Leeds University Union are in the middle of a referendum about banning the sale of “lads mags” in their union shops at the moment.

Quite a few Students’ Unions have stopped selling/refused to sell lads mags such as Zoo and Nuts because of the sexist and misogynist content often found within. Leeds Metropolitan University and it’s Students’ Union do not sell magazines like this, and having been a student at the met and a sab in the SU for two years, I’m pretty sure no one has ever had an issue with these publications NOT being for sale.

I tried to put a few suggestions forward explaining why lads mags are abhorrent, and don’t belong in students’ unions. I talked about the time that Zoo published a letter from Danny Dyer telling a chap to cut his ex-girlfriends face so that no one else would want her. I pointed them towards the unilad.com scandal a few months ago when an article was published telling lads that if they wanted to rape a girl who wouldn’t put out, they probably wouldn’t get caught.

This provoked a number of people (majority men, it has to be said, although there was that woman who accused me of reading lads mags else “how can you know that they’re oppressive?” And then she said I was illiberal. Bizarre.) crawling out of the woodwork and making a variety of claims, including but not limited to:

“personally, if I were one of these women [modelling in a lads mag] (or a lapdancer, etc), I’d be pretty damn offended by the idea that I was being “oppressed”; it suggests that they have no intelligence nor autonomy, that no one would ever possible CHOOSE to do such a job”

I think I’ll start with the ridiculous lack of privilege checking here. You’re not a woman, actually, so you can’t say how you would feel to be objectified as one, because you can’t know that. Sorry dude but speaking for someone whose experiences you haven’t had is pretty offensive. Secondly, when talking about oppression from lads mags, it’s extremely narrow minded to assume that is referring to the women who model for such publications. We’re talking about oppression of women in general here, and the effects of lads mags on women in general. I respect a woman’s decision to do as she wants with her body; whether any decision in a capitalist society is really free is another debate for a different blog.

 Lads mags and harder pornography are unrepresentative of women in our society. They show white, often blonde women with a very specific body type. Women of colour are subject to horrific racial stereotyping. South East Asian women are frequently infantalised or shown to be completely submissive. African/Carribean women are often presented as extremely promiscuous. They show unrealistic images of what the writers think women should be and should do. This is resulting in a generation of little boys with internet access growing up with narrow expectations of their girlfriends to look and behave a certain way, and consent to certain sexual activities.

“Do men really see women as objects? That’s not how I feel!”

I’m sure you don’t. I imagine if you are a decent bloke it can be quite upsetting to be told that such literature is contributing to the alarming rate that young men are raping women. After all, YOU can look at a picture of a woman with no clothes on and YOU don’t want to rape anyone, right?

Not the point. Men do, at an alarming rate, see women as objects. If they didn’t then we wouldn’t be having 1 in 7 women students seriously sexually assaulted whilst at university. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have somewhere in the region of 47000 women in the UK raped every year. If they didn’t we wouldn’t have 1 in 8 young men thinking it’s alright to hit their girlfriend if she’s “nagging”. That is not how you treat people, that is behaviour that would be deemed aggressive if it was taken out on an inanimate object.

“as someone who cares about getting equal rights and genuine fair treatment for women I find these sorts of motions really detrimental to the cause, all you do is turn a whole load of people away from it by trying to stop them doing something that they enjoyed and wasn’t really that much of a problem anyway.”

As a man who cares about equal rights and genuine fair treatment for women you really need to shut up and listen to some women’s opinions, rather than telling us what’s detrimental to the cause of our liberation. Just like as a white person, I CANNOT lead the fight against racism, as a man you cannot lead the fight against sexism. You must listen to the people who are on the receiving end of the oppression, and support the cause in the way you are told to do so. And frankly, if you think that getting rid of misogynist literature is detrimental to fighting sexism then you’re not even in the right place to be an ally of the movement. Outrageous.

[In reference to the Danny Dyer and Unilad incidents] “They are also both not very witty or funny jokes, and again, I assume a reasonable adult can make that distinction. Genuine incitement to violence is a criminal offence, if the magazines were doing that then there’d be grounds to not sell them”

I am pretty sure that telling a readership of over 40000 lads in their late teens and early twenties that if they rape a girl they have an 85% chance of it not even being reported IS incitement to violence. Rape is a violent act. And no, unfortunately it seems that a sizeable proportion of adults can’t make the distinction between a joke and the severity of rape, otherwise I wouldn’t have our university police officer telling me about three rapes in a week, all committed by students.

Rape jokes diminish the severity of rape. “We do not endorse non-consensual sex without first shouting ‘surprise’!” (again the gem that is unilad.com). They make discourse around the act more mainstream. They remove the shock factor. They make it easier for a perpetrator to justify committing a rape; “it’s just a bit of harmless banter”. It’s not harmless and it’s not fucking banter. How dare anyone make a joke out of someone else’s ordeal? Seriously, if you think rape jokes are ok you need to take a long hard look at yourself. And then crawl into a hole under a stone and come out when you’re not a misogynist.

“It’s worth pointing out that a student union banning a couple of magazines will do nothing to make any difference, this is a small number of people imposing their desire on everyone else. I don’t eat meat; I would have a serious problem if my student union decided to stop selling meat products in their premises just because a few people don’t like it.”

Oh right then. I imagine that, throughout history, a small number of people imposing their view on others has always been the wrong thing to do, and has subsequently always failed. That’s why women can’t vote, gay sex is illegal, black people can’t go in the swimming baths and disabled kids aren’t allowed into mainstream schools. You absolute asshat.

Oh, and you compared lads mags to meat. Poignant, to say the least.

 Diva magazine posted on their Facebook wall asking for lesbians who don’t date bisexual women to get in touch, because they want to run an article on why some lesbians remove bisexual women from their “dating pool”. So began a torrent of biphobia underneath the opening post, which included such gems as “you can’t trust that they won’t leave you for a bloke”, “it seems eventually they all go back to men. I guess it’s because it’s an easier, more accepted lifestyle” and even, “I don’t want to be with a woman who sleeps with or has slept with men”.

Bisexual women are regularly branded as experimenting straight girls, lesbians in denial (apparently it’s possible to be both), promiscuous (like there’s anything wrong with that if it’s the individual’s choice), confused, greedy, riddled with STI’s, cock hungry, flakey and dishonest.

 These stereotypes have been born out of heteronormative societal pressures (monogamy, fidelity, marriage, pro-creation, existence in a nuclear family) coupled with the bombardment of images of threesomes involving two women and one man in crap pornography, complete bi-erasure and the glamorisation in popular culture of women being sent out to catch unsuspecting lesbians to bring home to their waiting boyfriend.

 I’d like to challenge some stereotypes now using my experiences and observations, because I’ve never seen any representation in straight or gay culture of bi women like me. (And very little of bi people at all, for that matter.)

 I’m 22, boyish and bisexual. I prefer queer actually because I recognise things other than the two binary genders, but for the sake of talking about oppression and the insult I’ve faced in the last couple of days we’ll stick with bisexual.

 Most people assume I’m a lesbian because they can’t seem to get their head around the idea of a boyish girl liking boys. I’ve had two long term relationships, both with women. I lost my virginity to a woman in my teens; most of my dating experiences have been with women, although there’ve been a few with people who don’t consider themselves either gender.  I didn’t date a man until I was 20, because I didn’t meet one I liked enough until then. I’ve never cheated, or left a female partner for a man, or even considered doing so. If I did, it wouldn’t be caused by my sexuality.

I’ve never once felt that it would be easier to be in a heterosexual relationship with a man for the sake of enjoying heterosexual privileges. I would never entertain the idea of leaving a woman/third gender/non-gender person I love to be with a man I didn’t love for the sake of social acceptance.

 I’m not particularly greedy when it comes to intimate relationships. An ex who is bisexual told me once: “yeah, I am greedy. But I’m greedy cos I’m greedy, not cos I’m bi!”

 A lot of my friends who define as lesbian have admitted to me that they feel attraction towards men but choose not to pursue such attractions, for whatever reason. This is of course their choice, but is surely and indication that bisexuality or bisexual patterns of attraction are way more common than people think. Women are simply keeping it quiet because of the inordinate amount of biphobia there is amongst the lesbian community. The culture of making queer women who find themselves interested in a man feel like they are betraying the community really has to stop.

 Lesbians who don’t date bi women because they think they’ll run off with a guy to make up this mythical “cock deficit” so many people seem to be obsessed with, should ask themselves why they are so insecure that they think a partner would leave them for five and a half inches of erectile tissue. the idea that someone would leave a healthy relationship purely because they miss cisgender male cock is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

Society, straight and gay, need to stop seeing vagina as the absence of a penis. Why doesn’t anyone entertain the idea that someone might leave a man to make up for the lack of vagina in their life?  It’s an example of how patriarchy permeates.   

Should we all start to be suspicious of the straight and bisexual women/female identified partners of transmen? What’s their game eh?

No! How bloody insulting and idiotic.

 Lesbians who would be more hurt by a partner leaving them for a man than they would if they were left for another woman should ask themselves why they see heterosexual sex as more legitimate than lesbian sex. It’s devaluing the connection made between two women. Pretty sad, and as bad, inaccurate and offensive as the heternormative society you keep accusing bisexual women of pandering to.

 If someone cheats on you it’s because they’re dishonest, or cowardly, or selfish. Or drunk. Or because there isn’t enough trust in the relationship for them to approach you to discuss their attraction to someone else and what can be done about it. Or maybe you don’t treat them well and they’re looking for love elsewhere. People cheat for all sorts of reasons. They do not cheat because of their sexuality any more than they cheat because their hair is brown and their eyes are blue.

 It’s so upsetting and downright wrong that there are lesbians who are willing to be so prejudiced towards an entire group of people who are only linked by one thing; who they are attracted to. Surely the years of fighting for our right to love who we love should mean that such attitudes are not welcome in the LGBT community? Bisexual people stand side by side with lesbians, gay men, queers and trans people in the fight for equal rights, and the last thing we need is our own community turning on us, or treating us like we have a disease.

Dear straight women,

RE: the toilets.

Firstly, this isn’t relevant to all of you, let me state that straight away. I’m aware many of you come for nights out on the gay scene and never cause any issues, and we love having you. So if this letter isn’t relevant to you personally, please feel free to pass it on to someone else who might find it useful.

Let me cut to the chase. I know that a lot of the time straight women come to gay bars in groups, or to accompany gay male friends which is fine of course. I totally abhor door policies that refuse entry for someone because they are perceived straight. However, if you are going to come into gay bars there are some things you need to understand.

You may not have considered the fact that the space you are in is not only filled with gay men, it is also filled with gay women as well. (There are other people who are neither, or bisexual, or something else altogether, but I don’t want to blow your mind too much at this stage.) In case you don’t know gay women (or lesbians) are women who like other women.

Now, some gay women look completely how you would expect any women to look, right? But, there are those of us who don’t look so feminine or conventional. We might have short hair, or be wearing clothes that you are used to seeing on men. This is called being “butch”.

Now, the thing with these butch or boyish looking women, is that they have to piss, just like everyone else. Often, outside of the gay scene, butch women can get quite a lot of hassle in women’s toilets, from other women who think that for some reason a bloke has swanned in.

This has happened to me personally more times than I can remember. I’ve been forced to re-affirm my gender to an attendant on the way into the toilets at Kings Cross station in front of a waiting crowd, and once in a pub had a huge (male) security guard burst into the women’s toilets to forcibly remove me after someone complained I was in there.

As you can see, this sort of thing has the potential to be pretty humiliating, embarrassing, irritating and inconvenient. Which is why yesterday, when two women in a GAY BAR toilet accused me of being a bloke, when all I wanted to do is go for a piss, I got really, really angry. This is the third time this had happened to me in a gay bar.

You see, the reason gay bars exist is because, despite huge advances in equality and tolerance of us queers, we still can’t go out with the general population and not be harassed for being gay. Gay men would probably find themselves beaten to a pulp if they tried to make out on a straight dancefloor, and gay women would very possibly be physically and sexually harassed to shit.

THIS IS WHY, WHEN I WANT TO HAVE A FEW DRINKS WITH MY FRIENDS AND NOT WORRY ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE HARRASSING ME, I GO TO A FUCKING GAY BAR.

So listen up; if you want to come into our spaces for a night out, by all means come, but be prepared to show some bloody respect. You are coming into MY space. The space where I go so I can know that when I need to use the toilet I can do it without snide comments. So next time you’re in a gay bar toilet, and someone who looks like a bloke walks in, before you shoot your mouth off, ask yourself why on earth a bloke in a gay bar would want to go in the women’s toilets, right? If I was a bloke, I would use the men’s; it’s usually quicker, and I wouldn’t have to see you.

The feeling of indignance, and of being intruded upon, that you feel when you believe a chap has walked into the women’s toilets, is only a fraction of the discomfort that YOU are causing to me when you, not only accuse me of being a bloke in the women’s toilets, but also do it in a gay bar, on MY turf.

If you do make an honest mistake. Apologise and leave it be. Do not create a huge scene of apologising, you will have already caused the person enough embarrassment.

So please, do your best to engage your brain and open your mind when you come into queer spaces.

Jo

Negotiating the world as a butch or androgynous woman can be quite a treacherous day to day task. In a society that still values a woman’s appearance more than anything else, those of us who don’t fit into the western idea of feminine beauty will often find themselves on the receiving end of scorn and insult, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. This applies to a whole swathe of women, (including, but not limited to black women, disabled women, tall women, short women, flat chested women, women considered too fat, women considered too thin and trans* women). It’s also noted that feminine men/male identified people are often on the end of a huge amount of abuse. As this blog is about what I know I’m going to concentrate on those of us who are more visibly androgynous, masculine or ambiguous, and I hope you forgive my self-indulgence!

 I don’t consider myself butch, but many people who don’t know me well do, because I’ve got short hair and wear “boy’s” clothes. I don’t know why I feel more comfortable like this, I just do. I’ve looked this way since I was about three, and my mum let me express myself how I wanted. She let me wear a boys school uniform, and I was never told that “girls don’t wear that” or “only boys play with that”. I played with dolls and power rangers, lego and dressing up clothes.

  I’m still like that really.

I wear jeans and t-shirts most of the time, but my mannerisms would be considered to be pretty feminine. My auntie, who is also gay, but not butch or boyish, asks me sometimes why I dress like this, and I can never really explain why. It’s just the way some of us are.

The result of this is that I’m often read as a butch lesbian or occasionally an adolescent boy.

Even with androgyny being considered quite fashionable more recently, I have gone through childhood, adolescence and (to a slightly lesser extent) young adulthood being made to feel self-conscious, disruptive, conspicuous and ugly. I’ve been accused of robbing men of their masculinity (as though it’s something tangible that can be rationed), and regularly get abuse in women’s toilets. When I was seventeen I was beaten up at a bus stop by a group of teenage girls. A group of young men followed me down the street at midnight a few weeks ago shouting “you fucking dyke”.

“Dyke” is a word I’ve been called more times than I can remember. When I wasn’t being called a dyke, I was being called a “man”, “she-man” or “he-she”, with the implication being that someone who so flagrantly exhibited masculine and feminine characteristics could never be considered attractive.

“Dyke” is a word that is usually reserved for women who are somehow transgressing gender boundaries and who appear outwardly masculine. The “provocation” here is not a visible demonstration of homosexuality. I’ve never provoked these insults by making out with a woman in public. Women in positions of authority, or who achieve in areas that are still commonly considered male domains are often also on the receiving end of this insult. That is, when they’re not being called a bitch.

What people have an issue with is the challenge to normative gender roles, whether that’s because of their physical appearence, hobbies, mannerisms, job or the gender of the people with  whom they have interpersonal relationships. What’s more, they often feel a personal obligation to confront someone who they think is not conforming.

It’s pretty odd and disturbing when you think about it. Even if you see someone on a bus who is wearing a colour that really doesn’t do them justice, you’re unlikely to feel compelled or indeed entitled to go up to that person and tell them.

The darker side that results from this feeling of entitlement is when people intervene with violence as well as just words. Indeed, “trans panic defence” is still considered an acceptable defence in several places.  The implications for more masculine looking women are often threats and fear of “corrective rape” and violence, where the attitude that all a lesbian needs is a proper shag by a proper man is forcibly acted out upon them.

That’s why sometimes the scariest part of being an androgynous person who is physically female, is being read as male, whether I intend it or not, because of the fear of what people will do if they find out I’m not necessarily what they previously thought.

After years of trying to tone my gender expression down, and make it look more mainstream, I’ve finally accepted that this is just the way I am. It might not be hardwired into my system, but I don’t need that as a reason to justify being me. You are the way you are, there’s no reason to search for a reason. I don’t care if it’s disruptive, confusing or makes people question their sexuality. Actually, these things are good. I like these things.

So let’s fight for the day when butch women feel celebrated, not sidelined.

It’s evil because it will criminalise being homeless. Unfortunately, thanks to the gang down at the Daily Mail, or similar, Joe Public think that it’s a necessary law to prevent the scene below from happening.

A nice house, probably in the south. Mr Jones has already left for work, and once Mrs Jones has packed Sebastian and Verity off to school and cleared the breakfast table, she slips on her coat and pops out to do the weekly shop. As the front door clicks shut two people emerge from their hiding place inside the neatly trimmed privet hedge. SQUATTERS! And they’ve been watching and waiting.

A young man with greasy unwashed hair and adidas tracksuit bottoms picks the lock on the back door with a hair grip and a used hypodermic needle. The back door swings open and he enters, followed by a slim, pale girl. They help themselves to tea and biscuits and settle on the sofa. When Mrs Jones returns she discovers that she cannot have the squatters removed, because their rights as squatters surpass everyone elses rights. They stay for 18 months.

It sounds utterly ridiculous, because it is. But how often have we seen a headline like this in the right wing press?

Actually, it is already a criminal offence to squat in a property that is occupied, or that is due to be occupied. So if someone has just bought a house, and they’re going to move in within the next six months, its a criminal offence to squat there.

What the new legislation actually does, is make it a criminal offence for some poor bastard to climb into a derelict warehouse building on a freezing cold night. In the middle of a housing crisis. Yeah. Oh, it’s punishable by up to one year in prison.

It also means that every time a landlord and tenent have a disagreement about something in the contract, which is about every ten seconds, it is a matter for the police to deal with, rather than a civil matter. So the police can be called every time a landlord accuses someone of not paying their rent on time, and they have to decide whether the person is a tenent or a squatter. No matter how you feel about the police, you have to agree that this is a ridiculous situation; a total waste of time, money and resource.

If this ridiculousness is not enough, you may find it interesting to know that the squatting legislation also applies to sit-ins and occupations. So people who are occupying somewhere in protest are now committing a criminal offence, and can be forcibly removed by police and face jail time. For peaceful protest.

Whats added to the upset is that it slipped through relatively unnoticed, with no official opposition from Labour, although people who were outside parliament got a taste of the new regime.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/01/parliament-square-squatters-protest 

Even if you’ve never been interested in housing or homeless people’s rights, if you defend the right to protest you should be over this like a rash.

I used to write a lot, and then I went to uni and studied a sports science degree (which I have yet to finish) and kind of fell out of the habit.

I started writing again about 18 months ago, and now I write and perform spoken verse about the things that I think about (mostly politics and sex). In the last year and a bit my life has taken a series of unexpected turns and I’ve experienced all sorts of things I would never have considered. Some have been good and some not so much. I regret nothing, but felt it was time to have somewhere to put things, maybe contemplate and unravel them, rather than trying to do this in the confines of my rather small head.