the little things

Sometimes, it’s the little things that really get to me.

So, I have just been to a job interview, which I feel went well. This is very very good news to me as (and I haven’t mentioned this before, as I’m still dealing with it) I suffer from a degree of social phobia. I swing between opposites - sometimes I am confident, ballsy and when impassioned I have no problem spouting my opinions, but then sometimes I can’t leave the house to go to the shop to buy milk as I can’t bare it. My behaviour is irrational and has taken me down to depressive slumps over the last few years, because I have been unable to understand it. “How come in some situations you are confident and open, but then randomly you are a nervous wreck during situations which should be easy?” I’d ask myself. I still don’t know, but I’m becoming stronger. I haven’t had a crying session in a while and I’m getting closer to understanding it. So (and I’m getting to the point here, don’t worry!), I felt insanely proud of myself for going to an interview and doing well. To be honest, whether I get the job is not vitally important here, as the fact I was able to COPE with it is what means something to me.

I was walking along a narrow grass path alongside a busy main road, feeling proud and happy and as though things were going to get better and normal for me again, when a lorry loudly beeped its horn at me as it passed, frightening me to death and almost knocking me into the road. “Nob”, I thought as I grumbled under my breath a bit and walked on. But then, a minute or so later, another lorry passed and did the same thing. And then a truck also did the same. Three vehicles all beeped at me in a matter of minutes.

Why?

Why is beeping at a 19 year old female walking down a busy main road entertaining? What exactly had I done that warranted being “yelled” at (because that is how a beep feels)? Was it because I was wearing a skirt? Because I had my long hair down and it was blowing in the traffic wind a bit? Was it because I was wearing a fitted blouse? Or did I have a sign on my back saying “WHORE! PLEASE BEEP AT ME!”?

And I know how it goes : “It’s only a bit of fun!” “It’s a compliment really!” “Walk about by yourself and you’re asking for it!”. No. No. NO. It’s not a bit of fun - it’s terrorising. All I am doing is walking down a PUBLIC footpath, after an interview and feeling somewhat proud of myself, when a massive heavy duty lorry feels the need to VERY loudly draw attention to me in a vulgar way. It’s offensive, whether the shitheads driving the vehicles in question think so or not.

And yeah, it’s only minor compared to some instances of street harassment, but it is still part of the same thing and comes from the same mentality - making women feel uncomfortable makes certain men feel “big and strong”. It’s an ego boost. It’s “Haha, I’M the one in the position of power here. I’M in the safety of my big MANLY truck. YOU’RE a pathetic woman on the street, therefore I will show YOU who is boss.”

You know what? Fuck you.

Fuck you for ruining my good mood. And FUCK YOU to the men who did a similar mood trashing to BB the other day as well. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

And, while I’m at it - fuck you to those who yelled at me from a car “ARE YOUR TITS REAL?!!” And fuck you to the 12 year old boys who walked up to me in an alleyway and said “Give us a blow job and we’ll give ya a couple of quid, yeah?”. And fuck you to the old man on the bus who felt the need to stare at my chest and try and touch me inappropriately. You scared me to hell, y’know? I ran home and cried. So fuck you. And fuck you to all the others that I’ve tried hard to forget.

Just. Fuck you.

How are we supposed to be able to cope? We women are being treated like objects and we are supposed to enjoy it. Well, I for one do not. I hate it. I hate how it makes me question myself and how it makes me hate my body. I hate the way it makes me want to avoid going near men when I am out alone. I hate how it makes me and other women live in a constant state of being “aware” and “on the edge”.

I hate it. And fuck you.
(sorry for the non-constructive rant here. Sometimes I just need to type all my anger out)

she’d run you down

 

There are some things in life that I really wish I had done.

(in other news: does anybody know why the links in my sidebar have repeated themselves? WordPress - stop being an ass)

more on the rape crisis

A few days ago, the fifteen year old boy accused of raping an eleven year old girl in a supermarket toilet appeared in court. The attack took place a month ago and generated quite a lot of media attention as well as awards totalling £30,000 for information regarding the incident.

I followed the story with disgust and I hope that justice will be served, although sadly the damage has been done for the young girl and her family. But I couldn’t help think - if the victim of this attack had been a grown woman, would the media and public have reacted in the same way? Would people really offer so much money for a reward in exchange for information, had the female been past the age of consent?

Call me cynical, but I’m pretty sure the story would have barely found its way into the media at all.

It goes without saying that of course child abuse is an abhorrent crime, but why is it that - as a society - we claim to want paedophiles’ heads on sticks, yet say that rape of grown women is “just one of those things” or “partly her own fault anyway”?

misogyny sells, people!

Teri Hatcher, the actress who stars in Desperate Housewives (don’t worry - I don’t watch this shit) and who used to be in The new Adventures of Superman a few years back (saldy, I’m afraid I did watch this) has recently admitted to Vanity Fair magazine in the US that she was sexually abused by an uncle as a child.

Abuse is, of course, a very serious matter and I applaud Ms. Hatcher for being brave enough to talk publicly about such a horendous past - however, I can’t help but feel that using a picture such as this one on the cover of the aforementioned issue of Vanity Fair, is extremely distasteful:

She is holding onto her clothes, her underwear is showing and - quite frankly - she looks pretty damn scared. But, at the same time, she has a tanned ’sexy’ body and is in full make-up. Just what are we being told here? That being sexually abused as a child somehow enhances Teri’s sex appeal? That only pretty girls get raped? That rape is sexy? That rape sells?

 I have no doubt that the actress had little to do with what picture appeared on the cover here, so I’m not blaming her whatsoever. The magazine decides what sells and what to do with the cover and, in this case, it appears that sexualising a story about child abuse is the editor’s idea to sell more copies.

The misogynistic media strikes again.

I really hope it killed your erection

Well, the inevitable has happened. Sick fuckers searching for disgusting pornography have come across my blog.

In the past two days I’ve recieved visits from people searching for the following terms:

• rape scenes
• Kittens with wool
• lynx advert ben affleck
• the ben affleck advert
• high heels and lipstick
• Ben affleck advert
• fuck rape violet fuck sex
• ben affleck lynx advert
• rape scenes

I feel pretty sickened… But I hope that perhaps one of those people read my blog and it made them feel disgusted and guilty about their behaviour. Perhaps not, but we can hope.

The amount of people searching for that god damn Lynx advert is also pretty worrying…

But whoever was searching for “kittens with wool” - hooray for you not being a pervert! Sadly, you probably didn’t find anything actually about kittens with wool here, so here’s a gift… My beautiful cat Maggie looking very sleepy on my lap. Enjoy it, perverts!

Do you call this equality?

Reading news articles like this one, make me absolutely sick to me stomach.

And then I find this one. Then this one.

But, if reading them was not enough, I then go on to think that these are simply the tip of the iceberg. These convictions are just five or so percent of rapes going on in this country.

And, on top of all that injustice, we are told it is our fault. We deserve it. Wear a short skirt, have a little drink, walk to the cornershop alone, flirt with men, enjoy sex… and - quite frankly ladies! - you are asking for it!

A young girl even said to the me the other day that she didn’t ‘realise’ it was still rape if a husband forces his wife to have sex.

I would like to know how this is the 21st Century.

Attack.

The topic of rape has cropped up in many blogs of late, with most attacking the idea that “some women just ask for it”. I just found this, from a male perspective, and felt it was right on the money.

But most importantly, I am not my cock. Period. I am not my balls. I am not my hormones, my sex drive, or my lust. I am not my cock. I am a man, capable of making decisions, capable of self control, capable of thought, of reason, of love and hate and lust and boredom and choice. My cock obeys my commands, and not the other way around. Guys, you are not your cock either. You have total control and you are not a slave. Don’t fall into the trap of believing otherwise.

And, while I’m blog-dropping, Vociferate has a post urging people to not give in to the ‘trolls’ currently attacking feminist blogs. I’ve not really suffered from troll-attacks yet (probably because I’m lazy and don’t post very often…) but I know that the blogs I love reading are repeatedly bombarded with childish “you’re just saying that ‘cos you need a good dicking!” comments. Constructive criticism, healthy debate, deconstruction… this is what feminism is based on and is essential for keeping the movement alive. But such irrelevant and empty attacks and insults should have been confined to the previous century. Feminism is not about US versus THEM - and that sort of mentality is harmful to everyone concerned. Attacking feminism and feminists is beyond my comprehension. It just does not seem to MAKE SENSE AT ALL. It merely comes down to, as Andrea puts it, this:

These men troll because they imagine by sending us offensive emails, misspelled comments and linking to our pages encouraging other men to abuse us too they are bringing us down, putting us in our place. These men imagine that by doing this the dominance of their phallus is restored, they abuse and threaten because it gives them a sexual kick to believe they’re dominating uppity women.

Rape Scenes & kittens and wool

So, I Spit On Your Grave is a really, really bad film. It’s poorly acted, slow-moving with bad sound and direction. That is a fact and I’m sure that nobody could argue that with me (although, give it a shot if you think you can). But, the question here is : is it feminist or misogynistic? It shows a gang rape scene which goes on for about half an hour (but I am told that the version I saw is slightly censored) which is particularly gruelling and frightening. The victim then goes on a vicious killing spree on the men who ruined her life. So, yes - she does independently get her own back on these men and is an intelligent and resourceful killer, but she kills them by using her sexuality and luring them into a false sense of security (as, of course we all know, sexual women are evil women, who should be avoided as they are neurotic, dangerous, potentially homicidal, etc etc blah blah). My gut feeling is that this is merely a trashy film set to shock, and has no underlying motives regarding sexual poiltics (although, you could argue that everything regarding representation is commenting on sexual politics).

To say that rape scenes make me uncomfortable would be a huge understatement. They make me feel sick, angry, upset and frightened - reactions which I am sure many other people (especially women) share. I can stomach most things in film. Show me eyeballs being gouged, blood spurting everywhere, people eating dog shit (thank you, Pink Flamingos) and I can take it like a Big Girl. But if I hear that a film has a rape scene, then I am likely to think twice about seeing it. It’s not that I am pretending that rape doesn’t happen at all. It does happen and the more it is discussed openly the better, but that still doesn’t make me jump for joy at the prospect of having to see it.

But, regardless of whether I want to see them or not, I’ve been studying Censorship and Shocking Cinema in Film Studies and rape features fairly frequently. (NB: the teachers do not force us to watch these at all, and we are fully entitled to leave the room if we feel we can’t take it anymore. But I just cannot leave a film halfway though, however much I am not enjoying it) We watched Straw Dogs which was unpleasant to say the least. Perhaps to say that the rape of the young woman was ‘glorified’ would be too strong, but it certainly eroticised the moment. The female character (her name escapes me) is shown flaunting her body and actually starts to enjoy the rape halfway through (needless to say, the fear returns when a second man proceeds to violently rape her anally). She seems to get over her dual-rape fairly quickly and that is that. Perhaps I missed the point with Straw Dogs and would happily listen to any pro-Straw Dogs arguments, but I just did not see the point with it. I couldn’t work out what the film was trying to tell me or what its underlying message was. So, you know, I am left thinking - “ah right, another ‘rape for rape’s sake’ scene then”.

Maybe the reason that these films featuring such graphic sexual violence make me feel so uncomfortable is due to Mulvey’s good old ‘male gaze’ theory. These male-directed films are voyeuristic and peeping tom-esque in the way that they observe the vulnerable women lounging around in their dressing gowns, humming to themselves, alone in their homes. Subconsciously, I - as a viewer - feel responsible for the act about to happen to the female, as I witnessed it but did not warn her about it. We are forced into the role of a frustrated bystander, which can be difficult to swallow during such disturbing sequences.

Boys Don’t Cry and Monster are two films also featuring rapes which, although still being disturbing and upsetting, did not make me feel as angry with myself as other films. Maybe this is due to the fact that both are directed by women, thus moving away from the ‘male gaze’ idea. The rapes shown in both films were gritty and realistic, and showed rape for what it really is : a hate crime.

….

I am aware that I use far too many brackets. But I like it that way.