* * *

In his sniveling non-apology to Professor Mary Beard, who has recently been the victim of the DSMO hate mongers, White also stated: “We do not go out to be offensive”.

* * *

He then implied that the only reason Beard had seen the vile comments about her was because she’d obviously gone on to the Internet specifically to look for them.

* * *

According to White, the trolls at DSMO were never actually trolls in the true Internety sense of the word because they never went after anyone off the site. They didn’t for instance harass anyone on Twitter or Facebook; they all stayed safely within the confines of the DSMO comment threads.

* * *

Well, as I’m sure you’ll understand when you see the nearly two years worth of abuse and harassment I’m about to detail here, I read that Guardian interview with White with a mounting sense of disbelief.

* * *

In the piece I posted back in April 2011  - An Occupational Hazard? – in which I detailed the abuse I’d received on that site, I said:

“Of course I realise that by posting this piece I’m no doubt giving them enough ammunition to start the whole sick cycle off again, but so be it.”

And I was right: that’s exactly what they did.

* * *

In the comment thread under the original piece someone claiming to head the moderating team at DSMO posted what looked very much like an apology: “Firstly I wish to apologise to Cath if some of the comments did offend her” he said, “I, for one, will try to watch out for the comments that upset Cath so much, but such is the nature of some people on the internet I feel we can only do our small part to stop the maliciously intent.”

* * *

And yet two months later, in June 2011, just when I thought things were starting to die down over DSMOgate, here’s the comment that Richard ‘Ricardo’ White, the site owner remember, tried to post to this blog:

“Hi Cath

I just thought that I’d clarify that the semi-apology on this page didn’t come from me. I think maybe you thought it did.

For the avoidance of doubt, I wouldn’t apologise to you if I were tied to a chair and about to be beaten to death by a gaggle of your acolytes, armed to the teeth with heavy duty dildos.

You see, you’re in the criticism business and we all know you just love to dish it out. I’m in that business too and as any primary school child knows, if you dish it out, you have to be prepared to take it too. You seem to be unfamiliar with this concept.

I’ve been on the receiving end more times than you could imagine. Rightly so, too. Unlike you, I don’t expect never to be challenged. Does this bother me? I can honestly say, not one iota.

Your brand of hilarious left-wing nincompoopery is absolutely ripe for ridicule. You love to portray yourself as the victim, but you’re nothing of the sort. You and your fellow arch ‘Liberals’ are in truth the least liberal people on earth. You ruthlessly defend your own opinions and will not accept any criticism or suggestion that you may be wrong. Is this the free society you long for? Is freedom in Cathland purely selective? It would seem so. I imagine that, to you, Joseph Stalin was just a cuddly, misunderstood champion of the poor.

So here it is, Cath. I don’t give a shit if you’re offended. As long as you’re dishing it out, you’re going to be taking it too, whether you like it, or not. Now, polish those shoes, straighten that blazer and tie and get ready for assembly.”

And here are some more comments Richard White has tried to post to this blog since: these ones are from October 2011:

The two Cath Elliott pages on DSMO were taken down pretty quickly once the site owners realised how much bad publicity they were getting over them. However, in June 2011, after I’d made reference in a Comment is Free piece to the Internet hate I’d been experiencing, they set up another page about me – The DSMO Tucker Jenkins thread. Here’s a pdf of the cached page that I managed to grab when they took the site down the other day: if you want to read the whole thing you need to start from the bottom of the page and read up.

* * *

And here are some of the comments about me from that page and from other pages across the site:

Occasionally people would complain that the Cath Elliott pages had been removed. Here’s the moderator’s response to one of those complaints – the moderator of the site that let’s remember again “never set out to hurt anyone”

They knew I was keeping an eye on the thread because in my contribution to Helen Lewis’s New Statesman piece about online misogyny – “You should  have your tongue ripped out”: the reality of sexist abuse online – I made the mistake of quoting one of the comments from the DSMO Tucker Jenkins thread. So, they knew I was reading the comments, they knew I was now aware I was being referred to on the site as Tucker, and rather than take any of that down they instead took great pleasure in the hurt they knew they’d be causing.

* * *

During the nearly two years this has been going on I’ve had the occasional Tweet from Richard White: Tweets that have come totally out of the blue and as you can see have been unrelated to anything I’ve been tweeting about:

And it hasn’t just come from White. Here’s an exchange I had in August last year with @StephenBreen4, who posted on DSMO as ‘ebeneezer‘:

And here’s White’s response when Breen went onto the Tucker Jenkins thread to report back on my sweary response:

Sorry, what was it White said to the Guardian reporter about trolling?

* * *

The only decent thing the DSMOers have done for me in the last two years is not take the piss when my mum died. Yes seriously, I’m actually grateful to them for that. Imagine losing one of the most important people in your life, going through all the emotions that comes with grief, and at the same time having to worry that you’re going to click on to the Internet and find some bastard having a ‘joke’ about it.

* * *

To sum up then, Richard White is lying in the Guardian when he claims that he never set out to hurt anyone. And he’s lying when he says that it was self-contained, that everyone operated within the site and no-one from it ever trolled anyone.

* * *

Oh and finally, I’ve got a message for Richard ‘Ricardo’ White: all those comments you made about me deleting your contributions to my blog because I’m allegedly some kind of anti-free-speech fascist? As you can see, I never deleted anything, I just didn’t publish them until now. Because if there’s one thing I have learned from being a ‘leftie trade union cuntard’ or whatever the expression was, it’s if you ever find yourself the victim of  harassment, make sure to keep all the evidence.

In the piece QRG  uses up an awful lot of words to explain to the virulent misogynists who frequent the cesspit of hate that is A Voice for Men why she’s no longer a feminist – although evidence that she ever was a feminist is scant to say the least.

And look, I even get a mention in the piece:

“The list of well-known feminists who spend a good deal of their time and energy demonizing and putting down men is long. We all have our “favourites” – Amanda Marcotte, Melissa McEwan, Cath Elliott, Jill Filipovic and Gail Dines spring to mind. But I have found myself identifying the UK Guardian journalist Suzanne Moore as particularly guilty of misandry.”

*Bows*

I have to say though, if I managed to put only half the time and energy into ‘demonizing [sic] and putting down men’ – or fighting the good fight as I prefer to call it – as QRG puts into explaining to the world why and how she hates feminism so much, the patriarchy would have been dead in a ditch a long long time ago.

It’s the comments underneath the piece that I want to focus on though. Specifically this comment, from someone who calls himself Jean Valjean.

Here it is in all it’s glory:

“I wonder. . . If I were an Israeli who happened on a German who used to run the ovens at Auschwitz and he told me that he no longer hates Jews; how do you think I would react?

Congratulations. You’ve have an advanced degree in hatred that you now repudiate.

Here’s your cookie.”

Wow. Just wow.

Still, I’m sure Elly, Paul Elam and the rest of the brotherhood will rub along fine together now, despite that slight, erm, hiccup.

A quick glance through the hashtag feed (if you can stomach it) shows how rape culture is alive and well  in this country. It also shows how completely ignorant so many people are of the laws on rape, specifically the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and the statutory definition of consent that’s contained within it:

“Section 74 defines consent as “if s/he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice”.

The CPS provides this legal guidance on the issue of consent:

• The 2003 Act provides a clear definition of ‘consent’ for the purposes of the law of rape, and by defining it with reference to “capacity to make that choice”, it sufficiently addresses the issue of consent in the context of voluntary consumption of alcohol by the complainant;
• If, through drink (or for any other reason) the complainant has temporarily lost her capacity to choose whether to have intercourse on the relevant occasion, she is not consenting, and subject to questions about the defendant’s state of mind, if intercourse takes place, this would be rape.”

So, it couldn’t really be much clearer could it: if a woman is too drunk to consent to sex, then any intercourse that takes place is rape.

Sadly though, I suspect that even if we printed the legal definition of consent and the CPS guidance in sodding great neon letters and posted it on every billboard in the country, we’d still see a significant proportion of people claiming that a drunken victim of rape is simply a “slag”, and was “asking for” everything she got. Because despite all the hard work that’s going into dispelling rape myths such as this one – the one that says that women somehow “provoke” rape by their appearance or their behaviour, myths like these still prevail.

It never ceases to amaze me whenever I write about this subject how so many people are quick to jump in to try and deny the prevalence of these rape myths, or to deny that we do in fact live in a rape culture. Feminist writers are frequently accused of exaggerating the problem by discussing rape and sexual violence in such terms, or else we’re accused of putting women off from reporting rape and sexual violence by painting a wholly unrealistic picture of the reception they can expect to receive if they are brave enough to attempt to report the crimes perpetrated against them.

Well try telling that to the victim in the Ched Evans case, or to the women in the Assange case. Try telling that to Nafissatou Diallo, or to a host of other women who have taken just that step only to find themselves slut shamed and vilified, not only on social networking sites like Twitter, but in the mainstream media and in courtrooms the whole world over.

Because if anything is putting women off from reporting, if anything is making them think twice about seeking justice, it’s not feminists doing it, it’s the reception they see other women get when they try to do the same.

Ched Evans is now a convicted rapist, and yet he’s being bombed with messages of sympathy and support. His victim meanwhile is facing opprobrium and hate, for no other reason than she’s a woman who dared to try and seek justice for a crime that was committed against her.

There’s got to be something seriously wrong in our culture when the response to a crime can become so twisted in this way. And there’s got to be more that can be done to ensure not just that survivors seeking justice get all the support and help they need, but that anonymity for rape survivors means just that.

@stfumisogynists has documented a lot of the Twitter response to this case on the Little Tweets of Misogyny Tumblr (Trigger warning!)

The Rape Crisis National Freephone Helpline is open from 12-2.30pm & 7-9.30pm every day of the year: you can call them on 0808 802 9999

Now at the time I thought that Twitter account had something to do with Reece Wilkes, or if it wasn’t him, someone who was allied to the same MRAs as him. You know the ones I’m talking about, those men’s rights activists who are constantly bleating on about how white men are the only real oppressed group in society and how women have all the privilege and yada yada yada….

Well anyway, it turns out it isn’t young Reece behind the @MIN4MEN Twitter account, but Tom Martin. That’s the same Tom Martin who’s currently in the process of suing the LSE for sexism after allegedly ‘suffering’ “systemic anti-male discrimination” while studying for a masters in Gender, Media and Culture there. The same Tom Martin who’s also behind the @sexismbusters Twitter account.

It was Amity Reed who made the connection between Tom Martin and the Missing Minister in her recent F Word piece – On Tom Martin’s campaign to sue the LSE.

Reed remembers answering an online ad earlier this year “for a new website exploring gender issues and sexism”, and it turns out that Tom Martin was behind the ad. Reed had some correspondence with Martin about the work on offer, and says that Martin asked her to complete a writing exercise, which she did:

“It was only then that he outlined what the website and project were about, which was classed as ‘comedy’ and entailed a group of writers creating the ‘Missing Minister for Men – the world’s number 1 men’s rights activist’.”

Now understandably, given my earlier post about the Missing Minister, I was intrigued by Amity Reed’s F Word piece. So I’ve done some digging around on the Internet today, and I can now confirm that Tom Martin is indeed the person behind the Missing Minister account. Well, according to a discussion on the British Comedy Guide forum he is anyway.

The Missing Minister for Men?

And just in case that thread disappears, here’s a screen cap of the key comment:

(click on the image to make it bigger)

The comment is by someone else who had responded to the online ad, and the text says:

“Wow, it’s been a long while since I’ve been here… been too busy to come back and post anything.

Anyways, I did get an email from the guy, responding to me that I should apologise for calling him a douche or a bad guy. Well, I do apologise for making him appear dishonest and I appreciate him apologising to me for not letting me know if I had been selected or not, even if it took a bit long.

As for my defence, however, I have to say that being in a city like this where the competition is tough, it was easy for me to think that something like this might happen. I’ve heard of people stealing material just by going to some stand-up gigs and listening to comedians complaining about it. When I didn’t get any response and saw the same advert running again and again on gumtree, I felt I was being scammed.

Apparently, Tom Martin has launched his own Twitter feed for Min4Men (http://twitter.com/#!/MIN4MEN) so if anyone of you are interested in checking what he’s doing, feel free to go there and support him!

Best of luck to you, Tom!”

I’ve also managed to track down the google cache for one of the original ads that Tom Martin posted re his ‘Missing Ministry for Men’ ‘comedy’ group: We are the Missing Ministry for Men. Here’s the full text:

“We are The Missing Ministry for Men

Our comedy group’s mission, is to manufacture… The Missing Minister for Men – the world’s number 1 men’s rights activist.

The Missing Ministry (that’s us), will choose one of our number to become The Minister, whose remit and political direction, will be based on the following core set of guiding principles:

Truth-telling
Progressive
Gender Equality-driven
Secular/atheistic
Pacifistic
Environmental
Pro-choice
Pro-abortion
Pro-prostitution regulation
Anti Gold-digging
Pro-feminism
Anti victim-feminism
Pro-civility
Anti chivalry
Anti establishment
Pro racial integration
Anti sex segregation
Anti misandry/misogyny
Pro-capitalism.

Individual policies in line with these core principles will be decided democratically between the group.

All earnings and royalties will be split evenly between us too.

There may be deputy Minister(s) for Men, so lots of opportunities for any one of us to have a go.

The group is as non-hierarchical and supportive as possible.

The group will contain around six or seven members.

The group will be as gender-balanced as possible (so hermaphrodites particularly welcome).

Whilst perfecting our product, The Minister(s) will appear on gradually larger and more challenging stages. So we may start off with small, intimate media, but will be building towards widespread exposure when ready. The career path and merchandising opportunities for The Minister and Ministry will be decided by the group.

Our weekly brainstorming sessions will be filmed, as part of a making-of documentary, potentially appearing as extras, or as part of a feature in its own right. Each one of us will have the final say about release of such behind the scenes footage, leaving us free to take risks, and be as politically incorrect as we like in the creative process.

Men’s equality advocates traditionally receive a lot of flak, from women and men, so The Missing Minister for Men can expect to be heckled a great deal! This is all part of the fun, and the great news is, the heckles are extremely predictable. One of our initial tasks will be to familiarize ourselves with all the usual heckles, and develop some original and progressive-yet-hilarious come backs.

We are meeting every Monday, from 6.30 and 9.30pm, in a Central London bar’s upstairs room.

The best, most affordable long-term option might be someones very centrally located dining or kitchen table. Please make a suggestion about where you think the meetings should be held.

Over the next three months, we are mounting a street-based campaign, in conjunction with a website, to raise awareness and fighting funds, to help a man bring a sexual discrimination damages case against an elite university’s gender studies department, because he found its curriculum grounded in academic misandry – anti-male bias, rhetoric, propaganda, hostility, and anathema (typical across most media). A specialist lawyer and barrister believe the case is very strong, and await further instruction. The Equalities Commission has shown support too. This street stall campaign is designed to provide collaborators with an excellent opportunity to become fluent on all the main men’s equality issues (with all the reference materials to hand on the stall), and to interact with the public, and see what makes them laugh, lend their signatures, and donate their money. The stall will operate a day or two a week, on campuses around London, and collaborators will be free to pick and choose a daytime slot, for when they’d like to give it a go. These ‘customer’ interactions will also be filmed, and as well as being a great training ground for interactive stand up, will be high profile too, with both a Guardian and Daily Mail journalist expressing an early interest in covering the story, and other media, expected to follow in good time.

The whole premise of these collaborative opportunities might seem a bit new, odd, or even unrelated and alien to you, but rest assured, it is desirable for us to have some creatively antagonistic voices in the group too, as heated adversarial standpoints can generate great material.

The problems and inequalities men face, though sometimes hidden, are often universal, with repercussions for everyone, so The Missing Ministers’ appeal, impact, and marketability, can be universal too.

Please have a go at completing the following questionnaire in an honest, progressive and humourous way – using LESS than 20 words for each reply – so we can gauge your TRUE opinions on key gender issues, along with your COMEDIC voice(s):

1. What percentage of MPs should be women, and why?
2. What percentage of front line troops should be women, and why?
3. Why do women earn less per hour on average than men, and if you were in charge, what would you do about it?
4. How many weeks maternity and paternity leave should women and men be entitled to respectively, and why?
5. Should prostitution be legal or illegal? How can the current situation be improved?
6. Should porn be legal or illegal, and why?
7. Should the full-face veil be legal or illegal, and why?
8. Do you believe in aiming toward equality of opportunity for the sexes, or towards equality of outcome for the sexes too, and why?
9. Who should pay on the first date and why?
10. Name three gender issues you feel are too often overlooked, that we should be focusing on. How would you overcome these problems?

If up for it, then email with your completed answers and contact details including your telephone number, and a further short paragraph or two giving us an overview of any skills, experiences or connections you think relevant in light of this email – and I will phone to arrange a one on one meeting.

Thanks,

Tom”

That’s the first time I’ve seen Tom Martin claim that “The Equalities Commission has shown support“ for his case – I’d be interested to see the evidence for that…..

I have to say, for someone who claims to be a ‘feminist’, Tom Martin doesn’t half spend a lot of time hanging around MRA sites: more time than I do in fact. Here’s the ‘Action Alert’ he posted on anti-misandry.com in April for example (no, I’m not linking):

The text says:

“Gender Studies Lawsuit in London seeks MRAs for Fighting Fund Stall

A pro-equality MRA in London is bringing a damages claim against an elite university’s Gender department, for discriminating against him, and men in general, during a taught degree.
The case already has the support of a specialist lawyer and barrister, but requires funding.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join us, at an awareness-raising stall, which will be appearing on campuses around Central London.
Broadsheet newspapers have expressed an interest in covering the story, so we can expect the campaign to be high profile.
Interaction with the public will give MRA volunteers a great opportunity to perfect their stand up debating and persuasion skills, across the FULL range of men’s rights issues.
All interested in volunteering, should contact mrastandup-at-hotmail.com for more details.
This case is rock solid, so now is the time for up and coming MRAs to make a move.

Please contact mrastandup@hotmail.com for more details, and spread the word to any London-based MRAs you know.”

In his recent piece for Comment is Free, Tom Martin claimed that he “enrolled at LSE’s elite Gender Institute to learn how best to combat discrimination,” and yet he only managed to stay on the course for 6 weeks. Since he left the course however Martin appears to have spent virtually every waking moment courting his fellow MRAs and trying to raise funds to launch his court case.

Amity Reed asks “Is Tom Martin’s lawsuit against the London School of Economics for ‘anti-male bias’ a genuine complaint (however eyeroll-worthy and misguided)? Or an attack on feminism from a misogynist in progressive clothing?“

I think by now the answer’s pretty obvious.

I’ve been mulling over whether or not to post about this for a while now, just over a month in fact, but a discussion on Comment is Free yesterday finally persuaded me to go ahead with it.

The discussion was under Sunny Hundal’s piece about TubeCrush – The dubious joys of perving over fellow passengers online, where I questioned someone who claimed to find it odd that anyone would object to being photographed and having their photo uploaded to the Internet without their prior knowledge. I asked:

“Do you not think there’s an enormous difference between being looked at/appraised as you go about your business, and being photographed and that photo then being uploaded to the Internet for goodness knows how many people to perv over?”

To which the commenter then replied:

“Not really, no. I’m just as unaware of the attention so it impinges not one iota on my life. I mean, that’s your real picture as your avatar isn’t it? As is Ally’s and quite a few (primarily BTL) Ciffers and you suffer no angst from knowing x million people see it every day do you?”

It was my subsequent response that then got me thinking about this post, and that also got me questioning how and why I appear to have quietly accepted the heinous online abuse I was subjected to last month. I guess this post is me finally fighting back, as well as challenging my own sudden, entirely out of character submission to online misogyny.

Because I replied to the comment about me suffering no angst from having my photo online for anyone to look at with:

“Actually I have done, specifically when a website full of shits decided to reproduce it and discuss at length what a “munter” I am. But I (kind of) accept that as an occupational hazard, and I don’t agree that people who choose not to put themselves ‘out there’ should have to tolerate the same.”

I spent the rest of the evening thinking “really? Is that really what I think? That I should learn to suck this crap up as an occupational hazard?” And then I started to wonder when I’d started thinking like that, and why.

Is it for instance that I’ve become immune to the abuse after all this time? (the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’, as the rest of this post will make clear) Or is it that I’ve simply given up shouting about it and objecting to it because there’s just so much of it out there it now seems pointless trying to do anything about it?

Or is it, and I think this is closer to the truth, that I was more shaken by what happened in March than I’d realised, and that I actually let ‘them’ get to me this time?

So anyway, here without any further ado is what happened.

On March 15th I was alerted to a discussion that had been taking place about me on a site called ‘Don’t Start Me Off!’ (I’m not linking). So I went over there and had a look.

At the top of the page was my profile photo from CiF, with this posted underneath it:

“Reason it’s Annoying:
Stricly speaking – maybe this idiot should be posted on the Guardian RIA. But I feel this Tucker Jenkins look-a-like derserves her own nom. Where do I start? Nothing i could say could beat the Guardians mini-bio of her: “Cath Elliott is a feminist and a trade union activist. She is currently working in local government. She posts on Cif as Mswoman.”

And then came the comments:

“Today’s rant about the TUC march is particularly pathetic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/08/26-march… What an absolutely depressingly thick bell-end she is”

“Good nom. Another ugly, sex-is-negative, skater-arounder of Islam and lover of diversity whilst living in Norwich, puritanical feminist, who’s wormed her way onto the Grun’s commentariat payroll after bombarding its message board for years with stupid fucking comments. Biatch!”

“until i read your comment on the main page I honestly thought it was a chap. ffs”

“I know fuck all about this person. but one thing just jumps out at you with that picture! DEFINITE LESBIAN!”

“What a horrible looking cunt.”

“‘women,women,women’ that’s the only word she seems to use in that vid, another feminist who knows alot about nothing, only that she hates men so much she’s making every effort to look like one.” (this comment came after someone had posted a link to the video of me speaking at the Million Women Rise rally in Trafalgar Square last year).

Someone then put up the photo of me in hospital that was posted on this blog a couple of years ago when I had my hysterectomy, and commented:

“can someone put her back in hospital please”

Someone else asked:

“Is that picture in hospital after it had the Penis Grafting Surgery?”

And on and on it went:

“This cunt is needed in Holland, the fucking Dyke!”

“With a face like that, it looks like it needs milking!”

“Look at the pose in that photo. Either she’s stroking her goatee or she’s desperately trying to look intellectual. Or maybe both. Bastard.”

“I’m sick of seeing her ugly boy dyke butch spot beneath her right eye shit earinged face”

“Cath? Strange name for a Russian weightlifter”

“Stupid lefto-cunt bitch. She’s marching on the 26th : ‘protesting on the day and voicing our opposition to the government’s swingeing cuts.” When are these dumbass liberal fuckers going to realise a simple fact – we have spending cuts because Gordon the moron spent all the money, and what he didn’t spend he simply gave away to the banks, why can’t the lentil farting likes of this silly bitch and Laurie Penny get it through their thick dykey heads? Repeat after me… There.Is.No.Fucking.Money.Left.”

There were more comments in that vein, but I think by now you’ve probably got the picture. (I copied the entire thread to a word doc, which if you really want to you can see by clicking here)

Quite understandably I was pretty upset by the time I’d finished reading all that hate, so I went on to Twitter and put out these two tweets:

Wow, I just found my fan club – http://bit.ly/flNuYC—
  (@CathElliott) March 15, 2011

Actually that made me cry. I fucking hate the Internet sometimes.—
  (@CathElliott) March 15, 2011

Which in retrospect was probably my first mistake.

Some lovely people then went on to the site and posted in my defence (a belated thank you to those that did), but unfortunately that then alerted the bastards to the fact that I was reading the comments, and that they’d managed to upset me:

“We made her actually cry! This is a fucking great day for DSMO, Ricardo you should add it to the calendar and we can celebrate Bawling-Day on the 15th of March every year.”

“At least your blog is accurately named: http://toomuchtosayformyself.com/ I usually find that stuffing her mouth full of cock usually shuts women like you up.”

“Hello Tucker! I always wondered what happened to you after the Grange Hill gates closed! What a shame you didn’t learn anything while you were there. When I say anything, I really mean it. You literally know nothing about anything. You think you do, but you’re so misguided it’s quite extraordinary. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with being a feminist, but taking it to extremes simply damages the cause. I for one am delighted that women (those that are stupid enough to want to) have to fight on the front line and are about to end up paying more for their car insurance; this is what equality is all about. To pretend though, that the male of the species is somehow surplus to requirements is just stupid and looks like a terrible case of sour grapes on your part. If it weren’t for men, there would be almost nothing of the world you see around you. Now, I know you’re mentally protesting at this point, but really, deep down, you know it’s true. If men hadn’t existed (apart from the obvious procreation problems), there would be no housing as we know it, no aircraft, no space craft, no synthetic materials, no glasses or contact lenses, no finance, no discernible art, no cars, no science, no finance, no real economy and no Cath Elliott, spouting her anal seepage from your man invented Internet. Isn’t it about time you just said thank you and shut the fuck up for 5 minutes?”

I had quite a few responses on Twitter from people telling me that the comments on that site constituted hate speech, and that I should do something about it. I also had a couple of direct messages from people advising me to report the site to the company that hosts its servers.

So in the end, mea culpa, that’s what I did. And that was mistake number 2.

Here’s what I emailed to Rapid Switch, whose servers host the site in question:

“I would like to report the following website, which I believe is being hosted on your servers, for abusive content:

http ://www .dont -start-me-off .com /

This site was drawn to my attention today after the site owner posted a piece about me. The comments that have been published under that piece are not only hugely offensive, but they also constitute hate speech:

<Link to the thread>

Is it within the terms and conditions of your hosting policy that such blatant hate speech and homophobia are permitted?

I look forward to your response

Best wishes

Cath Elliott”

An email which I naively thought would land in a real life person’s inbox. But which didn’t, it ended up instead in some online Abuse Ticket automated system hell, which after a bit of toing and froing with me trying to identify the specific IP address of the site, was eventually sent to the site owner, Richard White. Who on being alerted to the complaint responded with:

“We have deleted the whole thread in question”

The abuse ticket is still online, you can see it here.

He then tweeted me this message:

@RicardoDSMO @CathElliott Glad you believe in freedom of speech, Cath. Typical arch leftie.—
Ricardo DSMO (@RicardoDSMO) March 15, 2011

and obviously then went back on to the site’s members only discussion forum to tell them all about what an anti free-speech fascist I am. (although please note that I never actually called for the thread to be removed, I simply questioned whether such hate speech fell within Rapid Switch’s hosting policy. It was Richard White who took the immediate decision to take the  thread down, no doubt because he realised that if I chose to escalate things and an actual human being from Rapid Switch took a look at his nasty hate-filled site he was in danger of losing the whole lot).

I had a snivelling email from the site’s moderator (who is probably also the site owner Richard White), saying:

“We have removed the whole thread on yourself rather than just removing individual comments. We get hundreds of comments a day so it is impossible to police the site totally until we receive a complaint. The thread was removed within minutes of us being made aware of the nature of some of the comments, and I trust that resolves the issue.”

And then Richard White or one of his acolytes set up another page about me, called ‘The “We Love Cath Elliott” Page’, with instructions that people were only to post nice comments about me.

Here’s a selection of some of them:

“she’s just so lovely in her objective and fair prose about men. Frankly it’s a damn shame she’s attracted to members of the same sex – by golly, if only she fancied men! Here’s still hoping… xxx”

“I had a wank thinking about her this morning, not over her looks or anything, that would be sexist and discriminatory against women and stuff, but a wank over her writings, opinions and politics. It was great.”

“I’ve booked myself into a Harley Street clinic to have some plastic surgery so I can look just like my idol. I hope it doesn’t come over as blasphemous to do something like this, but I must do something to make myself more Cath-like. I’ll be undergoing a bicep reduction operation and having a course of testosterone injections too. It’s expensive but I just know it’ll be worth it.”

“Funnily enough, I paid to see a consultant gender-alignment specialist recently for the same reason. A little squeamish, I asked the specialist what he would need to do to my cock to make me more like Cath, and he said lengthen it.”

“Cathy, baby: I’ve had some time to reflect on the deeply offensive comments posted – and thereafter rightfully removed – on this site earlier this week. I’ve also had time to research your unprejudiced journalism… and frankly I’ve been weeping in retrospect (well, my Jap’s eye has, anyway!). I am so sorry. The truth is, you know, I am a man, but sometimes I wish I was a dungaree-clad female who fancied the same sex (I didn’t want to be belligerent and use the term hirsute butch femme), because I would gobble you up like a starving tramp with an M&S food voucher – and I’m not even into anthropophagy, nudge-nudge, wink-wink! Quite simply, I’m falling head over heels in love with you, girl! Raymond Blanc once said he could “make a woman orgasm through his food”; your non-discrimonatory writing prose has exactly the same effect on me. I’m listening to Baz White’s Greatest Hits as I’m writing this… If there’s any hope for us, pleeeeeease let me know. xxx. “

“There are some who say that Cath Elliott does fuck all, writes about having done fuck all, and Tweets about having done fuck all, too. They believe that she is a lefty gobshite who has floated through life on the wind of vacuous, piss-all, never-done-a-hand’s-turn, never-will-do-a-hand’s-turn bollocks, and that she is just another twat who makes a living by spouting complete crap and acting like she’s actually contributed something worthwhile to the world. Whereas I love our Cath, and support her in all her lovely, Lefty, Lesbian activities.”

“Oh fuck! Not fucking her would be sacrilegious. Why one earth would she want to keep herself from the ravages of men, I’d love to pillage and rifle through her sexy apple gatherers.”

“I cracked one off thinking of our Cath’s devotion to left wing politics and minges today. God bless her.”

And on and on and on….

That page is still up and running, because to be honest it was at this point that I caved. Because I realised that it didn’t matter what I did next, the Internet is too fucking big for me to take on. And also because I’ve been around long enough to know that bullies like Richard ‘Ricardo’ White will always be able to find a way to make people like me feel like shit.

Of course I realise that by posting this piece I’m no doubt giving them enough ammunition to start the whole sick cycle off again, but so be it. Because while there’s probably sweet fuck all I can do about that site, I’m not prepared to just sit here and quietly take that kind of crap either. I’ve done that for a month now, and that’s long efuckingnuff for me to keep quiet about anything.

So, back to the question I posed myself at the beginning of this post. No, I don’t think I should have to put up with abuse like this and accept it as simply an “occupational hazard”. I *shouldn’t* have to, but I *do* have to, because I don’t see that I actually have any other option.

Unless of course any of you lot have got any suggestions?

Enjoy:

“Lol, afraid to post my posts. Typical scared little girls who can’t handle the truth, and you wonder why men don’t take you seriously, lol. Keep hiding in your “safe space” you dumb little victims, eventually we’ll smoke you little manipulators out, who are big enough to dish it out but not big enough to take it.

xxx you stupid femi-hag. Men don’t spawn children – women do. Women are greedy little fuck holes who exist to have children and raise them – evolution has determined this – and who are barely above the mental level of a child themselves. That is why men even keep women around – for fucking, for babies and caretaking duties – otherwise you are simply whiny, greedy, unproductive, manipulative, semi-child-like little parasites that have no other value. Also, in the age of feminism men don’t legally own our own sperm once we have ejaculated into you – women do – and they do with it as they choose. Your body, your choice, your responsibility. lol.”

I’m not sure what that ‘lol”s doing at the end there. Or the one at the beginning either. Perhaps the poor guy’s got a nervous tic or something.

The “Baby Machine” mothers who cost you £1m each year

According to the Express: “New figures show an increasing number of “baby-machine mums” are breeding huge families to get bigger and bigger state handouts.” The article goes on to detail examples of the large numbers of children some families are ‘choosing’ to have.

Now obviously this being the Express it’s not so much that some families are opting for 10 or more children that’s the problem, it’s the fact that some of those families are eligible for state benefits.

And their solution?

Stop giving them ‘handouts’ of course.

The Express doesn’t actually say it quite that explicitly though. What the ‘journalist’, Mark Reynolds, does instead is provide sound bites from some of those who do advocate restricting benefits as a solution to the ‘problem’ of families spawning passels of children:

But last night critics argued that the benefits system was acting as an incentive for some to have more children. Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “These statistics are shocking and show the need for urgent welfare reform.

“It is unfair for taxpayers to be asked to support people who have large numbers of children and no intention of providing for them.

“This is an extremely difficult area to take action in without making children pay for the irresponsibility of their parents.

“But it is important to recognise the injustice of expecting that taxpayers struggling to put food on the table for their own children should have to pay huge amounts in benefits to people who have a large number of children and make no attempt to support themselves or their offspring…..”

…..Simon Ross, chief executive of the Optimum Population Trust, which seeks to limit numbers in the UK, added: “We believe child benefit and family tax credit should be ­limited to the first two children.

“People should choose to have no more than two children. Those who have more are creating an environmental burden for the future.”

I particularly enjoyed this bit: “But those who air their views on the issue have sometimes found themselves in hot water with the politically correct brigade.

Former Tory chairman Howard Flight was forced to apologise after recently suggesting: “Middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s expensive. But for those on benefits, there is every incentive. That’s not sensible.”

Damn that ‘politically correct brigade‘ that tries to stop the Express and its ilk stereotyping lazy feckless sponging breeders! And damn those bloody pc gaawn mad lefties who think stopping peoples’ benefits and forcing even more children into poverty is a pretty shitty way for society to behave towards its young.

Yeah, whatever.

Apart from the obnoxious display of classism in that piece though, what I was really struck by was the misogyny, in both the article and in the comments that follow it. Papers like the Express don’t have an issue with nice middle class women getting pregnant, in fact I’m guessing that much like the Daily Mail they believe that that’s the natural order of things and something to be celebrated. But once the underclass starts ‘breeding’ the world’s coming to a fucking end or something. Suddenly women aren’t women, they’re “baby machines”, “rabbit-like”, and “brood mares.” And as for immigrants:

“It is time to limit benefits to two children, but I doubt if this government has the guts to do this. No wonder the hospitals are full of migrants having babies, I am sure they cannot believe how much money they receive.”

Froths one commenter. While someone logged in as Simple Answer (he got the first bit right anyway) says:

“Limit benefits to a normal sized native Brit family. This would also rule out the rabbit like immigrants.”

And how about these charming comments:

“Sterilse these women – but get the feckless males who inseminated them as well. These men should be paying for their pleasure, not the taxpayer.”

“These brood Mares are more dangerous to our society than Baroness Wasi’s peaceful Muslims, even the celibate Pope is sanctioning birth control ,these feckless animals should be compulsory spayed .”

“Those on benefits having large numbers of children are basically too stupid to have kids.

It should become compulsory to sterilize a woman who is that stupid.”

“Why does not the state sterilise the women for the sake of the children concerned and please dont give me any crap about Human Rights etc etc etc. There is the issue of the Pathetic Human Rights of the kids? Definitely family allowance should be stopped after the first 2. Are all these women British???????”

Are they?? Well, are they??

As for on the Internet itself. Well, these (unpublished) comments were submitted under this piece on Xmas eve:

“There’s too many ugly man-hatin’ lezbeens a-wailing an’ a bitchin’ in this-a- here forum.
Probbly smell worse’n ma mule after a week a’ hauling hoss-manure.
Guess ah’ll mosey along -find me some nice-smellin, nice -lookin gals that don’t sound like rattlers hissin. Hell, rattlers got more sense and ain’t nowheres near as pizenous!
Yee Haw!”

“ps.
You scrivened: “Linda et al. Don’t bother spending hours composing any more comments for this thread, because they either won’t get through, or I will delete them. My blog my rules: now run along and go and play somewhere else”
Typical femi-Nazi horse-shit- -”my mind’s made up, don’t bother me with the truth” -and don’t let anyone else know either, eh, Cath?
No wonder Western men are choosing not to marry sour, self-centred witches like you. Your blog sucks.”

“Charming,” I thought, “and a happy Xmas to you too George, whoever you are.”

Then last night I discovered I was being followed on Twitter by someone calling themselves The Missing Minister: “The Missing Minister for Men here, with the hottest sex equality issues and angles the mainstream media won’t touch, from the front line of gender politics.”

Here’s their tweet stream, but be warned, they’re a nasty fucker, whoever they are – @MIN4MEN

Take this tweet for example:

Now ordinarily I would do my best to ignore shit like this. After all, why give whoever is behind this the oxygen of publicity and all that?

But then something about “The Missing Minister for men” rang a bell. And I remembered Reece Wilkes.

In November 2009 I wrote about 16 year old budding MRA Wilkes and his interview with the then Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague. During the interview Wilkes had asked Hague why there “couldn’t be a minister for equality who could deal with both men’s and women’s issues instead of there just being a minister for women.” But as I and others were quick to point out, there was at the time (and there is now) a minister who fulfils precisely that role: the Minister for Women and Equalities. In November 2009 it was Harriet Harman; now it’s Theresa May

Here the original article – Sticking to the MRA script

And here’s a link to Wilkes’ interview on the radio show Mens Matters on Express FM. Yes, that radio show, the Mens Matters radio show that’s hosted by none other than Portsmouth Tory Councillor James Williams. It’s a small world isn’t it!

Anyway, my article prompted the usual bile from Men’s Rights Activists, including this heartwarming comment that was posted on a thread at antimisandry.com:

“I can’t believe this, I’m not taking the word of a fat flabby-arsed woman who ridicules and mocks a 16 year old young man whose only want is equality, he has not suggested women “lose out” in any way, just that men be treated as fairly as women, he’s not exactly asking for much, yet this vile specimen mocks the young guy? She’s a fucking cretin, and I doubt there would be a man who would write such bile about a young woman who only wanted to be treated fairly, she’s a disgusting pig who, strangely enough, looks like an extremely ugly gay man who is riddled with AIDS, how unfortunate for her scabby arse, looking like that she’ll be unable to land a man or a woman, even a repulsive one.”

Then in October 2010, Reece Wilkes got in touch with me via email. He had, he said, written a “dissertation“, which he thought I might find an “interesting” “new addition” to current research. He suggested I keep an eye out for it, as he would shortly be posting it on the Internet. I emailed him back to thank him, and assured him I would do just that.

Then November came, and with it another email from the now 17 year old Wilkes, this time with a link to said “dissertation.”

I read it.

And I decided to ignore it.

It would be too cruel to young Reece, I thought, to submit his work for critique to the readers of this blog.

But what the hell. If Wilkes isn’t behind the vile @MIN4MEN Twitter account, he’s most certainly allied with those who are.

So here’s the “dissertation“. Enjoy!

Well, not only does it turn out that Forsaken isn’t actually a charity, yet, I can also confirm, having finally got my sticky hands on a copy of their publication, that Dorries was also wrong/lying/dissembling when she described the organisation as “neither pro-life nor pro-choice: it is pro-women.“

Because it’s not, it’s really really not; it’s pro-life.

The first clue to where the organisation stands on this issue comes with the book’s preface, which has been contributed by Margaret Cuthill ( Bio from a pro-life conference she spoke at earlier this year – “Margaret Cuthill is a Post Abortion Recovery Counsellor. She has been working as a full time counsellor for British Victims of Abortion for 19 years“) from A.R.C.H Trust. That’s the A.R.C.H Trust that, as Polly pointed out in the previous thread on this, believes that anyone and everyone who’s ever been near a woman who’s had an abortion is at risk of catching the dreaded “after abortion trauma“:

If you have experienced an abortion, or been involved with someone who has, you may be struggling to come to peace with that decision. Many are affected by after abortion trauma:

• the woman who had the abortion,
• the person who paid for an abortion
• children that were told their lives would be easier because a younger sibling was aborted
• the friend who drove a woman to the clinic pregnant, and back home “un” pregnant
• the dad whose wife/girlfriend chose abortion against his better judgment, consent or even without his knowledge
• a school counsellor who scheduled the appointment
• the grandparent who talked, supported or drove their daughter to the abortion or may not even had known of their son/daughter’s pregnancy.
• a family member, friend, counsellor or clergy, who tried to talk a mother/father out of an abortion, and failed
• the nurse, clinic worker or abortion doctor who later regrets their participation in taking the lives of the unborn

Any of these people might suffer from after abortion trauma. YOU could suffer too! For many, emotions surface after the abortion experience, due to unresolved psychological, physical and spiritual aspects. Symptoms are similar to those in any post traumatic stress disorder.

Or the “ZOMG I’m tainted with the mark of the baby killer!!!” disease as it’s alternatively known by the religious right, in an entirely non-judgemental-not-trying-to-guilt-trip-women-in-any-kind-of-way kind of way.

In the introduction the mystery unnamed editors tell us:

“This book is about the reality of post abortion. The women who suffer in this way tend to feel forsaken, unable to express what they are suffering.“

and the book then continues with the tragic heart-breaking true-life stories of women who’ve had abortions, and who’ve gone on to regret it, but who’ve all then managed to finally find peace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

Awwww.

So basically, in a nutshell, the stories in this book/pamphlet/anti-abortion-religious-tract boil down to: I was young. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had an abortion. I lived to regret it. But then I found Jesus. The end.

And then, just in case the happy-clappiness message of the book has managed to entirely escape the unsuspecting reader, the women’s stories are followed with this lovely, entirely non-judgemental Bible passage:

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent (wo) man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.
The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
1 Timothy 1:12-17

Pete Doherty’s post abortion syndrome definition then follows, and the book ends with a list of two “National Organisations” which offer support to tainted fallen sinners who carry the mark of the baby-killer – A.R.C.H. Trust and Care Confidential, which are both, as we’ve already ascertained, pro-life anti-abortion organisations.

So, to get back to Dorries’s original statement to the House that Forsaken is “neither pro-life nor pro-choice: it is pro-women“. Remember when she said this to the parliamentary commissioner for standards: “I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another“?

She really wasn’t lying. For a change.

All things considered though, it’s probably for the best.

Anyway, here’s the comment in full, under this article on today’s fantastic news that the Coalition has now dropped plans to grant anonymity to defendants in rape cases:

Yep, apparently “the facts” show that over 90% of women are evil lying scheming bitchez. And when we’re done stitching up innocent men with our false accusations of rape, off we pootle in our women-only trains to our women-only clubs and gyms, courtesy of course of all that dosh we’ve managed to rip off from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.

It’s no wonder THIS COUNTRY IS AT IT’S END.

Were finished!!!!

Indeed, as it says on my old Wapping dispute* badge: “Murdoch is bad news.”

As are the Tories of course.

When the Wapping dispute started back in 1986 I was neither a print worker nor a journalist. Instead I was a young Labour Party and trade union activist; so when the call went out for comrades to come down to London and show solidarity with the sacked print workers, I was one of the first into the back of the transit van.

And that’s one of my enduring memories of that dispute: Saturday nights in the back of a transit van; barrelling down the M1; sneaking into London, and then parking up on some side road in Tower Hamlets, all the while hoping and praying that we wouldn’t get pulled over by the police.

Back then I suppose I was part of what the right-wing press liked to call the rent-a-mob crowd, even though I wasn’t there looking for trouble: I was simply another trade unionist doing my bit to stand up for workers’ rights. As were the majority of other people who got involved in that dispute.

You wouldn’t know that from reading Murdoch’s papers though. Indeed, after one memorable night which saw us charged at by riot horses, beaten with truncheons, and generally subjected to some of the most brutal police tactics I’ve ever seen, the Sun chose to run with this:

To them, the trade unionists were nothing more than a mobof “leftie extremists,” out to wreak havoc and destroy the state.

And yet here’s the Guardian’s headline, from the same date:

And here’s John Pilger:

“The dimension of the unseen human tragedy was shocking. We had people who came with their families, their children; they wanted to take part in a peaceful demonstration. They wanted to say to Murdoch, “You’ve not only done this to me, you’ve done it to my wife and kids.” But the Metropolitan Police clearly had other instructions. They were there to protect the newspapers, to see that Murdoch got the Sun out, and the rest of his publications. We called them “paper boys”, and that was exactly what they were.

‘To achieve this, they acted in a most brutal way – as the subsequent inquiries confirmed. I saw many people deliberately beaten up by the so-called riot police. The journalists who came along were shocked by what they saw. The police went for decent, straightforward trade unionists as if it was a civil war situation. One of our people was killed by one of Murdoch’s lorries, and the lorry didn’t even bother to stop. There were several nervous breakdowns. Marriages broke up. Strong men I knew, and I don’t mean physically strong, but men with leadership, turned bitter. It broke them. People entitled to unemployment benefit didn’t receive it. I’m not only talking just about the relatively well paid, but cleaners, canteen workers, who outnumbered the printers four to one – It was as if the British state had joined forces with Murdoch against us . . .’

Indeed it was.

But anyway, back to Murdoch and his history of trying to swing an election in his favour. Here’s the Sun’s editorial from the 5th May 1986, again, the day after the event I’ve described above:

The Beast at the gate

Neil Kinnock is after your vote

With local polls and a couple of by-elections looming, he has been desperately seeking to give Labour a new face – moderate, responsible, respectable.

Even the colour red has been dropped from party platforms. But another face of Labour was on display this weekend, and it was ugly, envious and hate filled.

The Sun can tell you all about it

Outside our printing plant was a howling, jostling mob of some 7,000 so-called pickets.

Protection

Their purpose was to deny this company its legal right to carry on its business, and to deny hundreds of workers their legal right to earn a living.

But for the protection of the police, they would undoubtedly have stormed the building.

In their frustration, they hurled smoke-bombs and pelted police with every kind of missile.

175 officers were injured.

Labour MP Tony Benn was at the riot. According to him, what happened was a “police attack on a peaceful meeting.”‘

If you are waiting for Mr Kinnock or any other Labour leader to denounce this grotesque and wicked travesty of the truth, you will wait a long time.

For the past three months they have been actively encouraging the campaign of blackmail and intimidation against us.

Mr Kinnock has never had the courage to denounce the violence, just as he never dared to denounce the violence of the miners’ strike until Arthur Scargill was safely defeated.

In office, what would Labour do about the thugs of industry?

Again, we can tell you.

Mr Kinnock’ss side-kick, Roy Hattersley, has been down on his knees to the union bosses.

In return for their support, Labour would scrap the laws which allow companies to run their businesses and workers to decide where they take employment.

Law and order? That would be in the hands of Gerald Kaufman as the socialist Home Secretary.

We can also tell you about Mr Kaufman.

His first instinct when there is trouble – whether in factories or in high immigrant areas – is to put all the blame on the police.

Vote Labour? Vote for riots and anarchy?

We hope that the beast at the gate will be a terrible warning to you. Please don’t be fooled!

It makes today’s efforts seem almost tame in comparison doesn’t it?

But that’s Murdoch for you: the shite his papers are spewing today is simply the same old same old shite they’ve always spewed.

And as for “the beast at the gate.” I think we all know who that is.

Vote against Murdoch on May 6th. Keep the Tories out!

—————

*Click here to see Wapping and the Wire, a film about the dispute that’s hosted on the Socialist Party website, and that was filmed on the one-year anniversary – it’s about 25 minutes long, so if you haven’t got time to watch it all, fast forward to around 17 minutes 47 seconds in, where you’ll see Tony Benn’s reaction to the police brutality going on in the background. And yes, I was there that night as well.

It’s bizarre I know, but it seems the meeja may have finally woken up to the fact that it needs to focus on more important things than what Sarah or “SamCam” have  been wearing. It may have finally got the message that people are tired/bored/thoughly pissed off with reading superficial nonsense about the latest “Cameron cutie” or about which party leader so-called “Lambrini Ladies” would prefer to snog.

But whatever the cause of this abrupt about-turn in the election coverage, whether it’s Clegg or Eyjafjallajokull,  I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I for one am immensely grateful. In fact I’ll be glad if I never have to write another election sexism post again.

I really hope I’m not being unduly optimistic here, counting my chickens before they’re hatched and all that. After all, there’s still a couple of weeks to go. But if things do carry on the way they have over the past few days, it looks as though my job here might actually be done.

Fingers crossed!

**Apart from The Daily Mail obviously, which will no doubt continue with its sexist shite coverage right up to polling day and beyond.

Here, for example, is Jan Moir on Cherie Blair:

“Just when the Labour Party start to claw back the Tory lead in the polls and entertain the idea that they might win again  -  enter the dragon.

Almost three years to the day since she left Downing Street for the last time, cackling to the British media that she would not miss them….”

And here’s Liz Jones being, well, Liz Jones, and hating on everyone but Liz Jones:

“Never mind David Cameron’s face on that poster, his life is airbrushed. Married life is not like this.

And I can’t help but wonder what is being left undone while these women wander about the countryside wearing navy LK Bennett courts.

Can’t you see Sarah Brown’s brain whirring away, wondering if she put the dark wash in the dryer?”

Oh, and here’s The Sun. Talking gibberish. Prizes for anyone who can tell me what the fuck this headline even means:

Sam ‘n get it while it’s hot

*If you see any glaring examples of sexist shite during the  General Election campaign that you think I may have missed,  feel free to email them to me at cathryne_1999 at hotmail.co.uk

This was the week when, much to the collective faux outrage of the tabloids, the young woman who was tasked with the job of introducing Gordon Brown at the launch of Labour’s manifesto, was discovered to have written something once on the Internet that wasn’t entirely supportive of him. “How very dare she!” frothed the hacks (and the right-wing bloggers), as they all worked furiously to try and spin a story out of sweet FA. “Quick everyone, to her Facebook page, let’s see what else we can turn up!”

Here’s the Mail’s first take on the non-story:

The Stillettoed Socialist: Brown introduced by glamorous Labour activist…who didn’t even want him to be PM

“The glamorous activist who introduced Labour’s manifesto has previously called for the violent death of Margaret Thatcher and for Gordon Brown to be removed as Prime Minister.”

And here’s their second shot at it, again by Kirsty Walker, but 12 hours later and with that spelling error sorted out :

The glamorous “Stilettoed Socialist” who said: Gordon Brown must go

“A glamorous young activist who introduced Mr Brown to the crowd at Labour’s manifesto launch in Birmingham has previously called for him to be removed as Prime Minister, and for the violent death of Baroness Thatcher.”

And here’s the Sun:

Brown, get your coat

“THE glamorous blogger who gave a gushing introduction to Labour’s manifesto launch once called on Gordon Brown to QUIT, it emerged last night.”

And their front page link to the story…

“Labour cutie”? C’mon Sun, that’s feeble! Where’s the alliteration in that?

Of course it wasn’t just the Mail and the Sun that covered this one: in fact once everyone realised that both Ian Dale and Guido Fawkes had posted about it, the story of @BevaniteEllie’s previous disaffection with Brown was all over the meeja, including in both the Times and the Guardian.

And the Telegraph:

Labour supporter who introduced Gordon Brown at manifesto launch wanted him to quit

and the Telegraph again:

Why are socialists like Ellie Gellard so posh?

“Ellie Gellard – the pretty young Labour supporter splashed all over today’s front pages…..”

and the Telegraph again:

Gordon Brown’s girl Ellie Gellard has passion for Tory Louise Bagshawe

But it’s sexism we’re here to talk about, and while obsessing about the behaviour of a “pretty” “glamorous” young woman, and trying to squeeze every last ounce out of a non-story purely on the basis that the person concerned is young, female and attractive is obviously one form of it, for unadulterated, full-blown, not-even-trying-to pretend-it’s-anything-else sexism, in all its misogynist glory, have a read of the comment thread at Guido Fawkes’ Blog:

Ellie didn’t always talk out of her arse

Or alternatively, if like me you can already predict the kind of sexist shite* you’re going to find over there, don’t bother.

Anyway, away from Ellie Gellard, the bizarre fetishising over the state of the “first wives’” feet continued apace. Here’s Jan Moir:

Samantha Cameron shows off gothic toenails and growing bump

“With its funereal connotations, it is more associated with rock stars than politician’s wives.

But joining her husband yesterday, Samantha Cameron wore black nail polish on her toes – just visible through her high-heeled wedges – perhaps proving that little has changed since her teenage goth phase…..

….While Mrs Cameron’s wedges showed her well-manicured feet to perfection, the same could not be said for that state of Sarah Brown’s toes – which she was unable to hide from the cameras while on a visit to a Hindu temple on Sunday.”

The Guardian, meanwhile, has found some “great summer sandals” for Sarah Brown “with friendly coverage”

Here’s the text again:

And finally back to the Telegraph, which reckons that Cameron’s manifesto launch yesterday was all about trying to appeal to women voters:

General Election 2010: David Cameron reaches out to women voters

According to Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor, it wasn’t just the allegedly family friendly policies in the Tory manifesto that were geared towards female voters, but the whole manifesto launch itself. According to Winnett, this was evidenced in particular by the fact that “The Conservative leader was surrounded by women at the event.”

Which is strange, because in the picture they’ve used to illustrate that statement I can only see three women: I can however see lots and lots of men in grey suits….

Oh yes, and for added Telegraph joy, if you hover your mouse over that pic you’ll see it’s been tagged with “ladies-man”. And just for the record, it wasn’t me wot done it, it was them.

*If you see any glaring examples of sexist shite during the  General Election campaign that you think I may have missed,  feel free to email them to me at cathryne_1999 at hotmail.co.uk

“She is the wife of a politician, emphatically not a politician’s wife.”

“Excellent”, you’re probably thinking, “that’s more like it.”

And indeed it would be, if only someone hadn’t decided to title the piece:

Winning the vote, Nick Clegg’s wife is getting on with working life

And if the writers of the above quote hadn’t gone on to say:

“She is the wife of a politician, emphatically not a politician’s wife. Miriam González Durántez — Mrs Nick Clegg — has proved to be a huge election asset to the Liberal Democrat leader, simply by staying away.”

Still, at least Jan Moir has finally got the message. Here’s an extract from her latest “War of the Wives” piece:

“Miriam Gonzalez Durantez came out of her self-imposed political purdah at the weekend to join husband Nick Clegg on the campaign trail. Was this entirely wise?”

Shame about the racism though:

War of the Wives: Now pass me that boulder, compadre

Oh yes, and the sexism:

‘I know all the cows by name,’ said Miriam, in an aside to her husband which the television microphones picked up. Not the friendliest way, perhaps, to refer to her Sam and Sarah wifely rivals, but we all understand that these are testing times.”

And then of course, there’s this:

“Indeed, over another busy-bee weekend, unofficial Mrs Brown unofficially accompanied her husband to his Scottish constituency and also attended a women’s conference at Neasden Temple in North London.

There, walking barefoot on the red carpet as Hindu tradition demands, she proved that she is the kind of serious-minded woman who is too busy to stuff a mushroom or have a pedicure; practically the same thing, judging by the grim hooves on display.”

Which, just in case you missed it, relates to this abomination of an article that went up on the Mail site last night:

You’re supposed to put your BEST foot forward, Sarah: The Prime Minister’s wife exposes her rather unsightly toes during a visit to Temple

And which the Mail was flagging up on their front page with this:

Urgh! Just Urgh! I’m really beginning to wish I could just ignore the Mail. Unfortunately I can’t though, as it’s  proving to be the main source of sexist shite* election coverage…..

Although, having said that, how about this one from the Daily Star:

Beware a dose of David Cameron

“VOTING for David Cameron is like sleeping with a tart in Amsterdam. There’s a slim chance it’d be great and a huge chance it could ruin your life. He will do anything to get you in bed with him – but he doesn’t care about you.”

Or this one:

Gordon Brown is the party leader women least want to snog

Or this one, from the Mirror:

‘David Cameron cutie’ Deborah Dunleavy had fling with boss

“A “Cameron Cutie” has been exposed for having a relationship with her boss behind her husband’s back.

Blonde Deborah Dunleavy, 47, who has been chosen by David Cameron to contest Bolton North East and campaigned with him last week, was caught with her boss Mark Summerfield by a private detective hired by hubby Michael Grisenthwaite, 46.”

Meanwhile, continuing with last week’s theme of “who really gives a shit what these women wear?” here’s Laura Craik, Fashion Editor of the Evening Standard:

Sarah and Sam give their grey men substance

“Here come the girls, all right, their eyes shimmering pools of devotion and their hands lovingly entwined in their husbands’. Were there ever two more perfect marriages than these?

And were there ever two more stylish women? For years, fashion was treated like the special needs subject on every national newspaper: a dumb interest for dumb people, tolerated by editors because of the sexy photo opportunities it trailed in its wake.

So it is gratifying that there now seems to be a genuine interest in what Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron are wearing, and an acceptance that, like their education or their career choices, their clothes are a valid part of who they are and what they stand for.”

According to The Centre for Women and Democracy, this media obsession with political women’s clothing choices is all down to one woman (it had to be a woman, didn’t it?), Vera Woodhouse, Lady Terrington, who was elected in December 1923 as the Liberal MP for Wycombe. Apparently Lady Terrington sued the Daily Express for “depicting her as a ‘vain, frivolous and extravagant women’” after it ran a profile of her under the headline ‘Aim If Elected – Furs and Pearls’.

“The case went to trial and she lost, mainly because of what she actually had said, but also because the jury took the view that what women in politics wore was a matter of public interest.

Vera Terrington lost her seat in 1924, and although she stood again in 1925 she was not successful. She disappeared into private life, but remains of note because of her libel suit, the outcome of which women politicians still have to live with today.”

So there you go: now we know who to blame for all this crap.

A reader, Jenny, emailed me about this next one, and while it’s not exactly an example of election sexism, or at least, it’s not in the same vein as all the “War of the wives” nonsense, well, I’ll let her explain the problem:

“On the Labour ‘Winning for Women’ website, they have a section on Labour Women’s History. Despite the rich and varied history of women in Labour, what they’ve actually done, is pick out two women – albeit pretty important ones – and write about them and them alone. From that page, one might imagine that there have only been two important women in the Labour party, ever.

Fair play for noting that there has been some history of women in Labour politics but, um, I do rather question the treatment of it.”

And here’s the link:

Labour Women’s History

Or alternatively: Is that it? Is that really the best they can do?

And finally for this edition, in a slight change from the usual format, haven’t we been hearing some right old sexist shite from the Conservative Party in the last few days?

Ruth Sunderland in yesterday’s Observer, for example, has it spot on when she says that: The Tories’ marriage tax allowance puts women firmly back in the Fifties

and as for David Cameron’s attack on a woman’s right to choose:

David Cameron says abortion limit should be lowered

I think Kate said it best on Twitter:

*If you see any glaring examples of sexist shite during the  General Election campaign that you think I may have missed,  feel free to email them to me at cathryne_1999 at hotmail.co.uk

Much to the combined frustration of just about everyone everywhere (well okay, me and some of my friends, and the handful of people who read this blog) the Mail is still banging on about the (mythical, entirely invented by journos) “war of the wives”.

First up it’s Jan Moir, who appears to have landed the role as the Mail’s principal “first wives” correspondent:

War of the wives: Sam goes solo…but did she really need to call on Daddy?

“Of course, Tory wives have never seen a Tory wife quite like Sam. No wonder the grassroots matrons disapprove of her and her fancy Notting Hill ways.

Out on the stump yesterday, Mrs Cameron’s dress-down outfit of skinny jeans and cotton jacket spoke of the high street and affordability, not of privilege and expense. Or twin sets and blue rinses.

That won’t have gone down well with the old guard. And traditionally, Tory wives are there to make the sandwiches and keep their opinions to themselves.”

and then there’s Maysa Rawi:

War of the wives: SamCam dresses down for her solo election debut  as Sarah Brown lays on the style

“She might be the creative director of a luxury leather goods brand, but Samantha Cameron appears to be trying desperately hard to go unnoticed in the fashion department.

After two days on the campaign trail, the Tory leader’s ‘Secret Weapon’ wife, who works for Bond Street-based Smythson, appears to be playing it safe with an unusually underwhelming wardrobe.

Meanwhile, Sarah Brown continues to find her fashion footing. After a shaky start, the Prime Minister’s wife got it right today as she met Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick in east London.”

And how about this little comment, at the end of a piece where they plug the above article:

“By the way, the MailOnline is an equal opportunity blogger, so if you’d like to add your own view on who looks best out of Sam and Sarah, feel free to add a reader comment (even if you’re a man).”

Seriously, does anyone besides the press actually give a shit what these women wear? Or who looks best out of Sam and Sarah?

Well, unfortunately, even the Guardian hasn’t been able to resist joining in this nonsensical “first wives” fashion debate. Here’s Imogen Fox:

Stylewatch: the campaign cardigan

“Day two and Sarah Brown’s election wardrobe seems to be heavily reliant on the plain coloured cardigan. Yesterday’s version was lime yellow with a round neck, while on Tuesday she showcased a powder violet version from Reiss, styled with a narrow leather belt….

….A “normal” cardigan is totally on message, a boyfriend blazer as worn by Sam Cam would be far too fashion for Brown right now. A real pity because Brown has proven that she has an eye for a good designer label. It is too early for Brown to lose faith with the campaign cardigan, but to boost her style rating she needs to button it up and add a much wider leather belt for definition.”

Someone. Just. Shoot. Me. Now.

And here’s one I missed from the Telegraph a couple of days ago:

Chic maternity solutions for Samantha Cameron

“Last week, a blooming Samantha Cameron was spotted in a brown Harrison dress, statement necklace and patent pumps. A million pregnant women gazed at that photo – and debated whether to cry or have another slice of cake.”

A reader sent me this next one, and what a joy it is. Here’s Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard:

Snog, Marry, Avoid – early verdicts for Brown, Cam, Clegg

“The folks at Nottingham University’s School of Politics and International Relations have been doing some research.

In particular, they have been studying the political views of women aged 24-35 and on lower incomes. This particular group, dubbed the Lambrini Ladies (much to the irritation of Dizzy yesterday), are described as:

“Young, female and feisty…represents the millions of British women who have views but don’t vote….despite their reluctance to take to the polls, these women are far from ignorant about policy”….

…..When asked if they would ‘snog’ (yes, nice and polite version of the usual trio), ‘marry’ or ‘avoid’ the leaders of the main political parties, the results were as follows….”

So the appallingly named “Lambrini Ladies” are “far from ignorant about policy”, and yet the only part of the research Waugh is interested in reporting is the bit that totally and utterly trivialises them. Nice one.

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Jon Sopel tweeted this little gem yesterday afternoon (thanks Justin!):

Ah yes, Denis McShane’s other half. What’sername again?

Although to give him (some) credit, he quickly followed it up with this:

Nice save there Jon. Although maybe next time you might want to try and put a little bit more conviction behind it.

And was I the only one who spotted the caption the BBC put up during their interview with Miriam Gonzalez Durantez yesterday afternoon? (and yes, mea culpa, I did refer to her as Miriam Clegg in yesterday’s post. Personally, I blame the Daily Mail).

Anyway, for those who missed it, in big bold lettering under her name, the beeb’s caption read:

Nick Clegg’s wife

Perhaps Jon Sopel could have a quiet word, and remind his bosses that “the women exist in their own right and are not defined by their husbands”….

Right, that’s it for this edition. Now for the sake of my sanity, and because I do actually have a life (honestly, I really do), I’ll be taking a break ( arf, “take a break women”, geddit?) over the weekend. But rest assured, I’ll be back with what I expect to be a bumper crop on Monday.

*If you see any glaring examples of sexist shite during the  General Election campaign that you think I may have missed,  feel free to email them to me at cathryne_1999 at hotmail.co.uk

Here’s Amanda Platell in today’s Mail:

Have Cameron’s cuties really got what it takes to transform politics?

“As a study of female ambition it’s worthy of a Vanity Fair picture spread: the Tories proudly parading their latest clutch of female candidates in a glossy photoshoot.

These are Dave’s Dolls, the real women he’s promoted and, in some cases, selected, to fight and win safe Conservative seats in the General Election. And what a fascinating bunch they are. No twin sets and pearls here.

Some blue blood, but not a blue rinse in sight, they are his new fighting force; the secret weapon with which he believes he will win the war.”

Cameron’s cuties, Dave’s dolls: Amanda Platell is  Shakespeare and I claim my 5 groats!

Jan Moir, writing in the same paper, reckons that the (mythical, entirely invented by journos) “war of the wives” is starting to hot up:

War of the wives: Saintly but sinister Sarah vs outspoken Miriam

On Miriam Clegg:

“The 42-year-old brainbox is head of international trade practice for the multinational law firm DLA Piper.

So she hasn’t got time to tuck Cleggy’s shirt into his underpants or stop him walking into cupboards as he kisses babies and chats to pensioners at a meet and greet in Scunthorpe.

And her refusal to trail behind her husband on his electoral, glad-handing tour of the country is winning her a sudden flash mob of admirers. So you go, Miriam! Or rather, don’t go. That is why they all like you so much.

Asked last month if she were willing to be a political ‘secret weapon’ in the manner of SamCam and Sarah, Mrs Clegg sniffed: ‘Well, listen, I don’t have the luxury of having a job that I can simply abandon for five weeks, and I imagine that that is the situation for most people in the country.’

Ooh, handbags! Smythson handbags, at that.”

Ooh, just fuck off Jan why don’t you.

Here’s what Moir has to say about Sarah Brown:

“Out on the hustings, Mummy Sarah fusses around Gordon, pushing him on to trains, making sure he eats his greens, trying to be a walking sandwich board that advertises his human side – or (unwittingly) the fact he doesn’t seem to have one.

She tweets, she has her own YouTube channel, yet she is careful, always, to say nothing of note”

Yeah, and the words pot and kettle spring to mind….

Over in the Express meanwhile, the (mythical, entirely invented by journos) “war of the wives” is all about the clothes:

General election 2010 Wife Watch: Sarah Brown and SamCam’s fashion-off gets underway

Episode 1

From Andrew Pierce in today’s Daily Mail:

Ugly rumours may cost Cash the cutie dear

“Joanne Cash, the Conservative Party Alister, has been tipped for Cabinet office if she wins the marginal seat of Westminster North.

Tatler magazine has named her as one of the ten Tories to watch and Vogue included her as one of the top 50 women of the age.

Small wonder, then, that Ms Cash is pre-eminent among the telegenic Cameron cuties whom the Tories will be hoping to wheel before the cameras in the weeks ahead.”

Meanwhile, here’s Jan Moir in the same paper:

War of the wives: How did Sarah Brown and SamCam compare in the fashion stakes?

“Together, this trio of attractive, clever, multitasking, modern, juggling, have-it-all career women make up the political First Wives Club.

For better or worse, it is their mordant destiny to be the life partners of our great leaders, reduced to totems at their sides…..

….So scramble the helicopters, here come the girls!”

And joy of joys, this one even comes with some pics:

“Sarah Brown on the campaign trail yesterday”

“and Samantha Cameron wearing a smart jacket combination”

Blimey, you’d have thought someone would have told them they still had the tags on their clothes…..

General Election 2010: The battle of the leaders’ wives

And in a classic case of you’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Labour Party stalwarts have decided it’s a good idea to stereotype all women under the age of 40, by labelling this targeted demographic: “Take a Break women”

Gahhhhhh!

*If you see any glaring examples of sexist shite during the  General Election campaign that you think I may have missed,  feel free to email them to me at cathryne_1999 at hotmail.co.uk

The article itself is about as as muddled as her responses were on Thursday, with her on the one hand complaining about the programme being male dominated, especially with regard to the panellists, and on the other complaining because on Thursday March 11th, during International Women’s week, QT will be having an all female audience.

Street Porter evidently sees this decision as some kind of affront, and argues that there’s no need to treat women as a special case. She also asks “Why should women ask different questions to men? After all, women aren’t one big homogenous group. They are old, young, single, straight, married and bisexual, rich and poor.”

Yes they are, but to be honest I haven’t actually seen anyone suggest that the all women audience will be asking different questions. Maybe the point is that women are more likely to stick their hands up and actually participate in the debate if the environment is a little less macho. Or maybe, and I realise this might disappoint the frothing right-wingers like Ian Dale who think the all women audience idea is just some kind of pc gaaawn mad gimmick, maybe the BBC just wanted to find a way to mark International Women’s Week, and this seemed like a fairly uncontroversial way to do it.

If that is the case the Beeb apparently misjudged it – type “Question Time all women audience” into Google for instance and up pops this article: BBC accused of political correctness over all women version of Question Time.

Oh but hang on, look again, it’s another one from the Mail…

The TV Editor who’s credited with writing the piece states: “The broadcaster is facing accusations of political correctness after announcing details of the special episode on this week’s show.” but fails to mention who exactly is doing the accusing. S/he goes on to say: “Others have questioned whether women should be treated as a special interest group.”

What others? ‘Cos so far the only ones I can see making these accusations or questioning the Beeb’s decision are the Daily Mail itself, Ian Dale (who writes for the Mail occasionally, or at least used to – not sure they’ll want him back after the Tom Watson unpleasantness), and Janet Street Porter, who also writes for the Mail. Oh yes, and some hilariously sexist and homophobic commenters on the Digital Spy forum,who actually link back to the original Mail article.

Check the dates on the various pieces however, and it becomes clear who the Mail’s TV Ed is referring to. Dale’s piece went up on Friday 26th Feb, and the Mail started talking about their mysterious nameless complainants on Saturday 27th. And at this point the words mutual and masturbation spring to mind for some reason…

But anyway, as is always the case in the Mail, the comments are a treat to behold. Here’s James from Brighton for example:

“Parliament is a curiously male-dominated institution.

I dont see any laws which stop females being elected, I just see all female lists because females are not good enough to be elected except by fraud.”

And someone calling themself Me, who’s posted this nugget all the way from Australia:

“That’s called “special privilege”, and it’s the hall-mark of the Feminist.”

The best one though is from Humphrey PSmith from Shropshire, who says:

“The only reason why woman are not as routinely featured on Question Time is because they can’t cut it.

Typically, men always do a much better job than women in any field you care to mention.”

Lovely.

Meanwhile, in other who-really-gives-a-shit-about-these-bloody-people-apart-from-the-Daily-Mail news, someone forgot to tell the Mail’s photo caption writer to read the article first. So while Angella Johnson is careful to point out that it’s Grant Bovey who’s being declared bankrupt and absolutely not Anthea Turner:

“Not that the couple, married for ten years next August, are exactly on skid row. Yes, Grant is, in his eyes at least, broke. But, as he is anxious to point out, this has nothing to do with Anthea. Indeed, she is completely solvent, having never been a director in her husband’s companies.”

…..the caption says otherwise:

“Home sweet home: The couple’s £6million home in Surrey, which is owned by Anthea and unaffected by her bankruptcy”

Oh dear.

I didn’t actually get to read my copy of The Lady while I was in hospital, in fact I didn’t get to read anything at all. This was mainly thanks to my post-op brain’s refusal to comply with the  usual everyday instructions I tend to bombard it with, like “concentrate” or “focus” or “turn the sodding page ffs!” No, tragically instead of reading anything from the pile of books and magazines I’d lugged in with me to help occupy my time while the glue was busy drying on the Eurofighter, I was reduced to forking out £7.00 for 3 days use of a bedside entertainment unit. This enabled me to watch more telly in a few short hours than I’ve managed to watch in total in the last couple of years. Then I came home on Thursday morning and watched a whole load more.

But yesterday I decided it was time to take the big, all-important step back to normality (or at least what passes for it in my world) and my real life. And so I switched the telly off.

And then I read The Lady.

And oh my word, what a rare old pile of shite it is.

I’ll pass over the Independent Schools Supplement and the classified ads (although I can’t promise I’ll never make mention in future of the “perfect 2 bedroom retirement home” being advertised in there as “a snip at £375,000“, or all the situations vacant slots for housekeepers and nannies, like this one for example: “Full-time Daily Housekeeper. Responsible for all aspects of  6-storey house. Cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, ironing, errands, some cooking. Driver required. Good English. Management of part time cleaner. Non smoker. References essential.) and focus instead on two of this week’s main features: Fay Weldon on socks and sex, and Laura Barber’s article on the Return of the Lady.

Now Weldon’s already come in for some well-deserved stick following an interview she did with Bryony Gordon of the Telegraph, in which the so-called icon of feminism is quoted as saying:

“There are women at work and there’s mating behaviour and women get them confused. At work, gender should not come into it. Women are right to refuse to make the coffee, but when you get home I’m afraid you have to make the coffee. It’s such a waste of time trying to tell your husband to pick up the socks or clean the loo. It’s much easier just to do it yourself.”

Well in her Lady interview with Paul Blezard, Weldon digs the hole a little bit deeper:

“It’s true and I mean it, not least in order to preserve domestic peace. I had no idea it would create such a fuss. The people who have got so exercised by it all are, I think, being totally unrealistic. Also, when you’re being interviewed you just chat on about the things that are on your mind and such things pop out. I mean, I was speaking as the mother of four sons. My husband (poet Nick Fox) is very peeved about that quote, but I do mean it, it just is easier to do it yourself.”

Further on in the interview:

“I ask her how she would respond to those who say she has let feminism down. “Well, I didn’t even know I was a feminist until I read it on the back of one of my books. I thought I was writing novels about what I saw and thought; I certainly wasn’t writing intentional propaganda. When I got a job as an advertising copywriter, I was expected to make coffee as much as come up with copy. I soon noticed it was the women who did the work while the men went out to lunch and talked about their wives’ chests. It just seemed interesting. Wrong, of course, but interesting also and I wanted to point that out.”

I have to say I’m not surprised to hear the woman who argued that rape should be reduced to a lesser charge of aggravated assault on the grounds that it “actually isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a woman if you’re safe, alive and unmarked after the event” and who advised women to fake orgasms, admit to knowing fuck all about feminism; I’m only surprised that it’s taken her this long to do so. Oh yes, and surprised by how quickly Weldon manages to contradict herself. Here she is in the Guardian humming a completely different tune only a month ago for instance:

Did she feel part of the feminist movement? “Inevitably, but I never wrote propaganda because it all seemed so evident. It became obvious that you had to be a feminist because it was such a ridiculous state of affairs.”

So it was obvious she had to be a feminist and part of the movement, and yet she didn’t know she was a feminist until she read it on the back of one of her books. Confused? Yes indeed, sadly I do believe she is.

But anyway, enough about Weldon and her increasingly bizarre pronouncements on feminism. England’s First and Finest Weekly Magazine presents us with a far more complex issue to debate than whose job it should be to pick up the socks and put down the toilet seat, which is: do ladies still exist?

Laura Barber contends that even though the lady became a dying breed in 1958 when the last debutantes were presented at the palace, “there are signs that the post-feminist lady is finally stepping out of the parlour and flexing her muscles.” As evidence for this we apparently only have to look at Michelle Obama, Sarah Brown, Samantha Cameron and Joanna Lumley, women who remain gracious in their performance of public duties and who, it is implied, unlike Madonna or Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, aren’t just trying to look the part, for they have the fundamental character that goes with it.

“Today’s ‘lady’ is intellectual and well-mannered without being snobbish” says Rachel Johnson, the magazine’s new editor, “she enjoys travelling, reading, and gardening; she’s the type of woman who could start her own business or get involved in local projects.” Which all sounds fair enough; after all, that description could probably apply to any one of us, so it’s a shame she then has to spoil it by providing this ridiculous set of rules:

RJ’s Top 10 Rules for a Lady

1. Put others first
2. Treat everyone the same but accord those older and higher-ranked (ie your consultant) with extra respect
3. Always give bad news face to face, never by text or email, and look your victim in the eye
4. Do not noodle (?) on your mobile or idly flick through the paper while anyone, especially your mother, is talking to you.
5. Do not wear underwear as outerwear, or no underwear at all
6. When someone is talking to you, actually listen
7. Stand up or at least pitch forwards in your chair when an older woman enters the room
8. Call an older woman “Mrs Proops” until she invites you to call her “Marjorie” – and never before
9. Do not hold loud personal conversations in public places
10. However bad things are, a lady always stands up straight and holds her head up high

Yep, I can really see myself getting into that. Standing up whenever an older woman walks into the room, and calling any woman I don’t know Mrs sodding Proops. Not.

Barber’s conclusion seems to be that much like fun feminism, where any woman can declare herself and her actions to be feminist no matter what simply by virtue of the fact that she as an empowerfulled woman has chosen freely to do whatever it is, any woman can also be a lady. It’s not about class or breeding or wealth any more, “the lady is a rather more flexible, inventive, and surprising figure than the rigid stereotypes have allowed.”

Says Barber:

“We are living in an era when female success no longer requires cookie-cutter conformity to some narrow ideal of femininity, with a cut-glass accent and a set of opinions bland enough to pass around the canapés. But nor should expressing your individuality and promoting your own interests necessitate backstabbing, or aping male bravado. Rather than having been ‘finished’ in the old sense, it seems to me that this generation of girls are only just beginning to work out what being a lady might mean – and this time, with luck, it’ll be on their terms.”

This time, with luck, girls will realise what outdated nonsense this all is. And then they’ll get on with their lives without giving tired old sexist gender rules so much as a second thought.

As Jemima Lewis once said in her classic piece on this subject:

Woman is a straightforward word, a description of gender only lightly dusted with overtones of maturity and earthiness. Lady, on the other hand, is saturated with daintiness: it suggests coy glances and batting eyelashes, pencil skirts, pinnies, manicures, tiny feet, dinner on the table and not a hair out of place. It means never burping, snorting with laughter or buying a round.

I’ll second that. Now sing it Helen:

It’s a book about women, written by a man (a man with a Ph.D no less), and it was only 40p, so naturally I bought it. And I’m so pleased I did: it would have been a bargain at twice the price.

Women (Tagline: The most detailed and explicit sexual autobiography made public in this century) by John Philip Lundin Ph.D (New English Library edition published 1968) was originally published in hardback in 1963 under the title: Women. The Autobiographical Reflections of a Frustrated Male.

Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

‘A milestone in the sexual literature of our time’

Women is a unique publishing event of this century. In it, a man has written fully, in detail and without shame, of his sexual experience.
He has sought pleasure with women regardless of social convention or moral prohibition. He has known women from America, from Europe and from the Orient. Each woman’s sexual behaviour revealed to the author her individuality and personal preferences. Yet each woman’s behaviour also reflected accurately the comparisons and contrasts in sexual attitudes and customs throughout the world.
As R.E.L. Masters writes in his Introduction, ‘Better than most novelists, and better than most authors of psychological case studies, John Philip Lundin has presented a slice of the sexual life of our time.’

Actually, having had a good look through it, I’d say that rather than being a study of sexual behaviour, or a study of “the women of many lands” or indeed of “those women who make a business of sex” as Masters describes it in his introduction, Women is in fact a fascinating study into the mind and thinking of a stone cold misogynist. And a racist one at that.

The book was of course written in the 60′s, so some of the attitudes Lundin expresses have to be taken in that context. Nonetheless it’s still a pretty shocking read, not just because of Lundin’s obvious contempt for the vast majority of women and his lazy stereotyping of various nationalities, but because so much of what he says is the same old same old shite that’s still being spewed out today by Men’s Rights Activists in the blogosphere and beyond. And there I was thinking that Angry Harry, Warren Farrell and the rest had come up with something new (snark). In fact if I wasn’t already aware that the MRAs pretty much regard Robert Bly’s Iron John as their Bible, I’d swear I’d stumbled upon their sacred text with this one.

In the book Lundin describes his sexual encounters (many of them purchased) with 10 different women, with each woman being described and analysed in a chapter of her own. Lundin then uses each encounter as the basis from which he can hold forth about particular types of women. So for example we meet Claudine, a bar girl, who “preys upon the desires of males, holding out to them the promise of satisfaction that is never forthcoming”, and Anne, an American prostitute who specialises in rich, elderly businessmen. Eventually Lundin uses these experiences to expound on women in general; on our natures, our sexual instincts, and on what he sees as both our dependence upon men and our ability to completely control them with our womanly wiles.

Here’s the great man himself:

“Women are said to be the same the world over, but within their similarity they’re as divergent as it’s possible for members of the same species to be. They have only one thing in common: They like to be rewarded for enjoying their pleasure. Who wouldn’t?

Naturally, there are great differences in the currency they use. The girls who await the approach of their patrons in the clubs of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, San Remo, Monte Carlo, Baden-Baden, and Acapulco have price tags attached to them that the poor little slut from the Boulevard de Clichy in Paris or the street-walker from the Bahnhof district of Frankfurt on the Main wouldn’t dream of. The girls who wink at customers in the sidewalk cafés of Rome and Marseilles, or start conversations by bumming cigarettes from customers in the bars of Hamburg and London, will never be promoted into the class of females who nonchalantly ask their acquaintances to rooms in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, the Ritz in London, the George V in Paris, or the Sacher in Vienna.

Certainly our society is stratified largely for men only. Women can cross the boundaries with the slightest effort, having only to permit intimacies to the right class of admirer. If a man uses obscene language in public, he’s expelled, but if a woman with a good figure does it, and especially if her voice carries that certain suggestive intonation, people consider it highly amusing. If a man were to wave aphrodisiacs before young ladies in a hotel lobby, he’d probably be arrested. But a woman isn’t in style unless she wends her way in a cloud of perfume designed to bring out the beast in man – the very beast he mustn’t exhibit on penalty of ostracism or worse. Were a man to slap a well-dressed woman in polite society, champions would arise immediately to spring gallantly to her defense [sic], whereas a woman may hit a man in the face and be considered to have acted within her natural rights. And provided that her bustline is sufficiently large, her hips not too flaccid, and her dress tight enough, a woman could plunk herself down in the middle of a table and hurl smiling insults at everyone in the room. The rules of etiquette don’t apply to women who please the eye and parade their charms without fear. If there is a single currency that all women need it isn’t money but daring. The more audacious they are, the better they are liked. Those who merely ask for a ten-dollar bill will never receive very high wages in either money or the things it will buy. Those who don’t ask for specific sums often receive more in the long run, for they put the man on his honor. The more obstreperous, inconsiderate, and shrewish they are, the better they’re paid, if only they’ll hold out a promise to the right men and curl up under the proper blanket.”

The only woman out of the 10 that Lundin doesn’t end up having sex with is a co-worker of his called Lynn, and from what I could gather from my reading of things that was solely because she had wrinkles (she was in her 30′s by the way, not her 100′s, though you wouldn’t believe it from Lundin’s hateful description):

“Her name was Lynn. She wasn’t at all a bad character. If I had only met her a few years later, I could’ve obliged her and made her happy, but at that stage of the game I wasn’t ready for her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t had such a wrinkled face. She musn’t have taken care of her skin with the oils, salves, mud-packs, and ointments that most girls seem to use to the age of grandmotherhood. She had deep deep wrinkles across her forehead that looked like furrows in a field, crowfeet at the corners of her eyes that would’ve made her tears roll sideways, deep lines from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth, and the little monkey wrinkles between her nose and her eyeslits that make a woman look as if she had been through the mill. I could’ve put up with all of it except those monkey wrinkles which somehow hid her iris. Every once in a while, I’d take a good look at her breasts, which were fairly large and seemed to be firm enough, and at her legs, which were pretty shapely, and I’d take my heart in my hands and try to approach her with some compliments. I just couldn’t ignore those monkey wrinkles however. They wouldn’t let me speak up.”

However, as with any truly great book, Lundin reserves the best bits for his epilogue: On Women

“Homo sapiens isn’t a monogamous animal, and no matter to what institutions or conventions he may pay lip service, he’ll never become anything but polygamous except through extreme domestication. Only if he’s deprived of all the attributes of his primordial beginnings and becomes as tame as a lap dog under the combined conspiratorial influence of priesthood and the matriarchal institutions of our society will he shed his polygamous tendencies; and even then, there’s no certainty. The tamest cats and dogs become rebellious during the rutting season. And man has the advantage over most animals that his rutting season never ends, and the female is always capable, though not always willing, to accommodate him. No other animal can make that statement.”

“Our ethics unfortunately are prescribed by the matriarchy that rules mankind in this century; or more specifically, by the housewives who’ve made up a code of ethics which allows them to be respectable without the possibility of admission to that status of their competitors. And yet, it’s an entirely artificial classification, based upon the theory of the monogamous human who doesn’t exist, and upon a gradation of invidious value judgements that place a premium on dullness and a penalty upon those human sentiments which alone can release man from the prison of his materialistic routine and make him pulsate with the heart-throb of emotion. Our ethics are lamentably based upon something which the housewives describe as ‘common sense,’ but which, far from being rational is nothing but poison to a sensitive human being. The matriarchal division of all females into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ women doesn’t deal with the male perspective at all but merely indicates whether the conduct of a woman is good or bad for the matriarchy. For the matriarchy is a self-perpetuating system and any system perpetuates itself through the manifestations of force and reward: in this case, the penalty of ostracism as opposed to acceptance into the company of ruling matrons.

But I’ve steadfastly refused to capitulate before the value judgements of the matriarchy. I judge my women not by whether they’re good for the matriarchal system but by whether they’re good or bad to me. For I’m a conscious person, and as such I’m the centre of my own moral universe, and therefore, the ethics of the housewife have no relevancy to my existence. What’s considered unfair competition by the housewife is perhaps exactly what I need, and what the matriarchy condemns as designed to lessen the social security of the aging [sic] female may be precisely the right type of behaviour in my book. For I’m not interested in providing financial security and social supports for women who don’t contribute to my happiness. I’m interested exclusively in my own happiness, and it has to do a great deal with women who qualify by their appearance, intelligence, and mode of conduct to occupy a place of importance in my life.”

“Married woman who deny the pleasure of their beds to their doting husbands, husbands who thought that the inequities of marriage would at least procure a steady bed partner for them, are infinitely less ethical than prostitutes who deliver with punctilious promptness the merchandise which one obtains from them…..For let’s face it: marriage is based on the understanding of physical union and mutual enjoyment, and a woman who doesn’t live up to her part in this agreement is worse, from a moral point of view, than a whore, because she refuses to deliver the merchandise which has already been sold, and which is being bought over and over again.”

“There are the numerous girls in show business, in offices, and behind counters who actually don’t have the qualifications for their jobs and wouldn’t hold these positions except for the fact that they permit certain privileges to important gentlemen who determine their status and careers. The number of these females, no doubt, is much larger than at first would meet the eye. It’s the major objection to permitting women to escape from home and garden and letting them take jobs formerly monopolised by men. For the world is full of lonely men – married and single – who’d like a little something on the side, and the world is no less crowded with little girls who wouldn’t mind putting out now and then to get ahead.”

And if all that wasn’t enough to make you want to gauge your own eyeballs out, slowly, while adopting an expression very similar to this one…

…here’s Lundin’s pièce de resistance:

“Many women have told me that they make themselves over into different types merely to keep themselves interesting to men. This statement is an indication of how absolutely dependent women are upon men, how their entire lives are organised with a view towards their relations with men, approaches by men, support by men, attractions for men, appearance to men, impression on men, and benefits from men. Whereas men have their business, their politics, their sports, their card games, their discussions, and their friendships, women essentially exist by and for love only. Love is a woman’s life as well as her living, her instinct as well as her intelligence, her avocation as well as her profession, her purpose as well as her pleasure, her interest as well as her weapon.”

A quick search of the Internet reveals that John Philip Lundin Ph.D not only  wrote execrable nonsense like Women and its sequel Mistresses, but he also translated from the original German into English a book called Mothers and Amazons: The first feminine history of culture, by Helen Diner. Here’s Wikipedia

Austrian writer Bertha Diener, also known by her American pseudonym as Helen Diner, wrote Mothers and Amazons (1930) which was the first work to focus on women’s cultural history. She is regarded as a classic of feminist matriarchal study. Her view is that in the past all human societies were matriarchal, then, at some point, most shifted to patriarchal and degenerated.

Research also reveals that John Philip Lundin was actually the pseudonym of Hans Karl Gunther Ph.D, a professor at Bloomsberg State College in the US:

Born in Germany, but his father sent him out of the country before WWII. He made it to the united states by 1941. He got his Bachelor of Arts in history in 1946 and Master’s degree in history in 1947, both from Washington University in St. Louis. He taught German at the University of Missouri between 1947 and 1951. He earned his PhD from Stanford University in 1954. In 1965 he became an associate professor at Bloomsburg State College and became a full professor in 1969. Gunther wrote thirteen major articles that were accepted for publication. He suffered from health problems in the late seventies and early eighties. At the age of sixty he took his own life.