Why objecting to the “Spousal Veto” , is nothing more than rape culture, and how it seeks to shame women for having boundaries.

Removing the rather mis named the spousal veto is a coercive measure , campaigned for by people who want their cake and eat it, and wish to force non compliant wives (for wives this overwhelmingly applies to) into courts to be labelled self declared TERFs and homophobes , in short, this is pre-emptive revenge on women* who wish to exercise their sexual boundaries .

If I marry a man, who is male, I do not wish to discover I married someone who has always been trans, (sorry “always been a woman” ..silly me) just as any straight man/woman , does not wish to discover they married someone who is gay, and has – presumably – lied during the whole marriage , and has ergo deceived them into marriage (something the Catholic Church, weirdly progressive for a change, considers renders a marriage nullified) .

Sexuality and orientation isn’t bigotry, and only people who don’t respect women’s boundaries or right to honesty would have you believe otherwise.

Should a so called “veto” be removed I can see the argument thus..

Transitioning spouse….”yur a homophobe and a TERF”

Woman ….”no, I’m not, I’m just not gay and you weren’t honest ”

TP.. ” what’s wrong with being gay?”

W … ” nothing, if I was gay I’d maybe be married to an actual woman now, already ”

TP “but you already were, have always been , since I was always ACTUALLY a woman..”

W…”so, you’re calling me what?”

TP “a lesbophobe TERF , and what’s more, if you wanna divorce , bitch, I’m gonna make you stand up in court and admit it”

After all, what wounds a male more than his dick be denied?

Which is of course a human rights infringement.

Calling women’s access to divorce a veto implies that this is a legal tool open to women who wish to prevent their spouse transitioning. It is not.
It simply allows women to access divorce quickly and fairly when it becomes clear that the original basis of the marriage was based in a a falsity….
And quite apart from anything, when was a man ever prevented from doing whatsoever he pleases , just because he spouse objects ?

Baroness Stowell (Con) , summed up opposition to this succinctly and effectively…thusly

Tina Stowell, Baroness Stowell of Beeston @tinastowell (UK)

*This of course would also include , more rarely , lesbians married to women transitioning , and even more rarely, straight men married to transitioning women , or gay men married to transitioning men, though the dynamic vis-a- vis assumed sexual access, especially where it’s females transitioning , may differ.

Remember, it’s still common belief amongst men that marriage infers tacit ongoing consent to , and availability of , sex upon demand, and that in the UK, marital rape was only recognised as actual rape in 1991.
In many countries it remains unrecognised as even “bad manners”.

Gingerbloodywigsdrunkardsleprechaunsguinnesbonocangettofuck

Ok . St Pat’s day…

Has the dust settled, are we over our hangovers? Then I’ll begin…..

Once upon a time , there was an Anglo Irish girl, a convent girl no less, who eschewed her roots, spent time being strenuously *not* Irish .

Why, well partly , St Patrick’s day, or more arguably, the buffoonery and racism , yes racism.
“Racism she says” and I hear ya ….We’re white . Very, very white. Usually the whitest person in the room, I won’t lie.
But yanno, we’ve only “just” joined “white club”* , still probationers, if you will.

We are not all ginger haired , belligerent , loquacious drunks
(Not all the time anyway, sometimes we’re at Mass)(or building things , or arresting people) , but on St “Pat’s” day any visiting alien would be forgiven for thinking otherwise ….
It’s a powerful stereotype I grant you.
And it’s one an impressionable girl swallowed and made her , I hate to report, subconsciously ashamed – who would want to belong to such a shower of hopeless , dipsomaniac , emotionally incontinent fighty half wits?
And let’s face it, as a suppression tool – one of many – the stereotype worked especially well as regards those of us of the left footer persuasion.

But look, I KNOW we parody ourselves thusly, too. Look at “Father Ted”, or “Mrs Brown’s Boy’s ” , you name it ..countless Irish taking the piss out of the Irish …

(Peter O’Toole bloody lived it)
But that’s Irish humour, not Irish jokes .

Tell me , if a Jewish person or POC were parodying themselves would you don “Black face” or a prayer shawl and join in?
So please , “green face” , really ? **

Now I guess you’re all celebrating St P’s out of solidarity , (and I did acknowledge one or two salutations) but , well, next time you feel like “getting your oirish on” , could you not instead invoke Yeats, Wilde, DeValera, Connolly, Collins, the bloody famine for the love of Pete …
Even Clannad , if you “must”.
No…not the anime…this lot …(do keep up)

It’s taken me most of my adult life to claim back an identity I’m entitled to, the physical roots of which are so much more recent than Michael bloody Flatley’s***(from which, unlike him, few of us this side of the Atlantic profit from) , and the reason I’m peeved about St Patric’s day, is the stereotype it trots out that made me ashamed of who I am .

*And unlike the immigrants Ignatiev invokes in “How The Irish Became White”, we did not gain that by crapping on POC, as those in the US did, because here , that was *us*(look at how Roma etc, for instance , now occupy that ground)
Even in the US , as Ignatiev’s subject source , this was not wholesale ..google “the lazy antisemitism of the liberal”

**also drag. AKA “ladyface”, It may well be that not all drag artistes are misogynist …I don’t think O’Grady or LaRue were, but the genre , and the stereotypes it relies on….

***and what IS it with his “brogue”, he’s from New York for Pete’s sake , I’ve a London accent cuz guess what……
(Dancing isn’t appropriation but national accents you didn’t grow up with might be ) (it’s summat not quite right anyway so if anyone can come up with a better , more fitting term , please, I’m all ears)

FOOTNOTE .
I’m not saying don’t celebrate St P’s , DO, do go down your local ale house, I hear they’ve laid in on really good Irish band… drink the black stuff (if you must ….can’t stand it me’self unless it’s mixed with champagne) , but please , please , don’t embarrass yourselves with silly accents and by all that’s holy , stay way from ginger bloody wigs and green face paint ….
The whole (“sexy”) leprechaun (can get to fek)shillelagh thing in fact……

No. No. No. OK?

FOOTNOTE TWO
Not comparable with what POC face daily , at all…but still , well come on…

I never entertain hangovers.
Or Bono.

Transphobia AKA the reified manifestation of projected homophobia. And how it unites men.

The reason the left and right have united under the transgender cause is because they don’t want gender non conforming men in “man club” .

Hence they’ve decided to make it women’s problem and have elegantly framed any opposition as “phobic” because that plays neatly to our socialised internal misogyny , nurturing behaviours and concomitant fear of offending.

In short, they’ve projected their homophobia onto us and renamed it transphobia .

And it’s a very good tactic, very useful.
Brilliant at silencing because should you deny this weak, irrational fear of something, you risk marking yourself as simply a bigot.
Like with many things , denial is proof of guilt.
So even denial is silenced and thusly , silence is also tacit admission of guilt .

So the next time you hear a person accused of transphobia , ask yourself , what does the accuser stand to to gain by shutting down dialogue?

I shall be clear, homophobia is a thing. People fear they might “catch the gay”, get propositioned or similar (very irrational since the most phobic are usually the least likely to get “hit on” or so I’ve observed ) , or genuinely fear that “the gay” will bring about “te rapture”.

I know of no radical feminist who hates or fears the gender non conforming, or have any interest in restricting anyone’s lawful pursuit of a peaceful life .

We do , however , rightly question the gender paradigms that lead to non conformity , and how non conformity is manifest and reacted to, especially in the “transgender milieu” , as perpetuating of the gender binary .

We do, and this is where PERFECTLY RATIONAL FEAR comes into play, rightly oppose any movement or legislation that would allow , and does allow, intact, disturbed , often violent men , (or just common-or-garden rapists) who may or may not believe they are “women” , to access females in vulnerable states , be they rest rooms, gymnasiums , hospitals, or prisons .

We are, rightly , angry at how men are using this so called transphobia , and relying on the internalised misogyny and yes ,also homophobia , of women and parents , to throw gender non conforming women, men, and even children into a category that makes them “not their problem” anymore, and frame any opposition as phobic or simple bigotry .

I invoke Hecate.

You think this sudden so called progressive agenda is happening in isolation?

How cute.

Just as we women thought we’d started to win, to own womanhood and the right to define it….

BINGO

Suddenly , as if by magic, we have a movement that tells women who don’t support the right of those NOT born female to be the ones defining and owning womanhood , that we are bigots , haters.

And we , socialised to be kind, to bend , to be SHIT SCARED LEST ANYONE “NOT LIKE” US, desperate to be “that cool girl” , do bend , to the point where we are weaponised against other women.
And we fall for it, duped by our own desperation to please .

Well not me.
I invoke Curie
I invoke Pankhurst
I invoke Hypatia .
I invoke Anne Bonny
I invoke Ching Shih
Mulan
Eva Duarte
Hecate
Lilith

Nice never got a girl anywhere .

My ode to joy.

I dunno. The world burns and meanwhile people, are nit picking that others didn’t show enough grief, and soon enough , or often enough , for enough.

Look, if you lose a member your family , your grief WILL be “different” from what I feel for me and mine and if I lose any part of them…
Does that mean you don’t care?

The same applies to “them” and “theirs”.

What if you didn’t know, because You were being kept ignorant by those with vested interests?
“Must” I infer you ignorance to be wilful, or indicative of prejudice?
“Must” I conclude your grief indicates you only care for you and yours?
Does this give anyone license to infer this in strangers or even friends? *

Compassion isn’t a zero sum game, and is quite different AND separate from the personal experience of pain, or expression therein ,or whither healers? Whither social progress? Whither justice?

So let’s STOP tearing ourselves apart with guilt and projected guilt.

As then , we now , are being manipulated by forces larger than ourselves, and it’s only by refusing to comply with them do we beat them, one and all – arm in arm – with one and all.

THIS , from the “Ode To Joy…Europe’s anthem

“Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Thy sanctuary.
Thy magic power re-unites
All that custom has divided,
All men become brothers
Under the sway of thy gentle wings”

Because we MUST remember the ideal of Europe**or we ALL fall.

Good night dear friends, and good luck.

*ok you might be right, but be careful , identify them, lest you preach to, and alienate , the choir.

**this isn’t “Eurocentric “, just a gentle reminder that so many in the world saw, and still see, Europe as the continent of stability , tolerance, and abundance…risen from terrible catastrophe and an example of what can be achieved with will enough…

You may think I paint idealised picture , but I say to you, it is only painted through the eyes of the masses feeing TO Europe , not FROM her..
Or else why would the forces of darkness seek to tear her apart?

And yes, we could and should parse on sins past visiting conflict present..but isn’t the best atonement , solidarity?

“Careful now” . On the difference between cultural humour from within, and “jokes” from without.

Irish jokes..can we just NOT.

“So if my friend who is Irish tells an Irish joke I can laugh and pass it on but if a non Irish person tells an Irish joke I shouldn’t laugh or pass it on – just asking? ”

Well dear inquisitor , I think you know the answer to that.
Even if the originator is of any group the joke is about ,your audience has only your word for that…

Would you pass on such if it were Jewish, for instance…
Now you could risk it, preceding it with “an Jewish friend told me this….”
But such friends are often the same apocryphal “friends” of the “I’m not racist, I have friends who are blah…”
And nobody would want to be seen that way, by a black, Jewish, Irish etc…person on the receiving end, just for telling a joke, would they…?

Now, if I were to post an Irish joke on Facebook, and you forwarded it, my identity as the original poster would be clear, do you’d be ok……
And that’s fair enough, because I’m clearly no apocrypha in the imagination….

It can be easy if one is ostensibly WASP, to be labelled, with no malign intent whatsoever, as a racist..and it’s so easy to avoid by applying the veracity test…

And you will notice the funniest Irish sitcoms for instance , like Jewish or Italian ones, are always made by those peoples themselves, showing their humour, not jokes based on external tropes.
They’re inviting the audience into THEIR OWN headspace, not labelling from without.
The difference between Irish* humour, (*substitute whoever), and Irish “jokes”, if you will.

Who, after all, benefits from labelling a race or people**- stupid, lazy, or criminal…..and what better vehicle for that than the seemingly amusing..?

And THAT, gentle reader, is the root of my point.

** now, I’ve encountered pedants who are at pains to point out “blah isn’t a race it’s a people”, or “blah isn’t a race it’s a faith” ….

You know what? It makes no difference. Unless you really ARE that obtuse you will know that race, faith, colour, whatever, if used to “other ” some other large group of humans, based on a common defining factor, may not technically “be” racism, but it sure has the same stench.

*** “but surely that applies both ways, to men and WASPs as well….”

Well, were there ever a power imbalance, globally, socially or sociopolitically, that favoured those whom men , and WASPs , otherwise preside over, I guess you’d have a point. But there isn’t. So you don’t, but thanks for asking.

So don’t even think of chiming either logical fallacy , unless you really do wish to be seen as obtuse, racist, or possibly both.

Womb transplants are bad for women. And this is why

“Aha”you’re thinking, “why would something that would bring such joy”…to some women be bad for all women?

..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34397794

Because it does nothing to liberate women that’s why

How?
This is just another tool in the entrenchment of women’s primary status under patriarchy as uteri for the design of men….the best and most effective way of controlling women is to exploit the mammalian urge to procreate by making us seem that that’s our defining purpose and frame how it traps us under patriarchy as somehow a privilege.

I’m no athlete , does that make me feel a failure as “a woman”, of course it doesn’t…
The corollary is that women who are infertile would not either, unless they’re made to feel otherwise , and cui bono?

Well, it has enough resemblance of reward (historically … though people keep failing to mention rape as genetic cleansing etc) via “romance” and compulsory heterosexuality (the former the prettifying of the latter which is the exploitation of the human habit of mating up) to make it look like a privilege, but tell me, if it truly were, would there *be* such effort in entrenching it and such conniption when women eschew it?
And there is conniption**, which does make the contrasting though mirage reward appear as privilege.

Would there be such expense and effort put into scientific ways of enabling it, if it really weren’t such a tool.
Really? Can you think of ANY other privilege , by its very definition, that society would spend so much money and effort to SHARE?

Where’s the talk of testicle transplants,..?
There’s scant mention I can find, because men aren’t defined by their reproductive capacity or controlled via it and it seems to me, ergo, there’s no profit for patriarchy in such avenues.

Like it or not, it can be argued that uterine transplant is profoundly ANTI women, on many levels, especially women’s liberation.
Only once women are freed from the expectation , without and within, that they “must”*** bear young, can they ever be truly liberated.

*As to lili Elbe, a transsexual who died of complications from such a transplant…. there weren’t anti rejection drugs then, not to mention Elbe’s age….so that experiment is not fit for discursive purpose, though I can see why it would arise.

**I reference as exemplar the current obsession with women’s uteri in the U.S. Republican Party.

***And that’s before we even parse that this is SO entrenched that it even transcends medical ethics, alongside surrogacy and egg donation , all of which place woman under immense medical strain, such as is that other NON life saving procedures would not be countenanced had they the same inherent dangers.

Divide and rule . Again. On Feminism In London , Jane Fae, and my “hot take on the upshot”.

Ok. Hot take on the upshot.

When I saw CCP , JB , and GM had withdrawn from FIL I was initially mightily pissed off.

How dare they capitulate so?
Thunk I.
I posited that they’d better stand for the free speech of anyone, no matter how egregious, if free speech is to mean anything, as a zero sum game.

But then it dawned on me that actually , since they’d never once qualified their views, this is exactly what they’re doing.
You can’t campaign for total free speech and then equivocate later.

It doesn’t matter that JF wasn’t no platformed.
What matters is that it WILL be seen that way, and those withdrawing CAN and WILL face accusations of hypocrisy, and because they are prominent feminists(whatever we think of that) , such accusations will stick.
Rock and hard place, if you will.

That JF should have been invited in the first instance, is moot, highly so, but this was not their call, nor JF’s withdrawal.

I can only state that as far as this feminist is concerned, it seems blindingly obvious that JF , having written for several publications, having an acknowledged public voice and platform , knew fine well what accepting the invitation to speak in FIL would mean – never mind any subsequent withdrawal – and that their knowing this, in the face of their activating the cat/pigeon interface , the aforementioned withdrawal statement was highly disingenuous, at best.

Might I enjoin all the lovely feminists I know not to let the actions of one person, especially viewed through the prism of patriarchy , do what such always do, namely divide and rule?

In a final twist, Fae has written more disingenuous piffle, namely this…..

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/06/feminists-doctrine-conference-free-speech?CMP=share_btn_tw

To which I reply…..

Jane Fae , being shall we say, artistic with the facts…again

Dear Jane, you know fine well It was your views in porn, which are not “supposed” and which you refused to defend, in open debate.
Nor was it because your are trans, as Feminism In London is trans inclusive , and states this explicitly

Because it is JF who is ultimately responsible , for accepting the invitation in the first place.

Pimps or socialists, perhaps it’s the same thing, in Corbyn’s post modernist misogyny.

Is THIS what you wanted, people like myself silenced by spittle flecked accusations of Blairism whist the brothers reify the right of men to buy sex, to commodify flesh?

Did some of us not warn you that your quasi Marxist “all work is wage slavery ergo all work is equal therefore all work is the same” idiocy would play RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF LIBERTARIANS AND CAPITALISTS.

Your word games attempt to render the degradation of flesh for remuneration epistemologically the same as driving a bus when anyone can see it plainly isn’t.

And you Christian socialists? You effing hypocrites, you whited sepulchres, that not only do you not recognise what this commodification of flesh will do, but that you kid yourselves the brotherhood’s right to the female body, once industrialised , will somehow be a “good thing” for women?

I’m furious and ashamed that the last bastion of the Nordic Model may lie with David Cameron, and you DARE tell me to “rally behind”Corbyn?

Leave your incense alone, leave your charade socialism alone, hang up those badges , you’re done with them. Im sorry , I don’t care WHO that offends.

You think I’m happy to be right, AGAIN?

Don’t dismiss me any longer as disloyal, and Blairite.

If your socialism doesn’t include fifty one percent of the human race, if it expects that half to “take one for the team”, then you’re no socialist.

But good work boys, one wonders how you’ll react when it’s a female you esteem, given a dole sanction for refusing sex work.

Or when the Tories steal the march for women , and with women , with their current favouring of the Nordic Model, whilst you regard the sisters as nothing more than existing for the service of men.

You’d sell your own grannies, whilst patting yourselves in the back that this is the socialist thing to do.

On England’s pastures seen.

“And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.”

Anyone knows what the words to this hymn refer to?

Yes…the legend that Christ visited England, as a young child.

I lay no claim to “chariots of fire “…or quintessential Englishness .

But might I posit that those who think this hymn represents the best of English aspirations about a greener, safer , fairer land , would do well also to remember that it’s actually about a brown, Arabic, “MIGRANT”?

So instead of seeing a potential leech, or terrorist, how about remembering those stirring words – remembering Christ – see a potential saviour?