that the woman in it was clearly in on –

The next issue in either case is then the words or "Joke".

"RAPE, expect a bit of it"

"BUNNY RAPE, look what happens when you change in front of him"

"Real men don't rape, I'm no man baby"

"EXTREME RAPE, the woman in the picture is going to get it. Very hard"

"ROOFIES, No response doesn't necessarily mean no"

Listen to the content here. I mean really take it in.

Women - expect a bit of rape, I am no man and therefore can rape you, Extreme rape, somebody is going to get it hard, no response doesn't mean no ...and then remind yourself that these have been shared umpteen times. Passed around the internet.

There are comments, some thankfully pointing out that this is not funny or quoting rape statistics but many others adding to the horror with "I'd rape that" or "That bitch is gonna be dead after all those dicks". In the space of  few shared words and pictures we go from the world I had thought I lived in where rape was a hateful, violent, abhorent crime against a person that ruined lives, to a world where it is questionable whether it is a crime at all. Where it is an amusing anecdote about a passed out woman who might be assualted. Where the vaginal pentration of a "roofied" or drunk young woman is acceptable as she is unable to verbalise a "No". Where women may expect a bit of rape if they are going to have any sense of humour about their sexuality or if they dance provocatively in a room containing men.

 

I have been told I must have no sense of humour or that I am missing the point of the joke in question. I have been told that my 15 year old son only finds these offensive because his mother is so uptight. I have been blocked by Tony Stark for repteatedly asking him to remove these images every time puts them out and I have been told by facebook that they do no contain violent images or hate speech and that they will not take any action.

To those people I will say this.

Have you seen the statistics about the number of women who experience rape and sexual assault in their lifetime and how few result in a conviction or even see a day in court?

Have you read about, heard about or noticed the lack of common respect for women, who are abused and harassed on the street or in the workplace?

Have you considered how, on the background of this reality women are supposed to respond when they see these jokes? On seeing men discuss the crime of rape in such a lighthearted way, in seeing the clear line of consent and a women’s ownership of her body blurred, in seeing you're eagerness to join in and "Rape that".

Our fear that we will be raped, that we are simply waiting for the fateful day, increases. We think you might be a potential rapist, we worry that some men may not understand that this is supposed to be a joke or banter and may think that penetrating the next passed out woman they encounter is acceptable. That some may consider a woman who dances or dresses provactively to be asking for "date rape in 4..3..2...1." or that roofying a drink is funny?

I like to think you are not aware of this or how much women fear rape, every time they walk down a street and a car pulls up or a man leers from a doorway in a quiet area of town or we take a taxi alone or we run down a country path or we guard our drink and closely watch the barman lest he slip in a pill. All the time, everywhere we go and for our daughers too.

I like to think that you don’t know but maybe even subconciously, you see it as a useful way to keep women in their place? Our heads down, quiet, covered and indoors.

I worry that  you  know how hard it is for a woman to report a rape for fear she will be blamed or not taken seriously. I like to think that you haven't considered how making rape a joke might make reporting even more difficult or how it may feel to somebody who has been a victim to see these images.

I like to think that but every time I see another and I read the comments and see the “Shares” I doubt it more.

There is one thing I will be doing, that we can all do which relates to these awful jokes and the sites that share them and rallys against rape culture in general and that is to show our support and get involved in One Billion Rising http://onebillionrising.org/ . This fantastic worldwide campaign gives everyone the opportunity to show their solidartity with the one in three women that are raped and assaulted in the world and against those who carry out and belittle these awful crimes. so, on the 14th Feb, Join me! Find your nearest event and sing, dance, generally make a noise and Rise!