The basic bitch: a lifelong struggle with relating to Generic Womanhood

I

In 1999, I smugly recorded in my diary that on non-uniform day at school, I'd been one of only two girls in my form not to wear head to toe sports brands. Aged 14, my favourite outfit consisted of cord flares (Gap; too big as I'd misread the label and looked at the US sizing), a bottle green velvet jacket (Camden Market) and cherry red Dr Marten boots (£30 in the sale. £30). The girls who tended to wear head to toe sports brands and mock my cord flares, were 'trendies': the basics of the late 90s. In 1999, trendies wore Kickers or Fila sweatshirts with bootcut jeans and listened to boy bands and UK garage. I inked Kula Shaker lyrics onto my homework diary in metallic gel pen; they did the same with the lyrics to Sweet Like Chocolate. 

In 2004, I was a student. The trendy, transported into the campus environment, had evolved, and my best friend and I, angsty and awkward, were by now referring to them as 'generics'. Generics wore Miss Sixty jeans and sometimes their boyfriend's sports stash. They had super-straight hair and made a lot of noise in the dining hall. They were your rag reps and your Christmas ball committee and they sniggered behind their hands whenever the Christian Union rep made an announcement about something. They didn't write angry letters to the student magazine when the Union bar ran a Playboy-themed night. They chatted loudly in the corridor about how they were definitely cutting back on carbs. I only had two small potatoes with dinner this evening. Do you think that's ok?

It's 2014 and the trendy who became the generic has now evolved into the 'basic', or the 'basic bitch'. Despite the origins of the term, it's come to to define a particular sort of young white woman. The basic likes Uggs and seasonal beverages and posting dubiously-attributed Marilyn Monroe quotes on Facebook, while watching Sex and the City and scrolling through her 'wedding inspiration' board on Pinterest. Should you wish to find out, Buzzfeed et al can give you examples of what a basic posts on Instagram, the sort of texts she sends, how she treats her boyfriend and what she gets up to on a girls' night out.

The US-centric stereotype doesn't always translate, but the idea of the basic is universal. And as Noreen Malone wrote in this piece for The Cut last month, it's taken off because it 'feels restrained, somehow'.

'You don’t quite have to stoop to calling someone a slut or a halfwit or anything truly cruel. It’s not as implicating as calling someone tacky — the basic woman is so evidently nonthreatening she doesn’t even deserve such a raised pulse. Basic-tagging is coolly lazy. It conveys a graduate seminar’s worth of semiotics in five letters. “So basic,” you think, scrolling through your Facebook feed. “She’s basic,” you offer to a friend, commenting on her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. It was a word we’d been looking for.'

Malone sums it up perfectly when she describes the basic as 'the woman who fails to surprise us'. She buys into what society and capitalism tells us it means to be a woman today. She's unoriginal, and she doesn't care. What's noticeable about the current usage of 'basic' is that it doesn't simply describe unoriginal patterns of consumption; it also describes patterns of thought and modes of expression. Feminists can be 'basic'. Mothers can be 'basic' (witness the rivalry between Mumsnet and Netmums and the stereotypes the former has of the latter). Fashion and lifestyle bloggers who don't necessarily buy in to generic consumerism but actually see themselves as pretty 'alternative' can also be 'basic'.

II

As if you couldn't have guessed it, from my tales of 1999 and 2004, I have to confess to a lifelong struggle with all that is basic. At the age of 14, major aspects of my personality and behaviour were little more than a construction to throw other girls off the scent and give them something to talk about. If they're mocking my clothes and my taste in music, at least they're not mocking the way I look or the fact I don't have a boyfriend. It was only in recent years that it became clear to me exactly what I'd been up to, diverting their mockery at the same time as inwardly marking myself out as better than them. If you grew up being given funny looks by all your popular, incredibly generic peers, if you ever felt like a tortured soul or called yourself 'indie' or wrote in your journal that you were pretty misunderstood, really, you've probably had a lifelong struggle with relating to all that is basic. Sooner than you know it you're 30 years old, and you're still avoiding basics and rolling your eyes when they pop up in your Facebook feed.

Those of us who can't deal with 'basicity' have a tendency to (inwardly) mark ourselves out as 'not like Those Women'; those generic ones over there. In a hangover from our school years, we categorise and separate out. We're more unique, more interesting, more special. Today the tables have turned, and the basic is no longer queen. She may subscribe to all that is on-trend and acceptable for women, but she's no longer cool. What I believe is an uncomfortable truth for many of us as feminists, however, is that decrying basic culture is kind of problematic. We know it, and we do it anyway. Noreen Malone started to explore this and hit the nail on the head when she concluded her piece saying:

'And so the woman who calls another woman basic ends up implicitly endorsing two things she probably wouldn’t sign up for if they were spelled out for her: a male hierarchy of culture, and the belief that the self is an essentially surface-level formation.'

When you're calling another woman basic, you probably haven't got to know her very well. And it's fairly reliant on your perception of what society sees as 'things for women' as inferior. Ouch. I'm not going to pretend I'm the first person to feel conflicted about the popularity of the word. In fact, the thinkpieces about it have been numerous. Anne Helen Petersen, for Buzzfeed, described women being dismissive of all things basic as little more than class anxiety, citing the term's origins as having class connotations and explaining its current usage in the same way:

'Unique taste — and the capacity to avoid the basic — is a privilege. A privilege of location (usually urban), of education (exposure to other cultures and locales), and of parentage (who would introduce and exalt other tastes). To summarize the groundbreaking work of theorist Pierre Bourdieu: We don’t choose our tastes so much as the micro-specifics of our class determine them. To consume and perform online in a basic way is thus to reflect a highly American, capitalist upbringing. Basic girls love the things they do because nearly every part of American commercial media has told them that they should.'

Petersen ends her piece by telling us that mockery of the basic woman is 'troubling' and 'regressive':

'To call someone “basic” is to look into the abyss of continually flattening capitalist dystopia and, instead of articulating and interrogating the fear, transform it into casual misogyny.'

Responding on Thought Catalog, Anna Dorn vehemently disagrees. Calling out basicity, as she sees it, is 'rooted in female empowerment'. She gets the argument that deriding other women as 'basic' for choices they have made in the vacuum of patriarchal society is misogyny, but she doesn't ascribe to it.

'...basic-bashing is not about punishment. It’s about women rising up. It’s about women saying – We can be real people with real thoughts and opinions. We can wear our natural hair. We can be loud and curse and be offensive. We can say fuck heels because they hurt. Basicity is about giving power to the fringes, because basics – the walking embodiment of male subordination – ultimately have all the power.'

She concludes that '...basic-bashers can’t be misogynistic because we don’t stand to benefit from patriarchy.'

III

Both Petersen and Dorn are partially correct. As women, defining ourselves as superior to basics is somewhat rooted in anxieties surrounding consumption and class - even when we write off feminists as 'basic' because their commitment to the cause goes about as far as reading Lena Dunham's autobiography and thinking that a women's magazine running a feature on feminism 'is everything'. But it's not the full story. It's about buying in to expectations that we'll always define ourselves in opposition to some other group of women. Not like those women, thinking this, supporting that and wearing those clothes. Writing off women as friends and sisters because our opinions are superior or because they haven't reached a certain level of consciousness yet, sealing ourselves off and sneering at the Other. Radfems vs libfems vs funfems vs whitefems.

When we differentiate ourselves from all that is basic, we're representing all that is real and diverse and exciting about being a woman on the fringe when it is, indeed, what is generic and safe that has the power. Every woman who's ever felt free to be the person she really is knows that. Generic and safe is the ideal, and when you don't fit the mold you're often made to feel bad about it. Being able to say 'That's not me and I don't care' is liberating. But defining 'basic-bashing' as feminist praxis? 21st century empowerment as declaring that we're not like other girls and effectively writing off those generic specimens of womanhood as people who matter? It's indisputably problematic.

It's here that disagreements over the nature of sisterhood are bound to come in. Feminism doesn't mean liking all other women, or even being able to relate to them, but sneering at other women and calling it empowered shouldn't even come into it. Call it what it is: an extension of the way women have always been socialised to relate to other women, judging them and eyeing them up as competition and fuelling our anxieties about being interesting and clever and real.

Having always written off that which we now call basic, I've felt challenged in recent weeks not to buy into that any longer. Don't like particular women for particular reasons? Fine. Name them. But basic-bashing isn't about women rising up. It's upholding the status quo and shutting women out of potential opportunities to learn, grow, and identify with one another,

Three concerns about Cameron's porn plans

The announcement today that the government is to take action on a number of issues surrounding pornography have, predictably, caused an enormous backlash. The news that internet providers will block UK households from accessing pornography (introducing an "opt-in" system), that possessing pornography that depicts rape will become a criminal offence in England and Wales (as is currently the case for that depicting bestiality, necrophilia, and life-threatening injury), and that search engines will return no results for certain terms associated with pornography depicting the abuse of children, has prompted more discussion about censorship, free speech, and morality.

I started my life as a feminist speaking out against porn. Very quickly, I found out that people don't like it when you do that. I know a lot more now than I did then, and those debates might pan out differently. It's actually something I don't write about much now, because it often prompts so much anger from both sides of the debate and that's more than I can be bothered to get involved in. What I've seen today, however, is a lot of really great discussion and engagement between people holding a variety of opinions - and that's quite heartening. That's not to say that I haven't found some of the backlash against the government's plans unpleasant and some opinions from both sides dismissive of the concerns of all involved. But considering that my last blog post was actually quite down on the state of internet feminism, it could have been worse.

Many people have highlighted many valid concerns about today's announcement. I want to write about three of mine.

Forgive the corporate-speak, but I'm not convinced that today's announcement constitutes "joined-up thinking". Cameron wants a Britain "where children are allowed to be children" and I'm not going to disagree with him (let that be noted) that children don't need to be seeing pornographic depictions of rape. Unfortunately, "children being allowed to be children" is all very well until you consider the wealth of ways in which they can also receive potentially harmful and also deeply misogynist messages about sex, relationships, and women in general. The Prime Minister has already received criticism for his refusal to support a ban on topless women appearing on Page 3 of the Sun. The screenshot below shows the story as reported by the Daily Mail today - a sight, as was noted by plenty of people, that is "beyond parody". Note three women in bikinis (one "barely-there", one "skimpy"), one mention of a sex tape, a story about one young woman's midriff, one about a "topless Instagram snap", and one Daily Mail Special - a story about a 16-year-old girl looking "Older than her years".

                   

Some criticisms of the No More Page 3 campaign have focused on the fact that the sort of media and messages it's speaking out against also appear in abundance in women's magazines and in the fashion industry. Why focus on Page 3 when it's just one page in a newspaper? Why not cast the net wider and take issue with it all? This is an important question and in the same way, you have to consider the fact that today's announcements focus only on one aspect of a range of unpleasant aspects of culture, media, and material that's available. Our culture may condemn content depicting child abuse, but the abuse of women, along with unhealthy attitudes about sex and relationships, are practically mainstream. And all this contributes to childhood being "corroded", as Cameron put it earlier today.

This brings me onto my second concern about today's announcements: if the government wants to take action to stop children seeing unhealthy and abusive depictions of sex and relationships, is it going to ensure that they receive more helpful messages through comprehensive sex and relationships education? Last month, MPs voted against an amendment to the Children and Families Bill proposing that SRE be made a compulsory part of the National Curriculum.

There is a need for young people to learn more about what constitutes a healthy relationship and how they can recognise - and deal with - an unhealthy one. There is a need for them to learn more about what constitutes sexual exploitation. Consent is such a huge issue and it is clearly one that, for many people, needs clarifying. But without fail, such proposals are usually met with noises about "protecting innocence" - or as I like to think of it, keeping young people in the dark and doing nothing to remedy the widespread problem of abuse in teenage relationships. In the same way, blocking people from accessing problematic material doesn't solve anything. It's not going to "get rid" of such content - it's going to brush it under the carpet. It's up to the consumer to decide whether they "opt in" to seeing it - which was incidentally Cameron's comment about why he does not support action against Page 3. There is also concern that educational material and sites completely unrelated to pornography could end up becoming inaccessible, stopping children and teenagers from finding important information.

Thirdly, although I do, in theory, support what Cameron's plans are hoping to achieve, I don't believe that his government truly have the interests of children, of women, and of the most vulnerable people in society at heart. This year, a report from the End Violence Against Women coalition gave the government "2.5 out of 10" for its preventative work against domestic violence and called current efforts to combat VAWG "virtually meaningless". To talk about all the ways in which the cuts and changes to benefits have affected women and children is another blog post (or perhaps a series of posts). Talking about "tackling the sexualisation of children" sounds good, and these plans to stop young people accessing explicit material may be helpful in some ways, but there's a long way to go before we make any headway with the issues that "sexualisation" is so intertwined with.

Further reading:

Salt and Caramel - Porn and posturing politicians

Sian and Crooked Rib - Sex education, young people and talking about, erm, porn

Close the Loophole - Why I support criminalising pornographic depictions of rape

Cartoon by Jacky Fleming, link here

The breastapo, gobby women, and freaks of nature: breastfeeding as a feminist issue

It's National Breastfeeding Awareness Week and the debates it was supposed to ignite are in full swing. New research has shown that fewer women are initiating breastfeeding, and that in 2012-13, 327,048 mothers were not breastfeeding at all by the time their babies were six to eight weeks old. The Royal College of Midwives has voiced concerns over the lack of government support for what is undoubtedly a public health issue, highlighting the national shortage of midwives, cuts to breastfeeding support services, and England's lack of a national feeding strategy.

"Areas with high breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates tend to have strong Sure Start Centres, breastfeeding drop-in clinics, good peer support and community midwifery networks, where the midwife is the first point of contact for the mother and where there are good role models.

Research has shown that other factors, such as the availability and expert knowledge from midwives, especially community midwives and health visitors, who play integral roles in helping and guiding women about breastfeeding, are important," said Louise Silverton, writing for the Observer.

One particular area of concern is the regional variations in breastfeeding statistics that are indicative not only of varying levels of support offered, but also of links to affluence and class.

"In areas with high levels of social deprivation – such as Knowsley, Hartlepool and North East Lincolnshire – four in five mothers are not breastfeeding at all some six to eight weeks after their child's birth. By contrast, in Kensington, west London, 87% of mothers said they were partially or totally breastfeeding at the same stage," we were told in another story appearing in Sunday's Observer.

Here we go, you're probably thinking. She's talking about motherhood again. She who had no intention of becoming a Mummy Blogger. Next she's going to start talking about her personal experience of breastfeeding.

Here's the thing: breastfeeding is, absolutely, a feminist issue. It's guaranteed to bring out both the misogynists and talk of sisterhood. It's one of the issues that is guaranteed to get women talking. Four out of five women will at some point give birth and have to deal with conflicting information being thrown at them from all sides as well as prejudices and judgmental attitudes about every action they take during their pregnancy and while giving birth. They will see that you can't go out in public without seeing breasts in advertising, in newspapers and magazines as an important part of what being a woman is all about. And then they'll hear that women get asked to leave cafes because they've breastfed in public, that people deem it "unpleasant" and "gross", sneering asides that women who breastfeed around others are "just doing it to prove a point".

They will discover that breastfeeding is difficult, that it is a learned skill, and that most women really do need support to master it in the early days. They will discover that those early days and weeks involve near-constant attachment to a newborn, that it is time-consuming and can be physically draining. They'll hear about mastitis and blocked ducts and cracked nipples. That exclusively breastfeeding involves getting used to expressing when you need to spend time away from your baby and that this is also a learned skill that can be frustrating and stressful.

They will hear about the health benefits for themselves and their baby, about how rewarding it can be, about how amazing breastmilk is, about how it has ensured the continuation of civilisation through the centuries. It's likely that they'll want to breastfeed, but when the overriding message is how hard it is and little support is on offer, things might not go to plan. And if things do go to plan (as they did for me, thanks to good information and support), they'll still get people presenting formula as the solution to many a problem (Sleepless nights? That baby needs a bottle. Baby feeding a lot? Your milk might not be enough - try formula!) and expressing horror once they find out they're "still" breastfeeding their older baby (especially once said older baby gets teeth).

Depending on where you look, the big problem when it comes to attitudes about breastfeeding is the "breastapo", the militant lactivists who bully mothers into feeling guilty for giving up breastfeeding (or not starting it in the first place), or else the "gobby" anti-breastfeeding brigade who supposedly prize freedom, consumerism, and personal choice over breastmilk. I truly believe that the breastfeeding debate is the most toxic of all the "Mummy Wars", ticking all the boxes of playing on women's insecurities about their bodies' natural processes, their appearance, social class, their baby's intelligence, and the fear that somewhere, someone might be judging their parenting abilities and devotion to their children.

In reality, as is usually the case, members of these two camps are less common than the papers would have you believe. It's true that I deleted myself from a "breastfeeding support" community on Facebook because of the unpleasant direction the discussions started to take. Women don't need to be told in a patronising manner that breastfeeding probably would have worked out for them if they'd "just been more informed about the facts". They don't need to be told that formula is "poison". The final straw was the responses to a woman who wanted tips on expressing because she was going to be spending a day away from her four-month-old for the first time. "Why do you feel the need to give the baby a bottle?" - "Four months is much too young for a bottle! It will cause nipple confusion!" - "Don't do it!".

It's also true that on any given day you can search Twitter and find scores of people getting extremely disgusted by the fact they've spotted a woman breastfeeding in their vicinity. "No offence but does she need to do that in full view of everyone?" - "AWKWARD" - "No-one wants to see you feeding your baby!" Images of women breastfeeding are constantly deleted from Facebook and Instagram as they're deemed to be violating policy, while pages dedicated to grim misogyny abound. It was suggested in the Daily Telegraph this week that we "need" the Duchess of Cambridge to breastfeed and go public about it so she can be a role model for other young mothers. In the event of such a thing happening you can guarantee the buzz online would be more about the state of the royal tits - and Kate's desirability as a result - than anything else.

In light of all this, you can understand why it all gets too much. Lack of a national feeding strategy and recognition of breastfeeding as a health issue, with adequate support for new mothers and local networks providing advice and friendship will only mean that the misinformation, the judgmental attitudes, and the manufactured "cat fights" discourage more and more women from achieving their breastfeeding goals. It will continue to pit them against each other and encourage suspicion and shame. And who needs that when they've just gone through the rigours of pregnancy and birth?

Anti-rape campaign fail (again)

Just recently a lot of people, including me, have been reiterating that rape culture exists and that it is a global issue. In addition to the current high profile rape cases making the headlines, it's been pointed out that the past year hasn't seen a let-up in victim-blaming.

Last winter it was South Wales police. I had wondered if we might see less of victim-blaming rape prevention campaigns following Rape Crisis Scotland's excellent example of how to aim advice towards potential perpetrators. Alas it appears that Warwickshire Police didn't get the memo (h/t to @MediocreDave for this spot today):

Wouldn't it be nice if things were that simple? I am, at this point, tired of explaining exactly why these campaigns constitute a major failure to effectively tackle rape and sexual assault. Year after year they appear - and it's disappointing. Coventry Rape Crisis will be contacting Warwickshire Police in order to discuss this. Let's hope they take the feedback on board.

Rape culture: still around; still as grim as ever

The newspapers have, for the most part, been putting on a united front regarding the horrific details of the case that has led to this week's sentencing of nine men involved in the grooming, rape and exploitation of girls in Rochdale. Granted, much of this is down to the fact that there's much wrangling over whether race is the most important factor in how we should view the case. Did "political correctness" mean that police didn't do enough? Is race the "elephant in the room"? Certain news outlets are intent on making a really big deal about the supposed fact that "you can't talk about race" - while talking about it a great deal. They're choosing to ignore the fact that numerous similar cases over the years have involved white perpetrators, because it's a sensationalist angle guaranteed to create controversy and really get the mouth-frothers going.

The focus on the ethnic background of the perpetrators has meant that one key aspect of the way the media generally deals with rape cases hasn't really been noticeable. Even the comments on Mail Online have been remarkably free of it, which really does surprise me (although to be fair, the opportunity to talk about race and immigration is guaranteed to get them excited more than just about anything else). I'm talking, of course, about victim blaming, something that's so ingrained into the way society talks about sexual violence that we have to listen to people discussing rape in terms of whether it's "rape rape" or, you know, one of those lesser types of rape where it's committed by a partner, or if a woman "flirted" with her attacker. We hear about a judge describing a girl of 11 as a "willing participant" who "looked older" as if that makes it okay that two men raped her and filmed themselves doing it. We see newspapers referring to 12-year-old girls as "lolitas" who have ruined the lives of the men who gang-raped them. We see the public rally round a man who has been found guilty of rape, turning on his victim instead and "outing" her online.

Due to the fact most people are pretty busy obsessing over the factor of race in the Rochdale case, this hasn't been too evident. Until last night, when BBC News featured a report on the sentencing and asked a local man for his thoughts.

"Some argue," we were told by reporter Chris Buckler, "That it's up to families to take responsibility too," referring of course to the oft-repeated refrain of "Where were the parents?!" when very young girls are abused and exploited.

The man interviewed on the street claimed that if he had a daughter "She'd be in bed for seven" (as if this would solve everything).

"But ultimately, if they're being sexually exploited, the ones that are responsible are the people doing the grooming," replied Buckler.

"Yeah, but it takes two to tango," came the response.

And there you have it. A group of men rape a number of young girls. Everyone agrees that it's bad - of course it's awful, they're "monsters", in tabloid parlance. But beneath it all, there is still an unwillingness to totally place the blame with them. And so we have "Where were the parents?". Never mind the fact the girls have all been described as "vulnerable" and "known to social services" so strict and protective parents may well not have been a feature of their lives. Never mind the fact that it's impossible for parents to stop such things happening to their children no matter what - because of the simple fact that sexual violence exists. Even more unpleasantly, we have "It takes two to tango". Never mind about the fact the girls were given drugs and alcohol, never mind about their age. They must have been in on it somehow. In a roundabout way, it's their fault, because they weren't your stereotypical innocent "good girls". I mean, they hung around outside takeaways in the evening, for goodness' sake - what did they expect? If someone had kept them under control it would have been fine.

Rapists rape, but for many people, there must always be this element of it being the victim's fault, as if it's completely unpalatable to actually, just for once, simply condemn the perpetrator. Even if it's just slightly her fault. She should have done something to stop it. She should have not acted in a certain way. Her family should have been there. She shouldn't have put herself in that situation.

What's been highlighted, although much less prominently than the issues of race, is the fact that the whole thing could have come to light four years ago. Instead the case was dropped because it was decided that the victim who came forward would not be viewed as a credible witness by a jury. When young girls, particularly young girls from supposedly "difficult" backgrounds, make allegations, society's default reaction is disbelief and dismissal. The police know this; indeed, it's the default reaction for many of their own profession. Julie Bindel, highlighting the way victims are ignored in a piece for the Guardian yesterday, said:

"The uncomfortable truth is that there is complacency about organised sexual exploitation, which leads to few convictions regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrators. We choose instead to blame the victims."

She went on:

"The truth is that the victims of the most horrendous abuse are being let down – viewed as troublemaking slags, in fact – which is why opportunist grooming gangs can get away with it so often."

Even when the rapists have been sentenced, when it has been acknowledged that abuse has taken place, for some people, the girls and women whose lives they've ruined will always be "those girls", those "troublemaking slags", whether we're talking about the men from Rochdale or Ched Evans or Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Their voices won't matter - they're just there to be judged or used as statistics. The assumption, for some people, will always be there, no matter what the details of the case happen to be. Rape culture isn't going anywhere fast.

Image from here.

UPDATE: Following the victim-blaming extravaganza that was last night's Question Time, here's some further reading on what happened, and the response it received:

- The F Word - Slut-shaming and victim-blaming: the journalist, the vicar and the politician

- Sian and Crooked Rib - Don't presume

Why the Samantha Brick backlash missed the point

Samantha Brick is suddenly famous. If you use Twitter, or read the Daily Mail (in which case why are you here? Seriously?), you'll know why. To cut a long story short, on Tuesday the Mail published a piece by Brick entitled 'There are downsides to looking this pretty': Why women hate me for being beautiful. This ridiculous article promptly went viral, with the author's name appearing to be trending on Twitter every time I logged on.

This is not a post about my views on the piece. Of course it was awful, although no worse than Brick's previous efforts for the Mail. With standard and incredibly tedious woman-hating, Femail-fodder headlines like 'I use my sex appeal to get ahead at work... and so does ANY woman with any sense', 'Would YOU let your husband dress you? Samantha does and says she's never looked better', and 'My husband says he'll divorce me if I get fat', I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm not missing out by refusing to give them a thorough reading. I couldn't care less about Samantha Brick's musings - they're typical of the Mail's 'women's interest' offerings. State that women are backstabbing bitches. Talk about how much better life is when men are in charge. Criticise women some more. Pit them against each other and encourage 'cattiness'. You know the score.

This is also not a smug post berating all of you for heading over to Mail Online in order to read it, retweeting it and talking about it because it's just giving the Mail what they want, people! More hits and more publicity! Again, I couldn't care less. And yes, I am succumbing to the hype and giving in and blogging about it. Hate if you want.

This is a post about the way people react to stories like this. If you search 'Samantha Brick' on Twitter and look at what people have been saying about her for the past couple of days, if you look at any comment thread about her on forums or on Facebook or even the 5000-strong comment thread on the article itself, you'll see a theme emerging. People are desperate to give their personal opinions on whether Brick really is attractive or not. The issue at hand: she think she's stunning, people want to take her down a peg or two and point out that she's 'average' and 'nothing special', going right down to 'ugly' and 'looks like a man'. You can't escape people's judgement on Brick's appearance.

For me, the issue that needs to be discussed is not the way Brick looks. It's the way that the Mail exploits women writers to further its misogynist agenda, holding on to its crown as the newspaper most widely read by women. Who knows if the article has much to do at all with Brick's true opinions of herself? It's been well-documented that the Mail can't resist putting words into women's mouths and publishing misleading stories about them, even if this means that their lives are pretty much ruined as a result. Two examples can be found in Anna Blundy's account of being stitched up over a feature, and Juliet Shaw's tale of how the paper completely fabricated facts and quotes for a story about her, leading to her taking legal action.

The Mail has no qualms whatsoever about publishing features like those found when you search for 'Samantha Brick' on its website; indeed it's almost gleeful in the way it offers them up for people to hurl abuse, and for commenters to write vicious responses. Hadley Freeman is spot on when she says that the paper 'simply threw Samantha Brick to the wolves'. The way it uses writers like Brick is so predictable - the stories about deferring to men, bitchy women, weight and women in the workplace form a steady stream of hate.

But people, in general, don't want to talk about this. They want to pass judgement on the woman's appearance, thinking that this is what really matters because they're conditioned to believe that this is what's really important: having the last word on a woman's looks - because that's what women are here for. To be hot - or not. A woman's worth lies in what people think of the way she looks, what men claim they would like to do to her, how many women are secretly envious of her. And everyone has to weigh in with their views on the matter. If it's not her looks, it's her opinions of herself. She needs to be set straight. Who does she think she is?

Last year I wrote about the drama provoked by the way Scott Schuman (aka The Sartorialist) described a woman he'd photographed as 'sturdy'. What annoyed me just as much as the stupid post and Schuman's stupid reaction to it, was the way the discussion became framed around what people really thought of this woman's body type. Was she thin? Was she fat? Was she curvy? Was 'curvy' an offensive way to describe her? You know how it goes. It's a familiar scenario in comment sections. Has she really got good boobs? Is she 'worryingly thin' or 'fuller figured'? Does she actually look good in that outfit? Wherever there is deeper discussion to be had, you can guarantee that people will reduce it to their personal opinion on her appearance. And is there any wonder, when the media continually encourages us to critique, compare and contrast women based on 'who looked the best', 'who wore it best' or 'who has the best beach body'?

Unlike the rest of Twitter, my feed wasn't full of people calling Samantha Brick 'ugly'. Today, of course, it was full of people bemoaning the fact that those people had given the Mail exactly what it wanted because Brick wrote a follow-up piece, gloating over the number of hits Tuesday's article had received and claiming that the backlash she received just proves that she was right when she said that women hate her because she's attractive. And so it began again.

People: stop playing the game. Stop falling into the trap of judging a woman's worth by your opinion of her looks. Stop reducing every discussion about a woman in the public eye to whether you think she's hot. Stop equating looks with power and success and sneering at those who don't, in your eyes, measure up. Stop treating confidence as something to be torn down and trampled upon. Stop perpetuating the lie that women are by nature 'catty' and 'bitchy'. Stop defending the roadblocks on the highway to equality and giving people like Samantha Brick fuel for the fire as she churns out more articles bemoaning how nasty other women are.

On not backing down

This week my friend Sian has found herself a target for abuse and threats due to the fact she expressed an opinion about something she feels strongly about. You can read her account of how events unfolded here. In the past couple of weeks we've been seeing, thanks to the UniLad fiasco, the way people seem to have absolutely no qualms about issuing vile threats and dealing out abuse left, right and centre to women who speak out against misogyny or simply dare to have strong view on something. The abuse leveled at Sian (which has resulted in her having conversations with the police) has been yet another reminder that when it comes to the internet, it doesn't seem to take much to have people calling for others' personal details to be published online, for them to be 'hunted down' and attacked, or for more specific injuries to be inflicted.

Since this issue finally blew up and made it into the mainstream media last year, I think more people are ready to call out this sort of thing. But that doesn't mean it's going away. I decided to moderate comments on this blog last year when something I wrote incurred the wrath of MRAs and, in their particularly reasoned and mature style, they wanted to take the opportunity to let me know how ugly I am. But it's not going to stop me from blogging, no more than me criticising them is going to stop them from writing about their dissatisfaction that people tend to think rape, sexual exploitation and domestic violence are wrong.

Something that was noticeable last year in all the newspaper coverage of the issue was the number of people intimating that threats and abuse are to be expected, and that those who 'can't deal with it' should stop blogging, or writing for the papers, or posting on forums, or commenting on things. No mention of the fact that those doling out the abuse might be out of line, more 'that's what you get'. Like the apologist who tells women they need to stop going out at night, or walking to places alone if they don't want to be attacked by rapists, those who spectacularly miss the point on internet abuse blame the person on the receiving end.

Sian has been accused of 'craving publicity' - for having an opinion. Of going on about 'things that don't matter'. Of  'crying' over nothing. She has been made to feel that, to put it bluntly, she just needs to shut up and stop whining, by people whose idea of a debate amounts to smugly stating 'but isn't feminism about CHOICE?'. That writing about her opinions on something controversial makes her an attention-seeker and a pathetic self-publicist. How many times have we seen those accusations thrown at women who write about things they feel strongly about? That they've just 'got a chip on their shoulder'? Another woman whose blog I read had a commenter flounce the other day after saying that her post about a controversial issue was just another example of 'looking for a fight and a way to be offended'. It's so wearing. You can't write about something more than a couple of times without being attacked for 'having an agenda' and you can't 'have an agenda' without people flouncing or telling you to shut up.

What does this all mean for those of us who, actually, don't fancy shutting up and stopping speaking out about things? I know that for as many of us who won't back down there are more people who have got discouraged and had their confidence worn away to the extent that they do shut up. They decide it would simply be easier for everyone if they kept quiet, put aside their dreams and gave up. And I don't blame them, because it can be really hard. This goes for people who write and speak about a whole range of issues and it's not just limited to women, but it's a particular tactic used to silence women and make us feel insignificant.

So this is for those who have made the decision to carry on despite being discouraged. Despite being made to feel as if they don't matter. Despite being told to get out of the kitchen if they can't take the heat. Despite having people unleash overly dramatic unfollows and patronising comments and snide remarks about 'another angry woman'. Despite all this, we stick at it, in the hope that one day things will change and that one day the answer to abuse and threats won't be that it's our own fault for rocking the boat. If we did all stop caring any more, the status quo would never be challenged, and imagine history without any challenges aimed at the status quo, when there were things that were so badly wrong that we look back now and wonder how such a state of affairs ever could have existed.

Never give up. Because that's what they want. And if you feel convicted to do something about an injustice,  people will roll their eyes and sneer and try to make you feel bad about it, or as if you will never change anything so really, what's the point?

Stop listening to them.

UniLad: when "banter" crosses a line

Today's Twitterstorm of Hysterical Outrage concerns a website called UniLad. In typical Twitterstorm fashion, the site was actually taken down while I was in the process of writing this post, but here's the rundown on what's happened so far.

- Horrendously misogynist website runs post insinuating that rape is acceptable and to be encouraged.
- Woman challenges them about it. Retweets galore. Twitterstorm ensues.
- Offending post is taken down.
- Apology about "cleaning up our act" issued, made reasonably pointless by every other post on the site, photo on UniLad Facebook group etc.
- Twitterstorm continues.
- Offending site is taken down. Victory for the Thought-Policing Pitchfork-Wielding Twitter Mob. Sort of.

Almost a decade ago, I was an innocent sixth former, looking forward to going off to university and meeting lots of amazing new people who would be "more mature" and "have more in common" with me. Then I went off to university, and I met Unilad. Unilad was often the most 'popular' guy in the hall. He had a crew of identikit unilads. He was obnoxious and offensive, intimidating and pathetic at the same time. This was 2003; the word "banter" wasn't widely used and I think you could say that the UK was still experiencing the glory days of the lad's mag, before circulation figures started declining and titles started folding and Maxim was still in print and running articles entitled "How to cure a feminist". Sadly for lad culture, however, Unilad was doing a really good job of making feminists and activists out of the young women he targeted.

Unilad cracked jokes about my friend's appearance - and called me "ugly" when I told him where to stick his opinions.

Unilad groped me umpteen times on nights out and laughed in my face if I reacted.

Unilad wrote misogynist articles for the student magazine and responded with something about "stupid humourless feminists" when he was challenged about it.

Unilad put all his support behind a Playboy-themed RAG week.

Unilad made me feel like I was the one in the wrong for feeling uncomfortable about a social event being held at a lapdancing club.

Unilad stood in front of the stage at the union, leering, cheering and filming on his his phone as a young woman was goaded into stripping as part of a "dance contest" to win drinks, before she ran from the room in tears.

Unilad told my boyfriend to dump me so he could have some fun and stop having to hang around with a "bird" who was anti-porn.

Unilad made me really upset, then he made me really angry. The anger took on a whole new dimension when I found out that two of my closest friends had been victims of rape and I understood how this had changed their lives. These days I know that Unilad usually hasn't had the chance to form meaningful relationships with women yet, especially sexual ones. It's obvious from the way he talks about it - just look at UniLad Magazine's neverending posts on the subject. It's a bit tragic. But his mindset still persists on campuses across the country.

No wonder I found so many blogs speaking out about this sort of culture when I got understandably riled by all this and started looking into gender equality issues. There were a lot of young women about who felt the same and wanted to do something about it. And there still are. When I go to conferences and look at blogs, I meet - and read the thoughts of - young women who are having their own gender equality awakening because their eyes have really been opened by incidents like this and the fact they're still apparently acceptable. Of course it's not the only reason we come to feminism and activism, but it's a major concern among most of the young feminists you'll ever meet, because it affects us all.

For me, it happened in 2003 and you'd think things would have moved on. "Lad culture" wasn't the "in thing" the last time I checked. The majority of men I know - and the majority of the men I've spotted on Twitter talking about this today - have serious issues with it all. They don't want to be associated with it. But it's still around, and it still leads to straight-up regressive and vile websites like UniLad having nearly 70,000 "fans" on Facebook. Websites where every other post appears to be about rape - making jokes about it, attempting to dress it up with euphemisms and pretending it's "just a laugh".

Last week, when I came across UniLad for the first time, reading the famously deleted post "Sexual Mathematics". I was confused, because it seemed like the site was supposed to be all about the banter. All about the banter, yet strangely lacking in anything remotely resembling "banter", and instead full of the sort of stuff that no-one could actually find amusing. Mostly a lot of jokes about rape and sexual assault, if you're wondering. If you fancy letting yourself in for a treat, you can read the cached version of the post here. That is, of course, if you're up for reading such gems as:

"And if the girl you’ve taken for a drink happens to belong to the ’25%’ group and won’t ‘spread for your head’, think about this mathematical statistic: 85% of rape cases go unreported. That seems to be fairly good odds."

Damn, I just love the stench of rape apologism. Especially deleted rape apologism that then becomes the subject of a half-arsed "apology" ("Sorry that people were offended. It won't happen again.") that's rendered totally pointless by the fact the site is crammed full of posts making jokes about raping women AND men, making unpleasant comments about the way women look at the same time as being apparently unable to refer to them as anything but "wenches" who need to "get back in the kitchen". Oh, the fact that posts with titles such as "The Angry Shag" end with sentences like this:

"To finish off, I doggy-style her head into the wall attempting to knock some sense into her."

UniLad's readers weren't happy with this "apology". Concluding that it must have been a woman who forced this apology from the site's creators, they're on fine form. "Rape the bitch," says one. "Fucking PC faggots," says another. We've even got "Slap a hoe like a true lad" and "Whoever complained should be raped". Doubtless all those comments are Just A Joke, from Average Guys Just Having a Bit of Fun. And let's not forget Average Girls Just Sticking Up for The Guys. The ones who say things like: "Girls complaining about this article are probably closet lesbians". Which, funnily enough, is the same sort of thing the UniLad account tweeted at the woman who started all this off by challenging them about that post.

"Are you a dyke?" they asked. Because at the end of the day, next to "fat" and "not in the kitchen" it's the worst thing we can be.

Maybe they just need to grow up. Let's hope that when they do, they leave all this behind them. I wouldn't bank on it, though, because these attitudes stick around, They work their way into relationships and the way people treat women. I probably just need to lighten up, though, because it's all about the banter, right?

Page 3, rape myths and bikini bodies: media misogyny at Leveson

Today saw representatives from several women's groups speak about media misogyny at the Leveson Inquiry. Speaking on behalf of Equality Now, Eaves, Object and End Violence Against Women, they called for changes in the way newspapers operate around a culture of sexist stereotypes and objectification, while perpetuating damaging myths and insinuations regarding violence against women and girls.

No-one can say this wasn't long overdue. One of the issues I have been most passionate about - since I first began writing gender-equality themed missives in my journal and before this blog existed - is the way the media rarely manages to portray women in a positive light. Whether it's the obvious grim sexism of Page 3 and the thankfully now-defunct Daily Sport, the misogyny masked as "women's interest" pieces on working mothers (boo! hiss!) and body image in the Daily Mail, or the frankly disturbing way some media outlets will do anything they can in an attempt to paint rape victims as "evil liars", there's often nothing for us to be encouraged about. Even positive coverage of all things woman-based is relegated to the "lifestyle" sections of the papers, with the fashion and the recipes and the dating ads.

I was angered afresh on seeing old stories mentioned as part of the evidence. The time the Daily Telegraph misrepresented research findings and completely made up others in order to run a story entitled "Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists". The story was quietly pulled after several people had debunked it, but the intention was there. Then there was the time the Daily Mail, in one of the most unpleasant instances I've ever seen, took 12-year-old girls who had been gang-raped to task over their clothing, Facebook profiles and upbringings, describing what happened to them as an "orgy" and calling them "lolitas", while discussing how the allegations would probably have ruined the careers of the accused.

All this, of course, was punctuated by numerous tales of upskirt shots and headlines about celebrities' breasts - and what happens to those who speak out against this culture. Clare Short, lest we forget, was vilified by The Sun as "fat" and "jealous". A woman in the public eye who speaks out against media sexism is letting herself in for accusations of being humourless, bitter and "ugly" - just as we who blog about it expect these comments from trolls below the line.

Some people might dismiss all this. Why take notice of such trash? They're tabloids - what do you expect? But for many people, it's not a case of being to tune out and dismiss it all and look down their noses. We should care about media misogyny because it influences public opinion, particularly when it comes to issues surrounding VAWG. The tabloid rape and sexual assault narrative, that there are "good" (virginal, wealthy, attacked by a stranger in a dark alleyway) and "bad" (working class, dressed in a miniskirt, in a relationship with their attacker) rape victims - has become the narrative many members of the public ascribe to. The disproportionate coverage of "false accusation" cases and "women ruining men's lives" has led to these sort of things being the first thing people often mention if you bring up rape cases. It has been getting worse for several years now, as outlined in the 2008 report Just Representation? Press Reporting and the Reality of Rape. Victim-blaming is the norm.

So what effect does this have on women who have experienced rape and assault? The End Violence Against Women Coalition's submission to the inquiry states:

"Coalition members tell us that when the media reports stories in a way which implicitly or explicitly blames women for attacks on them, they receive a spike in calls from new and former service users who are ‘retraumatised’ by this continuing implication that what happened to them was in some way their fault."

One thing mentioned at the inquiry today was the way women being abused or even murdered by their partner or husband is reported in a decontextualised way, the actions of a "psycho" or a "monster", drawing attention away from the fact that violence within relationships is, in fact, incredibly common and often perpetuated by men who appear to their friends and colleagues as "normal", the "average family man". The insensitivity of journalists towards service users in their quest for sensationalism is also highlighted:

"They commonly ask for case studies who are willing to forego anonymity (with little thought to the consequences of this for some), and who, more sinisterly, fit a certain ‘type’ which they (or their editor) has calculated will suit their editorial line or their perceived readers’ prejudices (victim should be young, should be attractive, should be British, should have no criminal record etc). It is rare for the journalist to ask any question about, or make any provision for, the impact of giving an interview on the victim and any follow up afterwards."

It's easy to dismiss media sexism as the preserve of pathetic rags that aren't worth our time, but the impact of the damaging messages they use to shift copies hits women hard and affects the way people see VAWG. They're also unacceptable at a time when such material wouldn't be permitted on television before the watershed, and in some cases has actually been censored for content by the inquiry. All this and yet it's freely available in the daily papers for all to see.

The groups appearing today called on Lord Justice Leveson to consider regulation of the press to ensure more balanced and contextualised reporting of VAWG, with journalists receiving training on the myths surrounding the issues. It's so important that we see changes take place. Although I sadly can't see the tabloids changing their tune on objectification in the near future, will the inquiry be the start of something good?

Further reading
New Statesman - Helen, 28, has some thoughts on Page 3

Sweeping it under the carpet

I haven't written a post on here for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence because last month, Anna at Goannatree asked me if I would write a guest post for her 16 Days series.

My experience of talking about violence against women and the activism aiming to tackle it is that there are a lot of uncomfortable silences. People give you odd looks; they try to change the subject. They turn it into a big joke – “When’s International Men’s Day, then?” – or they regale you with a “statistic” they’ve heard somewhere (or possibly made up on the spot) – “Did you know that most violence is now committed by women against men?” (yes, this was actually a colleague’s response when I told him what a Reclaim the Night march was).

When you say the words “rape”, or “domestic violence” people look even more uncomfortable. They’re not nice things to think about, for a start. Yes, of course it’s awful, but we don’t need to discuss it, do we? Injustices happening a long way from home are easy to talk about. They’re also easy to accept, to sit back and do nothing about, because people feel they can’t help. No matter how bad the situation is, it’s down to a matter of different cultures, different religions, different worldviews. And so violence against women used as a weapon in conflict – that’s awful. Women killed as a result of so-called “honour” crime – that’s awful. Trafficking? Also awful.

Read on and comment here...

This week in online harassment...

Speaking out about online harassment constitutes "over-reacting" for some. So how far does it have to go before it becomes worth bothering about? 

In recent weeks the long-running debate about the way women are treated online has finally hit the news, with bloggers, journalists and public figures from numerous countries weighing in on how much of a problem it is.

Plenty of discussion has also focused on how it can be stopped - although many of the women involved in the debate have been subject to further blog posts and comments telling them they're "over-reacting" and that misogynist abuse online just isn't that much of a big deal.

While almost everyone I know has welcomed this mainstreaming of the issue, it has of course meant that we've all become very familiar with the term "gaslighting" - the way people undermine what women are saying by telling them that they're being "emotional" or "hysterical" or "over-sensitive".

And so considering that pointing out online abuse seems to be such an "over-reaction" in the eyes of many, something we ladies simply need to "man up" about, I was interested to learn this week of a particularly unpleasant case of online misogyny not being that much of a big deal at all.

Misogynist-baiting blog Manboobz tells us that one of the more high-profile men's rights websites is offering "bounty money" to anyone able to track down the personal details of a group of Swedish women who have made a video they don't like.

The women posted an admittedly ridiculous video on YouTube over a year ago, advertising a theatre production based on Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto and showing the shooting of a man, followed by a victory dance by the women.

So it's publicity for a play, which isn't, you know, real. Like countless other plays and films produced every year that involve scenes of murder. But the guys at A Voice For Men see it more as a call for women to enact killing sprees directed at the opposite sex and have acted as they see fit, calling for those who are involved in the video to be publicly shamed. This includes:

"...asking for the full legal names, home addresses, places of employment, email addresses and contact phone numbers of the women and man who produced and starred in the video described above."

All just a bit of fun, right? Actually, no. Not when men's rights activists are involved. Stumbling across their websites is a discomforting experience. Many of these sites try to maintain a veneer of "reason", but you never have to read very far to realize that they're beloved hangouts of individuals who really do despise women, or at least all women who don't fit their ideal of feminine behaviour and let them treat them as they wish. Even when the contributors to these sites attempt to discourage completely vitriolic comments and attacks, you're going to get readers who can't help themselves.

It's also telling that they want to publish the personal details of the women on a site called "Register-Her", which purports to reveal the identities of women who have "falsely accused" men of rape. If that's not an encouragement to disturbed individuals looking to go on the rampage, I don't know what it is.

And that's why stuff like this - demanding that people track down the personal information of women so it can be publicized online - isn't just a bit of fun. It's encouraging the unpleasant people who frequent men's rights sites to intimidate and harass women, intruding into their personal lives, all because they've produced a satirical play.

In recent weeks some bloggers have spoken out about how worried they have been by threatening emails from people who have found out their addresses or information about their families. It does happen – and we all know that on the internet, you really don't have to look far to find people who will do genuinely disturbing things.

A writer at A Voice for Men has already been contacted by a Swedish journalist who seems concerned about what's going on. The writer himself seems more concerned about Sweden supposedly being one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to oppressing men, so I can only guess he missed the memo regarding that whole "countries with the highest quality of life" thing.

Another day, another example of women being targeted for harassment.

This post originally appeared on BitchBuzz. Image via screaming_monkey's Flickr.

Gracious debate, tone arguments and silencing

It started with a couple of tweets from me, aimed at my Christian friends and fellow bloggers.

"To what extent do you think talk of "being gracious" is used to silence and shut down debate, particularly when it comes to issues involving women and the church?"

I asked this because, to put it bluntly, I am sick to the back teeth of seeing comment threads on blogs overtaken not by discussion of the issues at hand, but by discussion of whether or not the post and the tone used by the blogger was "gracious" enough, or "negative", or "bitter", or "Christlike". I believe we are called to Christlike debate. But I also feel that this obsession with tone is a classic derailing and silencing tactic, which at best comes across as patronizing - and at worst, incredibly unpleasant and shaming.

For those of you active in the feminist blogosphere, the term "tone argument" will probably be a familiar one. It's the argument a reader will make when telling the writer that "If you just expressed your feelings in a nice, polite way, others might listen to what you're saying". It's also the line that a reader will use when telling a blogger "Thank you for expressing your feelings in such a measured and rational way - so different to all those angry, aggressive bloggers". We Christians have our own equivalent of this. But the Christian tone argument favours a particular word - one which is fast becoming one of my least favourite words ever.

That word is "gracious". What I'm seeing, on an increasingly regular basis, is an obsession that blog posts on "difficult" or "controversial" issues must be "gracious". If they are not considered "gracious" enough by those reading, everything the blogger has expressed becomes invalid. This seems to mean different things for different people. As someone on Twitter said to me, sometimes people use the word when they mean "being kind". Sometimes they use it when they mean "agreeing with me". Sometimes they use it when they mean "taking others' opinions into account". Much of the time, the extent to which someone is believed to be "gracious" is dependent on how little they seek to "rock the boat".

There was a controversial post about the role of men and women in relationships on a very popular blog a few weeks ago. The post, written by a man, generated hundreds of comments, blog posts in response - and it's fair to say, plenty of drama. What really stood out among the hundreds of comments on the post, for me, was the number of comments by fans of the blog directed towards those who had disagreed with the post, telling them how bitter, emotional and ungracious they were. Bitter, emotional and ungracious - why? Because they'd dared to disagree with a prominent name in the blogosphere? Because they'd told their own stories of how the opinions expressed in the post had caused a great deal of hurt to them over the years?

I'm pulling no punches about this: it has to stop.

I see the tone argument pulled on men, too, when they express dissent. But when it comes to being shamed for expressing disagreement, anger or conviction, women are always first in line. It's an effective way of shutting us up, you see. Tell us we're "ungracious" or "un-Christlike". No-one wants to be seen as the person Jesus would disapprove of in an argument. It's also an effective way of rewarding us, giving us a cookie for playing the good girl and not rocking the boat. When I posted those tweets a few days ago, I was thinking of a particular post written by a woman whose blog I read, a woman I greatly admire and respect. Recently she'd written a post that I could tell had been difficult to write and had stirred up a lot of feelings in her. The post received a lot of comments. Most of them at the time I was reading seemed to be focused on how "gracious" her post was. "Thank you for being so gracious in the way you have written this". You know how it goes.

I was annoyed for her. Were people engaging with the issue she wanted to discuss? No, they were patronizing her for being good enough to write the post without getting "angry" or sounding "bitter". I didn't say anything about it to her, until we were discussing all this on Twitter on Thursday night.

"I hate it when [readers] pat my head and congratulate me for being gracious..." she said.

I told her which post I knew she was thinking of. She was. And she had felt patronized. She wanted people to engage with her opinions, not tell her how gracious she had been, when as she said, "I try to be respectful in hopes that they will hear my point instead of get defensive because I was too forceful". I think that this can be a good thing to do in the Christian blogosphere. There is, sadly, a great reluctance to see someone's view as valid if they are forceful in the way they write it. And so some people choose to adapt. And of course, there is no good reason to be vitriolic towards people, or act like a bully. But you can't talk about controversial issues without some sort of disagreement happening and we shouldn't try to stamp it out when it does.

When I see another post where the comments are more focused on tone than actually debating issues, where women are repeatedly criticised for having a strong opinion, feeling angry about something or disagreeing with someone (particularly a "big name" male blogger or preacher), my heart sinks. When this criticism comes from a place of male privilege, or from the perspective of women who are reinforcing the status quo, it reinforces the position that many Christian women see themselves in constantly - that they are ignored when they speak out and that no-one shares their concerns. We all need to listen to each other and understand that there is nothing wrong with righteous anger, or feeling emotional about a particular subject. There is nothing wrong with dissenting opinion. There is absolutely no reason to congratulate someone just for being nice and making sure they don't upset anyone, if this does not achieve anything. If Jesus's ministry had not caused dissent and controversy, where would we be today?

This post is part one of two. In part two I hope to discuss how this relates directly to discussion and understanding of gender equality and the feminist movement within Christian circles. 

The image at the top of the post, from here was the first thing that showed up when I typed "gracious living" into Google Images. I thought it was quite fitting, considering the subject matter. 

Exciting times for the Dorries-approved womb (plus women and blogging)

So back at the beginning of September I wrote a post for Nadine Dorries, all about my womb, which I described as "just about the most boring uterus ever". Behold, it does the same thing once a month with no fuss, I said, adding that Nadine would most heartily approve because I'd never managed to "go and get myself pregnant".

Yet unbeknownst to me, my womb was harbouring a secret. A big (not literally), life-changing secret. One week after I wrote that post I was staring at a positive pregnancy test. It said "3 weeks +". This was not entirely unexpected; I'll add (more Dorries points for me). I was pleased I'd been out partying the weekend before and therefore had one final hurrah on the booze (that's what's known as hyperbole, concern trolls; I don't binge drink). Aside from that, I was, quite simply, freaked out. When was I going to start getting symptoms? Was I going to have hyperemesis, like my mother?

The past couple of months have been interesting. Much to my mum's chagrin, the dreaded sickness never reared its ugly head. Mostly, it's been all about complete exhaustion. I'm used to being tired - I get up at 6am, I have a long commute, a busy job, I write a lot in the evenings and I work out. If you're wondering why blog posts have been thin on the ground since September, it's because I've tended to hit "the wall" at around 2pm. For several weeks, I felt like I could barely function by the time I got home from work. I've dragged myself to the gym occasionally and genuinely felt as if I was about to nod off while on the cross trainer

I've also been dipping in to what is uncharted territory for me: parenting forums and blogs. This has confirmed what I knew already: that despite being great places for advice and support, these places often take judginess to a whole new level. If you blog about taking a "relaxed" (as opposed to "smothering and paranoid") approach to parenting, there are people out there who will email you to let you know you don't deserve to be a mother (yes, this really did happen to a friend). Let's not even go there with the monumental breastfeeding bust-up that's recently happened among certain bloggers I read.

And then, there's "mummy blogging". Or "mommy blogging", if you like. C. Jane has been talking about it a bit recently, following her talk to university students about women and blogging. She asked me if I had any thoughts about being a woman and being online. Clearly I do. At the time I'd just been to the Christian New Media Conference and had attended the panel discussion on gender and digital media. The panelists asked the audience if they felt that "blogging is a man's world" and almost everyone said "no". This much is true in the sense that women are a very visible presence online and we don't shy away from writing. Yet how are we perceived, as bloggers? This is something I've written about before and also something of a hot topic recently, as shown by this column by Helen Lewis Hasteley for the New Statesman.

"The sheer volume of sexist abuse thrown at female bloggers is the internet's festering sore: if you talk to any woman who writes online, the chances are she will instantly be able to reel off a Greatest Hits of insults. But it's very rarely spoken about, for both sound and unsound reasons. No one likes to look like a whiner -- particularly a woman writing in male-dominated fields such as politics, economics or computer games. Others are reluctant to give trolls the "satisfaction" of knowing they're emotionally affected by the abuse, or are afraid of incurring more by speaking out."

Over the last week the subject of abuse faced by women online has really taken off with discussion not simply limited to blogs or Twitter as is usually the case, but a number of articles, very long comment threads and links being exchanged back and forth across the pond. There's been a hashtag - check out #mencallmethings to see women discussing the abuse they've faced. Cath Elliott has also done a good round-up of posts on the issue here.

So we have the misogynist attacks, the insinuations that we know nothing about particular subjects, the "silly girl" and "hysterical and emotional" put-downs every time we get passionate about something. And then there's the distinct lack of sisterhood which comes hand in hand with a lot of the parental judginess I mentioned above - something I was privy to when I wrote a guest post for Courtney earlier this year and found myself being berated by other women for being "young" (and therefore ignorant) and not yet having any children, among other things. I wasn't even writing about children or parenting, yet for some readers, it was clear that as a childless woman, I was somehow deficient and not worth their time.

Courtney doesn't like the term "mommy blogger" because it always ends up having a lot of negative connotations and being associated with unpleasant and often misogynistic stereotypes. The freebie-hungry mother who's out for the giveaways and trips and products to review and nothing more. The vacuous mother intent on portraying her life - and her children - as winsomely perfect. The oversharing mother who regales her readers with every tedious detail of her little darlings' development. From the post on Courtney's talk I linked to above I gathered she discussed the commercialization of it all, the pressures of modern womanhood extending to the blogosphere and the kowtowing to patriarchy which she sees as a particular issue for women of faith, but which of course applies to us all.

I've been part of conversations where people - men and women - have pretty much spat out the words "mummy blogger", with great disgust, or otherwise used it in a mocking, smirking way. I've read mummy/mommy blogs from the excellent to the very, very bad; of course they're not a terrible thing per se. I'm not sure if I'll ever want to count myself among them, though. Because for the time being, now I'm feeling a bit better, I'm happy to keep on writing about my usual topics. You might see pregnancy-related posts (you may wish to avoid them), who knows?

Last week I had my dating scan and saw my baby for the first time. Things feel more real now, and less stressful, for the time being. And so, it starts. I am starting as I mean to go on and taking it to its first feminist conference on Saturday. Let's hope I manage to stay awake.

What's a girl worth?

The problem with "worth" is that it has become difficult to accept that it might be inherent, rather than dependent on following sets of rules and scriptures, academic achievement, jobs, relationships, looks, possessions and what others think of us.

At different times in our lives we struggle with different facets of these issues and on our bad days we might start to feel like we're somewhat lacking in worth. We might feel like that all the time. People in our lives might make us feel like that. Terrible things might have happened to us that make us feel like that. And it's difficult to turn this around, I know.

What are you worth?

1. In my little world One of the great trends in blogging/online writing in recent years, to the extent that I think it's become a cliché, is the Faux Angsty Post Because I'm In My Late 20s and Society Quite Obviously Hates Me Because I'm Not A Responsible Adult, Married With a Mortgage and Climbing The Career Ladder. I say "faux angsty" because it's usually very evident that the writer is actually pretty happy with their life and just kind of likes the idea of looking like they're sticking it to the man, rather than just being your average urban middle class hipster.

If you let it get to you though, it will - and suddenly your worth will be bound up in how much you've achieved in your career and what you've got in your house and what sort of wedding you're going to have. It's whatever expectations society's currently pushing. What your parents expect of you. What the media's telling you. If it's not the Wedding Industrial Complex, it's the body beautiful or the look that this blogger has or the hair that this other blogger has or what the other women are saying on that forum. If it's not your friends and acquaintances it's the way that porn and exploitation has infiltrated culture to the extent that a girl's worth is measured by one thing only. Rachel Hills recently posted on Tumblr saying:

"Thought: Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc make people feel more crap about themselves than any women’s magazine ever did."

That could be a long, long essay.

What's a girl worth - and how much does it depend on her looks, her possessions and her lifestyle, her relationships and her sexuality?

2. In the church Sure, you might be told that you're made in God's image and that He sees you as a "princess", but how many of us know that reconciling our worth with the things we hear and the impressions we get can be really, really hard? On one hand you've got the lists of scriptures assuring you of your worth in Christ, on the other you might be getting all sorts of messages about how your worth relates to the way you dress, whether you're single or married, how many children you have and how they behave. What you do at church, how often you're there and how holy you act. In some churches, your worth might be bound up in how well you're seen to be submitting to your father or your husband, because only they can facilitate a connection between you and God. And when you don't follow the rules, bad things happen.

Bad things that might not be as bad as getting disowned by your family or thrown out of the church (although they might be), but as "small" as doubting your calling because you don't know if it's right for a woman to want to do that, or doubting what God's saying to you because it means stepping outside the box that the church so often creates for "the fairer sex". One of the feelings I've seen most expressed by women and girls in my years as a Christian is that they're "not good enough", whether that means God's standards or the church's standards or other people's standards. Why is this - and are we doing enough to deal with it?

What's a girl worth - and how much does it depend on how much she follows the rules and projects a certain image?

3. Out in the rest of the world The fact is that the world is not a good place for girls and does not recognise their inherent worth. Their worth continues to go unnoticed when they become women. If it is noticed, it's quantified by the extent to which they follow rules, keep in line with society's expectations, don't rock the boat and don't push for change.

Women perform 66 percent of the world's work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property.

What is the worth of girl according to society when she can't get an education, when she risks death or injury for going against her family's wishes? When she risks being sold, trafficked at a time when there are more slaves than at any other point in history? When she has to drop out of school with the advent of puberty because she doesn't have access to sanitary products? When she's an unwanted child purely due to her gender, so that she's aborted or abandoned at birth? When she must marry at the age of 11 or 12?

What is the worth of a girl when she becomes a woman and has no legal rights and cannot vote? When she is excluded from gaining skills she needs to earn money? When she cannot access healthcare when she is pregnant? When the police will do nothing if her husband beats her? When she is the face of global poverty? When the armed forces and the authorities are complicit in her rape and abuse? When she and her daughter must go hungry because it is more important that her husband and her son eat?

What's a girl worth? We know that the answer is "so much", but this is not a reality. Half the world. Made in God's image. As potential bearers of new life, the future of humanity. With the power to change society, change culture for the better, turn around economic problems, assure a better life for their families. With the power to lead, learn, educate, nurture, support, raise up, influence, complement, break boundaries and set the world alight - through being who they really are and doing what they were born to do. Not conforming needlessly, not suppressing and not laying aside their dreams.

How much are you making the girls and women in your life aware of their worth and helping them to achieve their best?

And I mean, REALLY? And it's got to be more than a few platitudes in a blog post or reading some article by a lifestyle guru. What's a girl worth to you? Do you truly believe she's worth investing in? How can you show her that she is worth so much more than gender stereotypes, than a second-class citizen, than her relationships with men? In a world that doesn't do this very well at all, we need more people to help girls understand and come to terms with their worth.

This post is a contribution for Tamara Out Loud's call for responses to the question "What's a girl worth?"

Further reading: The 10 Worst Places to Be A Woman and The 10 Best Places to Be A Woman.

Image via Samyra Serin's Flickr.