I just noticed that I didn't post about it at the time (something I apparently make quite a habit of - your up-to-date news! Three weeks after it's of any use!), but there's some stuff that I think needs saying about the Lisbon Treaty.
As you may or may not know, the Lisbon Treaty was created to replace the rejected EU Constitution, and so as not to have the same trouble again, most of the MEPs decided not to put the treaty to referendum in their countries. The only exception was Ireland, whose laws make a referendum on matters such as this compulsory. And, of course, the Irish voted No. Despite the fact that all member states have to ratify the treaty in order to be enacted, I believe the current EU plan is to pretend Ireland didn't say anything, though some have suggested changing three words and making them vote over and over again until they get sick of it.
I don't understand why the EU is so surprised at the Irish No. The Constitution was roundly rejected and the Lisbon Treaty looks quite a lot like the same old thing in shiny new packaging, and nobody seems willing to dispossess us of the notion in any specific terms. Nick Clegg (aka Cameron 2.0) of the Lib Dems said the treaty was "very different" to the Constitution, and Gordon Brown said the treaty wasn't the same as the Constitution because it said it wasn't (I don't have a link for this, because it's from a speech he made on the Breakfast News). Apparently, the first page of the treaty says something like, "This is not a constitution, because the people said no to a constitution, so this is something else instead." I'm sorry, but that is hair-splitting, manipulative guff. I could say "I don't speak English" but it wouldn't make it true. Writing "Not A Constitution" (I am so sick of typing that word) at the top in big letters doesn't make any difference to the contents at all.
We simply do not trust anything that comes out of Europe these days - I speak of Europe as a Parliament as opposed to a continent - because they simply do not see the need to tell us anything. Oh, they complain loudly about the "misinformation" distributed by the Irish No campaign, but they don't offer any specific refuting evidence. The BBC informs us that the treaty is indeed largely similar to the Constitution (argh), including the same loss of veto powers and redistribution of voting weights, which was a huge problem last time. The BBC, I assume, has read the treaty. I tried reading the (insert C-word) when it first became available for public reference. I planned to read the whole thing, translate it into human language and post it on my website. I got about sixty pages in before my head exploded. It was not written with the intent of being read. I came across numerous ambiguously suspicious passages, but I could not say with any degree of certainty whether a certain passage meant the end of autonomy for national banks or meant absolutely nothing. You cannot read it and extract the intent behind it - it has been written with the express purpose of concealing intent. You have to know what it means before you read it. Were we told what it meant? Were we hell. We were told it was no big deal, just a silly little document, something about trade, don't worry your pretty little head about it. The big men in suits will take care of all the nasty words. And frankly, even if it was just a silly little document with no wider ramifications whatsoever, we do not take kindly to being told that, and we assume, quite sensibly, that they're trying to hide something. Now, I don't think it's necessarily the case that the public has to know everything about the way the country is run. In fact, it's probably a bad idea more often than not. What's also a bad idea is making it quite obvious that you're not telling them ANYTHING. Here it is in dramatised form:
The British public: The treaty is pretty much the same as the Constitution.
The British government: No, of course it isn't. We rejected the Constitution and this is something entirely different.
The British public: What makes it different?
The British government: Oh, this is just a little something about trade, not even important enough for you to vote on. Don't worry about it.
The British public: This is hugely suspicious.
The British government: Suspicious? It's not suspicious! Who's been spreading these lies?
So when the time came for the Irish to vote on it, were they going to trust the people who said, "Don't read it, just sign it!" or the people who told them actual stuff that was actually in the document? Perhaps these people exaggerated, or were scare-mongering. Yeah, maybe. But they were giving out information. The European Parliament could easily have given out a few sheets of easy-to-read facts about the more boring stuff included in the treaty, but they chose to tell us instead that thinking too much will give us wrinkles. So there's really no call for them to be surprised when Ireland decides to take the only information it's got. To most of us, the whole thing smacks of taking the old Constitution round to the tradesman's entrance and pretending it's just the potato man.
Public: We weren't expecting a potato man.
Government: Oh, come on! It's just potatoes! What harm can that do?
Public: Is he going to charge for these potatoes?
Government: Oh, sweetie, we take care of the money. Go and knit a nice rug, that would be productive.
Public: This potato man looks weird.
Government: RELAX! Jesus, you and your damn prejudices.
So, really, guys, let's have a little more respect around here. We're already vaguely suspicious of anything you do because you're politicians. Telling us not to worry about it is both insulting and counter-productive, since we all immediately start wondering what we have to worry about. I am interested to see where we go from here - I want to know exactly how respectful Europe will be towards the Irish No. I could imagine some serious problems if they decide to ignore it, but somehow I really don't see that stopping them. Watch this space - I'll attempt to make it interesting. Possibly with more dramatisations and some one-line comic relief characters.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Why Nobody Should Vote For Cameron
I just feel the need to make a couple of points in regard to this, which I wrote just after the votes on the abortion limit and access to IVF were cast (both, surprisingly, to my satisfaction). I want to clarify a couple of things, and it also gives me an opportunity to have another go at Cameron.
It is frankly ridiculous that in this day and age our MPs are still obsessed with heteronormative parenting - "Father, father, father!" says Duncan Smith, but I did that last time - and still convinced that abortion is really a bit icky. We're not America, so we don't even attempt (at this stage, anyway) to outright ban it, but enough MPs are willing to go on record whining and crying about the poor little dead babies. That sentence makes me wish I weren't allergic to LOLcat speak, but I just cannot write "teh p00r ded baybeeez" as though it's a reasonable journalistic or literary device. Even after the Bill was defeated, they just can't let it lie and have to get up and hurl themselves at it again. The original Bill offered MPs the option to vote for: no change, limit lowered to 22 weeks, limit lowered to 20 weeks, or limit lowered to 12 weeks. The Times helpfully printed a guide as to which members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet voted for which (and I will try and find it), and the three Labour MPs who voted for 12 weeks were all Catholic. Even most of the Tories shied away from voting for 12 weeks. I just want to make clear that there is a HUGE religious motivation behind this. David Cameron, the Tory leader, voted to lower it to 22 weeks. He also voted for the stupid "father figure" bill.
Now, there is no real reason to vote for this. It is not a medical issue. It is not something our doctors have a problem with, unless they're religious doctors. Since a vote for a lower limit would also be counted as a vote for the 22 weeks, we can rule out Cameron as a religious man hedging his bets. I suspect, too, that Cameron has a smiliar position to Blair on religious PMs (i.e. that we the British public will cease to trust you because you're a nutter, which is true). There is only one message that a vote for a 22-week limit from an aspiring Prime Minister sends out: I Am Willing To Be Persuaded. He won't vote for the very low limits because that will turn off the young women, but it also says to the nutters with their overblown rhetoric and emotional blackmail, as we can see here, that he might be talked into seeing things their way. Reason 20, by the way, is a picture of a foetus-face. I will make a couple of comments on these "reasons": several involve extremely isolated cases of one or two, and one involves surgery in the womb, which must be fucking awful for the woman (yes, there's a woman. The foetus is inside her). Babies can survive at 24 weeks in TOP NEONATAL UNITS such as fucking MINNEAPOLIS. Oh, that's a good idea. Let's just send every pregnant woman to Minneapolis! Fucking hell, this is about British law. Don't bring in bloody Minneapolis. Several reasons are "oh, but it's a baby!" crap, and one of them is that David Cameron supports a cut. Let me explain why.
David Cameron has absolutely no opinions on anything, because opinions are not politically expedient. He certainly has no opinions when it comes to this sort of equal-rights stuff, because some people don't like that and he doesn't want to alienate them. Mmmm... precious votes. My opposition to Barack Obama becoming US President is precisely because he reminds me so much of Cameron, with his vague language and refusal to vote on anything contentious. I once saw a post in support of him comparing his position to that of John McCain, and the first two pro-Obama points were "he has stated no position on this". Classic Cameron. He wants us to believe that he cares about the imaginary babies, but also about the women, which is a fucking lie. Back when he first became leader, he did an interview with Cosmopolitan, in which his reply to all the journalist's questions about women's issues was basically, "I sympathise, but I'm not going to do anything about it." He informed us that he supported the reduction of the abortion limit to 22 or 20 weeks, and that he wasn't planning to do squat about rape crisis centres (my city doesn't even have one) because "we don't have the budget." Look, asshole, if Boris fucking Johnson can find the budget for THREE new ones in London, you can do something about cities without any, OK? Since then, Cameron has not made abortion or equal rights any part of his agenda, waiting instead to jump on the bandwagon of someone like Nadine Dorries. This way, he's not pushing for women to give up control of their bodies, but it slyly shows folks like Cardinal Arsehole that Cameron and the new Caring Conservatives could well be brought around to his point of view.
Ever since Brown took over from Blair, I've been wondering what the hell I'm going to do when an election comes round, because I really don't like Brown. He actually creeps me out, and I don't really trust him. Lies and war and all, it was a reasonably easy decision for me to cast my first ever General Election vote for Blair. Brown? Not so easy. I feel like he thinks of us as being in his way. However, Cameron has made up my mind for me now. I will vote Brown because HE DOESN'T CAST BIGOTED VOTES. He doesn't vote for bizarre throwback amendments demanding that some sort of man be around to help out. He doesn't put himself in this sort of company. He doesn't vote to demand that women give up control of their bodies. Cameron, on the other hand, seems willing to be persuaded that the ownership of a woman's body should transfer over to a foetus until said foetus is done with it. I will not vote for that. It's not even his conviction that that's the right thing to do; he's just happy to allow someone else's convictions to govern his decisions if he thinks it'll get him through that big black door.
Cameron, listen up: I will never, ever vote for a bigot. I will tell everyone I know what a bigot you are, and they won't vote for you either. Your votes have been homophobic and misogynistic, and I cannot and will not support that. If you want any hope in hell of getting my vote, and the vote of young women like me, understand this: It's not a baby, it's a foetus. Until it is no longer living inside the mother, it isn't and should not be considered a baby, from either a legal or political standpoint. Sure, emotionally, it can be a baby, but you are not here to deal in emotional reactions. You are not here to legislate personal ethics. You are here to represent and protect the best interests of the people in your country, INCLUDING WOMEN and not including bloody foetuses (foeti?). My uterus is not a pawn for you to risk in the political chess game. My uterus is not a small sacrifice you may make in order to win more seats. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS. I WILL NOT LET YOU. Last time I wrote about this, I offered the assumption that you were just a nice guy who loves his kids and couldn't imagine not wanting them. I'm still willing to believe that - I'm sure you're basically a nice guy. But you cannot make political decisions based on that sort of fluff. You cannot assume, as I said before, that every man is like you and every woman is like your wife. You cannot think in the sentimental terms of "oh, but it's a baby! Aren't babies lovely!" You may be swayed by technological advancements which can keep premature babies alive, but you're then assuming that any woman who doesn't want said baby can just pop it out at 24 weeks and carry on. No, she can't. She has MONTHS left to carry that thing around. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, it's emotionally devastating for someone who doesn't want a child, and she's stuck with it. Don't chirpily tell her she can just have it adopted. Don't tell her just to hold on when what she really wants to do is scrape it out with a coat hanger. You think she won't? Have you ever known desperation?
When it comes to your vote on the "Father figure" bill, you are out of touch at best and seriously homophobic at worst. A child needs loving parents, but why on earth do they need one of each gender? From what I know of this bill, it comes in part from straight-up gay-bashing and genuine, irrational fear of Child Seeing Gays (stand up, Sir Patrick Cormack), and in part from this strange idea that men are this and women are that. A child needs a woman to give it cuddles and a man to play sports with it, or something. I know it would make things easier for the government, but even if you stretch to name all qualities either masculine or feminine, you will find that in a sample of men and women, none will have all of these qualities and most will have a significant proportion of the other gender's qualities. People don't divide into boxes like that. If you're pro-cute babies, why not allow a couple that really wants one to conceive, instead of forcing a child on a woman who doesn't want one? I assume that as an intelligent man who hopes to run Great Britain would never dare tell a woman that she should have been more careful and must now deal with the consequences. Why can't two women have a kid and raise it together, if they're fully committed to parenthood and the wellbeing of their child? Why not? Why do they have to prove there's a man around somewhere? What is the logic? Seriously, tell me. Then come to your damn senses, you whacking great bigot.
Wow, that was longer than I planned. Next entry will not revolve around my uterus, honest.
It is frankly ridiculous that in this day and age our MPs are still obsessed with heteronormative parenting - "Father, father, father!" says Duncan Smith, but I did that last time - and still convinced that abortion is really a bit icky. We're not America, so we don't even attempt (at this stage, anyway) to outright ban it, but enough MPs are willing to go on record whining and crying about the poor little dead babies. That sentence makes me wish I weren't allergic to LOLcat speak, but I just cannot write "teh p00r ded baybeeez" as though it's a reasonable journalistic or literary device. Even after the Bill was defeated, they just can't let it lie and have to get up and hurl themselves at it again. The original Bill offered MPs the option to vote for: no change, limit lowered to 22 weeks, limit lowered to 20 weeks, or limit lowered to 12 weeks. The Times helpfully printed a guide as to which members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet voted for which (and I will try and find it), and the three Labour MPs who voted for 12 weeks were all Catholic. Even most of the Tories shied away from voting for 12 weeks. I just want to make clear that there is a HUGE religious motivation behind this. David Cameron, the Tory leader, voted to lower it to 22 weeks. He also voted for the stupid "father figure" bill.
Now, there is no real reason to vote for this. It is not a medical issue. It is not something our doctors have a problem with, unless they're religious doctors. Since a vote for a lower limit would also be counted as a vote for the 22 weeks, we can rule out Cameron as a religious man hedging his bets. I suspect, too, that Cameron has a smiliar position to Blair on religious PMs (i.e. that we the British public will cease to trust you because you're a nutter, which is true). There is only one message that a vote for a 22-week limit from an aspiring Prime Minister sends out: I Am Willing To Be Persuaded. He won't vote for the very low limits because that will turn off the young women, but it also says to the nutters with their overblown rhetoric and emotional blackmail, as we can see here, that he might be talked into seeing things their way. Reason 20, by the way, is a picture of a foetus-face. I will make a couple of comments on these "reasons": several involve extremely isolated cases of one or two, and one involves surgery in the womb, which must be fucking awful for the woman (yes, there's a woman. The foetus is inside her). Babies can survive at 24 weeks in TOP NEONATAL UNITS such as fucking MINNEAPOLIS. Oh, that's a good idea. Let's just send every pregnant woman to Minneapolis! Fucking hell, this is about British law. Don't bring in bloody Minneapolis. Several reasons are "oh, but it's a baby!" crap, and one of them is that David Cameron supports a cut. Let me explain why.
David Cameron has absolutely no opinions on anything, because opinions are not politically expedient. He certainly has no opinions when it comes to this sort of equal-rights stuff, because some people don't like that and he doesn't want to alienate them. Mmmm... precious votes. My opposition to Barack Obama becoming US President is precisely because he reminds me so much of Cameron, with his vague language and refusal to vote on anything contentious. I once saw a post in support of him comparing his position to that of John McCain, and the first two pro-Obama points were "he has stated no position on this". Classic Cameron. He wants us to believe that he cares about the imaginary babies, but also about the women, which is a fucking lie. Back when he first became leader, he did an interview with Cosmopolitan, in which his reply to all the journalist's questions about women's issues was basically, "I sympathise, but I'm not going to do anything about it." He informed us that he supported the reduction of the abortion limit to 22 or 20 weeks, and that he wasn't planning to do squat about rape crisis centres (my city doesn't even have one) because "we don't have the budget." Look, asshole, if Boris fucking Johnson can find the budget for THREE new ones in London, you can do something about cities without any, OK? Since then, Cameron has not made abortion or equal rights any part of his agenda, waiting instead to jump on the bandwagon of someone like Nadine Dorries. This way, he's not pushing for women to give up control of their bodies, but it slyly shows folks like Cardinal Arsehole that Cameron and the new Caring Conservatives could well be brought around to his point of view.
Ever since Brown took over from Blair, I've been wondering what the hell I'm going to do when an election comes round, because I really don't like Brown. He actually creeps me out, and I don't really trust him. Lies and war and all, it was a reasonably easy decision for me to cast my first ever General Election vote for Blair. Brown? Not so easy. I feel like he thinks of us as being in his way. However, Cameron has made up my mind for me now. I will vote Brown because HE DOESN'T CAST BIGOTED VOTES. He doesn't vote for bizarre throwback amendments demanding that some sort of man be around to help out. He doesn't put himself in this sort of company. He doesn't vote to demand that women give up control of their bodies. Cameron, on the other hand, seems willing to be persuaded that the ownership of a woman's body should transfer over to a foetus until said foetus is done with it. I will not vote for that. It's not even his conviction that that's the right thing to do; he's just happy to allow someone else's convictions to govern his decisions if he thinks it'll get him through that big black door.
Cameron, listen up: I will never, ever vote for a bigot. I will tell everyone I know what a bigot you are, and they won't vote for you either. Your votes have been homophobic and misogynistic, and I cannot and will not support that. If you want any hope in hell of getting my vote, and the vote of young women like me, understand this: It's not a baby, it's a foetus. Until it is no longer living inside the mother, it isn't and should not be considered a baby, from either a legal or political standpoint. Sure, emotionally, it can be a baby, but you are not here to deal in emotional reactions. You are not here to legislate personal ethics. You are here to represent and protect the best interests of the people in your country, INCLUDING WOMEN and not including bloody foetuses (foeti?). My uterus is not a pawn for you to risk in the political chess game. My uterus is not a small sacrifice you may make in order to win more seats. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS. I WILL NOT LET YOU. Last time I wrote about this, I offered the assumption that you were just a nice guy who loves his kids and couldn't imagine not wanting them. I'm still willing to believe that - I'm sure you're basically a nice guy. But you cannot make political decisions based on that sort of fluff. You cannot assume, as I said before, that every man is like you and every woman is like your wife. You cannot think in the sentimental terms of "oh, but it's a baby! Aren't babies lovely!" You may be swayed by technological advancements which can keep premature babies alive, but you're then assuming that any woman who doesn't want said baby can just pop it out at 24 weeks and carry on. No, she can't. She has MONTHS left to carry that thing around. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, it's emotionally devastating for someone who doesn't want a child, and she's stuck with it. Don't chirpily tell her she can just have it adopted. Don't tell her just to hold on when what she really wants to do is scrape it out with a coat hanger. You think she won't? Have you ever known desperation?
When it comes to your vote on the "Father figure" bill, you are out of touch at best and seriously homophobic at worst. A child needs loving parents, but why on earth do they need one of each gender? From what I know of this bill, it comes in part from straight-up gay-bashing and genuine, irrational fear of Child Seeing Gays (stand up, Sir Patrick Cormack), and in part from this strange idea that men are this and women are that. A child needs a woman to give it cuddles and a man to play sports with it, or something. I know it would make things easier for the government, but even if you stretch to name all qualities either masculine or feminine, you will find that in a sample of men and women, none will have all of these qualities and most will have a significant proportion of the other gender's qualities. People don't divide into boxes like that. If you're pro-cute babies, why not allow a couple that really wants one to conceive, instead of forcing a child on a woman who doesn't want one? I assume that as an intelligent man who hopes to run Great Britain would never dare tell a woman that she should have been more careful and must now deal with the consequences. Why can't two women have a kid and raise it together, if they're fully committed to parenthood and the wellbeing of their child? Why not? Why do they have to prove there's a man around somewhere? What is the logic? Seriously, tell me. Then come to your damn senses, you whacking great bigot.
Wow, that was longer than I planned. Next entry will not revolve around my uterus, honest.
Monday, 16 June 2008
My Uterus Is Not On The Free Market
OK, last one today, I promise.
I'm confused by this. Not the article itself, which makes points that need to be made about an issue that makes me very cross. I'm confused by the comments. Why are so many people saying "Oh, but of course we must respect the free market"? The free market protects your right to open up yet another coffee shop, but this isn't bad coffee, this is medical health. You're not a shill, you're providing the medicine that your customers' doctors have decreed necessary for their health. You are not part of that equation and you do not have the right to tell someone that they cannot have the medication they need. I don't understand why anyone, much less a woman, much less a feminist woman, would defend the right to open up a pharmacy that will not give you your medication. This is not about people being able to choose which supermarket they go to or whether they give their money to Starbucks or Costa, this is HEALTHCARE.
Note this:
"We try to practice pharmacy in a way that we feel is best to help our community and promote healthy lifestyles," said Lloyd Duplantis, who owns Lloyd's Remedies in Gray, La., and is a deacon in his Catholic church. "After researching the science behind steroidal contraceptives, I decided they could hurt the woman and possibly hurt her unborn child. I decided to opt out."
He decided. So what if a doctor prescribed it? This guy looked it up on the internet and he decided not to allow women access to their meds! He thinks you can "opt out" of contraception. No, mate, you're a pharmacist. You don't get to do that.
When feminists, of all people, are arguing for this guy's right to "decide" whether or not women get their medication, for his right to throw misleading information around a field in which he is supposed to be expert and trustworthy, his right to try and conform any woman who walks in to his warped idea of morality, we've got trouble, my friends. Right here in River City. I don't think this kind of thing would fly here (the sheer arrogance of "I decided" is enough to put most of us off supporting him), but Americans are having trouble holding on to their legal abortions as it is. Bush has been eroding the abortion laws, McCain will surely do the same and I do not believe for a minute that Obama will be a pro-choice stalwart (I think he's wishy-washy, light on policy and could just as easily be a Republican if he thought that would work better for him - sorry), so I can't see that this erosion will do anything but continue. And with feminists who make noises about the "free market" when it comes to their own health - if a woman needs contraceptives for ovarian cancer, as is one Feministing commenter's experience, and a scary fake pharmacy steals her prescription and sends her away, the fake pharmacy is not just screwing with this woman's health, it's risking her life. A few people on the thread pointed out how rare pharmacies are in some parts of the US, and for some people "I'll just go to another one" is not feasible. And even if the Pill's only use was pregnancy prevention, so what? We're feminists. We should be defending our reproductive rights with every damn ounce of strength we have, not making stupid weak noises about the "free market". NO. STOP IT.
I think we reach a point where we have to stop saying "but I can see both sides of the argument" or "technically under the law it might be possible for them to argue this, and we should respect that". Anti-choicers are rabid. They will make no concessions to our side. They will just yell that we're bad, we're evil, we're baby-killers, we're corrupting society, we're causing all these wars and deaths and tornadoes and things. So why are we trying to see their side? Of course we want to debate more intelligently than they do, but why can we not tell them they're wrong, they're liars, they're hypocrites, they're doing enormous damage with their deliberate use of misinformation? Why do we have to "see their point" and bend over backwards to make cases of gross malpractice like this fit inside the law? Are we that desperate to be seen as reasonable?
I tell you what, I am so sick of this whole "reasonable" thing. The word is a stick with which to beat women. Call us "shrill" or "hysterical" when we disagree and you've won, because then everything we say is born out of irrational feminine emotion and is hence not relevant. We've internalised that we won't be taken seriously if we are seen to get angry at all over any issue, no matter how worthy of the anger that issue may be, and we try as hard as we can to seem reasonable. Mum and I had the TV on while doing the crossword this evening, and we caught part of a show called Mary Queen of Shops, based on the standard TV premise of sending an expert into a failing business and making it work again. The clothes shop under scrutiny was run by a husband and wife team (mainly the husband, with the beaten-down wife on grunt-work duty), and was doing terrifically badly because the man had no idea about clothes. He also wouldn't listen to a damn word anyone else said, and rejected all the expert's plans out of hand. Repeatedly. She, of course, got frustrated. So he, in the voice of a true git, said, "Now, just calm down. Calm down, relax. I'm trying to explain." Any female blogger knows those words. They're "shut up, you silly little woman, and let the big man explain it to you" words. I've seen most episodes of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and even though he goes ballistic in most episodes, nobody has ever told him to calm down, or relax. Certainly nobody would dare to invite Ramsay into a failing business and say, in impossibly patronising tones, "I'm explaining it to you, so you'll understand." I've seen people who think they know how to run their own business better than Ramsay would, but I've never seen anyone who thinks they can teach Ramsay a thing or two about cooking. Eventually the git gave in, the expert did her thing and of course made it eight million times better, but I got the sense that the git would have almost preferred to go bankrupt, just so as not to be bested by a woman.
This is what we're up against. We can't be "reasonable" because we are not in a world full of allies. We are in a world full of men who would happily throw our rights away, and powerful but stupid women who would happily help because they don't seem to understand that no exception would be written in for them (I don't get these women. Help would be appreciated). We have to fight loud and hard, and it's not even for progress. It's for the privilege of staying where we are. We're not making hard-won advancements, we're struggling with hard-won stagnation. In the interests of managing, if not reducing, sexism, feminists have to come out in defence of women they despise. I have found myself defending both Ann Widdecombe and Ruth Kelly, both of whose views conflict on almost every level with mine (Ann Widdecombe bothers me on a personal level as well, whereas Ruth Kelly's track record on issues of equality and reproductive rights just make me nervous), and several American feminists talk about the sad necessity of defending someone called Ann Coulter, who is by all accounts rather mad and one of the powerful but stupid women I mentioned earlier. We not only have to defend these women, we have to watch out for opportunities to defend them, because we know how pervasive and insidious sexism is. We also know that we can't be weak about it. We have to make people listen to us, we have to stand up for our cause at every opportunity, we have to fight like hell. We all know this. So why are we so concerned with seeming "reasonable" to the point of defending medical malpractice that runs totally contrary to our belief system? Why are we allowing some man to "decide" which healthcare we are and are not permitted to have, with no medical training at all? Why are we amused by them, calling them "stupid and wrong" in the same dismissive way that we talk about people who used to bully us at school, instead of using more serious words like "dangerous" and "malpractice"? I learnt a harsh lesson when the leaders of the Catholic and Anglican churches over here noticed the power that their counterparts in the US had and started digging in their heels for a little piece of that here (letters to the Times from various reverends state that all this talk by the bishops of Christian-hating and marginalising from the government and the public is rubbish and they haven't noticed anything of the sort). If it happens anywhere in the Western world, it can happen everywhere in the Western world. And when it's happening in your own damn country, you cannot afford to sit back and say "free market". My uterus is not to be negotiated by the church, the government, my family or even my partner, and it sure as hell is not on the free market. Read that guy's speech again. He's denying women their medication because he decided to. The decision isn't his to make, but we're letting him make it anyway. He decided, and we let him.
I'm confused by this. Not the article itself, which makes points that need to be made about an issue that makes me very cross. I'm confused by the comments. Why are so many people saying "Oh, but of course we must respect the free market"? The free market protects your right to open up yet another coffee shop, but this isn't bad coffee, this is medical health. You're not a shill, you're providing the medicine that your customers' doctors have decreed necessary for their health. You are not part of that equation and you do not have the right to tell someone that they cannot have the medication they need. I don't understand why anyone, much less a woman, much less a feminist woman, would defend the right to open up a pharmacy that will not give you your medication. This is not about people being able to choose which supermarket they go to or whether they give their money to Starbucks or Costa, this is HEALTHCARE.
Note this:
"We try to practice pharmacy in a way that we feel is best to help our community and promote healthy lifestyles," said Lloyd Duplantis, who owns Lloyd's Remedies in Gray, La., and is a deacon in his Catholic church. "After researching the science behind steroidal contraceptives, I decided they could hurt the woman and possibly hurt her unborn child. I decided to opt out."
He decided. So what if a doctor prescribed it? This guy looked it up on the internet and he decided not to allow women access to their meds! He thinks you can "opt out" of contraception. No, mate, you're a pharmacist. You don't get to do that.
When feminists, of all people, are arguing for this guy's right to "decide" whether or not women get their medication, for his right to throw misleading information around a field in which he is supposed to be expert and trustworthy, his right to try and conform any woman who walks in to his warped idea of morality, we've got trouble, my friends. Right here in River City. I don't think this kind of thing would fly here (the sheer arrogance of "I decided" is enough to put most of us off supporting him), but Americans are having trouble holding on to their legal abortions as it is. Bush has been eroding the abortion laws, McCain will surely do the same and I do not believe for a minute that Obama will be a pro-choice stalwart (I think he's wishy-washy, light on policy and could just as easily be a Republican if he thought that would work better for him - sorry), so I can't see that this erosion will do anything but continue. And with feminists who make noises about the "free market" when it comes to their own health - if a woman needs contraceptives for ovarian cancer, as is one Feministing commenter's experience, and a scary fake pharmacy steals her prescription and sends her away, the fake pharmacy is not just screwing with this woman's health, it's risking her life. A few people on the thread pointed out how rare pharmacies are in some parts of the US, and for some people "I'll just go to another one" is not feasible. And even if the Pill's only use was pregnancy prevention, so what? We're feminists. We should be defending our reproductive rights with every damn ounce of strength we have, not making stupid weak noises about the "free market". NO. STOP IT.
I think we reach a point where we have to stop saying "but I can see both sides of the argument" or "technically under the law it might be possible for them to argue this, and we should respect that". Anti-choicers are rabid. They will make no concessions to our side. They will just yell that we're bad, we're evil, we're baby-killers, we're corrupting society, we're causing all these wars and deaths and tornadoes and things. So why are we trying to see their side? Of course we want to debate more intelligently than they do, but why can we not tell them they're wrong, they're liars, they're hypocrites, they're doing enormous damage with their deliberate use of misinformation? Why do we have to "see their point" and bend over backwards to make cases of gross malpractice like this fit inside the law? Are we that desperate to be seen as reasonable?
I tell you what, I am so sick of this whole "reasonable" thing. The word is a stick with which to beat women. Call us "shrill" or "hysterical" when we disagree and you've won, because then everything we say is born out of irrational feminine emotion and is hence not relevant. We've internalised that we won't be taken seriously if we are seen to get angry at all over any issue, no matter how worthy of the anger that issue may be, and we try as hard as we can to seem reasonable. Mum and I had the TV on while doing the crossword this evening, and we caught part of a show called Mary Queen of Shops, based on the standard TV premise of sending an expert into a failing business and making it work again. The clothes shop under scrutiny was run by a husband and wife team (mainly the husband, with the beaten-down wife on grunt-work duty), and was doing terrifically badly because the man had no idea about clothes. He also wouldn't listen to a damn word anyone else said, and rejected all the expert's plans out of hand. Repeatedly. She, of course, got frustrated. So he, in the voice of a true git, said, "Now, just calm down. Calm down, relax. I'm trying to explain." Any female blogger knows those words. They're "shut up, you silly little woman, and let the big man explain it to you" words. I've seen most episodes of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and even though he goes ballistic in most episodes, nobody has ever told him to calm down, or relax. Certainly nobody would dare to invite Ramsay into a failing business and say, in impossibly patronising tones, "I'm explaining it to you, so you'll understand." I've seen people who think they know how to run their own business better than Ramsay would, but I've never seen anyone who thinks they can teach Ramsay a thing or two about cooking. Eventually the git gave in, the expert did her thing and of course made it eight million times better, but I got the sense that the git would have almost preferred to go bankrupt, just so as not to be bested by a woman.
This is what we're up against. We can't be "reasonable" because we are not in a world full of allies. We are in a world full of men who would happily throw our rights away, and powerful but stupid women who would happily help because they don't seem to understand that no exception would be written in for them (I don't get these women. Help would be appreciated). We have to fight loud and hard, and it's not even for progress. It's for the privilege of staying where we are. We're not making hard-won advancements, we're struggling with hard-won stagnation. In the interests of managing, if not reducing, sexism, feminists have to come out in defence of women they despise. I have found myself defending both Ann Widdecombe and Ruth Kelly, both of whose views conflict on almost every level with mine (Ann Widdecombe bothers me on a personal level as well, whereas Ruth Kelly's track record on issues of equality and reproductive rights just make me nervous), and several American feminists talk about the sad necessity of defending someone called Ann Coulter, who is by all accounts rather mad and one of the powerful but stupid women I mentioned earlier. We not only have to defend these women, we have to watch out for opportunities to defend them, because we know how pervasive and insidious sexism is. We also know that we can't be weak about it. We have to make people listen to us, we have to stand up for our cause at every opportunity, we have to fight like hell. We all know this. So why are we so concerned with seeming "reasonable" to the point of defending medical malpractice that runs totally contrary to our belief system? Why are we allowing some man to "decide" which healthcare we are and are not permitted to have, with no medical training at all? Why are we amused by them, calling them "stupid and wrong" in the same dismissive way that we talk about people who used to bully us at school, instead of using more serious words like "dangerous" and "malpractice"? I learnt a harsh lesson when the leaders of the Catholic and Anglican churches over here noticed the power that their counterparts in the US had and started digging in their heels for a little piece of that here (letters to the Times from various reverends state that all this talk by the bishops of Christian-hating and marginalising from the government and the public is rubbish and they haven't noticed anything of the sort). If it happens anywhere in the Western world, it can happen everywhere in the Western world. And when it's happening in your own damn country, you cannot afford to sit back and say "free market". My uterus is not to be negotiated by the church, the government, my family or even my partner, and it sure as hell is not on the free market. Read that guy's speech again. He's denying women their medication because he decided to. The decision isn't his to make, but we're letting him make it anyway. He decided, and we let him.
Also
This is extremely good. I also want to be sure that I have it linked so that I can go back and read all the links in the article. There's never enough to read these days if you're some sort of word monster like me.
Useless Information from the Big Wide Internet
Apparently Himmler has an IMDb page. I'm not sure if I find this amusing, disturbing or just plain weird. Is IMDb expanding into war criminals or was Himmler just in a lot of films? I haven't looked at the page - I'd almost rather not know. Partly because it's funnier, and partly because a glitzy database of actors and filmmakers doesn't seem like the right place for a Nazi.
I learnt this from a little news item about The Sound of Music, which I've always had a soft spot for. Apparently someone is planning to turn the real Baron von Trapp's house into a hotel, and Himmler used to live in Baron von Trapp's house (presumably not whilst von Trapp was still there). So for numerous reasons, turning it into a hotel is inappropriate. I agree that it's inappropriate, but I sort of want to go there now. Well, mainly I want to march round the fountain singing, but then I'm terribly juvenile, as we all know.
Also in Creepy House Information, the house that Heath Ledger died in was the models' apartment in season (sorry, cycle) two of America's Next Top Model.
The Internet is weird.
I learnt this from a little news item about The Sound of Music, which I've always had a soft spot for. Apparently someone is planning to turn the real Baron von Trapp's house into a hotel, and Himmler used to live in Baron von Trapp's house (presumably not whilst von Trapp was still there). So for numerous reasons, turning it into a hotel is inappropriate. I agree that it's inappropriate, but I sort of want to go there now. Well, mainly I want to march round the fountain singing, but then I'm terribly juvenile, as we all know.
Also in Creepy House Information, the house that Heath Ledger died in was the models' apartment in season (sorry, cycle) two of America's Next Top Model.
The Internet is weird.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
An Epic Rant: Tad Safran is Tosspot McGee
Tad Safran just wanted to remind me that he is a useless tosspot.
I don't know why he bothered, since my memory of this is still pretty strong in my mind (Safran argues that British women just don't spend enough money making themselves look like eighteen-year-olds, is horrified about being set up with a woman he deems insufficiently attractive and is more horrified still that this ugly beast might still need to be sold on the good qualities he insists that he has - I think I may segue on to this piece, because it reads like a self-parody), but just in case, he informs me here that equal pay for men and women is "inherently unfair". The piece, if you're link-phobic, is written as a conversation of sorts between Tosspot McGee and a "reader". On the one hand, yes, get a woman in to argue with him, but on the other, get a journalist. And if she is a journalist, why isn't she credited as such? Lord knows. It seems to be a series, too, as another link on the side says "Tad and Molly: Why Women Are Sluts and Men Are Studs." I didn't have the stomach to click on it.
So anyway, let's humour him for a minute. Why, Tad, is it unfair to pay women the same as men? Why is it unfair to men, corporations and the economy in general? Do tell.
"Well, in most industries, there is a period of training, which is at considerable expense to a company. With male employees, the expense will be amortised over the next four or so decades because men will work until they die or retire. The majority of women will choose to stop working after a decade or so and the money spent on their training will be thrown out with the dirty nappies."
No, seriously. That's what he says. We should pay women less because some of them have babies and it's a waste of training. He makes no further points in the rest of the article, except to claim that men still "pay for" women (hence, they need more money) and then as his final line, says "I'm starting to think you get paid by the word." Oh God, yes, won't these women just shut up? And isn't he witty! I so want to shag you now, Tad.
I could make several arguments against what he's saying. So let's do that.
1. Tad is living in the 1950s. Men don't stay in the same job (and certainly not in the same company) for forty years anymore. Everyone chops and changes, quits for a better offer, decides it's not for them after all and trains to become a tennis coach instead.
2. Perhaps Tad intends to lock his imaginary wife up in the house with the dirty nappies, but most women actually, y'know, go back to work again. If we go with Tad's theory that the majority of women leave work after a decade, most of them don't stay at home with a thirty-year-old child wondering why they're still changing nappies. We go back, so as not to waste the corporations' precious time and money.
3. What, I wonder, would Tad's reaction be if women agreed to give up having kids in exchange for equal pay? If Tad wants a baby, he can grow one in a damn test tube. I sincerely hope Tad doesn't want a baby, because how fucked-up will that poor kid be?
4. Tad wants to know if it's fair that male and female docotrs are paid the same, since female doctors are more likely to go part-time. Tad, mate: Do you honestly want to be operated on by an underpaid surgeon? What if she is full-time and has been damned by your "all women are the same woman" theory? What if she is insufficiently attractive (use Tosspot McGee scale to determine) to catch herself a rich workaholic husband? What if she has to work eighty-hour weeks to keep herself afloat? Do you want to be cut open by that woman? I'm giving Tad the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he doesn't think women can't be surgeons, more for my sanity than anything else.
5. If a man opts to become a stay-at-home dad, can we ask for some of our money back? After all, he, by virtue of being male, cheated us into thinking he would work FOREVER, and now he's not.
6. Tad says men pay for women. Tad also says that the American women he knows spend about £850 a month all told on beauty and fitness, and remarks with disgust that the British women he knows don't even spend £700 a year on that stuff. Once again I am proud to be British, but Tad cites as an example the old "well, women don't pay in restaurants" schtick. If Tad is spending £850 on women's meals in a month, he's even more fucking pretentious than I thought. Also, if I went out to dinner with him, I wouldn't fucking pay either. He would a) have expected me to spend that much looking attractive enough for him to be seen with (his equivalent is "putting on a clean shirt") and b) have already cost me about half my IQ from having to listen to him all night. As we learn in the last line, Tad isn't keen on women getting chatty when he has some VITALLY IMPORTANT MAN-KNOWLEDGE to impart to the silly little women.
7. Tad is a whiny, entitled little ass who knows full well it makes no difference whatsoever to him if the woman he's arguing with in the article (whose responses I haven't copied out because she is mostly just telling him he's a useless fucker, which is fair enough) is getting paid the same amount he is. It makes no difference whatsoever to him or any of the rich idiots that he knows if everybody operates on the same scale of pay. He knows that, and he's not arguing from any objective position of fairness. He just likes having that superiority. He likes to know that he's earning more than his date, because it means his opinions are worth more and he doesn't have to listen to her. Entitled little brats like to remain entitled little brats, and he doesn't want any uppity woman coming along and reminding him that he's not that special.
As we move on to the earlier and most amusingly parodic of the two articles, I remind you that were Tad not earning more than the women he dates, were he not more so-say successful than them, he would have much less of an inbuilt 'right' to demand that women devote all their time, money and energy into being sexually attractive for him. Well, American women already do that, he notes with approval, but then they spoil it by being - gasp! - shallow. How on earth do you manage to spend £850 a month on your looks and not be shallow (or, at least, Tad's version of shallow)? Let's look at this, shall we?
We start off with: Bridget Jones is soooooo gross. And I bet all you women reckon that you're going to have Hugh Grant and Colin Firth fighting over you, right? Well, you won't, because you're all gross too. Ha! Take that!
Then we move on to: eighteen-year-olds are hot. Why don't you stay eighteen? That's what I'd like. Stupid bitches. I sense that none of this article was directed at me, because I never resembled the "sublime rose" he describes in tones that are, frankly, gross for a man twice the age of these girls. "They dressed as if there would be a prize at the end of the night for the girl wearing the least" says Tad, dreamily. Ooh, yum. Women are Tad's shiny, naked objects. Then he goes to America and comes back and horrors! The gorgeous women have been eaten by fat lager-swilling slobs! No, seriously, that's what he says.
We get into what Tad considers to be "standard beauty maintenance" and a "simple and sensible investment in [a woman's] future". Here's what he lists:
haircut, highlights, manicure, pedicure, waxing, tanning, make-up, facials, teeth whitening, military fitness, spinning sessions, vikram yoga, Pilates, deep-tissue sports massage, personal training, the occasional spa day, a week-long “bikini boot camp” in Mexico at the start of every summer and seasonal splurges on personal shoppers and clothing. Apparently all his female friends in America do all this. I think that's bullshit, largely because I find it hard to believe he has any female friends at all.
Then comes my favourite bit: Tad's disastrous date with a woman not groomed to his exacting standards. "Now, I'm not saying I'm the greatest prize out there..." says Tad modestly, sort of ruining it by making clear in the rest of the article that yes, that is exactly what he's saying. Remember the list of all the things women were supposed to spending money on as he says "...at least I'd put on a clean shirt, shaved and brushed my teeth." Brushed your teeth, Tad? Brushed? Ooh, big spender. Anyway, apparently this girl (whose name he has kindly changed) used to be stunning, but now had the audacity to not be dressed like a slut, not be a gym bunny and not smell the way he would prefer. "I was hurt," says Tad, "that my friends thought I'd be remotely interested in Sophie." He was hurt! Guys, you hurt him! Setting him up with a nice woman like that! How could you! Then one of his friends attempts to show off Tad's successes to Sophie, in order, I assume, to demonstrate that they weren't just competing in a reality show called Who Can Set Up Their Friend With The Biggest Git. Tad, outraged: "I could not believe it. She was selling ME to HER!?" Yeah, I'm totally with him. I mean, obviously she was a moose (I know because Tad told me, in euphemistic language that was presumably meant to be funny), how dare she not grab on to ANY MAN who comes her way? How dare she have standards? I also think it's fairly clear that he was acting like the Biggest Git and the friends felt that some selling of this horrible tosser was needed. He informs us snottily that Americans don't touch carbs after 2pm, which is why everyone in the States is married and nobody in Britain is. It's also why the States is renowned for being the thinnest nation on earth and not at all characterised by the words "fat" and "stupid". He actually blames carbs for Sophie's single status, as opposed to the fact that her friends obviously hate her and keep setting her up with horrible people.
Tad, ever the egalitarian, does go on to blame the friends (well, the woman, as is only right)... for not "managing his expectations, whatever the fuck that means. He calls Sophie an "orc" which might be the least clever insult I've ever seen in print. He then compares Helena Bonham-Carter to Michelle Pfeiffer, calling them "equivalent". Erm, no, dear. There is no such thing as an "equivalent" to Helena Bonham-Carter. He quite hilariously implies that you never see American celebrity women looking rough. Tad lives in a very strange world.
It's all the fault of British parents, of course, for not shaming their little girls about their looks. Tad then talks about going for a manicure (HA! I'm sorry, men can get manicures if they want, etc, but HA!) and nobody wanting to talk to him. Of course they didn't, you asswipe. You were in fucking Britain and you were a creepy man trying to talk to strangers in a manicurists'. You claim to have lived here since you were three - have you learned nothing? We don't DO THAT. Who knows, they might have recognised you. "Oh, fuck, it's Tosspot McGee. Pretend you're Cantonese, quick."
It's also our friends' fault, because we're nice to each other. We don't tell our friends they look like shit, or need to lose weight, or are wearing clothes we don't like. First of all, I have very English friends who have done all three of these both to me and to other people. And no, I wasn't fucking grateful, and you know why, Tad? You know why? BECAUSE I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. I don't care if you think I'm fat, or unattractive, or dressed badly. I just couldn't give a shit. I'm terribly sorry. When you go on to say that yes, we like shoes, but men don't care about shoes, WE DON'T CARE IF YOU CARE ABOUT SHOES. I have never in my life put on a pair of shoes and thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if these will make me more attractive to that git over there." I've never even thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if my partner will like these shoes." Hear that, Tad? I have never in my life bought shoes with a man in mind, and I don't know any woman that has, unless her man is a fetishist. We may think, "I wonder if he'll like this extremely hot piece of lingerie" (answer: yes. Every time, yes. Even though I've never been to a spinning class in my life), but a lot of us don't even care what you think of our clothes, and we certainly don't care what you think of our shoes. Shoes are for us, not for you, hence all the time and money we selfish Brits spend on them.
It's also just as off-putting if you're absolutely perfect except for one minor flaw. So, Tad, if that's just as off-putting, why should we bother at all? We obviously can't bring ourselves up to your level.
Tosspot McGee concludes by reassuring us British girls that we're miles ahead in the personality stakes, and devotes several misogynistic paragraphs to talking shit about the American women he was praising to the skies at the beginning of the article (remember that? All the way up there? I am pissed off today, I tell you). They're vapid, they have no social skills, they ask too many questions, they're annoying and confrontational and think sleeping with men makes the sexes equal (Tad sniggers a little, because of course nothing could make a woman equal to him), they're grasping, they're shallow, they've all got new faces from the plastic surgeon that they lie about. Ew.
He assures us that we're wonderful, we really are, "[b]ut when it comes to making the all-important first impression, do you really want it to be, “I’ll bet she was really hot ten years ago”? I couldn't give a fuck, Tad. I couldn't give a fuck if your first impression of me was "Ugh, fucking hell, that's a moose and a half." I'll say it one last time: WE AREN'T DOING IT FOR YOU, YOU ODIOUS PIECE OF CRAP. I don't wear make-up in the hope that some loser will think I'm hot. I am not going to starve myself so that some man who thinks he's entitled to a hot girl will think he's entitled to me. Also, your standards are YOUR fucking standards. Most men (I can generalise too) can't think of anything worse than a woman who spends a grand a month on her looks. No woman has to spend a grand a month on her looks to be thought of as hot. Poisonous people like you (and you are poisonous, Tad) try to convince us that we have to do it, no man will want us if we don't do it, but I've discovered the big secret: It's a huge fucking lie. My partner doesn't care if I've waxed or not. He doesn't notice if I put on a few pounds. He doesn't care how nicely-shaped my nails are. Unwaxed, period-bloat, straggly-haired, naked-faced me doesn't repulse him at all; he seems to quite like it. None of this stuff matters to most men. And frankly, if he did tell me to wax, I'd tell him to go first. It's taken a long time learning, and maybe I'm not quite there emotionally, but the logic stands, Tad, that I don't have to do squat to be attractive to men. Nor does this Sophie you were so scornful of. I can guarantee you that out there somewhere are several men who know her and think you're absolutely nuts. WE DON'T HAVE TO TRY. And when we do try, it ain't for you. We buy nice shoes because they make us feel good. We're more likely to put on a face full of make-up for other women than for you.
It upsets me that Tosspot McGee wrote all this, snark potential aside, because I remember being in a place where his words would have stung me, and perhaps he would have been successful in convincing me that I should "take better care of myself" and try to mould myself into his vision of attractiveness, and I am so grateful that I didn't see this then. It upsets me now because so many women still are. And he knows it, the nasty little tosspot. He knows he can convince women to change for him if he can get them to believe that he deserves to get what he wants. If he can pass himself off as someone so utterly wonderful that all women are throwing themselves at his feet - and thereby stand in for all men, who all expect this kind of care and attention to looking the way you're told to look - he can make us believe that he has all the power and we have none. Men like Tad look at the world as if there's only one bachelor left and all the hot women must compete for him. Women like me must stand atop Tad's roof and scream, "IT'S A LIE!"
And I have. My fingers are bloody exhausted.
I don't know why he bothered, since my memory of this is still pretty strong in my mind (Safran argues that British women just don't spend enough money making themselves look like eighteen-year-olds, is horrified about being set up with a woman he deems insufficiently attractive and is more horrified still that this ugly beast might still need to be sold on the good qualities he insists that he has - I think I may segue on to this piece, because it reads like a self-parody), but just in case, he informs me here that equal pay for men and women is "inherently unfair". The piece, if you're link-phobic, is written as a conversation of sorts between Tosspot McGee and a "reader". On the one hand, yes, get a woman in to argue with him, but on the other, get a journalist. And if she is a journalist, why isn't she credited as such? Lord knows. It seems to be a series, too, as another link on the side says "Tad and Molly: Why Women Are Sluts and Men Are Studs." I didn't have the stomach to click on it.
So anyway, let's humour him for a minute. Why, Tad, is it unfair to pay women the same as men? Why is it unfair to men, corporations and the economy in general? Do tell.
"Well, in most industries, there is a period of training, which is at considerable expense to a company. With male employees, the expense will be amortised over the next four or so decades because men will work until they die or retire. The majority of women will choose to stop working after a decade or so and the money spent on their training will be thrown out with the dirty nappies."
No, seriously. That's what he says. We should pay women less because some of them have babies and it's a waste of training. He makes no further points in the rest of the article, except to claim that men still "pay for" women (hence, they need more money) and then as his final line, says "I'm starting to think you get paid by the word." Oh God, yes, won't these women just shut up? And isn't he witty! I so want to shag you now, Tad.
I could make several arguments against what he's saying. So let's do that.
1. Tad is living in the 1950s. Men don't stay in the same job (and certainly not in the same company) for forty years anymore. Everyone chops and changes, quits for a better offer, decides it's not for them after all and trains to become a tennis coach instead.
2. Perhaps Tad intends to lock his imaginary wife up in the house with the dirty nappies, but most women actually, y'know, go back to work again. If we go with Tad's theory that the majority of women leave work after a decade, most of them don't stay at home with a thirty-year-old child wondering why they're still changing nappies. We go back, so as not to waste the corporations' precious time and money.
3. What, I wonder, would Tad's reaction be if women agreed to give up having kids in exchange for equal pay? If Tad wants a baby, he can grow one in a damn test tube. I sincerely hope Tad doesn't want a baby, because how fucked-up will that poor kid be?
4. Tad wants to know if it's fair that male and female docotrs are paid the same, since female doctors are more likely to go part-time. Tad, mate: Do you honestly want to be operated on by an underpaid surgeon? What if she is full-time and has been damned by your "all women are the same woman" theory? What if she is insufficiently attractive (use Tosspot McGee scale to determine) to catch herself a rich workaholic husband? What if she has to work eighty-hour weeks to keep herself afloat? Do you want to be cut open by that woman? I'm giving Tad the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he doesn't think women can't be surgeons, more for my sanity than anything else.
5. If a man opts to become a stay-at-home dad, can we ask for some of our money back? After all, he, by virtue of being male, cheated us into thinking he would work FOREVER, and now he's not.
6. Tad says men pay for women. Tad also says that the American women he knows spend about £850 a month all told on beauty and fitness, and remarks with disgust that the British women he knows don't even spend £700 a year on that stuff. Once again I am proud to be British, but Tad cites as an example the old "well, women don't pay in restaurants" schtick. If Tad is spending £850 on women's meals in a month, he's even more fucking pretentious than I thought. Also, if I went out to dinner with him, I wouldn't fucking pay either. He would a) have expected me to spend that much looking attractive enough for him to be seen with (his equivalent is "putting on a clean shirt") and b) have already cost me about half my IQ from having to listen to him all night. As we learn in the last line, Tad isn't keen on women getting chatty when he has some VITALLY IMPORTANT MAN-KNOWLEDGE to impart to the silly little women.
7. Tad is a whiny, entitled little ass who knows full well it makes no difference whatsoever to him if the woman he's arguing with in the article (whose responses I haven't copied out because she is mostly just telling him he's a useless fucker, which is fair enough) is getting paid the same amount he is. It makes no difference whatsoever to him or any of the rich idiots that he knows if everybody operates on the same scale of pay. He knows that, and he's not arguing from any objective position of fairness. He just likes having that superiority. He likes to know that he's earning more than his date, because it means his opinions are worth more and he doesn't have to listen to her. Entitled little brats like to remain entitled little brats, and he doesn't want any uppity woman coming along and reminding him that he's not that special.
As we move on to the earlier and most amusingly parodic of the two articles, I remind you that were Tad not earning more than the women he dates, were he not more so-say successful than them, he would have much less of an inbuilt 'right' to demand that women devote all their time, money and energy into being sexually attractive for him. Well, American women already do that, he notes with approval, but then they spoil it by being - gasp! - shallow. How on earth do you manage to spend £850 a month on your looks and not be shallow (or, at least, Tad's version of shallow)? Let's look at this, shall we?
We start off with: Bridget Jones is soooooo gross. And I bet all you women reckon that you're going to have Hugh Grant and Colin Firth fighting over you, right? Well, you won't, because you're all gross too. Ha! Take that!
Then we move on to: eighteen-year-olds are hot. Why don't you stay eighteen? That's what I'd like. Stupid bitches. I sense that none of this article was directed at me, because I never resembled the "sublime rose" he describes in tones that are, frankly, gross for a man twice the age of these girls. "They dressed as if there would be a prize at the end of the night for the girl wearing the least" says Tad, dreamily. Ooh, yum. Women are Tad's shiny, naked objects. Then he goes to America and comes back and horrors! The gorgeous women have been eaten by fat lager-swilling slobs! No, seriously, that's what he says.
We get into what Tad considers to be "standard beauty maintenance" and a "simple and sensible investment in [a woman's] future". Here's what he lists:
haircut, highlights, manicure, pedicure, waxing, tanning, make-up, facials, teeth whitening, military fitness, spinning sessions, vikram yoga, Pilates, deep-tissue sports massage, personal training, the occasional spa day, a week-long “bikini boot camp” in Mexico at the start of every summer and seasonal splurges on personal shoppers and clothing. Apparently all his female friends in America do all this. I think that's bullshit, largely because I find it hard to believe he has any female friends at all.
Then comes my favourite bit: Tad's disastrous date with a woman not groomed to his exacting standards. "Now, I'm not saying I'm the greatest prize out there..." says Tad modestly, sort of ruining it by making clear in the rest of the article that yes, that is exactly what he's saying. Remember the list of all the things women were supposed to spending money on as he says "...at least I'd put on a clean shirt, shaved and brushed my teeth." Brushed your teeth, Tad? Brushed? Ooh, big spender. Anyway, apparently this girl (whose name he has kindly changed) used to be stunning, but now had the audacity to not be dressed like a slut, not be a gym bunny and not smell the way he would prefer. "I was hurt," says Tad, "that my friends thought I'd be remotely interested in Sophie." He was hurt! Guys, you hurt him! Setting him up with a nice woman like that! How could you! Then one of his friends attempts to show off Tad's successes to Sophie, in order, I assume, to demonstrate that they weren't just competing in a reality show called Who Can Set Up Their Friend With The Biggest Git. Tad, outraged: "I could not believe it. She was selling ME to HER!?" Yeah, I'm totally with him. I mean, obviously she was a moose (I know because Tad told me, in euphemistic language that was presumably meant to be funny), how dare she not grab on to ANY MAN who comes her way? How dare she have standards? I also think it's fairly clear that he was acting like the Biggest Git and the friends felt that some selling of this horrible tosser was needed. He informs us snottily that Americans don't touch carbs after 2pm, which is why everyone in the States is married and nobody in Britain is. It's also why the States is renowned for being the thinnest nation on earth and not at all characterised by the words "fat" and "stupid". He actually blames carbs for Sophie's single status, as opposed to the fact that her friends obviously hate her and keep setting her up with horrible people.
Tad, ever the egalitarian, does go on to blame the friends (well, the woman, as is only right)... for not "managing his expectations, whatever the fuck that means. He calls Sophie an "orc" which might be the least clever insult I've ever seen in print. He then compares Helena Bonham-Carter to Michelle Pfeiffer, calling them "equivalent". Erm, no, dear. There is no such thing as an "equivalent" to Helena Bonham-Carter. He quite hilariously implies that you never see American celebrity women looking rough. Tad lives in a very strange world.
It's all the fault of British parents, of course, for not shaming their little girls about their looks. Tad then talks about going for a manicure (HA! I'm sorry, men can get manicures if they want, etc, but HA!) and nobody wanting to talk to him. Of course they didn't, you asswipe. You were in fucking Britain and you were a creepy man trying to talk to strangers in a manicurists'. You claim to have lived here since you were three - have you learned nothing? We don't DO THAT. Who knows, they might have recognised you. "Oh, fuck, it's Tosspot McGee. Pretend you're Cantonese, quick."
It's also our friends' fault, because we're nice to each other. We don't tell our friends they look like shit, or need to lose weight, or are wearing clothes we don't like. First of all, I have very English friends who have done all three of these both to me and to other people. And no, I wasn't fucking grateful, and you know why, Tad? You know why? BECAUSE I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. I don't care if you think I'm fat, or unattractive, or dressed badly. I just couldn't give a shit. I'm terribly sorry. When you go on to say that yes, we like shoes, but men don't care about shoes, WE DON'T CARE IF YOU CARE ABOUT SHOES. I have never in my life put on a pair of shoes and thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if these will make me more attractive to that git over there." I've never even thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if my partner will like these shoes." Hear that, Tad? I have never in my life bought shoes with a man in mind, and I don't know any woman that has, unless her man is a fetishist. We may think, "I wonder if he'll like this extremely hot piece of lingerie" (answer: yes. Every time, yes. Even though I've never been to a spinning class in my life), but a lot of us don't even care what you think of our clothes, and we certainly don't care what you think of our shoes. Shoes are for us, not for you, hence all the time and money we selfish Brits spend on them.
It's also just as off-putting if you're absolutely perfect except for one minor flaw. So, Tad, if that's just as off-putting, why should we bother at all? We obviously can't bring ourselves up to your level.
Tosspot McGee concludes by reassuring us British girls that we're miles ahead in the personality stakes, and devotes several misogynistic paragraphs to talking shit about the American women he was praising to the skies at the beginning of the article (remember that? All the way up there? I am pissed off today, I tell you). They're vapid, they have no social skills, they ask too many questions, they're annoying and confrontational and think sleeping with men makes the sexes equal (Tad sniggers a little, because of course nothing could make a woman equal to him), they're grasping, they're shallow, they've all got new faces from the plastic surgeon that they lie about. Ew.
He assures us that we're wonderful, we really are, "[b]ut when it comes to making the all-important first impression, do you really want it to be, “I’ll bet she was really hot ten years ago”? I couldn't give a fuck, Tad. I couldn't give a fuck if your first impression of me was "Ugh, fucking hell, that's a moose and a half." I'll say it one last time: WE AREN'T DOING IT FOR YOU, YOU ODIOUS PIECE OF CRAP. I don't wear make-up in the hope that some loser will think I'm hot. I am not going to starve myself so that some man who thinks he's entitled to a hot girl will think he's entitled to me. Also, your standards are YOUR fucking standards. Most men (I can generalise too) can't think of anything worse than a woman who spends a grand a month on her looks. No woman has to spend a grand a month on her looks to be thought of as hot. Poisonous people like you (and you are poisonous, Tad) try to convince us that we have to do it, no man will want us if we don't do it, but I've discovered the big secret: It's a huge fucking lie. My partner doesn't care if I've waxed or not. He doesn't notice if I put on a few pounds. He doesn't care how nicely-shaped my nails are. Unwaxed, period-bloat, straggly-haired, naked-faced me doesn't repulse him at all; he seems to quite like it. None of this stuff matters to most men. And frankly, if he did tell me to wax, I'd tell him to go first. It's taken a long time learning, and maybe I'm not quite there emotionally, but the logic stands, Tad, that I don't have to do squat to be attractive to men. Nor does this Sophie you were so scornful of. I can guarantee you that out there somewhere are several men who know her and think you're absolutely nuts. WE DON'T HAVE TO TRY. And when we do try, it ain't for you. We buy nice shoes because they make us feel good. We're more likely to put on a face full of make-up for other women than for you.
It upsets me that Tosspot McGee wrote all this, snark potential aside, because I remember being in a place where his words would have stung me, and perhaps he would have been successful in convincing me that I should "take better care of myself" and try to mould myself into his vision of attractiveness, and I am so grateful that I didn't see this then. It upsets me now because so many women still are. And he knows it, the nasty little tosspot. He knows he can convince women to change for him if he can get them to believe that he deserves to get what he wants. If he can pass himself off as someone so utterly wonderful that all women are throwing themselves at his feet - and thereby stand in for all men, who all expect this kind of care and attention to looking the way you're told to look - he can make us believe that he has all the power and we have none. Men like Tad look at the world as if there's only one bachelor left and all the hot women must compete for him. Women like me must stand atop Tad's roof and scream, "IT'S A LIE!"
And I have. My fingers are bloody exhausted.
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
It's Not Just Me
Other people are annoyed by whingeing bishops too. I was gratified to see that several vicars had written in to the Times to say that they aren't being persecuted at all and these people are being daft. On the negative side, if the ordinary ministers aren't feeling it, another mark has to go in the "We Want More Power" column. Sigh.
I have some more substantial ideas for posts all ready, but they might need some work. Hopefully tomorrow I can provide some fun quiz facts.
I have some more substantial ideas for posts all ready, but they might need some work. Hopefully tomorrow I can provide some fun quiz facts.
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Hmph.
I found this lying around on a comments page:
"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits." - (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)
It has been made clear to me on multiple occasions that this Chris Matthews person is a bigoted craphole, as evidenced by "the women like this war" (who are "the women"? The strange and shady group lurking in the shadows with their love of war and their need for diamond-buying heroes). However, I will have to agree that generally speaking, we can think of nothing worse than being governed by a "hero".
In other news, I am fifty pages into my script and terribly conflicted about it. I don't write action. I'm not an action girl. Since my stuff revolves around people and not exploding buses, I have yet again forgotten to put in any actual happenings. Dammit. I must finish it though, rubbish or not, because I need to get these damn characters out of my head and work out a basic plan for NaNo, which I know is months away, but I'm going to try going in with a plan this time. I win when I know what I'm doing, or someone else has given me an idea. Winging it doesn't work for 50,000 words and I should know that by now.
"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits." - (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)
It has been made clear to me on multiple occasions that this Chris Matthews person is a bigoted craphole, as evidenced by "the women like this war" (who are "the women"? The strange and shady group lurking in the shadows with their love of war and their need for diamond-buying heroes). However, I will have to agree that generally speaking, we can think of nothing worse than being governed by a "hero".
In other news, I am fifty pages into my script and terribly conflicted about it. I don't write action. I'm not an action girl. Since my stuff revolves around people and not exploding buses, I have yet again forgotten to put in any actual happenings. Dammit. I must finish it though, rubbish or not, because I need to get these damn characters out of my head and work out a basic plan for NaNo, which I know is months away, but I'm going to try going in with a plan this time. I win when I know what I'm doing, or someone else has given me an idea. Winging it doesn't work for 50,000 words and I should know that by now.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Sex and the City and Me
First of all, what happened to the font? It changed. I didn't ask it to. Stupid Blogger.
In small news, there will be spoilers. I warned ya. I went to see Sex and the City despite not watching the TV series ever. Because I'm such a gore-and-violence wimp, I have to jump on pretty much anything else if I want to go to the cinema. I quite liked it, but at the same time it kind of depressed me.
OK, the likes. I liked seeing a film about women. I like seeing a film about women who look like actual people (if very attractive actual people) as opposed to the sort of waxy idols you usually find yourself watching. I liked all the insane clothes. I really liked them all piled on the bed listening to Walk This Way while Carrie tried on a load of her old clothes. I liked the little dig at the iPhone, which looks daft to me. I liked Samantha's story arc. I loved that she bought the dog because it humped things.
The dislikes. Small ones first. The bag Carrie bought for her assistant was beyond gross. I'm sorry, but if she's an extremely poor label fanatic, get her a classic bag. Don't get her a nasty pink/purple/gold piece of ick. I know she loved it, but ew. I didn't like either of Carrie's wedding dresses. Even I, with my extremely limited knowledge of the show, know about her normal taste in clothes. Nicely put, it's 'eclectic', otherwise, it's 'bonkers'. All the Vogue wedding dresses were nasty, but the one she chose was big and white and boring. Yes, she wore a bird in her hair, so what? And when she actually did get married, it was worse. It was boring, it was matronly, it was a bad length on her, and considering how big a deal they make out of Carrie being a label queen, it seemed wrong to me that she got a 'no-name' dress. Even with a pair of blue shoes, it was boring.
I didn't like Big at all. His acting was wooden, his character was stilted and unsympathetic, and were his eyebrows always that pointy? It was really distracting. He looked kind of evil all the way through.
More seriously, I didn't like that the only couple not to break up at some point were barely ever seen together, and I really didn't like that Miranda and Carrie both forgave their errant men. One sleeps with another woman (which everyone else in the film makes out to be not much of a problem), and one pisses off and abandons her at the altar, and they get forgiven because love is all great and stuff. Oh, and it was kind of the woman's fault too, y'know, for not having sex enough and for wanting a big wedding.
I mean, I get that if your partner goes off sex it must be frustrating. But the film was striving to inform me that Miranda had to take some of the responsibility for Steve's cheating. Why? Why did we have to hear "you didn't give me much of a choice" so many times? I have zero tolerance for cheating at the best of times, but if my partner cheated on me and then tried to blame it, in whole or in part, on what I was or wasn't doing, I would kill him. If my friends tried to tell me it was no big deal and I should stop being such a drama queen, they would be in huge amounts of trouble. I get that they have a long history, and a child, but I just do not understand the mindset that adultery is less bad or less significant if you've been together a long time. I really don't understand.
And really, forgiving a man for fucking off on the wedding day? No way. Forgiving a man for fucking off apparently because she had a veil over her face and didn't turn around when he would have liked her to? Really? And then blaming that on the big wedding? I just don't get it. If you're going to say that a wedding is 'girls' stuff' and not get involved, don't fucking complain when it's not exactly what you want. He could have said what he wanted (just the two of them at whatever the American equivalent of a registry office is), but he didn't. He left it all up to her then got snotty when she didn't plan what he wanted. He got all weird because she didn't answer her phone on the morning of the wedding, then left because she didn't turn around. How much effort would it have taken to call to her out of the car window? And she actually took some of the responsibility for it. I saw the film with two friends, and when Carrie and Big made up, one of them started clapping in her seat. I was just disgusted (as was Friend Two, who I suspect would chain me up in a cellar and throw wet sponges at me before she'd let me go back to a man who'd done that to me, and that's far more comforting then you'd think).
I left the cinema thinking Is that love? It's OK if he cheats, it's OK if he leaves you at the altar because he's a freak, as long as you love him? I got the impression this was meant to be a liberated viewpoint, as in it's a huge mistake to leave your husband if he fucks up once and marriage can overcome infidelity in these modern times, and look how happy they were once they dispensed with the traditional marriage, but it came across to me like Doormat Central. If a man can get you to love him, he can do what he likes. If a man ever betrays you, it's at least 50% your fault, for not wanting what he wants, or wanting something he professes not to care about but actually has a very specific plan which you must extract from his mind via telepathy. If men aren't happy, they won't tell you. And if you don't use your telepathy and sort it out, they will act out and shake you to your very core and it'll be your fault for not understanding them. I felt lonely, and kind of insecure and scared. I don't believe any of this stuff, but if such a message catches you off-guard when you're in a vulnerable place, when you've gone in prepared to invest a little bit of yourself in the characters' personal relationships, it can worm its way in and throw you off-balance, and it has, somewhat. I don't believe my partner is a cheater, or a leave-you-at-the-altar scumbag maggot, but apparently if he was, this new liberated world would think it was my fault. My wedding dress is too big, my sex drive is too small, I'm too fat, I'm too busy, I'm not busy enough. My fault.
I obviously have the wrong values for this particular film (which, yes, I am taking too seriously. I do that), but is it just these writers, or is it a trend? Am I going to come across more people who think cheating is not a big deal and/or the fault of the cheated-on? Does the world think I have a responsibility to plan the wedding my partner wants without his involvement? Is it me that's wrong? Should I be thinking, "Yeah, sex once, no problem, doesn't have to get in the way"? I don't know.
I'm glad the film was made, and I'm glad it's doing so well, because hopefully it will start to wedge open some doors for more films based around women's friendships, and proper relationships as opposed to Disney for humans, and also because on a superficial level, I did enjoy it quite a lot. But it's shaken me a little, and I wonder if maybe there's some questioning I need to do.
This post has been brought to you by the Maudlin Society. Sarcastic ranting will resume in a few days. Thank you.
In small news, there will be spoilers. I warned ya. I went to see Sex and the City despite not watching the TV series ever. Because I'm such a gore-and-violence wimp, I have to jump on pretty much anything else if I want to go to the cinema. I quite liked it, but at the same time it kind of depressed me.
OK, the likes. I liked seeing a film about women. I like seeing a film about women who look like actual people (if very attractive actual people) as opposed to the sort of waxy idols you usually find yourself watching. I liked all the insane clothes. I really liked them all piled on the bed listening to Walk This Way while Carrie tried on a load of her old clothes. I liked the little dig at the iPhone, which looks daft to me. I liked Samantha's story arc. I loved that she bought the dog because it humped things.
The dislikes. Small ones first. The bag Carrie bought for her assistant was beyond gross. I'm sorry, but if she's an extremely poor label fanatic, get her a classic bag. Don't get her a nasty pink/purple/gold piece of ick. I know she loved it, but ew. I didn't like either of Carrie's wedding dresses. Even I, with my extremely limited knowledge of the show, know about her normal taste in clothes. Nicely put, it's 'eclectic', otherwise, it's 'bonkers'. All the Vogue wedding dresses were nasty, but the one she chose was big and white and boring. Yes, she wore a bird in her hair, so what? And when she actually did get married, it was worse. It was boring, it was matronly, it was a bad length on her, and considering how big a deal they make out of Carrie being a label queen, it seemed wrong to me that she got a 'no-name' dress. Even with a pair of blue shoes, it was boring.
I didn't like Big at all. His acting was wooden, his character was stilted and unsympathetic, and were his eyebrows always that pointy? It was really distracting. He looked kind of evil all the way through.
More seriously, I didn't like that the only couple not to break up at some point were barely ever seen together, and I really didn't like that Miranda and Carrie both forgave their errant men. One sleeps with another woman (which everyone else in the film makes out to be not much of a problem), and one pisses off and abandons her at the altar, and they get forgiven because love is all great and stuff. Oh, and it was kind of the woman's fault too, y'know, for not having sex enough and for wanting a big wedding.
I mean, I get that if your partner goes off sex it must be frustrating. But the film was striving to inform me that Miranda had to take some of the responsibility for Steve's cheating. Why? Why did we have to hear "you didn't give me much of a choice" so many times? I have zero tolerance for cheating at the best of times, but if my partner cheated on me and then tried to blame it, in whole or in part, on what I was or wasn't doing, I would kill him. If my friends tried to tell me it was no big deal and I should stop being such a drama queen, they would be in huge amounts of trouble. I get that they have a long history, and a child, but I just do not understand the mindset that adultery is less bad or less significant if you've been together a long time. I really don't understand.
And really, forgiving a man for fucking off on the wedding day? No way. Forgiving a man for fucking off apparently because she had a veil over her face and didn't turn around when he would have liked her to? Really? And then blaming that on the big wedding? I just don't get it. If you're going to say that a wedding is 'girls' stuff' and not get involved, don't fucking complain when it's not exactly what you want. He could have said what he wanted (just the two of them at whatever the American equivalent of a registry office is), but he didn't. He left it all up to her then got snotty when she didn't plan what he wanted. He got all weird because she didn't answer her phone on the morning of the wedding, then left because she didn't turn around. How much effort would it have taken to call to her out of the car window? And she actually took some of the responsibility for it. I saw the film with two friends, and when Carrie and Big made up, one of them started clapping in her seat. I was just disgusted (as was Friend Two, who I suspect would chain me up in a cellar and throw wet sponges at me before she'd let me go back to a man who'd done that to me, and that's far more comforting then you'd think).
I left the cinema thinking Is that love? It's OK if he cheats, it's OK if he leaves you at the altar because he's a freak, as long as you love him? I got the impression this was meant to be a liberated viewpoint, as in it's a huge mistake to leave your husband if he fucks up once and marriage can overcome infidelity in these modern times, and look how happy they were once they dispensed with the traditional marriage, but it came across to me like Doormat Central. If a man can get you to love him, he can do what he likes. If a man ever betrays you, it's at least 50% your fault, for not wanting what he wants, or wanting something he professes not to care about but actually has a very specific plan which you must extract from his mind via telepathy. If men aren't happy, they won't tell you. And if you don't use your telepathy and sort it out, they will act out and shake you to your very core and it'll be your fault for not understanding them. I felt lonely, and kind of insecure and scared. I don't believe any of this stuff, but if such a message catches you off-guard when you're in a vulnerable place, when you've gone in prepared to invest a little bit of yourself in the characters' personal relationships, it can worm its way in and throw you off-balance, and it has, somewhat. I don't believe my partner is a cheater, or a leave-you-at-the-altar scumbag maggot, but apparently if he was, this new liberated world would think it was my fault. My wedding dress is too big, my sex drive is too small, I'm too fat, I'm too busy, I'm not busy enough. My fault.
I obviously have the wrong values for this particular film (which, yes, I am taking too seriously. I do that), but is it just these writers, or is it a trend? Am I going to come across more people who think cheating is not a big deal and/or the fault of the cheated-on? Does the world think I have a responsibility to plan the wedding my partner wants without his involvement? Is it me that's wrong? Should I be thinking, "Yeah, sex once, no problem, doesn't have to get in the way"? I don't know.
I'm glad the film was made, and I'm glad it's doing so well, because hopefully it will start to wedge open some doors for more films based around women's friendships, and proper relationships as opposed to Disney for humans, and also because on a superficial level, I did enjoy it quite a lot. But it's shaken me a little, and I wonder if maybe there's some questioning I need to do.
This post has been brought to you by the Maudlin Society. Sarcastic ranting will resume in a few days. Thank you.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Brits for Hillary!
I just want to link this to remind myself that it's not just me who doesn't want to see President Obama. He's the American David Cameron, just catering to a slightly different crowd. And Obama's supporters frighten me. Thank Christ Cameron doesn't have supporters (well, I'm sure he does, but we support our politicians by telling them they're crap, which is much less scary).
Despite every news source telling me that Obama has this wrapped up, I'm still pro-Clinton. I don't have eight hundred policy reasons for this, because I'm British and don't really have to. Quite aside from the fact that Clinton has been portrayed as the kind of uppity bitch I expressed my sympathy for here, Obama worries me. He put me off with his "marriage is between a man and a woman, unless I've been blinded by society's prejudices" thing. He then proceeded to piss me off by saying that the mistake pro-choicers make is to overlook the anti-choicers' 'moral' arguments and that a woman's pastor should be involved in the decision-making process. As you know, religion + politics = Angry Jen. He further went on to shock me by interviewing, quite astoundingly, that he once knew a gay guy but liked him because he "wasn't proselytising all the time". What the fuck, man? He sounds afraid that he might catch The Gay. Oh, and after Bush, I would appreciate a candidate with a basic knowledge of human biology. You can't make people gay, ass. It would be like trying to talk someone into switching gender. Or saying, "oh, go on, grow an extra limb! It'd be great!" You just can't do it. It concerns me that he has such a fundamentally flawed view of the human race, and such an apparent fear of so many of the people he's hoping to govern.
Despite every news source telling me that Obama has this wrapped up, I'm still pro-Clinton. I don't have eight hundred policy reasons for this, because I'm British and don't really have to. Quite aside from the fact that Clinton has been portrayed as the kind of uppity bitch I expressed my sympathy for here, Obama worries me. He put me off with his "marriage is between a man and a woman, unless I've been blinded by society's prejudices" thing. He then proceeded to piss me off by saying that the mistake pro-choicers make is to overlook the anti-choicers' 'moral' arguments and that a woman's pastor should be involved in the decision-making process. As you know, religion + politics = Angry Jen. He further went on to shock me by interviewing, quite astoundingly, that he once knew a gay guy but liked him because he "wasn't proselytising all the time". What the fuck, man? He sounds afraid that he might catch The Gay. Oh, and after Bush, I would appreciate a candidate with a basic knowledge of human biology. You can't make people gay, ass. It would be like trying to talk someone into switching gender. Or saying, "oh, go on, grow an extra limb! It'd be great!" You just can't do it. It concerns me that he has such a fundamentally flawed view of the human race, and such an apparent fear of so many of the people he's hoping to govern.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Homophobic? How dare you!
Christian registrars don't want to perform same-sex ceremonies and are complaining that they're being bullied as a result.
"[Ladele] said she was picked on, shunned and accused of being homophobic for refusing to carry out civil partnerships."
This should be fairly obvious, but just in case: She was accused of being homophobic BECAUSE SHE IS HOMOPHOBIC. She claims she was made to feel like a second-class citizen when THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE WAS DOING. I would shun her too, because I don't want to be around someone who uses religion as an excuse to treat other people like dirt. That's her fault, not her colleagues'.
I do not believe that someone doing a job should be able to pick and choose which bits of the job they fancy doing. Christian pharmacy workers should not be allowed to refuse to fill a prescription because they disagree with it. Muslims should not get a checkout job if they don't want to touch pork or alcohol. And no registrar should be allowed to decide who can and cannot get married. Should a racist registrar be allowed to object to an interracial coupling? No. Should a homophobic registrar be allowed to object to a same-sex coupling AND THEN fucking object to being called homophobic? No. Jesus fucking Christ.
I apologise for my overuse of the shift key, but religion should not give you carte blanche to attack those who aren't to your taste, and being a Christian does not make you a special snowflake. This woman is no more and no less of a person than anyone who comes to her to get married, and they come to her for the help she claims to give for a living. I am somewhat tempted, when I get married, to specifically ask for a registrar willing to perform same-sex ceremonies. There will be gay people at my wedding, and I don't want to be united in matrimony by someone who is hostile to them. I wonder, is that discrimination? Would she complain if I rejected her as my officiant on those grounds? Is it acceptable for her to discriminate based on the way people are born but not acceptable for me to discriminate based on her bigotries? It's a shame I don't live in London, because that would be an interesting experiment.
As for her tribunal, I hope she loses. Her manager makes an excellent point but the council representative could well have dug himself a hole with the "she was confused" defence. Simply put, you should be required to do your damn job and flaming hypocrisy such as this must not go unpunished by the cosmos.
"[Ladele] said she was picked on, shunned and accused of being homophobic for refusing to carry out civil partnerships."
This should be fairly obvious, but just in case: She was accused of being homophobic BECAUSE SHE IS HOMOPHOBIC. She claims she was made to feel like a second-class citizen when THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE WAS DOING. I would shun her too, because I don't want to be around someone who uses religion as an excuse to treat other people like dirt. That's her fault, not her colleagues'.
I do not believe that someone doing a job should be able to pick and choose which bits of the job they fancy doing. Christian pharmacy workers should not be allowed to refuse to fill a prescription because they disagree with it. Muslims should not get a checkout job if they don't want to touch pork or alcohol. And no registrar should be allowed to decide who can and cannot get married. Should a racist registrar be allowed to object to an interracial coupling? No. Should a homophobic registrar be allowed to object to a same-sex coupling AND THEN fucking object to being called homophobic? No. Jesus fucking Christ.
I apologise for my overuse of the shift key, but religion should not give you carte blanche to attack those who aren't to your taste, and being a Christian does not make you a special snowflake. This woman is no more and no less of a person than anyone who comes to her to get married, and they come to her for the help she claims to give for a living. I am somewhat tempted, when I get married, to specifically ask for a registrar willing to perform same-sex ceremonies. There will be gay people at my wedding, and I don't want to be united in matrimony by someone who is hostile to them. I wonder, is that discrimination? Would she complain if I rejected her as my officiant on those grounds? Is it acceptable for her to discriminate based on the way people are born but not acceptable for me to discriminate based on her bigotries? It's a shame I don't live in London, because that would be an interesting experiment.
As for her tribunal, I hope she loses. Her manager makes an excellent point but the council representative could well have dug himself a hole with the "she was confused" defence. Simply put, you should be required to do your damn job and flaming hypocrisy such as this must not go unpunished by the cosmos.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Oh, Go and Put Up Some Shelves
In my time as an active feminist, many things have confused me about the way people respond to the concept of feminism. A lot of them boil down to: Is anything that diminishes feminism automatically supposed to be funny? I don't understand how a hundred men can think that saying "Go and make me a sandwich" or "You're really ugly" or "Oooh, I have a penis" over and over again is somehow really cool and clever and amusing. I also don't understand why "sammich" is suddenly a word.
A helpful troll explains that "it's fun to annoy you and you just don't understand that." No, troll. What I don't understand is exactly how you intend to annoy me with your endlessly repeated cliches and remarks about your genitalia. Is it simply their presence in what is meant to be a feminist space? Is it the repetition? Or is the content supposed to needle us? I'm genuinely unsure. I'm also curious, in a rhetorical sense, as to why these men feel the need to keep emphasising their dicks. I sort of think it's meant to be threatening, though it comes across more as "it's really small", but it's slightly odd. I also wonder how many of these men would say, if confronted, that they were just being funny and can't you take a joke and humourless feminist and what's next on the overused cliche list, and how many would claim that they were, in fact, making a valid point.
In Jessica's screenshot of youtube comments, I find the one that says: "[D]o you honestly think you are smarter than me? You better have an Iq [sic] above 125, stupid bitch" especially funny. Ooh, 125! That's, like, so huge! I'm not sure if that's the highest IQ he's ever come across or it was just the biggest number he could think of. Either way, the answer is yes, I do, stupid little boy, and the fact that you think 125 is so enormous is really rather adorable.
I have to console myself with the thought that all of these men are right to feel threatened by me. Should the troll brigade, through some strange quirk, actually find this trafficless blog, I will warn them beforehand that any comments like those in the screenshot will be made with either "Go mow my lawn, little boy" or "Hahaha, small penis!" Because the power of the internet does not extend to the education of anonymous morons, and I would prefer to amuse myself rather than waste my time.
A helpful troll explains that "it's fun to annoy you and you just don't understand that." No, troll. What I don't understand is exactly how you intend to annoy me with your endlessly repeated cliches and remarks about your genitalia. Is it simply their presence in what is meant to be a feminist space? Is it the repetition? Or is the content supposed to needle us? I'm genuinely unsure. I'm also curious, in a rhetorical sense, as to why these men feel the need to keep emphasising their dicks. I sort of think it's meant to be threatening, though it comes across more as "it's really small", but it's slightly odd. I also wonder how many of these men would say, if confronted, that they were just being funny and can't you take a joke and humourless feminist and what's next on the overused cliche list, and how many would claim that they were, in fact, making a valid point.
In Jessica's screenshot of youtube comments, I find the one that says: "[D]o you honestly think you are smarter than me? You better have an Iq [sic] above 125, stupid bitch" especially funny. Ooh, 125! That's, like, so huge! I'm not sure if that's the highest IQ he's ever come across or it was just the biggest number he could think of. Either way, the answer is yes, I do, stupid little boy, and the fact that you think 125 is so enormous is really rather adorable.
I have to console myself with the thought that all of these men are right to feel threatened by me. Should the troll brigade, through some strange quirk, actually find this trafficless blog, I will warn them beforehand that any comments like those in the screenshot will be made with either "Go mow my lawn, little boy" or "Hahaha, small penis!" Because the power of the internet does not extend to the education of anonymous morons, and I would prefer to amuse myself rather than waste my time.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Sorry, Another Bishop Post
Oh, for fuck's sake. Now the Anglicans are getting in on it, insisting that Christianity must stick its nose in all over the place or else Muslim state scary terrorists battle against Islam yada yada yada. No, Bishop. People are perfectly capable of functioning without an all-governing religion being forced upon them. We don't need your religion, we don't need their religion, we don't need my religion.
I understand that when faith is such a huge part of your life, you cannot understand other people not feeling it, or not needing it. You probably assume that atheists have a big gaping hole inside them, and having turned aside your prayers for their souls they search in vain for something to make them feel whole. I understand, I do. But it's not true. Music junkies don't believe there can be anyone in this world who doesn't really like music. For my part, I cannot understand people who say they just don't read books. We all have things that are so vital, central to our lives and our beings and our personalities that we have a hard time comprehending that none of these things are essential. I was going to say "Reading really isn't essential", but I can't write that and believe it, although it probably is true. So if you've dedicated your whole life to Christianity, it's probably very hard to believe that not everybody gets their moral guidance from the Bible, and that not everyone feels an intangible ache and emptiness from the abscence of Jesus Christ. It must be almost impossible.
By the way, I use the example of reading and not religion when relating this mindset to myself because in order to find the right path for me I had to separate from what the world told me was spiritually right. It's a silent part of my life, for the most part, and I had to find it through enormous amounts of research and self-questioning. Mostly, though, I choose not to use it as an example because I question it every single day. I will not become one of those people whose beliefs remain rigid merely because that's what she's always believed. If I'm going to grow, I must question. My love of words, however, I have never questioned, not once. Besides my family it was my first love, and I give it at least partial credit for bringing me through some awful times in my life. Paganism, on the other hand, is what I have come out with on the other side - not the lifeline, but the urge to learn to swim. I think that any bishop would credit his religion with having sheltered and strengthened him through the bad times, every knock further solidifying what he knew for sure anyway. This to me is books, not faith.
However. I do not blame society's ills on lack of reading. I might say that lack of education was a factor, just as a bishop may reasonably say that lack of general, not specific, faith, had caused a not-altogether-welcome shift in society. I have yet to find a bishop who advocates any kind of belief as opposed to his (never found a female bishop, either, though I hopefully will soon) very exact faith. This is sort of like me blaming society's troubles on the fact that not everybody went to university and took English.
The bishop in question appears to be arguing that Christianity = Britishness (no, taking the piss = Britishness), that we must use Christianity to "fight" Islam (do we have to "fight" Islam?), that other religions are not adequate substitutes for Christianity (again, I understand, but fuck off), and that Christianity gives us hard principles by which to live as opposed to the governement's vague ones.
I admit to being very amused by this:
"The Bishop of Rochester said Christianity had created a British identity imbued with values such as liberty and freedom of conscience."
followed by this:
"What are needed, he insisted, were the "transcendental principles" of Christianity - the sort of fundamental issues that are raised when people consider what it is to be human, and life and death questions such as abortion, euthanasia and stem-cell research."
So, nothing to do with liberty, in fact. What the fuck is "freedom of conscience" anyway? Especially in this context? It seems to mean "freedom to think what we tell you to think."
I still don't know if there's been an upsurge of bishops and cardinals trying to assert their positions in society or if there's just more being written about it, but even though nothing's likely to come of it, it still drives me absolutely fucking nuts. Why is this news, and why are people listening? Why does it seem like such a threat to me? Don't answer that; I know the reason. In strict hard-line Christian parlance, I am both low and scary and need to have my rights taken away (I am a young Pagan feminist who cherishes her reproductive freedom despite having pretty conservative personal sexual values which means she can't just be dismissed as a slapper, and they have to go back to 'dangerous heretic' which isn't as belittling as they might like).
Note this:
"He is one of three Church of England bishops to back an initiative by a traditionalist Anglican to commit the Church to work explicitly for the conversion of Muslims."
Yup, conversion of Muslims. Assimilation is the goal here. We must not forget.
I understand that when faith is such a huge part of your life, you cannot understand other people not feeling it, or not needing it. You probably assume that atheists have a big gaping hole inside them, and having turned aside your prayers for their souls they search in vain for something to make them feel whole. I understand, I do. But it's not true. Music junkies don't believe there can be anyone in this world who doesn't really like music. For my part, I cannot understand people who say they just don't read books. We all have things that are so vital, central to our lives and our beings and our personalities that we have a hard time comprehending that none of these things are essential. I was going to say "Reading really isn't essential", but I can't write that and believe it, although it probably is true. So if you've dedicated your whole life to Christianity, it's probably very hard to believe that not everybody gets their moral guidance from the Bible, and that not everyone feels an intangible ache and emptiness from the abscence of Jesus Christ. It must be almost impossible.
By the way, I use the example of reading and not religion when relating this mindset to myself because in order to find the right path for me I had to separate from what the world told me was spiritually right. It's a silent part of my life, for the most part, and I had to find it through enormous amounts of research and self-questioning. Mostly, though, I choose not to use it as an example because I question it every single day. I will not become one of those people whose beliefs remain rigid merely because that's what she's always believed. If I'm going to grow, I must question. My love of words, however, I have never questioned, not once. Besides my family it was my first love, and I give it at least partial credit for bringing me through some awful times in my life. Paganism, on the other hand, is what I have come out with on the other side - not the lifeline, but the urge to learn to swim. I think that any bishop would credit his religion with having sheltered and strengthened him through the bad times, every knock further solidifying what he knew for sure anyway. This to me is books, not faith.
However. I do not blame society's ills on lack of reading. I might say that lack of education was a factor, just as a bishop may reasonably say that lack of general, not specific, faith, had caused a not-altogether-welcome shift in society. I have yet to find a bishop who advocates any kind of belief as opposed to his (never found a female bishop, either, though I hopefully will soon) very exact faith. This is sort of like me blaming society's troubles on the fact that not everybody went to university and took English.
The bishop in question appears to be arguing that Christianity = Britishness (no, taking the piss = Britishness), that we must use Christianity to "fight" Islam (do we have to "fight" Islam?), that other religions are not adequate substitutes for Christianity (again, I understand, but fuck off), and that Christianity gives us hard principles by which to live as opposed to the governement's vague ones.
I admit to being very amused by this:
"The Bishop of Rochester said Christianity had created a British identity imbued with values such as liberty and freedom of conscience."
followed by this:
"What are needed, he insisted, were the "transcendental principles" of Christianity - the sort of fundamental issues that are raised when people consider what it is to be human, and life and death questions such as abortion, euthanasia and stem-cell research."
So, nothing to do with liberty, in fact. What the fuck is "freedom of conscience" anyway? Especially in this context? It seems to mean "freedom to think what we tell you to think."
I still don't know if there's been an upsurge of bishops and cardinals trying to assert their positions in society or if there's just more being written about it, but even though nothing's likely to come of it, it still drives me absolutely fucking nuts. Why is this news, and why are people listening? Why does it seem like such a threat to me? Don't answer that; I know the reason. In strict hard-line Christian parlance, I am both low and scary and need to have my rights taken away (I am a young Pagan feminist who cherishes her reproductive freedom despite having pretty conservative personal sexual values which means she can't just be dismissed as a slapper, and they have to go back to 'dangerous heretic' which isn't as belittling as they might like).
Note this:
"He is one of three Church of England bishops to back an initiative by a traditionalist Anglican to commit the Church to work explicitly for the conversion of Muslims."
Yup, conversion of Muslims. Assimilation is the goal here. We must not forget.
Sunday, 25 May 2008
A Eurovision Plot
Terry Wogan might quit Eurovision because it's become entirely about the politics as opposed to the music. Hmmm. I remember watching it when I was younger and complaining that Greece and Cyprus gave each other maximum points for being "great neighbours". And most European countries hate the English. We're resigned to that. We smirk upon Europe from afar, comfortable in our superiority. But we ask ourselves: why do we still bother? If it's so obviously rigged, why don't we excuse ourselves? Others say: it's not rigged, we just send in shit songs.
So I propose: Next year, our entry is Bill Bailey. He's said he's willing (I didn't realise we could have had Morrissey last year, but the BBC told him he'd have to audition alongside Scooch and that pillock from The Darkness). If Bill Bailey doesn't win by a fucking landslide, it's rigged. Everyone, including snotty Eurovision judges, knows that Bill Bailey rules all. If this, ladies and gentlemen, doesn't win Eurovision for us, then nothing will:
So I propose: Next year, our entry is Bill Bailey. He's said he's willing (I didn't realise we could have had Morrissey last year, but the BBC told him he'd have to audition alongside Scooch and that pillock from The Darkness). If Bill Bailey doesn't win by a fucking landslide, it's rigged. Everyone, including snotty Eurovision judges, knows that Bill Bailey rules all. If this, ladies and gentlemen, doesn't win Eurovision for us, then nothing will:
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Please, Think Of The Children
Yay!
Yay!
Gordon Brown has earned himself two points. He voted for the 24-week abortion limit, and he voted to get rid of the heterosexist guff about a child's "need for a father". Well done, Gordon, you impressed me. The Tories, not so much.
First and foremost, I do not understand how, in this day and age, a man like Sir Patrick Cormack can have anything to do with the running of our country. He said: "A child that is deliberately brought into the world with no desire that there should be a man or a woman who is the parent is brought in with a disadvantage." This makes no sense whatsoever, and I sort of hope the BBC did that on purpose because they hate him, but translated into English, it means, "Lesbians shouldn't be parents."
I sincerely hope that David Cameron, a man whom I royally despise but who claims to be leading the charge to modernise his party, will realise that such sentiments are not endearing the Conservatives to the young generation. I seem to be his target voter; a young, white, middle-class woman. Young, white, middle-class women have no truck whatsoever with this sort of insidious gay-bashing. If Cameron ever wishes to win my respect, he must acknowledge that this ridiculous "need for a father" motion tabled by Iain Duncan Smith (the most useless Tory leader ever, and that ought to tell you something) comes out of an out-of-date view of Britain and is representative of his party's subconscious - or, indeed, conscious, in the case of Sir Patrick - bigotries. "Need for supportive parenting" is exactly the correct way to phrase it. When Duncan Smith and his ilk tell us that children who grow up without a father are more likely to go off the rails, they're ignoring a big chunk of the story. I know a lot of people who grew up without fathers, and they're fine. The ones that aren't fine are the ones whose fathers were present and neglectful, or present one day a month. They're the ones who grew up with abuse, casual insulting remarks tossed out to get them to shut up, and not so much as a card or phone call on their birthdays. These are the kids who feel deprived, who feel they've done something wrong to drive Daddy away and end up with no sense of self-worth, or who just can't get Daddy to acknowledge them and end up in deeper and deeper trouble. This is still a generalisation, but it's far more accurate than "single-parent families fuck kids up."
We will keep our 24-week abortion limit, no thanks to Mr Cameron, who voted to lower it by two weeks. Why two weeks? Lord knows. The BBC is careful to point out that all the Catholic Labour ministers voted to lower it to 12. Yeah, fucking 12. Nice one, Ruth Kelly. Someone called Edward Leigh is yacking on about sanctity as though he's a right-wing American pundit, and frankly he is so insignificant that I have nothing else to say about him. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor turned up in the Times supporting everything I argue against and vice versa, using the phrase "incremental change". Remember this, ye who value your freedom: this two-week-at-a-time knockdown is part of the plan to erode your rights completely. If, God forbid, he should ever get his two-week knockdown, he'll be out there again arguing for another two weeks. And another, and another. Before you know it, we're in Ireland. You could have stayed there, y'know, Murph.
There are numerous things I could say about these votes, but I'll stick, for now, to this one: in general, the people voting to restrict IVF were the people voting to slash the abortion limit. This strikes me as a wee bit illogical. These people insist that it's absolutely vital that a baby has a mother and a father, but if a woman accidentally gets pregnant, the man pisses off and the woman doesn't want it, well, tough. Why isn't it better for a loving same-sex couple, or a single woman who wants a child enough to go to these expensive and invasive lengths, to have their baby than for a frightened, abandoned teenager to be unable to choose not to? I am feeling charitable, and so I'll assume the best. I'll assume that these men (as the vast majority are in the Commons) are loving and devoted parents who cannot imagine their babies being unwanted, who cannot imagine abandoning a woman pregnant with their child, who help to change the nappies and get up in the night and play football and read stories and consider there to be no greater joy than the laughter of their sons and daughters. Excellent. But guys, not all men are you. Some men cannot think of anything worse than having a baby. Some men will panic. Some men aren't ready, and have the luxury that women don't of just fucking off. Some men are just assholes. I know men who, variously, forget their children's birthdays, dump them with someone else on their visitation days, run the other way if they see mother and baby in the street, deny the child's existence to their friends, yell at the child, hit the child, hate the child. I know men who conceived children in wedlock - the Conservative lucky charm - and after divorcing the mother, try as hard as they can never to see the kids again. I'll assume, also, that your wives were delighted to be pregnant, wanted children, were ecstatic over the prospect of giving birth to your little one. Do you, any of you, have any idea what it's like to be pregnant and alone? To take an equal part in an 'accident' for which you alone are now reponsible? Do you have any idea what it's like to have something growing in you and hate it with a vicious passion, while sanctimonious arses like you are going on about the sanctity of life, and how abortions are 'social' and calling that horrible little ball of cells your 'baby'? It's not a fucking baby.
I wish people would stop going on about 'tradition' and lamenting the loss of 'traditional family'. I don't want the kind of tradition that forces women to have babies they don't want, and forces couples to shackle themselves together for eternity because one night has unexpected consequences. Duncan Smith complains that by removing the "need for a father" clause, we undermine the traditional family; well, duh. Some people aren't wired that way, mate. We're not all born traditional. Some people would love to be parents. They would love to devote themselves to raising a child. And if they happen to be a pair of women or a pair of men, so fucking what? When Catholic adoption agencies were trying to get themselves excepted from the "no homophobia" law - to ask for Government-sanctioned bigotry takes some nerve, I must admit - numerous commentators pointed out that Catholic adoption agencies took on the most difficult, unplaceable kids, and the people most likely to adopt one of these kids were gay couples. Instead of taking a lesson from this, the agencies threatened to shut down. To paraphrase Dara O Briain, essentially their stance was: "If you won't let us do what we want, we shall release the children into the wild."
Memo to Britain: The Conservative party is still nursing its bigotries. Please do not forget this next time Cameron starts going on about recycling in modern Britain.
Memo to Conservatives: For the love of God, move on. It's 2008. We can't still be proposing laws that basically say "Gays are weird".
Memo to Murphy-O'Connor: I still hate you, and everything you stand for.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Yay!
Gordon Brown has earned himself two points. He voted for the 24-week abortion limit, and he voted to get rid of the heterosexist guff about a child's "need for a father". Well done, Gordon, you impressed me. The Tories, not so much.
First and foremost, I do not understand how, in this day and age, a man like Sir Patrick Cormack can have anything to do with the running of our country. He said: "A child that is deliberately brought into the world with no desire that there should be a man or a woman who is the parent is brought in with a disadvantage." This makes no sense whatsoever, and I sort of hope the BBC did that on purpose because they hate him, but translated into English, it means, "Lesbians shouldn't be parents."
I sincerely hope that David Cameron, a man whom I royally despise but who claims to be leading the charge to modernise his party, will realise that such sentiments are not endearing the Conservatives to the young generation. I seem to be his target voter; a young, white, middle-class woman. Young, white, middle-class women have no truck whatsoever with this sort of insidious gay-bashing. If Cameron ever wishes to win my respect, he must acknowledge that this ridiculous "need for a father" motion tabled by Iain Duncan Smith (the most useless Tory leader ever, and that ought to tell you something) comes out of an out-of-date view of Britain and is representative of his party's subconscious - or, indeed, conscious, in the case of Sir Patrick - bigotries. "Need for supportive parenting" is exactly the correct way to phrase it. When Duncan Smith and his ilk tell us that children who grow up without a father are more likely to go off the rails, they're ignoring a big chunk of the story. I know a lot of people who grew up without fathers, and they're fine. The ones that aren't fine are the ones whose fathers were present and neglectful, or present one day a month. They're the ones who grew up with abuse, casual insulting remarks tossed out to get them to shut up, and not so much as a card or phone call on their birthdays. These are the kids who feel deprived, who feel they've done something wrong to drive Daddy away and end up with no sense of self-worth, or who just can't get Daddy to acknowledge them and end up in deeper and deeper trouble. This is still a generalisation, but it's far more accurate than "single-parent families fuck kids up."
We will keep our 24-week abortion limit, no thanks to Mr Cameron, who voted to lower it by two weeks. Why two weeks? Lord knows. The BBC is careful to point out that all the Catholic Labour ministers voted to lower it to 12. Yeah, fucking 12. Nice one, Ruth Kelly. Someone called Edward Leigh is yacking on about sanctity as though he's a right-wing American pundit, and frankly he is so insignificant that I have nothing else to say about him. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor turned up in the Times supporting everything I argue against and vice versa, using the phrase "incremental change". Remember this, ye who value your freedom: this two-week-at-a-time knockdown is part of the plan to erode your rights completely. If, God forbid, he should ever get his two-week knockdown, he'll be out there again arguing for another two weeks. And another, and another. Before you know it, we're in Ireland. You could have stayed there, y'know, Murph.
There are numerous things I could say about these votes, but I'll stick, for now, to this one: in general, the people voting to restrict IVF were the people voting to slash the abortion limit. This strikes me as a wee bit illogical. These people insist that it's absolutely vital that a baby has a mother and a father, but if a woman accidentally gets pregnant, the man pisses off and the woman doesn't want it, well, tough. Why isn't it better for a loving same-sex couple, or a single woman who wants a child enough to go to these expensive and invasive lengths, to have their baby than for a frightened, abandoned teenager to be unable to choose not to? I am feeling charitable, and so I'll assume the best. I'll assume that these men (as the vast majority are in the Commons) are loving and devoted parents who cannot imagine their babies being unwanted, who cannot imagine abandoning a woman pregnant with their child, who help to change the nappies and get up in the night and play football and read stories and consider there to be no greater joy than the laughter of their sons and daughters. Excellent. But guys, not all men are you. Some men cannot think of anything worse than having a baby. Some men will panic. Some men aren't ready, and have the luxury that women don't of just fucking off. Some men are just assholes. I know men who, variously, forget their children's birthdays, dump them with someone else on their visitation days, run the other way if they see mother and baby in the street, deny the child's existence to their friends, yell at the child, hit the child, hate the child. I know men who conceived children in wedlock - the Conservative lucky charm - and after divorcing the mother, try as hard as they can never to see the kids again. I'll assume, also, that your wives were delighted to be pregnant, wanted children, were ecstatic over the prospect of giving birth to your little one. Do you, any of you, have any idea what it's like to be pregnant and alone? To take an equal part in an 'accident' for which you alone are now reponsible? Do you have any idea what it's like to have something growing in you and hate it with a vicious passion, while sanctimonious arses like you are going on about the sanctity of life, and how abortions are 'social' and calling that horrible little ball of cells your 'baby'? It's not a fucking baby.
I wish people would stop going on about 'tradition' and lamenting the loss of 'traditional family'. I don't want the kind of tradition that forces women to have babies they don't want, and forces couples to shackle themselves together for eternity because one night has unexpected consequences. Duncan Smith complains that by removing the "need for a father" clause, we undermine the traditional family; well, duh. Some people aren't wired that way, mate. We're not all born traditional. Some people would love to be parents. They would love to devote themselves to raising a child. And if they happen to be a pair of women or a pair of men, so fucking what? When Catholic adoption agencies were trying to get themselves excepted from the "no homophobia" law - to ask for Government-sanctioned bigotry takes some nerve, I must admit - numerous commentators pointed out that Catholic adoption agencies took on the most difficult, unplaceable kids, and the people most likely to adopt one of these kids were gay couples. Instead of taking a lesson from this, the agencies threatened to shut down. To paraphrase Dara O Briain, essentially their stance was: "If you won't let us do what we want, we shall release the children into the wild."
Memo to Britain: The Conservative party is still nursing its bigotries. Please do not forget this next time Cameron starts going on about recycling in modern Britain.
Memo to Conservatives: For the love of God, move on. It's 2008. We can't still be proposing laws that basically say "Gays are weird".
Memo to Murphy-O'Connor: I still hate you, and everything you stand for.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Monday, 19 May 2008
In The Stocks: Self-Destructives and Uppity Bitches
The BBC posts an interesting article about the disproportionate hatred for celebrity women. In a poll, four out of the five most hated celebrities were female, and the man was Simon Cowell, who also appears on the "Most Loved" list, along with four other men. Just as an aside, Gary Lineker? Really?
The British, the poll concludes, love Paul McCartney and hate Heather Mills. We love David Beckham and hate Victoria Beckham. The article doesn't comment on this, but it seems a little weird to me. It's almost as though we pick our national treasures and then unleash hate on their wives. It never seems to happen the other way round - the only times we've come close, oddly enough, are with the other two women on the list. When Brian McFadden of awful Irish boyband Westlife left Kerry Katona of awful English girl band Atomic Kitten, we hated him. Boy, did we hate him, and his new girlfriend too. We hated him so much that he's buggered off out of the country. We were right to hate him, too, I think. I don't trust any man who compares having children with his ex to "having a dog we weren't ready for" (they'll read it, you asshole!), or who bashes the mother of his children to journalists and threatens in the national press to sue for custody then does jack shit about it. I think Brian McFadden is an odious piece of crap. But now that he's off in Australia or America or wherever and most people have forgotten about him, we've decided to hate her instead. We claim it's because she's behaving like an unfit mother, smoking and drinking, taking drugs (or so the delightful Mr McFadden informs us), and generally behaving like - hmmmm - someone who's not very well. Kerry Katona, back in the dark ages, was one of the most popular women in the country. She'd just split up from a man who slept with a lap dancer on his stag night, she'd just won an appalling but highly-rated reality show, and she was down-to-earth and Northern and smiley. We just loved her. She won Mother of the Year twice, and got the Iceland ads on the strength of her being a recognisable symbol for good parenting. My unofficial theory is that when she began to break down, we felt betrayed. How dare she not be the perfect mother? We gave her an award! We were proud of her for moving on from her nasty ex, and we expected to see a marked improvement in her future choice of partner. When she yet again opted for a loser - or someone represented to us by the press as a loser - we got impatient. When we heard that she was smoking while pregnant, we got mad. We're not having that, Kerry! We don't care what your problems are, you're a damn role model! Act like one!
Everything she does is now fair game for bile and ridicule. I can't imagine that she's still working with Iceland, but nevertheless she's still attacked for it. She is, or was, advertising insufficiently healthy food to the nation. How dare she? Whether you choose to attack her on a serious level or just make eight hundred jokes about lard, you're perfectly entitled to do so. I mean, it's her fault, isn't it? When she was subject to robbery at knifepoint in her own house, we took the piss. Relentlessly. Not a word of sympathy for her. And it's her fault, of course, because she let us down.
Amy Winehouse follows a similar pattern. When she really came to our attention with the release of her second album, we fell in love with her, bonkers beehive hair and all. So talented! Such a songwriter! Such a voice! Gather round, boys and girls, this is real music. We thought Simon Cowell had done away with actual musical talent. We were impressed. And then Amy, too, turned out not be perfect. A lot of pop stars like a drink, but Amy was old school and turned up drunk on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I know people who went off her then, because her speaking voice was annoying and she was all uncouth and spat. Spat! On TV! Then she picked her unsuitable man, and all the drug-taking palaver unleashed itself upon us. And we blamed him. He was a useless smug little man who didn't appear to have a job of any description. Ditch him, Amy, we urged, but instead, she married him. And I think that's when the backlash started. Amy Winehouse's husband is currently awaiting trial for GBH or perverting the course of justice or both, depending on which reports you believe. Her parents blame him for getting her onto hard drugs. He has reportedly refused to go to rehab with her, saying instead, "You can go if you want to," which is classic manipulator's language if I ever heard it. Maybe it was never right to put all the blame on him, but no way in hell can it be right to put all the blame on her. She's self-destructing and needs help, which is NOT a hanging offence, but we blame her because she let us down too. She was our great white hope of British music and shouldn't expect to be allowed flaws and issues too. The day after Heath Ledger's death, I read five separate blogs (all male authors, incidentally) who screeched, "If someone was going to die, why not Amy Winehouse?" That, my friends, is not normal.
A commenter on that article claimed he could understand the hatred for all of them except Winehouse, who is talented. But we don't hate people for being untalented. As I said, we used to love Kerry Katona, and even when she had a singing career we all knew she wasn't any good. We used to love Posh too, and her singing ability hasn't deteriorated to any great extent. I've felt stung into becoming a Posh fan. She may look like Self-Tan Barbie but so fucking what? The reason people hate her and Heather Mills is because they married people the public have decided are too good for them. These women are up themselves. We can't have that. Amy and Kerry married below them and allowed themselves to get screwed up, we hate them for that. Victoria and Heather married above them and made a lot of money, and we hate them for that.
It's a terrible mistake to marry a Beatle. The press and public will hate you for it. They hate Heather now the way they hated Yoko then, and the way they've conveniently forgotten they treated Linda. Oh, she may be a veggie-burger-making saint now, but back then she was a damn outrage. How can she have the nerve, we asked. She must be a gold-digger. Only by being silent and supportive and staying at home and finally dying of breast cancer did she win our love, and turn into what might as well be a fictional character. Carole Malone in the Sunday Mirror wrote, in a short article that Google is currently refusing to turn up, that it's understandable that we hate Heather when we've been used to the wonderful Linda. She then went on to say (in what I was convinced would turn out to be a parody) that Linda stayed at home like a good wife and mother, supported Sir Paul and raised children. Bless her. Not like this bitch, with ambitions and other such shit that has no place in a woman's brain. This is a charming piece of revisionist history that beyond the appalling misogyny the woman is spewing, shows that we think we get to decide who is good enough for our heroes. If a man picks a woman we think is beneath him, we turn on that woman. If a woman picks a man who is beneath her, we wait five minutes then turn on the woman. Again.
Notice, if you will, that the McCartney divorce is perceived to be entirely, 100% Heather's fault. If Paul gets any flack, it's for being "a naive old man", caught by the surreptitious and scheming wiles of a predator. Notice, if you will, that when the story of Beckham's affair broke, he was the only one who got no flack at all. The mistress got a decent dose, and Posh got the rest. Ian Hislop, who is not normally my first point of reference on feminist issues, remarked on how weird it was: "God, her husband's cheated on her! What a cow! She's been humiliated publicly! Bitch!" If he cheated it was her damn fault and there's no use her crying about it now. The press waits breathlessly to this day for them to split up, even though they seem to have put it behind them and are moving on quite happily. Neither of these women get any points for being a mother, though there has been nothing to suggest that either are anything less than highly devoted and attentive parents, certainly more so than either jet-setting father. Heather Mills has made it acceptable to make horrendous jokes about artificial limbs ("no, it's OK, 'cause she's an evil bitch"), and gets villified daily for apparently being a compulsive liar. People don't take kindly to me when they make a nasty remark about that and I suggest that if that is the case, then she's ILL and shouldn't be subject to your judgement.
I think anyone would be surprised to see me defending these women. They're "offensive" and "talentless" and "selfish" after all. Some of the commenters on the article would be astonished to see a woman defending other women because they've decided we don't do that. One even manages to get in a "poor little white boy" whine, amusingly. Those people especially would tell me I'm wasting my time on these women. Why don't I defend someone who's worth it? It makes no odds that I like Beckham and Winehouse, or that I have no strong feelings either way on Katona and Mills. It would make no odds if I hated the lot of them. They are human beings. Human beings who have made choices that we think are inappropriate. They are women who happened to fall in love, or woman who happened to fall ill. They are women with problems that we'd rather pretend weren't real. They are women whose wretched humanity got in the way of our comfortable assumptions, and we're punishing them for it (some of those comments make me believe that we're punishing all women for it). We laugh at, or condemn them for, their misfortunes. We villify them for their mistakes, and for mistakes we asume or believe that they made. Basically, we're hating them for being women who behave in ways we consider "unfeminine". You married up? You must have chased him. You must be ambitious. Ambition is unfeminine, bitch. Drugs are unfeminine, bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. We know how you should behave and YOU'RE NOT DOING IT. You deserve everything you get.
This has been a rant from a pissed-off woman. Thank you.
The British, the poll concludes, love Paul McCartney and hate Heather Mills. We love David Beckham and hate Victoria Beckham. The article doesn't comment on this, but it seems a little weird to me. It's almost as though we pick our national treasures and then unleash hate on their wives. It never seems to happen the other way round - the only times we've come close, oddly enough, are with the other two women on the list. When Brian McFadden of awful Irish boyband Westlife left Kerry Katona of awful English girl band Atomic Kitten, we hated him. Boy, did we hate him, and his new girlfriend too. We hated him so much that he's buggered off out of the country. We were right to hate him, too, I think. I don't trust any man who compares having children with his ex to "having a dog we weren't ready for" (they'll read it, you asshole!), or who bashes the mother of his children to journalists and threatens in the national press to sue for custody then does jack shit about it. I think Brian McFadden is an odious piece of crap. But now that he's off in Australia or America or wherever and most people have forgotten about him, we've decided to hate her instead. We claim it's because she's behaving like an unfit mother, smoking and drinking, taking drugs (or so the delightful Mr McFadden informs us), and generally behaving like - hmmmm - someone who's not very well. Kerry Katona, back in the dark ages, was one of the most popular women in the country. She'd just split up from a man who slept with a lap dancer on his stag night, she'd just won an appalling but highly-rated reality show, and she was down-to-earth and Northern and smiley. We just loved her. She won Mother of the Year twice, and got the Iceland ads on the strength of her being a recognisable symbol for good parenting. My unofficial theory is that when she began to break down, we felt betrayed. How dare she not be the perfect mother? We gave her an award! We were proud of her for moving on from her nasty ex, and we expected to see a marked improvement in her future choice of partner. When she yet again opted for a loser - or someone represented to us by the press as a loser - we got impatient. When we heard that she was smoking while pregnant, we got mad. We're not having that, Kerry! We don't care what your problems are, you're a damn role model! Act like one!
Everything she does is now fair game for bile and ridicule. I can't imagine that she's still working with Iceland, but nevertheless she's still attacked for it. She is, or was, advertising insufficiently healthy food to the nation. How dare she? Whether you choose to attack her on a serious level or just make eight hundred jokes about lard, you're perfectly entitled to do so. I mean, it's her fault, isn't it? When she was subject to robbery at knifepoint in her own house, we took the piss. Relentlessly. Not a word of sympathy for her. And it's her fault, of course, because she let us down.
Amy Winehouse follows a similar pattern. When she really came to our attention with the release of her second album, we fell in love with her, bonkers beehive hair and all. So talented! Such a songwriter! Such a voice! Gather round, boys and girls, this is real music. We thought Simon Cowell had done away with actual musical talent. We were impressed. And then Amy, too, turned out not be perfect. A lot of pop stars like a drink, but Amy was old school and turned up drunk on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I know people who went off her then, because her speaking voice was annoying and she was all uncouth and spat. Spat! On TV! Then she picked her unsuitable man, and all the drug-taking palaver unleashed itself upon us. And we blamed him. He was a useless smug little man who didn't appear to have a job of any description. Ditch him, Amy, we urged, but instead, she married him. And I think that's when the backlash started. Amy Winehouse's husband is currently awaiting trial for GBH or perverting the course of justice or both, depending on which reports you believe. Her parents blame him for getting her onto hard drugs. He has reportedly refused to go to rehab with her, saying instead, "You can go if you want to," which is classic manipulator's language if I ever heard it. Maybe it was never right to put all the blame on him, but no way in hell can it be right to put all the blame on her. She's self-destructing and needs help, which is NOT a hanging offence, but we blame her because she let us down too. She was our great white hope of British music and shouldn't expect to be allowed flaws and issues too. The day after Heath Ledger's death, I read five separate blogs (all male authors, incidentally) who screeched, "If someone was going to die, why not Amy Winehouse?" That, my friends, is not normal.
A commenter on that article claimed he could understand the hatred for all of them except Winehouse, who is talented. But we don't hate people for being untalented. As I said, we used to love Kerry Katona, and even when she had a singing career we all knew she wasn't any good. We used to love Posh too, and her singing ability hasn't deteriorated to any great extent. I've felt stung into becoming a Posh fan. She may look like Self-Tan Barbie but so fucking what? The reason people hate her and Heather Mills is because they married people the public have decided are too good for them. These women are up themselves. We can't have that. Amy and Kerry married below them and allowed themselves to get screwed up, we hate them for that. Victoria and Heather married above them and made a lot of money, and we hate them for that.
It's a terrible mistake to marry a Beatle. The press and public will hate you for it. They hate Heather now the way they hated Yoko then, and the way they've conveniently forgotten they treated Linda. Oh, she may be a veggie-burger-making saint now, but back then she was a damn outrage. How can she have the nerve, we asked. She must be a gold-digger. Only by being silent and supportive and staying at home and finally dying of breast cancer did she win our love, and turn into what might as well be a fictional character. Carole Malone in the Sunday Mirror wrote, in a short article that Google is currently refusing to turn up, that it's understandable that we hate Heather when we've been used to the wonderful Linda. She then went on to say (in what I was convinced would turn out to be a parody) that Linda stayed at home like a good wife and mother, supported Sir Paul and raised children. Bless her. Not like this bitch, with ambitions and other such shit that has no place in a woman's brain. This is a charming piece of revisionist history that beyond the appalling misogyny the woman is spewing, shows that we think we get to decide who is good enough for our heroes. If a man picks a woman we think is beneath him, we turn on that woman. If a woman picks a man who is beneath her, we wait five minutes then turn on the woman. Again.
Notice, if you will, that the McCartney divorce is perceived to be entirely, 100% Heather's fault. If Paul gets any flack, it's for being "a naive old man", caught by the surreptitious and scheming wiles of a predator. Notice, if you will, that when the story of Beckham's affair broke, he was the only one who got no flack at all. The mistress got a decent dose, and Posh got the rest. Ian Hislop, who is not normally my first point of reference on feminist issues, remarked on how weird it was: "God, her husband's cheated on her! What a cow! She's been humiliated publicly! Bitch!" If he cheated it was her damn fault and there's no use her crying about it now. The press waits breathlessly to this day for them to split up, even though they seem to have put it behind them and are moving on quite happily. Neither of these women get any points for being a mother, though there has been nothing to suggest that either are anything less than highly devoted and attentive parents, certainly more so than either jet-setting father. Heather Mills has made it acceptable to make horrendous jokes about artificial limbs ("no, it's OK, 'cause she's an evil bitch"), and gets villified daily for apparently being a compulsive liar. People don't take kindly to me when they make a nasty remark about that and I suggest that if that is the case, then she's ILL and shouldn't be subject to your judgement.
I think anyone would be surprised to see me defending these women. They're "offensive" and "talentless" and "selfish" after all. Some of the commenters on the article would be astonished to see a woman defending other women because they've decided we don't do that. One even manages to get in a "poor little white boy" whine, amusingly. Those people especially would tell me I'm wasting my time on these women. Why don't I defend someone who's worth it? It makes no odds that I like Beckham and Winehouse, or that I have no strong feelings either way on Katona and Mills. It would make no odds if I hated the lot of them. They are human beings. Human beings who have made choices that we think are inappropriate. They are women who happened to fall in love, or woman who happened to fall ill. They are women with problems that we'd rather pretend weren't real. They are women whose wretched humanity got in the way of our comfortable assumptions, and we're punishing them for it (some of those comments make me believe that we're punishing all women for it). We laugh at, or condemn them for, their misfortunes. We villify them for their mistakes, and for mistakes we asume or believe that they made. Basically, we're hating them for being women who behave in ways we consider "unfeminine". You married up? You must have chased him. You must be ambitious. Ambition is unfeminine, bitch. Drugs are unfeminine, bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. We know how you should behave and YOU'RE NOT DOING IT. You deserve everything you get.
This has been a rant from a pissed-off woman. Thank you.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Two Short Notes
Dear Dara O Briain,
Thank you. You were fucking brilliant. You have officially restored my faith in paying huge amounts of money to see stand-up gigs. I was getting worried after the homophobic mess of two weeks ago, but you managed to do a two-hour gig without attacking anyone for their inbuilt traits (I'll forgive your disdain for anything even vaguely New Age because I've met some of the people who gave you that impression), and you spoke to us! I was beginning to forget comedians did that. I was impressed that you didn't let the heckler get away with the nasty Austrian comment, and pleased that we provided you with the most bizarre heckle you've ever heard (stigmata?!). Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jen
Dear world,
If you get the opportunity, you must see Dara O Briain live. Funniest show of the year so far.
Jen
Thank you. You were fucking brilliant. You have officially restored my faith in paying huge amounts of money to see stand-up gigs. I was getting worried after the homophobic mess of two weeks ago, but you managed to do a two-hour gig without attacking anyone for their inbuilt traits (I'll forgive your disdain for anything even vaguely New Age because I've met some of the people who gave you that impression), and you spoke to us! I was beginning to forget comedians did that. I was impressed that you didn't let the heckler get away with the nasty Austrian comment, and pleased that we provided you with the most bizarre heckle you've ever heard (stigmata?!). Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jen
Dear world,
If you get the opportunity, you must see Dara O Briain live. Funniest show of the year so far.
Jen
Friday, 9 May 2008
EWWW.
This story, about a child abuser who's just been caught, contains the most intrinsically disturbing line I've read for a long time:
Judy Stone, a neighbour who worked with him as an entertainer, said he was "the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen".
EWWWWW. Why did you have to put that in there, BBC? Why? Why make me panic about Santa Claus? That quote is so unnecessary, and disturbing on about eighty different levels. I feel quite sick now.
Judy Stone, a neighbour who worked with him as an entertainer, said he was "the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen".
EWWWWW. Why did you have to put that in there, BBC? Why? Why make me panic about Santa Claus? That quote is so unnecessary, and disturbing on about eighty different levels. I feel quite sick now.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Lost Cause Says: Shut Up, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor
We must respect the atheists! says Murphy-O'Connor.
You first, tosspot.
If one is truly to "respect" the atheists, then one must respect that they are atheists, that is what they have chosen, and it is not one's place to try and convince them otherwise, yes?
No, of course not. "Respect the atheists" means "Give the atheists a cup of tea and a biscuit before giving them a Bible." One must "respect" the atheists in order to make the atheists think that atheism is a stupid idea, no? One must not insist to an atheist that God is a fact of life. Why? Because God is a fact of life and you're all stupid.
Murphy-O'Connor says: "Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone and we must not allow Britain to become a world devoid of religious faith and its powerful contribution to the common good."
Yes it can, Murph. I sincerely hope that one day our life "together" will be a God-free zone. You can have as much God in your own personal life as you please, but that's not what you mean, is it? You want God to come into every little bloody thing, and it'll have to be your damn God as well. If my God (such as it is) were to enter into your interactions with me, you'd have a spiritual heart attack and start lecturing me on morals and values or some such crap. And what on earth does the second clause of that sentence mean? Don't worry, Cardinal, Britain will never become a world devoid of religious faith. Because it's a fucking COUNTRY. Yeesh. Please, for the sake of all our gods, cut down on that horrific flowery prose.
'Last year, he complained of a "new secularist intolerance of religion" and the state's "increasing acceptance" of anti-religious views.'
Shut up, Murph. We all know that when you say "anti-religious views" you mean "the atheists are persecuting me and not letting me have my hardline Christian way on absolutely everything! Waaah!" Jennifer is now complaining of a "new drive by Cardinals to foist their stupid religious views on everyone" and the state's "increasing acceptance" of "interfering old buggers". Also, she prefers not to write in the third person like this and is very upset at having been driven to it.
"I want to encourage people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe."
Quick translation:
People of faith: Christians (Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Pagans don't really believe in God, y'know)
Those without faith: Anyone who is not a Christian/Evil bastards
Esteem - Patronising, martyred patience
The hidden God - My personal judgement
Active in their lives - You can't get away from me, so there. You may as well just give up now.
I want to know why the Cardinals are making so much fuss lately. Is it because we have a new PM? Is it because Blair came out as Catholic after leaving office and they want to make sure to get as much guilt in as possible in case Brown is the same? Is it because of Bush and the Religious Right in America? I'll make my usual disclaimer that I have no problem with any religion in and of itself, but I will protest to the last second against religious "leaders" trying to advance the encroachment of their, or any, religion on our government and on our essentially secular state. I also feel the need to point out yet again that Cardinal Murphy O'Connor is a leader in the CATHOLIC church. The UK is officially an ANGLICAN nation. Those two are DIFFERENT. The CATHOLICS do not get to interfere with the running of the country because we are technically ANGLICAN. It doesn't work like that, bub. I apologise for all the capitals, but I've had several fights of this nature on the BBC's Have Your Say (I've stopped now, don't worry).
I get particularly cross even at the most innocuous stories regarding cardinals and bishops and their complaints about lack of religion in the public eye, because I know what they want. They rag on the abortion limit, saying that a lot of people would like to see it lowered. First of all, "a lot of people" are not doctors. Most don't even have a rudimentary understanding of the hows and wherefores of abortion. Second of all, most of these people don't want abortion banned. And the cardinals do. If we let them lead the charge of "Just a two-week drop" (though it appears they would push for a 12-week drop to bring us into line with some other European countries. Yeah, twelve fucking weeks. If you haven't been trying, you may not even have notied you're pregnant at twelve weeks), then they'll keep going. They'll keep attacking it a little bit at a time, using "new technology" as evidence - which means that when you can grow a foetus in a petri dish and incubator, they'll call for a total ban on the basis that every foetus is now viable - until we really have nothing left of our abortion laws. You think they'll leave it there? Bollocks they will. They want a Christian nation. They want five-year-olds to be forced to pray and go to church and learn the Bible, on the basis that for every hellchild like me who was put off Christianity by attending church and reading the Bible (it's horrible, guys), there'll be ten who believe what they're told or can at least be frightened into saying they believe.
I am going to make a fuss any time they say anything. I am going to yell about it. I am going to write to every single politician they go to, just to make sure they know that this stupid "women support lower abortion limits" thing is not in fact true. If any of their persuasive tactics begin to work, I will protest. I will make a banner out of a pillowcase and I will go down to London and I will scream my head off. I will not hand over control of my uterus to these men. I will not allow them to dictate what I say. I will not allow them to dictate what my future children do. I will not allow them to force me to act like a Christian and I will not allow them to further push the discrimination faced by those like me. I do not want my religion in schools or dictating law any more than I want theirs to do so. I just want religion kept OUT. Out of the schools, out of the government, out of society's model. I will fight you, Murphy-O'Connor. I went to church for years as a kid and I read the whole damn Bible from cover to cover, and as a result I am truly lost to your cause. Do not underestimate the lost cause, Cardinal. The lost cause is watching you.
You know, if I'd known I'd be doing so much Cardinal-bashing, I would have called this blog the Lost Cause. Perhaps I'll make it into a series instead.
You first, tosspot.
If one is truly to "respect" the atheists, then one must respect that they are atheists, that is what they have chosen, and it is not one's place to try and convince them otherwise, yes?
No, of course not. "Respect the atheists" means "Give the atheists a cup of tea and a biscuit before giving them a Bible." One must "respect" the atheists in order to make the atheists think that atheism is a stupid idea, no? One must not insist to an atheist that God is a fact of life. Why? Because God is a fact of life and you're all stupid.
Murphy-O'Connor says: "Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone and we must not allow Britain to become a world devoid of religious faith and its powerful contribution to the common good."
Yes it can, Murph. I sincerely hope that one day our life "together" will be a God-free zone. You can have as much God in your own personal life as you please, but that's not what you mean, is it? You want God to come into every little bloody thing, and it'll have to be your damn God as well. If my God (such as it is) were to enter into your interactions with me, you'd have a spiritual heart attack and start lecturing me on morals and values or some such crap. And what on earth does the second clause of that sentence mean? Don't worry, Cardinal, Britain will never become a world devoid of religious faith. Because it's a fucking COUNTRY. Yeesh. Please, for the sake of all our gods, cut down on that horrific flowery prose.
'Last year, he complained of a "new secularist intolerance of religion" and the state's "increasing acceptance" of anti-religious views.'
Shut up, Murph. We all know that when you say "anti-religious views" you mean "the atheists are persecuting me and not letting me have my hardline Christian way on absolutely everything! Waaah!" Jennifer is now complaining of a "new drive by Cardinals to foist their stupid religious views on everyone" and the state's "increasing acceptance" of "interfering old buggers". Also, she prefers not to write in the third person like this and is very upset at having been driven to it.
"I want to encourage people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe."
Quick translation:
People of faith: Christians (Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Pagans don't really believe in God, y'know)
Those without faith: Anyone who is not a Christian/Evil bastards
Esteem - Patronising, martyred patience
The hidden God - My personal judgement
Active in their lives - You can't get away from me, so there. You may as well just give up now.
I want to know why the Cardinals are making so much fuss lately. Is it because we have a new PM? Is it because Blair came out as Catholic after leaving office and they want to make sure to get as much guilt in as possible in case Brown is the same? Is it because of Bush and the Religious Right in America? I'll make my usual disclaimer that I have no problem with any religion in and of itself, but I will protest to the last second against religious "leaders" trying to advance the encroachment of their, or any, religion on our government and on our essentially secular state. I also feel the need to point out yet again that Cardinal Murphy O'Connor is a leader in the CATHOLIC church. The UK is officially an ANGLICAN nation. Those two are DIFFERENT. The CATHOLICS do not get to interfere with the running of the country because we are technically ANGLICAN. It doesn't work like that, bub. I apologise for all the capitals, but I've had several fights of this nature on the BBC's Have Your Say (I've stopped now, don't worry).
I get particularly cross even at the most innocuous stories regarding cardinals and bishops and their complaints about lack of religion in the public eye, because I know what they want. They rag on the abortion limit, saying that a lot of people would like to see it lowered. First of all, "a lot of people" are not doctors. Most don't even have a rudimentary understanding of the hows and wherefores of abortion. Second of all, most of these people don't want abortion banned. And the cardinals do. If we let them lead the charge of "Just a two-week drop" (though it appears they would push for a 12-week drop to bring us into line with some other European countries. Yeah, twelve fucking weeks. If you haven't been trying, you may not even have notied you're pregnant at twelve weeks), then they'll keep going. They'll keep attacking it a little bit at a time, using "new technology" as evidence - which means that when you can grow a foetus in a petri dish and incubator, they'll call for a total ban on the basis that every foetus is now viable - until we really have nothing left of our abortion laws. You think they'll leave it there? Bollocks they will. They want a Christian nation. They want five-year-olds to be forced to pray and go to church and learn the Bible, on the basis that for every hellchild like me who was put off Christianity by attending church and reading the Bible (it's horrible, guys), there'll be ten who believe what they're told or can at least be frightened into saying they believe.
I am going to make a fuss any time they say anything. I am going to yell about it. I am going to write to every single politician they go to, just to make sure they know that this stupid "women support lower abortion limits" thing is not in fact true. If any of their persuasive tactics begin to work, I will protest. I will make a banner out of a pillowcase and I will go down to London and I will scream my head off. I will not hand over control of my uterus to these men. I will not allow them to dictate what I say. I will not allow them to dictate what my future children do. I will not allow them to force me to act like a Christian and I will not allow them to further push the discrimination faced by those like me. I do not want my religion in schools or dictating law any more than I want theirs to do so. I just want religion kept OUT. Out of the schools, out of the government, out of society's model. I will fight you, Murphy-O'Connor. I went to church for years as a kid and I read the whole damn Bible from cover to cover, and as a result I am truly lost to your cause. Do not underestimate the lost cause, Cardinal. The lost cause is watching you.
You know, if I'd known I'd be doing so much Cardinal-bashing, I would have called this blog the Lost Cause. Perhaps I'll make it into a series instead.
Monday, 5 May 2008
Whose Fault Is This?
Oh, for fuck's sake. "Beauties for Britain" party? Really?
If Miss Great Britain wants to be a politician, excellent. But what's up with this "ooh, politics is so dry and boring, let's make it sexy" crap?
"I think that people should be proud of Britain and proud of themselves especially the beauties that Britain has produced over the years and I'm very proud to be Miss Great Britain and standing for this."
Did they purposely not put punctuation in this sentence? I don't know if she really speaks like this or if they just want to make it look like she speaks like this. The whole thing sounds like a joke made up by The Sun, who will no doubt apply their usual writing style ("patronising lust") to this story for the next few weeks. If it wasn't the Sun's idea, then whose was it? Who told this girl to go into politics but make sure nobody thinks she's got a brain? After reading that article, I certainly don't think she's got one, which is awful. Does she have any opinions on global credit and Brown's standing in the polls? No, but she could give him some advice on beauty products.
I'm quite conflicted about this story, because I know it makes me angry for feminist reasons, but I can't pinpoint them any more precisely than that. I know someone has really screwed up here, but I'm not sure who to blame for it. I'm wary of blaming her for being a dumbass, or for trying to make everything revolve around her looks, or for perpetuating some seriously irritating stereotypes, but if it's not her fault then it's someone else's, and we get into the whole "women have no agency" thing. So I don't even know if I'd prefer her to be a pawn or a dumbass. Ugh.
If Miss Great Britain wants to be a politician, excellent. But what's up with this "ooh, politics is so dry and boring, let's make it sexy" crap?
"I think that people should be proud of Britain and proud of themselves especially the beauties that Britain has produced over the years and I'm very proud to be Miss Great Britain and standing for this."
Did they purposely not put punctuation in this sentence? I don't know if she really speaks like this or if they just want to make it look like she speaks like this. The whole thing sounds like a joke made up by The Sun, who will no doubt apply their usual writing style ("patronising lust") to this story for the next few weeks. If it wasn't the Sun's idea, then whose was it? Who told this girl to go into politics but make sure nobody thinks she's got a brain? After reading that article, I certainly don't think she's got one, which is awful. Does she have any opinions on global credit and Brown's standing in the polls? No, but she could give him some advice on beauty products.
I'm quite conflicted about this story, because I know it makes me angry for feminist reasons, but I can't pinpoint them any more precisely than that. I know someone has really screwed up here, but I'm not sure who to blame for it. I'm wary of blaming her for being a dumbass, or for trying to make everything revolve around her looks, or for perpetuating some seriously irritating stereotypes, but if it's not her fault then it's someone else's, and we get into the whole "women have no agency" thing. So I don't even know if I'd prefer her to be a pawn or a dumbass. Ugh.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
A Comedy-Goer's Perspective on Why Johnny Vegas is a Nasty Tosser
Johnny Vegas decides to sexually assault a woman onstage.
Full disclosure: Johnny Vegas ranks only slightly lower than Jim Davidson in my personal list of Shittiest Comedians Ever. I've never once found him funny. The episode of QI he did is not an exception - it's my least favourite episode. He is a slobby drunken loser with the world's most annoying voice and his routines are shambolic. He can get away with more than Jim Davidson because "Vegas is playing a character! He's being ironic!" Alright, but is he being funny? Well... no. What he's doing is getting audience members to carry a girl onto the stage and then assaulting her.
This story is disturbing enough in itself, but made all the worse by hundreds of commenters claiming that the girl can't have been sexually assualted because a) she didn't slap him in face, b) nobody tried to stop it and c) Vegas hasn't been arrested. I don't think any of these people are inveterate comedy fans. We who go to gigs (no, I did not see this gig - that makes none of my points about assault invalid) know that you don't get up and interfere with the act. You just don't. When a comedian drags you up on stage, you do as they tell you. I saw a woman reduced to tears when she was dragged up on stage at a Rex Boyd gig - she was humiliated, he wasn't funny, but she did as she was told. A shy person at a comedy gig does NOT want the audience turning on them, and chances are, if you screw up the routine, any half-decent comedian will immediately being making cruel jokes at your expense, and provided he's got laughs previously, that's enough to make the audience turn on you. We once saw a comedian we suspected was high on crack during his performance. We KNEW he was high on crack when my friend Jess and I started playing noughts and crosses, right at the front of the stage, and he didn't say anything. A lot of people like witty cruelty, and only a comedian high on crack wouldn't pick on us for blatantly disrespecting his act.
Also, the difference between a comedy club gig with four or five small-to-middling comedians and a show with a household name headline act is huge. Take my review of Sean Lock's abysmal gig on Saturday night. No way in hell would he have got away with that performance as an unknown perfoming third in a night's entertainment at Wolverhampton Jongleurs (I assume there's a Wolverhampton Jongleurs). He would have been heckled, booed, snarked at, people would have got up and gone out for a fag. What actually happened was that we sat there mostly in polite silence, forcing laughter at any joke we found even remotely funny. A few people made quiet, unobtrusive exits during the interval. No heckles. You don't heckle a big-name comedian, unless it's a Ross Noble type whose whole show thrives on heckles (and all those are very much pro-Ross heckles. I miss Ross. Come back to England and save me from all this shitty comedy!). It's an unwritten rule that you don't heckle someone whose audience has mostly come to see someone they recognise from the TV. They don't want heckles and it spoils their enjoyment, even if the heckle makes a good point. You do NOT get involved with an established comedian's act unless he invites you, and if he invites you, you do NOT attempt to swing his routine your own way. I like to think that if I'd accidentally ended up at this particular Vegas gig, I'd have least yelled, "Get the fuck off her, loser" or something to that effect. I know I'd have walked out and complained to the management. But despite what a couple of commenters on that Guardian article have said, established comedians have all the power in that room. They can choose not to prepare, to segue away from their planned material to complain about having to wait for a breakdown truck, to actually include the breakdown truck complaint in their written material (you suck, Lock), to insult the audience, to ignore the audience, whatever they choose to do, and the audience will say nothing. I wonder if these people arguing that Vegas has no power at all have ever disrupted a performance. I wonder if they'd be cross if they were in the cinema with two hundred other people, and someone came in and punched a hole through the screen because they thought it was disgusting. If you disrupt a show, the audience will turn on you. Everyone knows this. As one of the Guardian's commenters pointed out, comedians go to great lengths to imply that their brand of humour is edgy and fashionable and funny, and anyone who doesn't get it is a middle-class reactionary. If you don't get it, you're humourless, you're a prude, you're a member of the PC Brigade. You wouldn't know funny if it hit you in the face. I was certainly told this once when I complained about Bernard Manning (Bernard Manning! Edgy, fashionable and funny! Even he would have laughed at that). Why hasn't Vegas been arrested? Because if this girl was indeed assaulted as badly as Mary O'Hara claims, she's afraid of what people will say about her. She'll be the middle-class reactionary, the prude, the girl with no sense of humour. Johnny Vegas is a nationally-acclaimed comedian, so it must have been funny, and she doesn't want to look like a bad sport. And after all, she went up there. She did what he told her to do. She doesn't have a leg to stand on. And the truth is, she doesn't, even though she should. In her position I wouldn't file a complaint - I'd tell anyone who asked that it was 'no big deal', I'd beat myself up for a while then resolve to be much more careful in future, either stopping visiting comedy gigs altogether or only sitting right at the back where nobody could see me. We still don't consider coercion to be a real thing. We don't think everything described above is coercion, because coercion means "someone held a gun to her head". We say, "if you go to comedy gigs, what do you expect?" Even O'Hara, writing to condemn Vegas, says this.
Well, here's what I expect. I expect a comedy gig to BE FUNNY. Even if we assume that Vegas wasn't assaulting the girl, he was apparently using her to take the piss out of Shakespears Sister's "Stay" (I really hate the lack of apostrophe in that band name. Damn you, Siobhan Fahey). From nineteen-ninety-fucking-two. Jesus Christ, Johnny, try to move in the same century as the rest of us! To think we were scorning Sean Lock for doing a riff on Gail Porter's hair. The standard defence of Johnny Vegas as a "character" is crap, too. When his "character" gets involved with people who are not acting, everything that happens is his responsibility. Not his character's. It doesn't fly that it's alright to grope a stranger's breasts if you "don't really mean it". It's not alright to grope a stranger's breasts because "that's what the character would do" or because "he is trying to portray his character's self-loathing" or because "it indicates to the audience that his character is a loser". The last one is especially off, because if it were okay to grope strangers to show you were a loser, it doesn't really seem to have worked. People now think that Johnny Vegas is a criminal, Johnny Vegas didn't actually do it, or Johnny Vegas is allowed to do it because he's Johnny Vegas. It's not about his stupid fucking character.
In conclusion, Johnny Vegas is a nasty tosser. I'm cross and hate everybody. I will delete any of the following comments:
"But you weren't there!"
"Why didn't she stop him, if it was so bad?"
"Why haven't the police done anything, if it was really assault?"
"OMG you just don't get Johnny Vegas he's soooo funny" (I don't want this person on my blog ever again, thank you)
"How dare you condemn him before you've heard his side?"
"But you're forgetting that he's a truly brilliant actor - his performance in the BBC's Bleak House was exquisite." (This is not relevant and smacks of the 'he's an upstanding member of the community with a steady job' that people use to defend rapists.)
"But people saw her chatting to him afterwards! He said thank you!"
"The journalist hasn't gone to the police, which means she's lying."
Seen all of these, at least four times, and I just can't be arsed with them. Jennifer is not impressed. Jennifer SMASH.
Via Shakesville.
Edited to add: On Chortle, this is quoted:
"...[O]ne seemed to understand the point Vegas was trying to make by saying: ‘Not totally defending him but I'm sure that the point was that pathetic individuals/society are totally enthralled with celebrity and let them get away with murder. She, and others, could have told him to get lost but didn't probably for that reason.’"
The POINT he was trying to make? What the fuck? The POINT??? He wasn't making a point. If I killed someone in public and my defence was "I was trying to make a point", people would think I was a psychopath. You don't fuck with people on stage in order to make a point. Making a point, my arse. He wanted to grope a girl. Jesus. I'm interested to see if he'll make any comment on this at all. I always got the impression he'd like people to think that 'Johnny Vegas' was an idiot but that he himself was really a lovely guy. So, what do we think? Will he apologise, will he say nothing? Or will he claim he was making a fucking point? If he claims he was making a point, he will officially surpass Jim Davidson on my shit list. At least Davidson managed to apologise and admit he might have a problem with homophobia after all those 'shirtlifter' attacks. I never thought I'd see the day when a comedian could be worse than Jim Davidson. Christ.
Full disclosure: Johnny Vegas ranks only slightly lower than Jim Davidson in my personal list of Shittiest Comedians Ever. I've never once found him funny. The episode of QI he did is not an exception - it's my least favourite episode. He is a slobby drunken loser with the world's most annoying voice and his routines are shambolic. He can get away with more than Jim Davidson because "Vegas is playing a character! He's being ironic!" Alright, but is he being funny? Well... no. What he's doing is getting audience members to carry a girl onto the stage and then assaulting her.
This story is disturbing enough in itself, but made all the worse by hundreds of commenters claiming that the girl can't have been sexually assualted because a) she didn't slap him in face, b) nobody tried to stop it and c) Vegas hasn't been arrested. I don't think any of these people are inveterate comedy fans. We who go to gigs (no, I did not see this gig - that makes none of my points about assault invalid) know that you don't get up and interfere with the act. You just don't. When a comedian drags you up on stage, you do as they tell you. I saw a woman reduced to tears when she was dragged up on stage at a Rex Boyd gig - she was humiliated, he wasn't funny, but she did as she was told. A shy person at a comedy gig does NOT want the audience turning on them, and chances are, if you screw up the routine, any half-decent comedian will immediately being making cruel jokes at your expense, and provided he's got laughs previously, that's enough to make the audience turn on you. We once saw a comedian we suspected was high on crack during his performance. We KNEW he was high on crack when my friend Jess and I started playing noughts and crosses, right at the front of the stage, and he didn't say anything. A lot of people like witty cruelty, and only a comedian high on crack wouldn't pick on us for blatantly disrespecting his act.
Also, the difference between a comedy club gig with four or five small-to-middling comedians and a show with a household name headline act is huge. Take my review of Sean Lock's abysmal gig on Saturday night. No way in hell would he have got away with that performance as an unknown perfoming third in a night's entertainment at Wolverhampton Jongleurs (I assume there's a Wolverhampton Jongleurs). He would have been heckled, booed, snarked at, people would have got up and gone out for a fag. What actually happened was that we sat there mostly in polite silence, forcing laughter at any joke we found even remotely funny. A few people made quiet, unobtrusive exits during the interval. No heckles. You don't heckle a big-name comedian, unless it's a Ross Noble type whose whole show thrives on heckles (and all those are very much pro-Ross heckles. I miss Ross. Come back to England and save me from all this shitty comedy!). It's an unwritten rule that you don't heckle someone whose audience has mostly come to see someone they recognise from the TV. They don't want heckles and it spoils their enjoyment, even if the heckle makes a good point. You do NOT get involved with an established comedian's act unless he invites you, and if he invites you, you do NOT attempt to swing his routine your own way. I like to think that if I'd accidentally ended up at this particular Vegas gig, I'd have least yelled, "Get the fuck off her, loser" or something to that effect. I know I'd have walked out and complained to the management. But despite what a couple of commenters on that Guardian article have said, established comedians have all the power in that room. They can choose not to prepare, to segue away from their planned material to complain about having to wait for a breakdown truck, to actually include the breakdown truck complaint in their written material (you suck, Lock), to insult the audience, to ignore the audience, whatever they choose to do, and the audience will say nothing. I wonder if these people arguing that Vegas has no power at all have ever disrupted a performance. I wonder if they'd be cross if they were in the cinema with two hundred other people, and someone came in and punched a hole through the screen because they thought it was disgusting. If you disrupt a show, the audience will turn on you. Everyone knows this. As one of the Guardian's commenters pointed out, comedians go to great lengths to imply that their brand of humour is edgy and fashionable and funny, and anyone who doesn't get it is a middle-class reactionary. If you don't get it, you're humourless, you're a prude, you're a member of the PC Brigade. You wouldn't know funny if it hit you in the face. I was certainly told this once when I complained about Bernard Manning (Bernard Manning! Edgy, fashionable and funny! Even he would have laughed at that). Why hasn't Vegas been arrested? Because if this girl was indeed assaulted as badly as Mary O'Hara claims, she's afraid of what people will say about her. She'll be the middle-class reactionary, the prude, the girl with no sense of humour. Johnny Vegas is a nationally-acclaimed comedian, so it must have been funny, and she doesn't want to look like a bad sport. And after all, she went up there. She did what he told her to do. She doesn't have a leg to stand on. And the truth is, she doesn't, even though she should. In her position I wouldn't file a complaint - I'd tell anyone who asked that it was 'no big deal', I'd beat myself up for a while then resolve to be much more careful in future, either stopping visiting comedy gigs altogether or only sitting right at the back where nobody could see me. We still don't consider coercion to be a real thing. We don't think everything described above is coercion, because coercion means "someone held a gun to her head". We say, "if you go to comedy gigs, what do you expect?" Even O'Hara, writing to condemn Vegas, says this.
Well, here's what I expect. I expect a comedy gig to BE FUNNY. Even if we assume that Vegas wasn't assaulting the girl, he was apparently using her to take the piss out of Shakespears Sister's "Stay" (I really hate the lack of apostrophe in that band name. Damn you, Siobhan Fahey). From nineteen-ninety-fucking-two. Jesus Christ, Johnny, try to move in the same century as the rest of us! To think we were scorning Sean Lock for doing a riff on Gail Porter's hair. The standard defence of Johnny Vegas as a "character" is crap, too. When his "character" gets involved with people who are not acting, everything that happens is his responsibility. Not his character's. It doesn't fly that it's alright to grope a stranger's breasts if you "don't really mean it". It's not alright to grope a stranger's breasts because "that's what the character would do" or because "he is trying to portray his character's self-loathing" or because "it indicates to the audience that his character is a loser". The last one is especially off, because if it were okay to grope strangers to show you were a loser, it doesn't really seem to have worked. People now think that Johnny Vegas is a criminal, Johnny Vegas didn't actually do it, or Johnny Vegas is allowed to do it because he's Johnny Vegas. It's not about his stupid fucking character.
In conclusion, Johnny Vegas is a nasty tosser. I'm cross and hate everybody. I will delete any of the following comments:
"But you weren't there!"
"Why didn't she stop him, if it was so bad?"
"Why haven't the police done anything, if it was really assault?"
"OMG you just don't get Johnny Vegas he's soooo funny" (I don't want this person on my blog ever again, thank you)
"How dare you condemn him before you've heard his side?"
"But you're forgetting that he's a truly brilliant actor - his performance in the BBC's Bleak House was exquisite." (This is not relevant and smacks of the 'he's an upstanding member of the community with a steady job' that people use to defend rapists.)
"But people saw her chatting to him afterwards! He said thank you!"
"The journalist hasn't gone to the police, which means she's lying."
Seen all of these, at least four times, and I just can't be arsed with them. Jennifer is not impressed. Jennifer SMASH.
Via Shakesville.
Edited to add: On Chortle, this is quoted:
"...[O]ne seemed to understand the point Vegas was trying to make by saying: ‘Not totally defending him but I'm sure that the point was that pathetic individuals/society are totally enthralled with celebrity and let them get away with murder. She, and others, could have told him to get lost but didn't probably for that reason.’"
The POINT he was trying to make? What the fuck? The POINT??? He wasn't making a point. If I killed someone in public and my defence was "I was trying to make a point", people would think I was a psychopath. You don't fuck with people on stage in order to make a point. Making a point, my arse. He wanted to grope a girl. Jesus. I'm interested to see if he'll make any comment on this at all. I always got the impression he'd like people to think that 'Johnny Vegas' was an idiot but that he himself was really a lovely guy. So, what do we think? Will he apologise, will he say nothing? Or will he claim he was making a fucking point? If he claims he was making a point, he will officially surpass Jim Davidson on my shit list. At least Davidson managed to apologise and admit he might have a problem with homophobia after all those 'shirtlifter' attacks. I never thought I'd see the day when a comedian could be worse than Jim Davidson. Christ.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)