Monday 15 October 2012

The power of We

Recently, I took the opportunity to talk to a beautiful young female in my life about the use of the word 'pervert'. I tried to gently explain that not every man who smiled at her, on the bus, in the cafe or at school was dangerous, predatory or suspect.
I thought this might help her to maintain a natural trust and open mindedness in her approach to the world.

But she's a young girl....growing up in a world dominated by, designed for and, on the whole, run by men.

She looks older than her age but is still more than young enough to imagine that all attention from the opposite sex is an affirmation of what she already knows absolutely.....that she is gorgeous and fabulous and only an idiot wouldn't appreciate her gloriousness, even though she finds the idea of anything like tongues and touching and sweat and genitals completely, hilariously 'disgusting, innit!'.
But this is a country where the heartbreaking and revolting details of Jimmy Savile's professional career of sexual abuse are revealed daily, by a press who judge and salivate and take a step back, offering their palms and claiming ignorance and innocence.
They promise to get to the bottom of it, while still publishing daily images of naked teenage girls for men's entertainment.
Stories of children being taken from their neighbourhood by friend's fathers, uncles, teachers....
More and more adults talking about the daily and ordinary abuse at work, hands inside jumpers, up skirts, humiliating and objectifying behaviour being suffered by people who know that to complain might injure their chance to earn an income or earn them a reputation as humourless or frigid or much, much worse.
I wonder if I have done the right thing by trying to enable a youngster to hold onto her youth and stay comfortable in her world, where the adults will protect her and explain it for her and see that she is safe.

She, largely because she is a 'she', is not safe.
The thirty year old woman waiting for the bus home on Wednesday night at 7 o'clock is not safe.
The older woman making tea before bed at home is not safe.
The employee who finds the courage to say that she is offended by sexist language in the office is not safe.

As I travel home across London, standing at a tube station decorated with mile-high images of women with parted lips and legs selling me phones, women's cleavages bigger than cars on my bus and all  exalting the image of a hairless, careless, free and materially empowered lifestyle while women are being systematically and increasingly targeted by this government of predominantly spoiled, inexperienced, spineless men who everybody knows only give a toss about their own well-being, their places in history, their celeb status, passing laws based on vanity, greed and criminality and I search for a situation where I would be happy for my young female friend to smile back at a man on the bus, in the cafe, the classroom, the hospital, the church....

Better safe than sorry, eh?
Better to encourage her to view all men as potential abusers, rapists, peadophiles and murderers.
Run as fast as you can from the ticket inspector, the teacher, the doctor, the plumber, the man next door whose cat you cuddle...

Most of the men in my life, not all.... but most, would be offended by that statement. Most of the men in my life are fathers and professionals and care deeply about the well being of their own and others.
Most of the men in my life rant passionately, over a beer, about how terrible this world is for women. They rage at the idea of an unimaginably brave young student being shot in the head for trying to promote the education of girls in a country where their sisters are stoned to death for stepping out of the house without a male 'guardian' or for making a decision about her own hair on her own head.
It deeply upsets them to hear the office banter about whose tits are the best or whose arse is tight or who's  got lumpy legs, tragic plastic surgery, a husband who bounces her head off the wall, contributing to the two deaths a week, in this country, of women at the hands of the men in their lives.....
But, they buy the paper......they just don't inhale.
They waggle the imaginary cigar and impersonate a monster, laughing because it's a bit close to the bone.

Men, you are right to be angry that you can't walk through your local park alone and smile at a group of youngsters hanging out, just as you did, in case someone cries pervert.
You are right to expect to be thought of as more than a lascivious, frustrated, dangerous prowler of women and children.
You are right to take offence when women label you and humiliate you and reduce your entire, beautiful, complicated being to the size or your penis or how much hair you have on your head or what car you drive, how much you earn, comparing you to impossible, airbrushed images of movie stars, footballers, so called leaders etc...

We are all horribly affected by the massive inequality being experienced by women of every age, every stage of their lives, from birth to death in all societies around the globe.
We are all marginalised and humiliated by sexual abusers, violent bullies, selfishness and greed and a distorted idea of power. All of us and all our children.

WE should expect more from ourselves, what ever gender. We should all be proud to call ourselves feminists, because we should all be outraged by injustice and inequality and the subjugation of women.
Knowing, as we all do, that women can't change society without men and men can't continue to collude with the fantasy of ignorance they resort to when they turn to page three or when a dangerous sexual abuser is handed the keys to a women's hospital ward and allowed to park a caravan in the grounds of a children's hospital.