Why Tories Want To Scrap The Human Rights Act

Last night, a friend asked me why the Tories are so keen to get rid of the Human Rights Act, and what effect replacing it with a Bill Of Rights would have. I thought it might be useful to people if I re-posted the email I sent him here:

(N.B. This was done off the top of my head in quite a short time, and I don't have access to my beloved legal textbooks at the moment, so it doesn't go in to great detail, but I will update this post when I have got them back to provide more references and detail and generally clear it up a bit.)

Right, I don't know how much you know about the Human Rights Act, so I'll start from the beginning:

The main task of the HRA is to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. This is a condition of accession to the EU - all new member states must sign up for it. The HRA can be used against any public body, and section 3 provides that all legislation of the UK must be drafted and interpreted with the HRA in mind to make sure it complies - the UK can face sanctions from the ECtHR if it fails to re-do legislation that it has been advised does not comply - see prisoner voting.

Even if we didn't have the HRA, we would still be a signatory to the ECHR, and it's very difficult to see how they would get around this, but one effect of scrapping the HRA would be that the only way HR breaches could be remedied would be by the European Court of Human Rights - and this is a remedy that is very time and labour consuming - not to mention way too intimidating for most pro-bono/legal aid lawyers, who usually take breaches to the UK courts (with the ECtHR being at the top of the appeals process).

The Tories talk a lot about replacing it with a 'Bill of Rights'. This is a smokescreen - the ECHR is universal and applies to all public bodies. A BOR could exclude situations (i.e. 'this right does not apply if the person concerned is suspected of breaking a law'), people (i.e. 'this right applies only to full citizens of the UK') or public bodies (i.e. 'the police force of the UK are not bound to uphold these rules'). This is my main concern. 

There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the basic overview.

Hope this is helpful to anyone who was a bit confused. Like I say, will post properly on the matter in a couple of weeks, but after Theresa May's horrific speech yesterday, I thought the basics could do with being stated now.

I Don't Know Why I Do This To Myself

Dear reader, I have a confession to make. I'm bored of feminism.

Now, before you all rush to the window to check for four suspiciously thin dudes on ponies cantering across the skyline, let me assure you that I am not bored of the notion of equality among all, but rather having the same bloody arguments time and time again. The reason we can never get anything done is because we spend our entire lives trapped in the same cycle of Arguing With Morons. It's not one of Dante's circles of hell, but it sometimes feels like it. 

You know how it works:

Feminist: "Actually, it would be quite nice if we didn't live in a rape culture." 

Moron On The Internet: "OH MY GOD YOU HATE ALL MEN WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU MISANDRIST. YOU'RE HYSTERICAL. RAPE CULTURE IS NOT A THING. YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOUR. YOU HATE SEX. PROVE ME WRONG." 

Feminist: "Here's a really good article on Rape Culture 101. Misandry is a word invented to argue with feminists. I'm not hysterical, stop gaslighting me. By the way, I am fucking heeyylarious and yeah, sex is awesome."

MOTI: "Oh, look at you, with your EVIDENCE. It's just part of the feminist conspiracy to eradicate men. You just want to be sat on your arse eating bonbons while men toil away and you deny them sex." 

Feminist: "I think you're thinking of what we call 'Imaginary Feminism'." 

MOTI: "THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT ALL FEMINISTS THINK ALL THE TIME EVER." 

Feminist: *sighs* *realises rape culture will remain in place another day* *wanders away from the internet to make tea and read the SCUM manifesto*

So, yeah. If I could actually add up the time I have spent trying to engage with people who have decided that I'm a man-hating hag for suggesting that it might be nice if women were offered the same opportunities as men, I would probably try and drown myself in a vat of cookie-dough ice cream. And the thing is, it's not just stopping the progress of the feminist movement, but actually harming it. When an editor of a usually-reputable newspaper announces a new policy of  massaging statistics on rape to shut up MRA trolls, well, that's BAD.

It's stopping me saying what I want to as well - a couple of weeks ago I was asked by a website that I really like to write a piece about gender representation on Mock The Week, and I had to turn it down because I knew exactly what the comments would look like before I'd even written a single word. Thankfully, it's been covered by women braver than I here, here and here.

I don't know what these people want. I swear, baby fucking Jesus himself could toddle down from heaven, inhabit the body of Gibbs from NCIS (the most authoritative person in the history of humankind) and present them with gold-plated evidence written by the University of SCIENCE and still they would come out with the same boring, tired, privilege-denying arguments. And I am tired of it.

Last week, I suggested to someone on Twitter that his idea that any man who didn't picket the women's-only fringe event at the Labour conference was a "gender traitor" made him a bit of a cock. I tried to explain that if women were adequately represented in the main conference, then it wouldn't be necessary to have a fringe event for them. Apparently this made me a 'fascist Jim Crow-style seperatist who hates equality and men'. When I tried to question him about this, he got all huffy and blocked me, claiming I was "swamping him" with my "abhorrent views". Our full exchange may be viewed here.

So, does anyone have any ideas about how to deal with people like this or am I just to stick with my usual recipe of cigarettes, facepalming and punching a pillow as I pretend it's the face of the patriarchy?



(For anyone who doesn't often delve into the murky world of Being A Feminist On The Internet, while looking for the link on gaslighting, I found what can only be described as The Stupidest Waste Of Pixels I Have Ever Seen - the comments seem to nicely sum up what we're fighting against.)

Thanks

Regular readers to this site might remember that about a month ago, I had a little bit of a shameless beg for donations. Well, you were AMAZING. In less than 24 hours, you wonderful, astonishing, brilliant people donated enough for me to pay for a deposit on a new place.

I've now been living in Bristol for a week, and have already got involved with the Bristol Feminist Network (Reclaim The Night is coming up in November) and seen lots of lovely people, and done a lot of reading, writing and planning for my future while I look for employment down here. I'm still poorer than a church mouse with a nasty crack habit, but hopefully my benefits payments will be sorted soon!

So, thank you all from the very bottom of my heart. I still can't quite believe how generous people were, but I appreciate it so, so much. You are all AWESOME and I would like to hug each one of you individually. Hug you RIGHT IN THE FACE.

Nat x

Mini-Review - Living Dolls and Sexuality

Yesterday I finally got round to starting to read Living Dolls by Natasha Walter. I have been very impressed with it thus far, her insights into 'Lads mag culture' and the pressures on young women to be sex objects has been truly enjoyable and enlightening to read. I am personally planning on buying my younger sister a copy of it for christmas, even if I have to resort to Clockwork Orange-style tactics to get her to read it.

However, I feel very let down by Chapter Four. This chapter is about young women's attitudes towards casual sex. Walter discusses a modern promiscuity, but during doing this, she seems to descend into some sort of 'slut-shaming' attitude, which left me totally cold. The chapter features interviews with several women around my age - half of them are interested in, and have, casual sex, and the other half seek more emotional bonds with the people they wish to copulate with. Instead of using this divide to acknowledge that everyone's sexual experience is different and that people should do what makes them happy (obviously with regard to the fact that choice does not exist in a vacuum and so on), Walter dismisses the opinions and experiences of the self-confessed 'promiscuous' ones with a kind of "well it's what they think they want, but I know better" attitude. She only considers that the opinion of the 'chaste' girls (that sex should only come about as a result of a strong emotional tie) to be valid, using Anais Nin's diaries to back up her viewpoint.

Well, I'm sorry, but no. Without going into too much detail (hi mum!), by patriarchal standards, I am a slut. I've had long-term monogamous relationships (five years), I've had short term flings, I've had sex with friends, I've had one-night stands and pretty much everything in between. I'm not ashamed, and although I am currently in a monogamous relationship, there is nothing to say that I wouldn't do it all again. I only tell you this to assure you that I know what I'm talking about.

I firmly believe that while sex with someone who you are emotionally bonded with can be great, it is not the be-all and end all, and saying that it is is not a message we should be sending to women. What are we, Ann Widdecombe?

I believe that Walter makes this distinction because she sees the promiscuity of some of the girls to be a symptom of the 'hypersexual' culture she (brilliantly) rails against, and seems to think that the reason they are promiscuous is because they are willing participants in said hypersexual culture. What she fails to realise is that correlation does not equal causation. I identified with a lot of what the interviewed girls said ("I met this guy in a pub the other night. We had sex once and... he says, are you going to sleep with other people? I thought, who are you? Why are you asking me this? Of course I'm having sex with other people."), but I do not consider myself to be part of the 'Living Doll' culture. I don't shave, I'm usually to be found wearing bovver boots, I don't wear make up and I dye and cut my own hair. My promiscuity is to do with a liking for sex, not a search for an emotional connection. It's because putting other people's bits in your bits feels good. If you can have strong emotional connections without sex, why can't you have sex without strong emotional connections?

I think a much more positive message to send to young women should be "Do what makes you happy.  Take pleasure in pleasure and don't feel you have to justify your sexuality. Just always be safe, and don't let yourself be pushed into anything you don't want to do".

Sometimes, people just want to fuck because it feels good. We should not add any caveats to that.

I will review the rest of the book when I have finished it, I just had to get this little rant off my chest.

Help Save The NHS

The Health and Social Care Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons today, by a majority of just 65. This means that the next stage of this bill is for it to be debated in the House of Lords. If it passes in the House of Lords, it will become law, and our NHS will be sold off piecemeal to the highest bidder. So, here's what I want everyone to do: 


1: Go to Going To Work and adopt yourself a peer. It's like having a Tamagotchi, but they don't die if you forget to feed them. Now, isn't that lovely, you have a new pet! And no litter trays to clear out!


2: Copy and paste this letter into the email form:

Dear [Peer's name],

I am writing to you today because I would like to highlight some concerns I have about the Health and Social Care Bill which you will shortly be asked to debate.

The organisation 38 Degrees consulted solicitors at Harrison Grant and the specialist barristers Stephen Cragg and Rebecca Haynes about two provisions of this bill - specifically, the impact of the removal of the Secretary of State's duty to provide or secure provision of NHS services, and the impact of competition and procurement law on the NHS. Their full findings may be found at http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/content/NHS-legal-advice/, but I would like to reiterate the main fears surrounding this bill.

Firstly, I fear that the removal of the Secretary of State's duty to provide or secure provision of NHS services will have one of four effects:

1. There will no longer be a National Health Service

The duty, that Parliament has given the Health Secretary, for ensuring that the NHS provides the service that people need will be lost and the NHS will from here on in simply be little more than a series of quasi-independent commissioning entities and providers, basically free to get on with the job.

2. A loss of accountability - the government will wash its hands of the NHS

Removing the Secretary of State's legal duty to provide or secure provision on health services, and introducing a "hands-off clause", significantly reduces democratic accountability for the NHS. The responsibility for securing the provision of healthcare services will lie with unelected commissioners who will only be accountable to an unelected national quango. The bill will make it impossible for the Secretary of State to direct that certain services are available and difficult for the Secretary of State to step in if these groups deliver poor healthcare to the local community. These changes would shift the main responsibility to unelected officials, representatives of private companies and GPs.

3. A loss of accountability - Local representatives and health watchdogs lose their right to appeal

Because the government is removing the Secretary of State's duty to ensure the NHS delivers an appropriate service, appeals from locally elected council bodies and health watchdogs will no longer be decided by the Secretary of State but - if any rights of appeal survive - a national quango.

4. A 'Postcode Lottery'

Because of changes in the bill there is a real risk of an increase in the “postcode lottery” nature of the delivery of some NHS services. The power to choose what health services are closed or improved in a local area will be passed on to local unelected bodies with little scope for the government to intervene. This will mean patients can no longer expect the government to ensure a consistent level of healthcare regardless of where they live.  

Secondly, I fear that opening the NHS up to Competition Law may also have pernicious effects. The Bill contains a number of measures which will increase competition within the NHS at the expense of collaboration and integration and/or make it almost inevitable that UK and EU competition law will apply as if it were a utility like gas or telecoms. This includes:

 a) Giving Monitor the duty to eliminate so-called “anti-competitive” behaviour

 b) Removing the limit on the amount of income NHS hospitals can earn from private health services

c) Handing significant new procurement responsibilities to the new Clinical Commissioning Groups

d) Permitting these new groups to outsource commissioning work to private companies

e) Writing additional rules on competition into the law and making Monitor enforce them

This could have several effects:

1. Exposing the NHS to UK and EU Competition Law

Taken together, these changes increase the likelihood of NHS services being found by the courts to fall within the scope of UK and EU competition law. The likelihood of this is further increased by other government NHS policies, for example the extension, announced in July 2011, of the right of Any Qualified Provider to be given a contract to deliver health services. 

2. Create costly and complex procurement procedures

The new commissioning groups will be subject to EU procurement rules whenthey commission local health services. This is likely to be costly, given the likely larger numbers of commissioning groups as compared to PCTs now and our Counsel warns that it appears the government have not planned for this significant increase in cost. Furthermore, it is not clear that the commissioning groups have the necessary procurement expertise to deal with the complex procurement process and to avoid legal action from disgruntled private healthcare providers. This could mean that the NHS ends up spending a lot of time and money fighting legal action instead of investing in patient care. Or worse, it could mean they are reluctant to commission any services for fear of being sued. 

3. Create fertile ground for private health companies (and their lawyers)

Companies that bid unsuccessfully for NHS contracts will be able to challenge commissioning decisions in the courts. Private health providers have far more expertise and legal capacity than either public bodies or charities, and so are likely to be best placed to exploit these laws. Litigation could be time-consuming and costly for commissioning bodies. 

4. Open our NHS to private companies -  and thus create privatisation by stealth

These plans will lead to a system geared heavily in favour of private companies. The legislation does not currently contain measures to stop: 

 a) private companies being contracted to provide commissioning services to consortia and therefore profiting from spending multi-million-pound health budgets, or

b) private companies poaching services in a way which undermines the ability of the NHS to deliver essential services like Intensive Care Units, A&E, emergency cover, teaching, training and research.

 I wholly believe that this bill is not just unnecessary for the future of the NHS, but actively puts it in danger, and I would like it if you could step in where the Other House has failed and halt this bill in its tracks.

The NHS is one of our proudest achievements as a country. It was created at the end of a war, at a time when our country could have been in ruins. Instead, we banded together to create something wonderful and give everyone, no matter their background, an equal opportunity to live life. 

I would like to implore you, one more time, to put a stop to this bill and to allow us to remain proud of one of our country's crowning jewels.

Yours, [your name]

3. Print that letter off and post it to your adoptive peer.

4. Go donate some money to 38 Degrees to show your appreciation

5. Have a cup of tea and a sit down

6: Go to step one, and pick a new pet Peer!


We can beat this if we fight hard enough. Never give up.

Nat x

 

 

 

 

Public Service Announcement

This is a public service announcement (unfortunately, without guitar) for anyone who has a Facebook profile.

Yesterday, I was Googling my own name (got to check what potential employers might see), when on the second page, I came across a link to "my profile" on ThankYourWank.com [NSFW, and I wouldn't advise clicking on it anyway]. This is a profile I did not set up.

ThankYourWank is a 'hilarious' new 'social networking' (or 'netwanking'?) site, which enables you to

"Find out how many people wanked to you, thank those you wanked to by clicking +1 on their profile, get instant alerts for mutual wanks, create a list of your favourite wanks (may also be used as a to-"do" list), and see the most wanked to people on earth!"

How... delightful. And not at all disgusting, creepy and objectifying.

As a commenter on this Jezebel post about the website says:

"It also strikes me as a power play, in the same men ordering women to smile on the street is a power play, but instead of "I want just want you to know that you are lesser than me and I have a right to order you to behave in ways I find appealing," it's "I'm fucking you in my brain and there's nothing you can do about it." Basically yet another way to remind women no matter who they are or what they've accomplished in life, they are nothing but a set of holes for men to fuck and they should never forget it." 

Anyway, I soon found out that it's not just me. If you have a Facebook profile that's in any way public, you're probably on it too. Seems our friends at TYW have been helpfully giving anyone they could find a profile, without regards for the consequences. How thoughtful of them!

So, it says on the site that the only way to remove your profile is by logging in using your Facebook details and clicking 'delete'. Well, fuck giving them my details. Thanks to a friend, I found out that the best thing to do is to go to their Facebook app page and click 'block' on the left hand side. This should revoke all access, but Google might take a while to update.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to do. I found out that the site is 'based' in India, and the domain name provided by GoDaddy (yeah, these charming misogynists). I called GoDaddy yesterday to put in a complaint, (this website is in violation of their ToS) and received this back:

I do apologize Natalie, I was in the process of creating and sending up this issue but it appears the site is not hosted with us.  Because it is hosted with another company we would not be able to take anything down, what I would advise doing is going through and doing a who is search and find out who is hosting the site by looking up the nameservers and contact that company, they would be the ones who would be able to get this issue taken care of for you.

 So, now I'm a bit stuck. I'm not sure what to do, other than to urge as many people to revoke access to their profiles and hope this hideous site dies the death it so clearly deserves.

Tell your friends.

As an aside, I was very much amused that this was the picture on my profile:

Thanks to all who helped me find the information for this post.

Arguments I Will No Longer Have

This post was inspired by the shit  the amazing @sianushka has been seeing on her blog this week. She is an inspiration, and I don't know how she copes with some of the drivel on her comment threads, but she does, and she has my utmost admiration and respect for it.





I'm bored of arguing with anti-feminists. I'm bored of seeing the same shit in comments that I see all day, every day, everywhere. There are certain arguments that are as predictable as the rising of the sun, the passage of time, or Nadine Dorries being an evil stain on humanity, and I'm so utterly, utterly bored of them that I find myself not wanting to write, because I know I'll encounter them. So I have decided to write a list of the most common ones, and why I will not be having them any more, so I can just point people to it and say "Look, sunshine, here's why you're being an unproductive, derailing wanker".

1. "Prove it"

Some things are so commonly written about and cited that not every feminist blogger feels the need to link to them all the time. They are common knowledge. Women are paid 22.6% less than men. Only 6.5% of reported rapes will result in a conviction of the attacker. So if you come blustering in, demanding proof of something that's widely available on Google (where do you think I get my stats from? Some magical database only feminists can access?), you will be given a citation, and I expect it to be left there. Don't tell me that my argument is completely ruined by not including a link that you could have found yourself by typing three words into a search engine.

2. "Stop being so angry, sweary and rude"


In a word, no. In slightly more words, don't dare tell me how I can speak about the awful things I see every day. Like it or not, I am angry. I have to be. I don't see how anyone could not be hideously angry all the time by all the injustice in the world. It's not up to me to put something in terms that are palatable for you. As this brilliant post points out:

The tone argument – essentially “I’m more right because you weren’t nice about my being wrong” – is absurd and a means of derailing in the first place. However, when men use it against women it is especially pernicious. Women are expected, socially, to not get angry. They are expected to remain calm and emotionally available at all times. Thus, when men use the tone argument on women they are essentially relying on patriarchal gender constructs to help them win an argument and to undermine that woman’s message. They are using their privilege to their advantage to silence women, and there will never ever be anything feminist about that.

3. "You're using ad hominem arguments, so I'm not going to listen to you!"

I swear to fuck, if I never see the words 'ad hominem' on the internet again, I will know I have died and gone to heaven. This surely is the most over-used, and mis-used accusation in all of cyberspace. Let me explain. An ad hominem argument is a logical fallacy whereby an irrelevant personal characteristic of the ad hominee is used by the ad hominer to disregard their entire argument. For example, "You can't talk about economics, because you don't even have a job" is an example of an ad hominem attack. "You're a mansplaining wanker with the social graces of a particularly unpleasant strain of norovirus, and here's why you're wrong..." is not. It is an insult. You may feel that this insult is unduly rude, at which point I would refer you to argument 2. Oh, and "You use ad hominem attacks, so I won't listen to you talk about feminist issues" is an ad hominem attack.

4. "What about men?"


Ah, the fabled "whatabouttehmenz?" argument. Surely you know how it goes by now, but here's some examples:

1. Feminist writes about problem of female rape victims being disbelieved unless they are blonde nuns who have never even seen alcohol and were wearing a suit of armour at the time of the attack and have a signed confession from the rapist saying "Yes, I did it". A comment appears saying "but men get raped too!". Yes - and this is obviously disgusting, but if they are brave enough to come forward, they're not asked what they were wearing like it ever made a difference. That's the problem we're discussing. HINT: We know all rape is bad. You don't have to explain it to us.
2. Feminst discusses problems of Intimate Partner Violence from a gender neutral perspective. A comment appears saying "Well men suffer IPV too, and they don't have refuges so you're all evil". This type is particularly interesting, as what they are really saying is "I am aware of a problem, yet I personally refuse to do anything about it, and instead I expect you to drop whatever you're doing and FIX IT IMMEDIATELY".

This one has always baffled me. If these people are so concerned about men's issues, why not fight for them themselves, instead of telling me I have to spend 50% of my time and energy doing it for them, otherwise I'm a misandrist? These are the people who would rather close down women's shelters than fight for men's shelters. 

5. "Well X isn't a feminist and she doesn't notice the things that piss you off"

No, I doubt she does. Probably because she's preconditioned by a patriarchal society to see things like street harrassment and rape culture as an expected inconvenience in her day to day life, and something she doesn't vocally complain about. If you asked her to think about the times she'd been treated badly because of her gender, chances are she'd come up with a few examples. Try it. You'll be surprised by how much women will put up with until they start to really think about things. Here's a story for you - I used to read a lot of women's magazines at work. Heat, Company, Cosmopolitan to name but a few. One day, I stopped, purely because I realised they were boring and full of adverts to sell me clothes I would never buy in a million years. Do you know what? The disordered eating and self-loathing of my own body that had plagued me since I was 11 stopped almost immediately. I genuinely hadn't even noticed that these magazines were designed to make me hate my own body in order to sell me things until I stopped and looked.

6. "She's a woman, you should support her"

Newsflash: I don't choose who I like based on the fact that we share the same reproductive organs! Radical, I know, but hear me out - just because a woman is a woman does not mean she is a feminist. If all she is doing opposes everything I stand for, I will not support her. Much like I wouldn't not support someone purely because he is male. It's completely idiotic. "HEY LADIES. I know Michelle Bachmann wants you to be submissive to your husbands, take away your right to bodily autonomy, demonise you if you end up as a single mother and doesn't even believe in homosexuality, you should totes support her, because she has a vagina! That makes her a feminist!". Just... NO.

7. "You're censoring free speech!"

Last time I checked, free speech was still a thing, and one feminist blogger calling someone out for being a misogynist didn't stop them speaking. Here's the deal - I will defend to the death your right to free speech, but I will also defend my right to call you out on being a bigoted dickhead. If you're stopping me doing that because of your (or X's) 'free speech', guess who's denying who free speech?

8. "Here's a link to the Daily Mail that shows you why you're wrong!" 

Oh, just fuck off.

N.B. I am aware that I have approached this post from a cis-normative point of view, and I'm sorry. This is because these arguments are usually approached this way. I have also seen these arguments used on trans* activist blogs, and feel they may be read similarly from both approaches. I haven't forgotten.