Think-tank Demos last week launched their vision for how power should be “radically” devolved.

But Jenni Russell at Comment is Free went to the launch, and “no one mentioned women’s existence once”:

As I stood listening, I began to feel a rising tide of outrage. There was just one problem with this message of transformation and innovation – which was that every single one of the five speakers arguing for change was a man (white, at that). That every name mentioned as a new Demos adviser was that of a man. That no one mentioned women’s ­existence once. And that when we were shown a brief video about how power must be shared with the people, every silhouette and every symbol on the screen was – quite unselfconsciously – that of a man.

Very… er… radical.

(Crossposted from The F-Word)

This is just a brief post to tell you about a project that has been cooking up over the summer.

This October, a new series of feminist workshops is going to launch – I’ve been working on this project, along with zohra moosa (you can read about us here).

Spotting Sexism will be a four-week workshop for a small group, on feminism and how it applies to our lives. You can read more about it here, along with information on how to sign up.

It will involve:

• Weekly 2-hour phone-based sessions
• Facilitated conversations on key topics, such as: unpicking the sexism in our daily lives & in the media, how sexism affects different groups of women, and how to become a feminist activist
• Guest speakers
• A safe space to ask difficult questions, where it’s OK to make mistakes or just not quite understand some of the feminist jargon out there
• Activities tailored to help draw out your knowledge and experiences
• A private online community forum, just for participants
• Extra resources, reading lists and ideas for taking what we discover further…

In case you didn’t know, Refugee Week starts today. While The Guardian has been doing an excellent job of countering the anti-immigrant bias in the media, this excerpt from Mark Haddon’s piece on visiting the Migrant Resources Centre in Victoria, London particularly drives home for me how far we have slipped in this country:

How did we end up treating human beings in this way?

Mario, the MRC’s legal adviser, came to the UK in 1978, with his wife and sister-in-law, after escaping from Colombia, where the government had 68,000 of its opponents behind bars. They were terrified and knew nothing about asylum law. All the immigration officials who dealt with their claim, however, were helpful, courteous and surprisingly knowledgeable about Colombian politics. The three of them were granted temporary admission. The following year they were given full refugee status. ‘I can only be grateful to the UK for the protection offered to me and my family during those difficult days… After nearly 30 years here, I have two children and one granddaughter. We feel British. When I come back to the UK after visiting my elderly parents I always feel as if I am coming home.’

Mario’s is not an isolated case. I’ve spoken to a number of refugees who arrived in the UK 10, 15, 20 years ago. Most were impressed and surprised by the warmth of the welcome they received, and none of them went through the demeaning experiences that many of today’s asylum seekers go through.

What happened during those intervening years? Of course, there has always been racism and intolerance, but only in recent times have these sentiments been allowed to drive and shape official government policy.

Let’s see if the right-wing press will take a one-week amnesty, at least, from their racist/xenophobic anti-immigrant reporting. (Recent headlines: “Has mass immigration wrecked Britain?”, “Do you think immigration is to blame for rise in violent crime?”, and a classic – “Immigration out of control”. Meanwhile last week the Daily Mail served up this dehumanising headling: “Father of four finds 12-strong colony of illegal immigrants living in his LOFT”.)

Incidentally, any UK readers seeking inspiration on this issue from across the Atlantic could do worse than checking out the fairly recently-launched blog The Sanctuary.

This American Life is a class act at any time, but this recent episode is a must-listen. It is an investigative report into what happened to Richard G. Convertino, the Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted the ‘Detroit Sleeper Cell’ case.

Arrested only days after 9/11, the four men tried in the case were meant to have been planning an attack – two of the men were found guilty by a grand jury, only to have the Justice Department voluntarily asked the judge to throw out the case.

It was supposed to be the first terrorist attack planned from American soil. It was quite unusual behaviour for the department to not only throw out its own case, but then go after its own prosecutor.

The podcast considers whether the decision was taken as part of a vendetta against Richard G Convertino, the prosecutor, who repeatedly ruffled feathers, breaching protocol and failing to get along with his colleagues. But the Justice Department’s attempt to bring criminal charges against Covertino failed and he then he sued them.

All of this is fascinating, but more so are the couple of glimpses of the information at contest in the trial – for example, one piece of evidence was a home video shot at Disneyland. In the podcast, it becomes clear that there’s a section of this video filming a duck pond – the prosecutors argued that some singing translated to an anti-US screed – the defence said it was a song about ducks. (The podcast producers don’t get their own independent translation, sadly enough!)

The case rested heavily on some sketches in a day planner – which could be a map of a US air base in Turkey, or not.

Every single candidate for the London mayoral elections in May – even Tory Boris Johnson – supports an amnesty which would allow illegal immigrants living in the UK for four years or more to follow a “path to citizenship”, The Independent reported yesterday.

Last month Mr Livingstone called for a “fresh start”, with a one-off amnesty for migrants without “regular status”, in spite of his party’s stance. “Migrants contribute hugely to the economic, civic and cultural life of London and the UK,” he said. “To have a substantial number of them living here without regular status because of deep-rooted failings in the immigration system, some dating back over a decade, is deeply damaging to London as well as to them.”

This is really good news.
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Our Man Inside has been to Jordan to photograph Iraqi refuges. Check out his amazing photoessay here:

An interesting meme to identify class privilege has been doing the rounds of the US blogs. Originally designed to make university students think about how class impacts them, the meme requires you to tick off items such as “had more than 50 books in your childhood home” and “you were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family”.

In some ways, this list is probably insufficient to reflect our particular class system in the UK (perhaps someone will be inspired to write one specific to us). But at the same time, it is still a useful exercise. You can find the full list at Social Class & Quakers, the blog which seems to have kicked off this meme.

At the same time, these privilege lists are not a new idea – Barry Deutsch has compiled a list of these lists ranging from white privilege to non-trans privilege. Deutsch’s has also added his own take on this idea – the male privilege check list, which my fellow F Word blogger Louise has reminded me of this morning. (Number 14 – “my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true” – might be of particular interest to some of the commenters on Gracchi’s post earlier this week).

Feel free to experiment with these memes in the comments section.

A quick reminder to London readers: Abortion Rights is calling for people to come out in force this evening, for a protest against efforts to restrict access to abortion and “as a proud public reminder that those who support a woman’s right to choose are in the overwhelming majority”.

The protest has been mobilised to counter Ann Widdecome’s ‘Not on your life…’ roadshow, which the Tory MP is dragging up and down the country to promote ‘pro-life’ amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would chip away at women’s rights.

Similar protests will take place when the roadshow hits Liverpool, Coventry and Cardiff – see the Abortion Rights website for more info. The group has also produced a detailed briefing on the bill’s progress through Parliament, and efforts to tack on anti-abortion amendments.

Here is a flyer with directions and more information.

This was cross-posted at The F Word

A new coalition to put forward a feminist perspective against prostitution is to launch on Monday 11 February. The launch is a public event, with the invite extended to “all those who believe in real women’s-rights rather than men’s right to buy women”.

The meeting is at 6.30pm in the Amnesty UK Human Rights Action Centre in New Inn Yard, nearest tube Old St.

Of course, watchers of UK politics will be aware that the launch comes at a time when ministers are putting serious thought into a shake up the prostitution law along the lines of the Swedish model, to make the act of buying sex explicitly illegal – so women will not be charged for selling sex, but the men who buy their bodies will face prosecution. Today we learn that 52% of Britons agree with this approach and 65% agree that buying sex is an act with exploits women.

The Swedish government pioneered this legislation in 1999 and, although the move has not been without controversy, it has apparently produced a drop off in the number of prostitutes on the street, and perhaps on the numbers of women trafficked into the country.
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[UPDATE: American readers can sign this petition to keep sexism out of the media's election coverage] 

Robert has already explained why we should be unapologetically covering the US election, despite being a UK blog. So I don’t think we should let pass without analysis the hysterical level of sexism that has been directed at Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Of course, this will all be very familiar to Clinton – back in August last year, we already had the Hillary nutcracker on sale for $19.99.

However, this seemingly gut-level-misogynist reaction to her campaign reached a new low in the run up to her win in New Hampshire, when she was interrupted by men shouting “iron my shirt”. You can see the photos here and AP has the story, although it strangely describes it as a “seemingly sexist” protest. The mind boggles as to what would need to happen to get them to describe it as definitively sexist.

Ready to dismiss this as a couple of extremist nutters? Well, think again. The US feminist blogosphere is buzzing with outrage at how the media has covered Clinton’s campaign. Feministing points to a Washington Post blogger who says she needs an electric shock collar; Wonkette notes that Chris Matthews – a host on the political TV show Hardball – pinched her cheeks (it’s not an exact equivalent, I suppose, but in a UK context this might be roughly similar to Paxman coming over and pinching Brown’s cheeks – or perhaps give him a friendly tickle); Melissa McEwan of Shakesville notes that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd accused Clinton of “playing the victim” – unwittingly casting a light on the gender politics of that particular newsroom in the process.

This has nothing to do with her political stance. Nothing on this list – all from the last two days – has anything to do with her position on any issue. And regardless of our views on Clinton’s specific politics, it’s truly been flabbergasting to see the reaction she has garnered simply for being a woman seeking power.

A version of this post was cross-posted at The F Word

Abortion has been legal in the UK for 40 years. So why has the BBC discovered that illegal abortions are still taking place?

BBC Radio 5 Live undertook an investigation, after a discussion in a chat room suggested that women were seeking out drugs to induce abortion without having to consult a doctor. We can surmise that someone suggested going to a Chinese medicine shop, because that is where they sent their undercover reporter, posing as an “illegal immigrant”.

Details so far are limited – the documentary will be broadcast on Sunday at 11.30AM – but the BBC’s story on it brings up some worrying questions about the availability of abortion, and the stigma associated with abortion.

First up, the reasons why women would put themselves at risk by downing illegal pills of questionable providence, when they should be able to access legal, safe abortion with a simple visit to their GP or a private clinic. As I said, the BBC sent their reporter undercover as an illegal immigrant, suggesting that they thought that might be one driver. The story goes on to say:

Abortion is not free on the NHS for every woman. If someone’s home country doesn’t have a reciprocal NHS agreement, or you are here illegally – then you face paying between £500 and £1,500.

If so, it is yet another worrying indication that the government’s prioritising of the drive to get rid of illegal immigrants over healthcare rights for all is dangerous and wrong-headed. But the BBC also suggests that it is likely that British citizens are seeking out illegal terminations:

Community health workers told us the issue of illegal abortion affects many women from young British teenagers who do not trust their doctor, through to people who are here illegally and are frightened of being found out.

This is, again, a significant sign of failure. Yet is it surprising? Only a few weeks ago, one doctor was accused of giving patients biased advice when they come seeking an abortion. A quick look at Pro-Choice Majority, a site which features the stories of hundreds of women who have had abortions, reveals that although many women feel supported in their decision by their doctors, it is not uncommon for women to feel like they are being judged. Here’s one quote from the site:

My doctor was very rude and gave me no information I had to look in the phone book for a clinic, luckily they took care of me. I believe it is any person’s right to an abortion if they believe it to be the right thing for them.

One of the reasons that Pro-Choice Majority is so important, is that it demonstrates that there are lots and lots of ordinary women out there who have had abortions; who don’t regret having those abortions. As Irina Lester recently set out at The F Word, the media tends to select women to talk about their abortions who have been traumatised by the experience. As she said: “If the dominant idea promoted in society is that abortion causes regret and depression and these are the only possible and valid post-abortion feelings, there is little surprise that women are finding it hard to cope.”

Perhaps it is also no surprise that some women – including teenagers who may not want to approach their family doctor, or who may have been rebuffed or felt judged – opt for the quiet, but illegal and potentially very dangerous alternative. It’s a sad indictment of our society that this still happens.

Cross posted at The F Word

Cartoon by Jacky Fleming

Teach children about consent in schools. Pour money into rape crisis centres. Overhaul sentencing of rapists. David Cameron’s speech today reads like a feminist wish list.

Speaking to the Conservative Women’s Organisation in London, Cameron outlined some statistics that those of us who are involved in feminist activism are all too familiar with:

• One in 20 women in the UK have been raped
• 75% of rapes are not reported to the police
• Of those that are reported, 5.7% result in conviction in England and Wales, (not mentioned by Cameron, this figure falls to 3.9% in Scotland)

This means, says Cameron, that of every 1,000 women raped, only 15 will see their rapist convicted. Or, to flip that around, for every 15 rapists that end up in jail, approximately 985 rapes are committed with absolutely no repercussions – for the rapist, that is.
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