10,000 hits and I missed it!

That’s it really. I checked my stats, and hey presto, 10,032! Wooo!

Now. If you’ll excuse me, I have an essay to finish so that I can get on with a life of freedom for the next three months.

Women forced into prostitution…don’t worry, it’s all still visually appealling for men

So SMH is noting that more women might turn to prostitution out of financial desperation.
It’s reporting on the fact that women may be forced into legal and illegal brothels due to lack of options, and increasing financial problems. Doesn’t bring a glamour shot to mind does it? This is not Hollywood people, they’re not suggesting women will be forced into becoming “High Class Escorts”, paid a packet, given protection and security, they’re suggesting that prostitution may be some women’s only recourse, leaving them fucking VULNERABLE to lack of protection, to horrible conditions, to the manipulations of pimps, the vulnerability to rape and all the other risks we know attend to being forced into prostitution. But even THEN the SMH has to glamourfy the images.

Front page:

Yep. Women may be forced into prostitution, but SMH wants you to know they’ll be young, thin, have good bodies with teeny-tiny waists, and thick manes of lustrous hair, they’ll be lounging comfortably and seductively in clean and luxurious surroundings waiting to pleasure you when you come to take advantage.

They’re talking about people paying less, illegal prostitution gaining more customers/drawing in more women. Illegal brothels? Most brothels?? Well I bet they don’t look like this:

They’re discussing the prevalence of illegal prostitution under the photo above. Illegal prostitution? That’s how those two young women ended up dead in a section of a rented apartment and not found for three days. I’m betting the VAST majority of prostitutes, whether they work in legal/illegal brothels, or are left to work on the street, do NOT get to work from premises like this with it’s stack of fluffy towels and it’s shiny clean shower facility!

If the SMH wants to confront the ‘awful truth’  about a drooping economy, and the financial pressures on women, and the gender inequity in wages, then WHY can’t it tell the truth with its pictures. Women who are getting forced into prostitution are unlikely to get a room such as the above to work out of. Oh no, that’s right, even when we’re talking about women being forced into prostitution we need to make sure it’s all aesthetically pleasing to the menfolk.

Friday Fuckwit: you decide

Does it go to Giles Hardy, reviewer for “Pick of the Flicks” on SMH for saying the new Rob Schnieder movie is “Comedic rape”, is “worse than prison rape”?

Or to Rolfe Harris for suggesting that ‘traditional Aboriginal values’ are a real problem and ‘they’ should really just get off their arses?

Christ!

Mumbai: the ‘real tragedy’?

The SMH is featuring a story about Brook Satchwell and others being trapped in Mumbai, and reporting the chaos there.

At the end though there was this quote, from an Australian woman who has moved to Mumbai to be married in 4 days and who has friends arriving for the wedding. She had this to say:

“They are targeting every suburb in this city but the most tragic thing is that for the first time ever they are targeting big-time foreigners and five-star hotels,” she said.

“There have been a lot of bombs in India and they normally target marketplaces and the poorer society but where we are at the Taj Mahal hotel, a historic hotel, they have eight foreign hostages.”

I understand the terror of tourists caught up in this, but is the most tragic thing *really* that they are targeting ‘big time foreigners’ and ‘five star hotels’. Would it have been less tragic if they had bombed the shit out of the market places?

I really do not want to diminish the terror these people on holidays are facing, the fear for loved ones, the stress of the situation.

I know that this is targeting Westerners, I know that being stuck there/having loved ones stuck there must be horrific and agonising. I’m not arguing that it is not a *different* situation.

But I’m not sure the ‘real tragedy’ is the wealth of the targets.

“House of chicks, relax. I am a man, and I have a tool”*

Yeah, you heard it here first: I am a man! According to “Gender Analyzer: Man or Woman, who is writing that blog?” Fuckpoliteness is written by a man. They are 57% sure of this. I’ve used the gag before, but at the risk of becoming as repetitive as Kathy Lette, I’ll recycle it til someone stops me:

I await delivery of my shiny new phallus and a truck tonne of societal priviledge in eager anticipation.

With thanks to Su who brought me the means by which to finally learn and come to terms with my new identity.

[You may be interested to know that this post is *officially* 2% less manly than my FUCK THE PATRIARCHY uber feminist rant fest - I went back and checked again]

* Xander, from BtVS, Season 6, Episode 1: Bargaining Part 1

Men’s health ambassadors, bringing homophobic, misogynist horseshit to a town near you

I can’t even engage with this. I’ve sent my email to Nicola Roxon in protest. Please see this article over at Hoyden About Town with the links to more at Crikey, and links to email Nicola Roxon on. Gaargh!

The patriarchy gives women eye twitches, then says they were ‘making eyes’ at it

Yes, I have an eye twitch. Two. I am tired, and I am pissed off (shocking to my readers I know!).

I am tired and pissed off as I am feeling utterly assaulted by the continual evidence that I, as a woman, am not a *person*, but a prop.My *life* means nothing to the patriarchy, it would rather I shut the fuck up, stopped thinking, stopped arguing and just got busy spending all day every day improving my appearance – even though it’s set up an ideal that I couldn’t live up to even if I did.

Women are allowed into the workforce, sure. But we’re paid less, ogled, often harrassed and felt up, our opinions are mocked and discounted, only to be repeated back to us later (without due credit of course), we are forced to listen to misogynist jokes and to smile quietly while men feel free to make their fucking sick jokes and infuriatingly ‘entitled’ comments upon the bonability of every other woman. They then turn and say ‘Oh, sorry if that offends you’. When really, they aren’t. They don’t care. They keep doing it. They don’t even think twice about whether it offends you and certainly not *why*. They say ’sorry’ as an excuse to keep doing it.

They don’t have to walk around knowing that their gender are ludicrously susceptible to violence of a sexual and non sexual nature at the hands of the opposite sex. They don’t have to spend inordinate amounts of time polishing, waxing, painting, smoothing, dieting and otherwise jujjing themselves into a state of overly made up and ridiculously adorned perfection (a state which they’ll never attain since it’s unattainable and they’ll just continue to get unfavourably compared to younger and brighter nameless faceless women since THAT IS HOW IT WORKS) or be called all sorts of dehumanising names suggesting they are *not* a *real* specimen of their gender. They don’t have to think about being reduced to their genitals at the VERY same time that their genitals are widely derided as disgusting, smelly, horrific and used as an analogy for weakness.

They get to bond with one another over what a pain in the arse we are, how they’d all be better off without us, how we’re nagging, whining shrews who trap them into marriage and yet THEY KEEP FUCKING PROPOSING.

What is it fellas? Do you worship the cunt or fear it? Do you want to be married or is that an apocalyptic nightmare? It’s not like we fucking need your shit (except society is designed precisely so women ARE reduced to financial dependance on men), so make up your fucking minds and get out of my face. You’re causing me facial twitches and I keep looking like I’m winking at strangers. Which we ALL KNOW (cos Sam in the City TOLD US) means if you rape me you can blame ME. Because I WAS GIVING YOU THE EYE!!

Think about it people. The next time you think you’re getting The Eye from a woman, maybe she just has a Patriarchy Induced eyetwitch.

And you know what? I HATE the word patriarchy. I don’t want to use it, but the inescapable fact that it’s real and it fucks everything up for women MAKES me use it.

Oh yeah, the SMH has an article about a dad who repeatedly raped his daughters over a 25 year period. WHEN will the media start talking about the fact that the majority of sexual abuse of kids happens INSIDE the home, that maybe the ‘family’ isn’t the sacrosanct little unit we pretend it is? That our society keeps producing these horrors, that maybe we should look at what links these things, the problems underlying it, GENDERED VIOLENCE, misogyny, masculinity etc, instead of making it the Story of the Exceptional Monsters. Stats don’t bear this fairytale out…WHY do we keep telling it? Oh yeah, to keep things rolling along as per.

WHOSE fault is it that your husband is a cheating prick who humiliated you by conducting an affair behind your back for years? Why YOURS of course!

*Trigger warnings*

Why am I EVEN surprised? I’m not actually…but I am sure as hell not going to NOT point it out.

Sam in the City ponders (in depth) “Who’s really to blame for an affair?”

Yes, before you ask it IS exactly as bad as you think…she just pretends for a while that’s not where she’s going.

So Gordon Ramsay’s been fucking around.

There appears to Sam to be an unprecedented SPATE of this!!! OMG cultural PHENOMENON!!

Is it the *Other Woman*’s fault? Is it YOUR FAULT as the wife??? (Here she pretends to shy away from this even though WE ALL KNOW it’s her ultimate conclusion and I just LOVE that she bounces from one woman to the other without pausing to reflect on the guy that is the one who actually broke the promises here).

Nooo, HONESTLY, *I* don’t think it’s the wife’s fault, *I* don’t subscribe to this….but…really…I heard a story, right and in this story a guy tried to cheat cos his wife was away for two weeks…so this made me think right? If he doesn’t get it at home… (um, what? She was away on a two week holiday who SAID he didn’t “get it at home”) does he feel “the need to stray”. (Oh poor MENZ!!! NEEDS NEEDS NEEDS to live lies! Couldn’t make a choice! Couldn’t be HONEST! Couldn’t have a wank and a nap! Couldn’t grow the fuck up and go pursue an unattached status where he’s free to sleep with whomever he chooses if that’s what he really wants! Coudn’t give his wife a fucking CHOICE in any of this!)

She never even pauses to think that maybe it’s not about the wife/her not ‘putting out’, that these men may well have had a rollicking sex life with their partner…but maybe he’s just a prick? Or maybe it’s about masculine culture and a sense of entitlement? Or maybe…no, too hard…let’s just blame the woman he’s humiliated and decieved. Excellent.

Oh also? When you as a woman are shocked and appalled at a married male friend hitting on your while his wife is away and tell him in no uncertain terms that it’s inappropriate and you are most certainly not intererested? Well you OBVIOUSLY are a liar who subconsciously led him on – and no amount of protesting on your behalf makes a difference since a random dude who doesn’t know you asserts that:

“She must have been doing something to lead him on in the first place,” he explained. “Because men abhor rejection. They must have seen each other in a previous scenario and she may have been giving him the eye. Men aren’t going to start something like that if they weren’t getting the signals.”

Um, if you don’t mind, I’ll beg to differ here as the recipient of MANY unwanted and upsetting advances, both verbal propositions by married men and the upsettingly taken-for-granted-as-normal groping/grabbing/molesting in clubs NONE OF WHICH involved any leading on, any eye-giving, any ANYTHING.

How is this not rape apology logic??

* OH, men KNOW the signals they’re getting more than women KNOW the signals they’re giving*. By this logic whatever a woman says/does/screams NEVER EVER MATTERS cos a man KNOWS when he’s wanted, and SHE STARTED IT and he’s a fragile little puppy and wouldn’t TRY anything otherwise!

Just fuck off and die.

[Oh and anyone who thinks I'm a little *over the top* with the anger/the rape association? Yeah, maybe I'm just fucking grumpy and worn down by pricks finding my site with searches such as 'Fuck granma screaming whle she's raped', 'rape in car videos' etc]

And more stories…

Looks like the SMH has decided that domestic violence is a hot topic. This story discusses a woman kidnapped and beaten by her ex husband  and how, years later, she lives in fear of him turning up behind her.

Again, like the issues raised by police ignoring a woman’s repeated requests for help, this story draws out issues attached to domestic violence that do not get enough coverage: the lasting impact on women of violence directed at them by their partners.

The article highlights the very specific ways in which gendered violence plays out. Yes, men do beat the shit out of men they don’t know…but they don’t routinely think they own another man, following him obsessively, starting a campaign of intimidation designed to break the other man for their own purposes, for daring to make his own choices. Women are far more likely to be beaten and or murdered by their partners when trying to leave than any other situation in life.

It’s something I’ve wanted to write about for ages: my own story is obviously SO much less horrific than this, but it’s now ten years since I left, since I had to take out an A.V.O. I don’t feel physically under threat any more (he lives overseas and when he visits he has too much invested in performing ‘togetherness’ to earn his free ride given to him by his parents that I just don’t think he would physically hurt me) though he is still an intimidating person at 6′6″ with a wildly unpredictable disposition and a complete inability to take responsibility – all anger/fear is directed outwards in the most childish tantrums.

And he doesn’t mind other forms of coercion – he’s all about emotionally guilting you into things, slipping in demands he *knows* are unfair and offensive, but that you can’t call him on since your son knows his deficiencies, but wants to see him while he’s here, so if you want that to happen without an arse-faced ex shit fit you need to keep your mouth shut. He will scream at me at length whenever he’s sufficiently upset (like the day after his wedding when I’d made my son available to be picked up at the school and the ex realised he was enrolled under my name – how utterly unreasonable given I raised him on my own since he was nine months old and the ex moved overseas five years ago) though we mostly play ”nice” and keep everything sterile and at arms length, though I do get a sore face from all the grimacing while attempting to ’smile’.

But his mere presence in the country, the fact that he’ll be calling and arriving intermittently, the situation of being beholden to his idiocy, unpredictability and demands (ie/ he wants to see our son, but if ‘Mummy has the car’ he doesn’t come since god forbid he’d take the fucking bus like the rest of us, but he needs to see him at X time – never matter if we had plans – so I get to choose between my son getting the time he desperately wants with his dad OR sticking up for myself and my boundaries, cos I don’t get both while this turd is around) is enough to keep me consistently agitated and nauseous.

It isn’t that he’s a physical threat to myself or to my son, it’s that our past, the shame of what he reduced me to (and I *KNOW* the shame is his, not mine, but it’s still there) and of having to allow him a continued impact on my life when he’s here, that the after effects of his abusiveness are still…in my body in some sense…it’s neutralised and latent while he’s away…but his presence triggers it and I’m constantly on edge while he’s here.Because some big dumb bastard had issues, and I tried to help, so he tried to break me for his purposes and when I left he lost his shit and tried to intimidate me but (luckily for me) the A.V.O was enough shock to stop him. But for years he thought we’d get back together. My words, my actions meant NOTHING – he was a man who’d had his toy taken away and dammit, he was gonna get it back.

Again, not comparing my story or being all ‘look at me’, it’s just…that I want to continue to draw out discussions of this at the every day level. He didn’t kidnap me and beat me…but women deserve better than to be a prop in some man’s life, and that is what I was to him. It was convenient to have someone who loved him, that he could use to get out of obligations, that he could guilt trip, that he could scream at and take out his issues on, that he could control by insults and degradations relying on the fact that life with him was so confusing that I wouldn’t be able to see clearly. I want people to understand that men who abuse women don’t walk up, punch them in the mouth and say “How’s about marriage?”. They’re nice enough at first. Then it starts with headgames, and since women are taught it’s their role to look after men, that men have trouble expressing themselves and can be changed by the love of a good woman…well things change slowly and by then you’re baffled, their insults hit home, their threats keep you stuck, your self confidence is gone, and you’re more easily manipulated…and you stay because you *do* care and you think it will get better…

Anyway, that was my experience, I’m sure others have different experiences/reasons for staying. But yeah, obviously any comment that says women stay because they LOVE to be abused, or because they’re a shit judge of character can fuck off, cos I won’t be publishing that. It’s far more systemic and complicated than that…

No words…

Too tired to write more, but please go read this article in the SMH.

When I was being stalked by my ex, I sent my two young sisters with my son to the police station to wait for me as his behaviour that day was more erratic and frightening than normal. Finally I managed to extract myself from his company and went to the police station to find my family and calm down.

He turned up outside. I said I did not want to speak to him and hid in the back room with my sisters and son.

A police officer went out to talk and ten minutes later ordered me outside since my ex allegedly “Just wanted to talk”.

I didn’t feel that disobeying the large armed police officer was an option so I did. Of course after fifteen minutes of his paranoid, accusatory bullshit and yelling, I also raised my voice. And the minute I did, there was the officer again, looking disgusted with me telling me “Your kids are all crying back there!” in a tone that made it clear he *knew* it was because of my irresponsible mothering in meanly yelling at their dad. (By the way I was five when my sister was born!)

When the ex left I was shaking and tearful, and quite clear in wanting to file an A.V.O. I was flatly refused help and told to go the Magistrates office. I did so where I was told that really the police ought to have helped.

They were contemptous, dismissive and totally unwilling to help. My obvious fear and distress did nothing to move them. They ordered me outside where god knows WHAT could have happened (no one stayed to supervise), they told me off for distressing my children when THEY ordered me to speak to a man I was HIDING IN THE FUCKING COP SHOP FROM!!! And then they would not take the application for protection that I am legally entitled to apply for no matter WHAT their fucking pig ignorant attitude.

I got my A.V.O through the magistrates court. I had friends completely dismiss my fear (the guy was 6′6″ and had told me he’d broken his ex’s jaw…his mother *insists* this is not true, but by then it hardly mattered…he did it or he told me to make me afraid, he broke things, he made threats and when drunk he tried to kick me but happily fell through a wall instead) and his family stopped speaking to me. They’ve never forgiven me. Ha! Kiss my arse! They’ve never forgiven ME for the fact that I had been so reduced to a state of constant fear and anxiety by months of stalking, intimidation and threats that I finally said “No more”, I finally took it seriously enough and applied for help? Fuck you bastards! I don’t want your forgiveness. Forgive your arsehole son. Forgive the misogynist cops. But don’t even dare to talk about forgiving me!

I’m telling you this not to say, Oooh, my story is dramatic too…but in case people are tempted to say this failure is an individuial thing. I bet many stories come out of the woodwork. The attitudes that cause people to ignore women’s fear and concerns is systemic. Gaargh. Gott run, business meeting