You’re a bellend. A big, throbbing, cheesy bellend. You are a suppurating boil on the arse of humanity, a yellow stain on a white vest on a hot day, an eggy guff on a morning commute.

Also, you are a massive bigot. Yes, I said it. I can almost taste your tears from here, and it’s enough to make me want to gag, tasting as they do of wet dogs and anchovy-brine. You don’t like being called a bigot, do you Aiden? I’ve seen your picture of you whinging about being silenced. It must be hard for you, being dealt the cruel hand of being a massive fucking bigot and also not even having a semblance of a clue.

You see, Aiden, you are a bigot. It’s not silencing you to say that. You are free to go about your day, being a bigot. You can go about ineffectually seeking to deny dignity to queer folk all you like, desperately promoting some sort of right to refuse service to us as you and the handful of other bigots try to unionise to an almost-complete public indifference. You can run your sockpuppet account expressing your pride to be heterosexual: goodness knows, you have nothing else to be proud of. And you can try to blame the fact you’re a bigot on Muslims, because you’re probably a racist, too. Bigotry overlaps, you see, Aiden.

You’re more than welcome to do this, Aiden, because of free speech.

But guess what? We’re more than welcome to call you out on it, because of free speech. And you’re homophobic, Aiden. You’re very, very homophobic. You want to deny rights to people because of their sexual orientation. And you’re allowed to think that, but it makes you an enormous, pulsating ballbag.

And as time passes by, your views are becoming outmoded. More and more people are wising up to the fact that you and your ever-decreasing ilk are chatting shit. Hell, even a lot of bigots have evolved beyond your point, moving instead to more insipid ways of oppressing queer folk. You’d be almost quaint, Aiden, if you weren’t such a rampaging nipple.

For someone who has been silenced, Aiden, you are remarkably loud, and this is because you know you haven’t been. You are just, like others of your kind, terrified of accountability and so therefore casting yourself as a victim.

You wouldn’t know hate if it booted you in the head, straight man.

I do not doubt that you will consider the fact people think you’re a gnawing cockcanoe to be more evidence of silencing, but this betrays just how little you understand what free speech is. It isn’t just for you, you see, Aiden. It’s for us. And it’s what lets us speak out against you. Do you hate free speech, Aiden?

Yours, with contempt,

Stavvers

I’m in two minds about writing about Peter’s blog post on call-out culture, because my previous encounters with the author have been… bruising, and very unpleasant. Drawing further attention to the piece also seems counter-productive. However, as he has chosen to write about things I have said, but in a distorted and inaccurate way, I feel I have no choice but to engage to some degree – especially as a comment I left on the article setting out my version of events was not published. The piece is also full of logical fallacies which are worth highlighting, and is more of the same old Online Wimmin Mob shit in a hardly-even-different type of packaging; very, very tedious.

Here we go, then. Peter’s words in red.

 ”1) Are teenage girls really a persecuted minority?” - yes, especially in the context of their musical taste. I’ll leave the explanation to the marvellous, fierce Natalie Zed.

 ”3) What in general gives you the god-given right to criticise me in this way, and what response do you expect?” - a response that engaged with the issue raised, rather than dismissing it out of hand, maybe?

(Oh, but maybe I’m just bitter; Peter aka @PME2013 was, after all, rather unwarrantedly nasty to me after the Moore-gate episode, after rather a bizarre conversation in which he insisted that “nannying” does not have gendered or sexist overtones – a point he repeats in this blog, for good measure. What can one say in the face of that level of denial, really?)

Sigh. Continuing:

“It is a feature of the medium that people exchange views, argue, and leave more convinced of their own opinions than before. [He's universalising - I have had my mind changed on many issues due to great conversations and arguments on Twitter, and I know I am not alone.] Fine, it’s not for me, but I’ve no issue with it. [Clearly, he does, as this whole blog shows.]

“I’m talking instead about people criticising and sometimes attacking others for their use of language and daring to express themselves in the natural terms that people do every day across the country.  I’ve seen it time and time again: people leaping on others and chastising them as if they were small children who had been naughty for the words they have used.” [My emphasis] – the sheer ignorance involved in describing language of any kind as “natural” boggles the mind. If there is anything more constructed, more socially situated than language, I can’t think of it. Language is anything but ”natural”, and to describe it as such is either dishonest or depressingly naïve. Is it “natural” when, for example, schoolkids use the term “that’s so gay!” to express distaste – does the term stem from the “natural” inferiority of gay people? Of course not – it reflects a societal attitude that is hostile to non-heterosexual identities.

His denial that “hysterical” or “nannying” aren’t sometimes used in harmful ways is rather sad. Feminists, even we Online Wimmin Mob types, don’t generally object to “hysterical” being used to mean “funny”; we object when it is used to refer to the behaviour of a woman who is deemed to be acting “excessively”. To state it more clearly, I have little problem with the sentence ”that comedian I just saw was hysterically funny!”; I have rather a lot of problems with ”that female MP’s argument was shrill and hysterical“. Oddly enough, Peter does not address the second meaning of hysterical. Likewise,“I did a nannying job for a Parisian family last summer“ = not objectionable; referring to our hypothetical female MP as acting in a “nannying“ way is much more problematic, as it calls upon a long history of tropes of smothering, overbearing women, who can easily be dismissed. How is that not sexist?

“I saw one person lecturing another recently about the other’s use of “delusional” and “idiot”“ - hand up, I was the person he is referring to here, but I – and the other person involved in the original conversation, the fabulous @TheNatFantastic - utterly reject Peter’s characterisation of our interaction as “lecturing”, here. I know that Nat is anti-disablism, so when she used those words, I gently and (in Twitter terms) privately gave her a heads-up via a direct @ (rather than a .@) that only people who follow us both would have seen. (Incidentally, Peter makes a point of noting that I don’t follow him in reference to the “nannying” incident – IIRC I saw his post because someone retweeted it into my TL. My tweet to Nat re “delusional”/”idiot” was not RT’d, so only by going to my Twitter stream could he have seen it. Slightly creepy, huh?)

Anyway. Nat responded quickly, the issue was settled in minutes, and we both moved on with our lives. Except not, because it’s now being dredged up days later and twisted into an example of LANGUAGE POLICING OMGGGG when it was a more-or-less private, and definitely civil exchange that ended swiftly and with no aggression or aggravation on either side. Peter later added a note to his blog, which said: “One asked me to remove this part of the post, or to make clear she was happy to be lectured to.  Fine: she was happy to be told off in public.  Plenty of people aren’t.“ - so why keep it as an example when it manifestly is not an example of the kind of interaction he is describing? It’s dishonest. (He also told us off for using Naughty Words; that kind of language policing is totally fine, it seems. As long as it’s him doing it, of course.)

More:

“Interestingly I’ve a real life friend who has been sectioned twice, who has blogged brilliantly on her experiences, in the process no doubt helping and educating many, and who light-heartedly refers to herself as a “loony” on Twitter. I’d love one of the Twaliban to stumble on her by accident one day, and watch her response if they attacked her for her own very deliberate choice of language.” - here Peter shows his ignorance of disablist issues, as well as his ignorance – again – of how language works; he thinks that I, and other ”Twitter Twaliban“ (not making that up) members, would be upset to see a word that has been used as a slur being reclaimed by a member of the group that it affects. How little he knows; I follow disabled people who happily refer to themselves as “crips” or “mad”, and am not at all shocked by their choice of words. Much as the word “bitch” can be empowering when used by groups of women (e.g. Bitch magazine, or the excellent Smart Bitches Trashy Books blog) or a misogynist slur when shouted at me on the street by a passing stranger, context matters.

 ”This is a key thing to remember too: the Twaliban member is frequently taking offence on behalf of unnamed people in a group who might theoretically be hurt if they read the guilty party’s tweet, which contains language that they don’t approve of” - jeeeez, what part of “reinforcing structural forms of oppression” doesn’t he get? The language we use matters; if it didn’t, why bother writing his blog in the first place? Casual use of disablist slurs reinforces society’s constant drumbeat message that disabled people are “less than”; given the demonisation disabled people face from all quarters at the moment, a movement against disablist language seems more vital than ever. How does Peter think societal change is effected, anyway? Oh wait, I forgot; he thinks language choices are “natural” and therefore beyond criticism, but also “a diverse, powerful, creative thing”. :vanishes in a puff of illogic:

 ”the point is that intent is highly relevant” - oh lordy. It’s at this point that I think I must throw my hands up in despair. Melissa at Shakesville has a post which could have been tailor-written in response to Peter’s maunderings, so I’ll let her have the last word on that point.

 ”I do genuinely think I have the right not to be told off repeatedly for my language, mainly by strangers, when I am hardly tweeting the most offensive content.” - how many times must it be said that “offence” isn’t the problem - oppression is? If Peter tweets in favour of, say, same-sex marriage, this is hugely “offensive” to large numbers of devout religious people who earnestly believe it is against their faith – but I hardly think he’d agree with the idea that he should self-censor his public support for the concept as a result. So why the double standard? ”People are scared to speak on a medium that’s all about the free flow of thought and speech.” - well, the free flow of speech that does not challenge Peter or his mates, that is. It all becomes clear!

The final final word goes to my friend Tom, on Peter’s …interesting… use/misuse of logic:

 Was going to go through the whole thing as a logic revision exercise but I lost patience with it. I found:

Naturalistic fallacy (It’s NORMAL for people to use these words so it is OK to do so)

Ad Populum (The majority use these words/are not offended so it is OK to do so)

Fallacy of composition (just because his friend is comfortable with referring to herself as a loony it doesn’t mean that all people with MH issues are going to be comfortable with it)

Poisoning the well/genetic fallacy (Discrediting arguments because they come from twitter)

Ad Hominem (even though he never mentions anyone’s name, the “Twitter Taliban” is nothing more than an attempt at a personal attack)

Improper appeal to authority (his argument that “retard” is a medical term used by WHO doesn’t impact it’s offensiveness/the intent with which it is often used in every day speech)

There are numerous other problems with it, but these are just the fallacies I managed to identify with help from my crib sheet. I probably missed loads because I only skimmed the last half.

 

The whole debate lays bare a lot of ugly prejudices still rampant in our society. Most obvious–to the point where the normally-oblivious mainstream media and many normally-oblivious politicians have noticed–is the homophobia from the opposition to the bill. They dress up their concerns in the language of protecting the institution of the family or fretting about the relationship with the church, as though a family can only be defined by a very narrow heterosexist standard and the church weren’t just an antediluvian bunch of poorly-dressed ringpieces. Indeed, the prejudice is so naked, I am surprised there are no petitions on change.org to protect our children from seeing its rude bits.

It’s so easy to spot–and argue against–the bigotry of the opposition that the more insidious nonsense coming from supporters of the bill gets overlooked. Supporters of the bill have been gleefully throwing poly people under the bus once again, setting us up as a deviant bogeyman in a common trick used in this sort of discourse.

The bill is also bad news for trans people. Sarah Brown has compiled a non-exhaustive list of some of the myriad problems that the proposed legislation might bring for trans people. At best, it does little to ameliorate the minefield trans people must negotiate in order to win recognition for their relationships. At worst, it makes things actively worse, bestowing a power of veto on a partner’s transition.

For these reasons, I cannot call what is being proposed marriage equality. It is nothing of the sort. Let us call it same sex marriage, for that is what it is.

On top of all of this, there is a growing sense that even those putting the bill forward want it to fail. An amendment was added to the bill–quite possibly a wrecking amendment–to bring in heterosexual civil partnerships. I am fairly indifferent to this amendment, much as I am to the entire law. However, it seems about as harmlessly inconsequential as same sex marriage itself. It has driven those who put the bill forward into a frenzy, actively threatening to pull the bill based on really shaky reasoning: it might cost more money, and nobody wants it anyway. The cost argument looks fairly nonsensical, as if they have just pulled a bunch of numbers out of their arses like a string of magician’s handkerchiefs. Further arguments against this come in the form of crying about how it will damage the institution of marriage. In short, it is all of the same crap which is bandied about in arguments against same sex marriage.

And this is because society has a pretty dreadful attitude to how relationships should look. It lays bare the true function of same sex marriage: as a reward for the same sex couples who have successfully managed to behave in the way society deems appropriate. These lucky few can be welcomed with open arms into what is deemed normal, as they have danced all of the correct steps and followed the designated live script. They are not like those queers, those fags and those dykes and those queens who will not conform. And so the state throws them a little bone because heterosexism is rife and they are relieved to have their prejudices relatively unchallenged.

I have said a thousand times before that I would sooner see the entire institution of marriage crumble to allow us to be truly free to define how we love. I do not believe that this law being debated will do much positive to many, but on the other hand, it is unlikely to actively increase prejudice. There are some–those privileged few who seem to control the discourse–who will claim the battle is won, and good for them. Perhaps this means the rest of us can now fight our battles without our voices drowned out, and reclaim Stonewall from its name profaned by an organisation which gladly sweeps so much of our history under the carpet. Perhaps we can fight to be treated like humans and love as we fucking well please.

So in my own way, I am rooting for this bill to go through as it will piss off some fairly obnoxious people. At the front of my mind, though, is the knowledge that it is not enough. Nowhere near enough.

Keep on. (Arched Eyebrow)- Militant body positivity that is utterly inspirational from the awesome Bethany.

The Scarlet D: The Accusation of Deviance (Yes Means Yes)- The kink community often try to reclaim words like “pervert” and “deviant”. Here’s an interesting analysis of why this author is uncomfortable with that.

The Power of Language (Red Headed League)- Vic explains why media feminists need to be more careful with the language they use and avoid excluding other women.

On Ink, My Skin, And You.. (Amanda Jones)- On the harassment experienced by a woman with tattoos.

Rape Culture in the Poly World (The Misadventures of Ms M)- Men get creepy to poly women. Mel tells her story.

I’m A Trans Woman And I’m Not Interested In Being One of the “Good Ones” (Vivian)- On the pressure to uphold a certain ideal, both from within a community and outside.

Dirty Words: A Probing Analysis of 5000 Call Girl Reviews (John Millward)- An in-depth investigation of language used by punters to describe sex workers. It’s interesting to see some research going on here, although it is not without its limitations.

Effects Of Thinking White People Are “All Like That” (fuckyeahcracker)- Useful to remember. Read this.

A comedian raised over $6,000 to skywrite a joke over LA. Here’s what he wrote. (HappyPlace)- Rather happy-making.

Self-Care Guide for Survivors (Sisters of Resistance)- Such a useful guide to finding out what works for you. Worth bookmarking.

And finally, the police.

This month’s Poly Means Many topic is on types of non-monogamy, which means there is a hell of a lot to write about.

In the dominant, monogamous model, there are, generally speaking very few options. In short, you’re either in a relationship with one person or you’re not. The only real workaround is cheating, which is something that never really appealed to me.

So once I quit monogamy, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. I knew, very clearly that monogamy wasn’t for me, but it was hard to find an alternative. I went for “single but hooked up with people” which wasn’t particularly satisfying as I wanted something that wasn’t “a relationship” (the wording used by the mono mainstream to describe only a very specific type of relationship) but was also fulfilling.

And when I discovered poly, a whole gamut of options were available.

I’ve always found it difficult to define polyamory and locate it within the veritable rainbow of non-monogamous options. It’s complicated, and I’m not even going to try here. Non-monogamy is easier: it’s anything but that dominant mono model. My somewhat unrewarding random humps of days gone by therefore fall under the umbrella of non-monogamy, but they were also not poly. Likewise, the rather more rewarding random humps I sometimes entertain are not poly, but very definitely non-monogamous.

Hierarchy is another big deciding factor in exploring your options. The PMM bloggers have explored hierarchy before before I joined, so I may as well weigh in with my thoughts. I’m sure hierarchical relationships–those with, for example, primary and secondary partners–work for some people, but they never worked for me. I’m very resistant to hierarchies, wriggling like a cat on the way to the vet at the mere sniff of structure. I was in a hierarchical relationship once and it made me thoroughly miserable. It didn’t help that those partners repeatedly, apropos of nothing, felt it necessary to continue to remind me I was a “secondary”. Needless to say, that relationship did not last. However, I don’t doubt that this sort of structure is something which works for a lot of people, and I’m happy for anyone who’s found a way of making things work.

With non-monogamy, ultimately anything is possible. All it requires is a bit of imagination and a lot of consensual communication. It also requires a lot of self-examination. What is it that you want?

For me, what I wanted was to be able to love freely, free from the constraints of what was expected and free to follow my heart. I love. I love a lot of people in a lot of different ways, and I found my freedom.

Depression Part Two (Hyperbole and a Half)- A witty, moving illustrated account of Ally Brosh’s personal struggle with depression. I related to it a lot. It’s been all over the internets, but if you haven’t read it yet, go and do it now.

What’s so funny about saying white culture has a problem with abuse?What’s so funny about saying white culture has a problem with abuse? (Ally Fogg)- They do. They really, really do.

Survivor secrets: sexually responding to the abuse (Toranse)- A really important piece, although comes with an enormous content note for child sexual abuse and the psychological effects.

Why Are Feminists Calling the Writer Of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ a Racist? (Danielle Paradis)- White women in talking over women of colour shocker.

The Troubling Viral Trend of the “Hilarious” Black Neighbor (Aisha Harris)- Yeah, it’s pretty prevalent.

And finally, who cares if I don’t have many links this week. KITTEN CAM IS BACK WITH SOME BRAND NEW TINY KITTENS. They are only four days old. And they’re amazing.

Dear Barrister Barbara Hewson,

Today you have called for the age of sexual consent to be lowered to stop “the persecution of old men” and warning against “fetishising victimhood” in the light of the case of Stewart Hall.

Let me tell you, Ms Hewson, victimhood is not something to be fetished or enjoyed. As many have already said your remarks represent the fear that all victims have of being disbelieved and the accusations of being attention seeking liars who enjoy victimhood. Abuse is something that haunts and damages you for the rest of your life, effects all the decisions you make, the friends and relationships you choose, the relationships with your family and how you feel about yourself. It will have you awake screaming & crying in the middle of the night, make you afraid of your own shadow and make you hate yourself and the body you live in. It can make you want to hurt yourself, cause resentment and anger towards others and makes it hard to trust anyone. Your remarks show just how much you, as a supposedly impartial party, know nothing about the experience of a victim.

I am one of the victims you seem to know so much about. I have twice been subjected to the selfish actions of a man, a family friend, in a position of power who wanted to rape a trusting little girl, initially aged just 11 and then 13, who didn’t understand what was going on. My brain and body was so in shock and in denial about what happened that I blocked it out for years, only realising aged 15 what had actually happened to me. I had suffered years of mental health problems following my abuse, managed to be expelled from school due to my explosions of rage and extreme self harm and was chastised by every adult for just being a “naughty child”, by my school, my GP and my family. The moment I pieced together that this family friend 12 years my senior, who I had looked up to and admired, had actually raped me in his home and later in a more public space, I attempted to take my own life by swallowing two packets of paracetamol and a bottle of vodka while my parents were out.

I never received counselling following my unsuccessful overdose and, because of the relationship my abuser and his family had with my parents, I felt too afraid to come forward. As a 15 year old with a reputation for a short temper and years of mental health problems that were often fobbed off as attention seeking or just teenage angst, I felt I had no hope of being believed over my university educated, well respected and liked abuser with a promising career who had recently married and was expecting his first child. Because of this I had to live with my fear and the fallout from my abuse alone, resulting in years of self-destructive behaviour; I withdrew from family, entered harmful and abusive relationships, allowed myself to be used and taken advantage of by friends because I just wanted to be liked, despite my academic ability, I fell behind with work, I would go out, get drunk and have sex with anyone who was willing regardless as to whether even knew their names just to feel something, endured crippling insomnia because of horrific nightmares, found myself pregnant at 17 and dealt with having an abortion without any support or the knowledge of family or friends.

I am still living with extreme feelings of worthlessness and the urge to hurt myself because of the damage sexual abuse has done to me. I am lucky because I finally found a partner I could trust enough to confide in, help me come to terms with what happened to me and start rebuilding my life. I have finally ditched all the false friends I accrued who took advantage of my vulnerable nature and desperation to be liked and accepted, and now have a network of supportive & kind people who genuinely care about me and my well being. However, I have never sought to prosecute my abuser because that fear of being disbelieved and being told that I am playing a victim for attention is so strong. Because of the nature of my family’s relationship with my abuser, I even have to see him sometimes and you cannot even begin to understand how difficult and terrifying that is. I have no hard evidence of my abuse other than the decades of damage inflicted on my psyche. If I even thought about approaching the CPS, after initial investigation the chances are that they would say prosecution wouldn’t be in the public interest, and even if it did go to court, me and my integrity would be put on trial and dragged through the mud by the defense, not what my abuser did to me. I have weighed this up in my mind more times than I can count and I have concluded that I cannot put myself through the experience again.

Ms Hewson, the fact that you as an esteemed barrister in a position of authority see it fit to perpetuate the rape apologism and victim blaming that is already so prevalent in our society and prevents victims coming forward, speaks volumes about how out of touch you are and how little you understand about sexual abuse. It’s all very well from your privileged position to fire off soundbites about “fetishing victimhood” and “persecuting old men”, but you cannot even begin to understand how damaging, disrespectful and false those statements are. As someone who has lived the majority of her life with the knowledge that she was raped when she was still a child and has suffered decades of psychological & behavioral damage as a result, your statements are just a another reminder of how society protects and excuses abusers and chastises victims. As a representative of the British legal system, you have a responsibility to seek justice for victims, not sustain the cycle of shaming them into silence, allowing those in positions of power to go on raping & abusing and ruining lives.

It’s early in the day, I know, but it will be a difficult task to find something worse than this. In fact, it had managed to be the worst thing I’d read today at 12.15am. It really is that bad.

The BBC have decided to rather innocuously title what followed with “Age of consent should be 13, says barrister“. Well, I thought, stupidly clicking. They’re probably wrong for the usual reasons that adults calling for the age of consent to be lowered are wrong, but surely this can’t be too bad?

How wrong I was. Barrister Barbara Hewson, who writes in weeping syphilitic chode publication Spiked, has written something which follows the standard Spiked line–vicious, nasty, rape apologistic, wrong, and thinking it’s oh-so-clever. Brendan O’Neill himself, king of the chodes, would be proud. Being so desperately attention-seeking, I’m not actually going to link to the Spiked article, because fuck them and all the horses they rode in on.

Let’s take a look at Hewson’s opening gambit:

I do not support the persecution of old men. The manipulation of the rule of law by the Savile Inquisition – otherwise known as Operation Yewtree – and its attendant zealots poses a far graver threat to society than anything Jimmy Savile ever did.

Yes, that’s right. Someone who is ostensibly a barrister believes that the function of Yewtree was not to finally–decades too late–investigate institutional abuse of children. Rather, it was to persecute those poor old men.

The thing is, if the numerous institutions who knew about this–and, at best, did nothing–had fucking done something at the time, nobody would be arresting old men. The reason the men being investigated are old is because decades passed before anyone survivors were able to make their voices heard.

Next up, Hewson goes for the standard Spiked editorial line of arguing with imaginary Victorians who have teleported into the 21st century, pausing to give us a history lesson that some actual Victorians raised the age of consent to 16 based on the fact that puberty back then happened at 15, and that this was basically just the result of some sort of “moral panic”. Yes. Hewson actually thinks it was a little bit excessive to criminalise having sex with girls who had not yet hit puberty.

Following a long-winded whine about how much she hates the NSPCC, Hewson explicitly states that she doesn’t think survivors should use the courts to speak out:

The acute problems of proof which stale allegations entail also generates a demand that criminal courts should afford accusers therapy, by giving them ‘a voice’. This function is far removed from the courts’ traditional role, in which the state must prove defendants guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

I am not exactly sure how one can do this without letting survivors speak, but whatever. This lady is a barrister and in its own way, this point lays bare how woefully inadequate this sham of a justice system is in dealing with sexual violence.

In amid dismissing historic instances of sexual violence as merely “misdemeanours”, Hewson also decides to declare that only some sexual violence is worthy. And guess what? It’s pretty much that faulty folk notion where a man leaps out of a bush and rapes a virgin.

Touching a 17-year-old’s breast, kissing a 13-year-old, or putting one’s hand up a 16-year-old’s skirt, are not remotely comparable to the horrors of the Ealing Vicarage assaults and gang rape, or the Fordingbridge gang rape and murders, both dating from 1986. Anyone suggesting otherwise has lost touch with reality.

Apparently putting your hands on a young person who does not want to be touched are not the same as gang rape and are therefore, according to Hewson, OK. I am not letting this person anywhere near children.

So what are Hewson’s recommendations? Oh dear, they’re awful.

As for law reform, now regrettably necessary, my recommendations are: remove complainant anonymity; introduce a strict statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions and civil actions; and reduce the age of consent to 13.

In short, Barbara Hewson wants to make it as difficult as possible for survivors to come forward, and make it as easy as possible for powerful men to rape young people. It is absolutely clear that her justification for lowering the age of consent is simply to make it slightly less illegal for men like Jimmy Savile to rape them. To Hewson, age is the only matter here: if one is over the age of consent and not being attacked and raped by a stranger, it isn’t rape.

Which actually makes her a pretty shitty lawyer on top of writing something so hideously unpleasant.

As for the statute of limitations, this reduces the possibility of survivors coming forward, decades later, when it is safe, because apparently Hewson wants a legal system where it is as unsafe as possible to come forward. This is exacerbated by her call to remove anonymity for complainants, a point which appeared nowhere else in her argument. It is not a non-sequitur, though: it is clear that her purpose is to protect men who perpetrate sexual violence.

It always shocks me when I see something so awful as Hewson’s piece. I sometimes catch myself feeling somewhat optimistic, as though the battle against rape culture, while gory, will be one we can win. These fragile hopes are dashed where I see a person arguing from a position of power that the law should find new ways to silence survivors and keep them vulnerable. Make no mistake: our enemy is huge, and there is a whole army of those, like Hewson, who are complicit.

And so the fight goes on, bigger than ever. Yet I will not rest. I do not want to see these bastards win.

Update: Looks like Hewson’s chambers are running as quickly as possible in the opposite direction from her.

The paper, Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact (Hodson & Busseri, 2012; paywalled, alas) suggests it has found a predictive between low general intelligence in childhood and greater levels of prejudice later life. The link was not direct, though. It was mediated by right-wing ideology. For homophobia, the link was also mediated by a low level of contact with gay people. The sample was large, with data from almost 16,000 people, and a longitudinal design was used, which is more robust than simply testing for a correlation. Sounds compelling?

Well no. In fact, it’s one of those studies that makes me want to set things on fire, it is so poorly conducted.

Participant problems

Let’s return for a moment to our participants. It is very important to note that the researchers did not directly collect any of the data they studied, and therefore are relying on existing datasets. This gives them little control over the measures used, and limited information about the participants which could prove to be pertinent.

They are mostly, shall we say, of a certain generation: one dataset of participants had their intelligence measured at the age of 10 or 11 in 1958, while the others had their intelligence measured at the age of 10 or 11 in 1970. In these groups, racism and right-wing beliefs were measured when the participants were in their early thirties, meaning that all of this was measured, at best, more than two decades ago. That long ago, Britain was a very different place, and I’m glad things don’t look so much that way any more, with white people fucking everywhere being all white supremacist. There was no information provided about the ethnicity of the participants, but given the time, it is safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of them were white.

Meanwhile, the sample for measuring homophobia was also pretty lacking, consisting of less than 300 US university students, who are hardly known for being representative of the general population. Unlike the participants included in the racism study, this project was, as far as I can discern, not longitudinal, but a cross-section, making it much harder to draw conclusions about anything being predictive.

Mangled measurements

Oh dear, where to begin? Every single measure used here is a whole can of worms, difficult to measure at the best of times.

In general, measuring intelligence is a fucking nightmare. Nothing is particularly satisfactory, and everything is likely to lead to raised eyebrows and sighs. This is, at least in part because it’s difficult to even agree on what intelligence is, let alone how best to measure it. It is also pertinent to note here that the vast majority of the participants had their intelligence measured decades ago, and that these measures may not necessarily be favoured any more, following a very long period of refinement and academic critique. Also, there’s loads more that, frankly, I’m already too tired of discussing the clusterfuck that is measuring intelligence to discuss, but please do pop into the comments with your thoughts on the matter because there’s lots  to talk about.

And do you know what is just as contentious as measuring intelligence? Measuring prejudice. It was noted quite a while ago that directly asking people about unpopular beliefs (and, of course, overt prejudice is hardly fashionable) will tend to lead to denial due to social desirability–people say what they think others want to hear. This is further complicated by the fact that over the years, what prejudice actually looks like has changed considerably. It is no longer “blacks need not apply” and “there goes the neighbourhood”, but, rather, dog whistles and unconscious biases and benevolent sexism and so forth. Obviously, this was not measured since most of the measuring was done so long ago. Instead, to measure racism participants were asked to indicate agreement or disagreement with statements such as “I wouldn’t mind working with people from other races”. Measures of homophobia were similarly direct.

Ultimately, if we pretend that the measure of intelligence was all right, the best we can conclude from this research is that low intelligence is indirectly associated with actually admitting to the fact you’re a fucking racist.

“Oh my god, they used Baron & Kenny” “You bastards”

Surely, at least the statistics are fairly robust?

Nope. Oh gods, no they aren’t.

Regular followers of this blog may have noticed I have certain nemeses, from certain feminists who reject intersectional analyses because it’s too hard, to Brendan O’Neill. Here’s another of my nemeses: the Baron and Kenny method for mediation analyses.

It is perhaps the most popular method for testing mediation, and it is popular because it is simple enough to do with a fairly basic statistical package without having to delve into writing syntax or running stats for hours. Basically, you need to run a few tests. You need to see if there is a significant correlation between the independent variable (in this case, intelligence) and the mediator (in this case right-wing beliefs). Then you check if there is a significant correlation between the mediator and the dependent variable (racism or homophobia in these studies). Finally, for a mediation to exist, there needs to be no significant relationship between the independent and dependent variables when controlling for the other two tests.

This diagram from Hodson & Busseri might make it easier to visualise:

Anyway, there’s a lot of problems with this overly simplistic approach which the very-interested can read all about here. In short, multiple mediators can cancel each other out and basing things on significance might be a very trivial change indeed.

tl;dr: Take everything you see using Baron & Kenny with a vat of salt.

Conclusions

It might be nice to believe that our enemies are stupid, but when you think about it, actually that’s rather sad. It reduces the possibility for education if it prejudice is largely driven by a relatively fixed factor. It stops us from trying to understand where prejudice comes from and why people are prejudiced. It is really rather bleak.

The good news is, that study is largely a nonsense, so let’s get back on with smashing prejudice.

Which would be all well and good, if, you know, having officers responsible for making sure equality on campus and having a space for feminist discussions was the same thing. Which they aren’t. Obviously.

Anyway, feminists in York are rightly pissed off at this nonsense and trying to make some noise. I support their attempt to get recognition and a space to meet.

Give them some friendly words if you support them too, and you might also be interested in signing this petition.