My latest article for the Huffington Post;

On the final day of protests against government contracted ATOS Healthcare and the Department of Work and Pensions, many people have come together to declare their unhappiness at the current proposals around benefits for the disabled.

People who are completely anti-cuts, fighting for their own or someone else’s rights as a disabled person, or demonstrating ‘solidarity’ alongside others, have gathered to demonstrate their growing unhappiness at the treatment of disabled people.

The Paraolympics provides a strong platform for demonstrating a need to readdress proposed government cuts to disability benefits as well as a review of the current system employed by ATOS in measuring fitness to work.

The flip side of the paraolympics, a festival of determination, heroic and athletic feats, is the growing negative representation of disabled people in Britain.

Around two thirds of disabled people have been subjected to abuse, including physical attacks and name… [read more]

The summer of 2012 has not been the ‘usual’ silly season of alien sightings, crop circles and various other nonsense is dug up year after year.

Instead, the coalition has had a gurgling stomachache. It might just be a bit of gas, or it may be indicative of acute appendicitis.

The problem is, the barely tolerant backbenchers have had a small victory this summer. Not only are they managed to score a win against David Cameron’s weak leadership, but they’ve also managed to score a major blow to the larger beast of the coalition. And, once they have detected a weakness in the previously seemingly impenetrable wall of the Coalition, they intend to continue attacking it.

This weakness is, of course, the abandonment of House of Laws Reform. A large number of Liberal Democrats consider this to be a dealbreaker, a statement that indicates the so-called harmony in the coalition cannot continue.

The more vocal backbenchers have already started baying for blood. With Boris Johnson indicating his inclination to stand as an MP again, with a barely veiled comments intended to establish an initial dual leadership, the Conservative party seemed intent to lean towards the centre right approach even more. Taken alongside an appallingly weak opposition in Labour, who barely get any news coverage at the moment, the Conservatives a champion at the bit to win the next election and outright and feel that they can do this best by leaning to the right.

The battle for control of the Conservative Party is being played in the field of the potential Cabinet reshuffle in autumn 2012. Demands for a more Eurosceptic European Minister to replace David Lidington MP, endless speculation over removal of senior ministers such as Ken Clarke and Theresa May.

The Evening Standard reports today that arguing behind-the-scenes about Justine Greening MP and a third runway is gaining momentum;

“The coalition is committed to rolling out a third runway in this parliament but many Tories think that that pledge was a mistake”

Would they be the same Tories who felt that House of Lords reform was also a mistake? It is likely they are also the same Tories arguing that the coalition is a mistake and that David Cameron should rule a minority government.

Of course, most talk of reshuffles is prevarication that the reality is that backbenchers, having won one battle, have declared war.

Only time, and also is expected to be a turbulent conference season, will tell.

I don’t listen to Women’s Hour very often, but, in a desperate attempt to avoid football, I downloaded the pod cast of the Saturday ‘Best of’ version. What was was that they had two very different members of celebrity culture discussing how women are seen in society.

This gives rise to a number of debates around the way in which women are represented as archetypes in society, something that is perpetuated through consumer culture and generates further problems for women in all areas of their lives.

Intelligence
Charlotte Church, coming across as very articulate and intelligent, made the observation that women are continuously and subtly degraded in mainstream media. This can be in subtle and often humorous ways;

“she’s having a blonde moment”

through to direct assaults on female biology

“what’s wrong with you love? Got your period?”

which even women are inclined to laugh at, thus perpetuating degradation.

Women’s behaviour and intelligence is often criticised as being the result of their biology, something that has been observed since Freud coined the phrase “hysteria”. The perpetual ignominy presented by both genders in reducing women’s social, cultural and intellectual standing for referring to their physicality is a systemic problem in the Western world.

Sexualised
When Charlotte Church’s astute comments are taken alongside the interesting interview with Katie Price a.k.a. Jordan, a further degree of abasement of women can be seen. Katie makes the argument that people make an active choice whether or not to buy Nuts, Zoo or other borderline pornographic magazine targeted at young adult males, where as children do not make the same choices when watching music videos. The conclusion that she draws is somewhat spurious, that Britney Spears is more responsible for sexualising children than she is, is almost laughable. However, she raises an interesting point in choice to participate in an overtly sexualised culture.

Price may make the argument that children, and indeed all people, ‘choose’ to purchase iniquious magazines, but as feminist action group Object observe, the magazine replaced the eyelevel and one cannot avoid the offensive representations of female models, actresses and singers they display.

Gender Divide
A colleague of mine, Dr Laura Nelson, has had significant success taking on Hamleys toy store for actively dividing children’s toys by gender.

The now ubiquitous pink and blue, for which there have been outcries on and off since the 1970s, lend credence to the above representations of women, the ditsy, unintelligent, hormone driven blonde. The continuing need to restore hunter gatherer balance and impress upon children the different roles of men and women is a depressing element of the differences between gender in the UK. And it’s not just toy shops, you go into any supermarket and the cards are segregated into a repulsive puce and prussian scheme so we don’t mistakenly buy the wrong card.

All of this gender division is fuelled by consumer marketing and it takes a lot of action to tackle entrenched sexism when money is its core.

Unclean
The final observation of a very unpleasant representation of women is the language given around the basic biological function; menstruation.

Most supermarkets talk about “hygiene” products. The very term “sanitary towels” conjures up basal attitude toward defilement of women through a biological function. Rather like that scene in Carrie where a gaggle of girls scream “plug it up”, the onset of puberty for woman is distressing enough without the entire market for suitable facilitation representing a degree of impurity.

Simply eradicating detrimental language around product used for menstruation would go far to separating the unnecessary psychological ties in the besmirchment of women’s biological functions and their ability to compete with men on cultural, social and intellectual levels.

Taking Action
Rather like Object’s campaign to cover up the detrimental images on men’s magazines, we should all be taking slow but sure action at removing the stereotypes in society, primarily marketed in a consumer industry.

Write a letter to your supermarket that uses the broad sign “female hygiene products”. Write to your local council licensing department for the unnecessary display of sexualised imagery outside pole dancing, underwear and sex shops. Actively reject statements please detrimental language such as inappropriate nicknames, “birds” etc. Do not allow human to persuade you to take an alternative view but stand up for your rights as a woman or a man not to see either gender detrimentalised.

If we don’t, we may as well look forward to a world in which Katie Price is seen as a career idol, and were eventually we will begin to feel like we’re living in an action movie with guns in our garter belts running around in high heels for the sole pleasure of other people.

Since the advent of the One Dimensional Man’s collision with so-called sexual liberation of women, the Madonna whore dichotomy has never been more prevalent in society. From Jerry Hall’s now ubiquitous statement;

“to keep a man; you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom.”

to endless articles debating whether or not women “have it all”, gender divide has never been so prevalent.
Perhaps the most exquisite representation of this in British society is the projection of such a complex, the virtuous maiden and the exciting Aphrodite, on to the newest members of our Royal family.

Read more of my blog for The Huffington Post

The Metro ran a small piece this morning on the most complained about adverts.

The British approach has always been relaxed, hence the widening gap between gender equality and archetypal references.

Yet examining the top ten that annoyed the British so much, there stands a significant discrimination. Those who complain about religious offence, as per British Safety Council’s picture of the Pope in a crash helmet, are granted withdrawal (no pun intended).

But those who complain, as atheists, to overtly religious messages, are ignored.

More complaints were received regarding the Christian Party ad than the British Safety Council, yet they were not upheld.

In line with Dawkins, I’d like to call to atheists to unite and prevent this blatant discrimination! Treble the number of complaints and then we may get somewhere.

Let us celebrate the CIA advances in infiltration, but don’t be confused by the headlines implying there was a bomb plot.

It has transpired that rather than there being a wide ranging bombing plan on airlines, the CIA agent

Persuaded “AQAP that he wanted to blow up himself and a US-bound aircraft.”

So the CIA entered the AQAP and proposed, and gained support for, a bombing plot on a plane. Yes AQAP are implicit in supporting and encouraging such proposals, but they did not initiate them.

It’s rather like the old joke, Blair knew Saddam had weapons of mass destruction because he sold them to him. The CIA know Al Queda is planning to bomb another plane because they suggested it.

This is the equivilant of joint enterprise or procurement of an offense.

All of this adds to demonisation of radical groups that creates and sustains racial and religious tensions across the world. The only benefit is to governments who are heralded as heros and allowed to infringe upon human rights by further erosion of civil liberties.

Of course we should be playing foreign affairs games, but at the same time the damage they cause should be recognised and prevented as much as possible.

House of Lords reform should not be an issue we should be debating. Reforming one entire third of the executive to be composed of democratically elected representatives is not a progressive idea.

To widen the perspective, let’s examine the military intervention Britain has become involved in in the last decade. Much of the justification for Britain and NATO involvement in a no-fly zone in Libya was to protect people’s rights and ensure the power of democracy. The invasion of Iraq was founded on the basis of bringing democracy to the people. And don’t forget Afghanistan, the establishment of a democratic state in the Middle East.

Here we have a coalition government proposing that we reform an entire third of the executive to introduce a larger democratic government. While other countries are bravely contemplating civil war in order to gain democratic representation, the press in this country considers that reform of the House of Lords is not of public interest. Or indeed in the public interest.

Will we also be forced to set ourselves on fire to demand democracy?

The arguments presented against reforming this chamber of government are spurious at best. Rather like the arguments presented against AV, they are at best arbitrarily dogmatic and at worst, rhetoric from the two major parties.

Money
This shouldn’t even be a consideration. Money should not be a barrier to democracy. But if you need an argument against spending money on reforming a major political institution for the better, let’s not forget the financial burden of corruption that the House of Lords currently represents.

During the expenses scandal of 2009, five peers were charged with fraud for misuse and appropriation of expenses. The cost, not only appointing them, but also of investigating, charging and subsequent incarceration can be counted as a hefty sum. On top of this, one peer charged claimed legal aid and, as there is no current solution in law to recall a member of the Houses of Parliament or House of Lords from office, during investigation and prosecution all peers are in fact still on salaried wage.

Then of course, you have to take into account the vast amount of money that people appointed to the House of Lords first paid political parties. The Conservatives may have detracted from their Number 10 Dining
Street scandal with some blather about baked goods, it should be noted
that many of whom dine with the Prime Minister have made
significant donations and have been granted peerages.

Maintaining the Status Quo
That age-old argument ” if it’s not broken, why fix it”.

But the very point is that it is broken. The current system is the House of Lords represents an archaic institution that once advised the king and was comprised of wealthy landowners. If we’ve moved on from such an antiquated system as feudalist society, why should the last remnants of a powerful nobility still exist, let alone without accountability?

Rather than representing a body of experts, its history seeks to define it, the House of Lords epitomise of all what is wrong with a capitalist society; people who pay to be there. If you have any doubts, examine Lord Alan Sugar.

Again, it is not a progressive idea to reform the House of Lords. It is not progressive to suggest that democratic representation is essential to society. It should be commonplace that such a system exists in an advanced Western country.

Political Persuasion
This should not even be in argument between major political parties. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re red, blue or yellow as to whether or not you support this idea. Ultimately, to not support this idea on a political bandwagon demonstrates further everything that is wrong with the democracy in the UK. It is in the interest of the people to have a fully elected democratic representatives governing their country. Every political party should support this.

And indeed, every political party did call for reform of the House of Lords in their manifestoes in 2010. Tony Blair made significant inroads on reforming the House of Lords. However, his work is unfinished. It is necessary for the left to push forward in changing things now, when the opportunity arises. Not waiting until a member of the public is forced to emoiliate themselves in Trafalgar Square.

This post was originally published on Huffington Post

Nick Clegg has recently been criticised for opening up opportunities for women to work. Apparently,as Jonathan Calder comments, there are people out there he believes mothers shouldn’t work.

The debate at this has stirred is fascinating, as one comment observes;

“both are true: whatever mothers do, they are criticised. Stay-at-home mothers are sponging off their husbands/the state, working mothers are neglecting their children, mothers who work part-time lack commitment. Dividing mothers against themselves seems to be a favourite pastime of the media, setting up artificial “debates” on the topic.”

As I then added

Kelly-Marie Blundell said…
rmc28 is correct, there is a disjointed approach to womens’ role in society once they have children.

Women’s magazines, female “friendly” parts of newspapers that feature fashion etc and mainstream media place an unbelievable amount of pressure on women with children. The amount of spurious research that implies a mother must remain at home at least until her child is five to ensure the child reaches their full potential is ridiculous. (I say spurious as most of it is small scale, localised studies which are not longitudinal, fail to take into account primary care givers of other genders or positions in the family and often only apply to British families).

Alongside the “damage” a woman inflicts upon her child if she cannot breastfeed, the battle of mothers and work is one of the great unresolved feminist issues in the UK today.
23 April, 2012 14:59

It is not a new debate. One of the first articles I posted in 2009 on my old blog, Disconcerted Discursives, observes;

[Working Mothers children unfit] Studies into this kind of childrearing debate never discuss whether a child with a saty at home DAD is healthier. Or whether children in nurseries and young education programmes are healthier. The onus is on the woman to fulfil her projected role as a care giver and home maker.

That we are still having this debate in 2012 is really despicable. Women have been battling for equality since the 1960s. We can now vote, choose whom and whether we marry, choose if and whether we have children, what we wear and where we work. Without some still clinging today to (small c) conservative ideologies from the 1950s, it might be possible for people to reclaim the word ‘feminist’ and stand up for it is the right and entitlement in Western society.

What does being a feminist mean?

Say it with pride: I am a feminist

I’ve recently devoured Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman, which I am now wholeheartedly pressing upon any woman I’ve ever met who doesn’t agree with me about being a strident feminist. It’s a delight of laughing memoir combines with impetuous and logical deductions about not only the role of women in society, but also the role of women in society alongside men.

To coin a new phrase, Moran’s approach to feminism is to ask

Are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this is taking up the men’s time?

That’s a brilliant approach to take. Once you query whether the men are indeed doing, worrying or wasting time on “it”, you see the striking difference between the sexes in our current society.

Moran uses the example of the Burkha to illustrate her point. Personally I’m liberal enough to believe that you should be able to wear whatever you want and not be criticised for it. Men are not criticised for what they wear, whether in a religious or social context. The issue was wearing a Burkha is not that men aren’t doing it, but that men are not being criticised for doing it.

Knickers
However, Moran appears to be less inconsistent when applying this rule. For example she waxes lyrical over the joys of women’s underwear, as long as it’s not uncomfortable. However, I would argue that if the men are not worrying about wearing sexy underwear for their day, if the men are not worrying about purchasing the right type, material, or fit of underwear, then why should women? Ultimately, the only person it should matter to is yourself, and potentially if you’re in a relationship, to your relationship with that person.

I don’t ask my spouse to prance around in the cheese wire thong, nor is it expected of him to wear one in order that he should not get that terrible “VPL” that so ruins the lines of his trousers. Nor does he require the same of me. The pressure applied to women around underwear, and it isn’t just knickers, is ludicrous. Not only are they implicitly criticised for being incorrect, they have to straddle the fine boundaries between trashy and sexy, obvious and subtle, intentionally and unintentionally visible. Essentially, when it comes to underwear, it seems that women are damnedest they deal in band if they don’t. No one ever apply the same logic to a man and whether he chose to wear jersey boxer shorts or jockey shorts.

I don’t believe you can pick and choose your arguments with feminism. I think the “are the boys doing it?” is a genius way of addressing misogyny in society, but you can’t pick your arguments when you choose. Part and parcel of the “doing it” is the “being criticised for it”, and people should be entitled, whether male or female, to act within liberal boundaries of society (not breaking any laws) without being criticised, pressurised or unduly influenced.

That is not to say that liberalism is without morality.

In spite of my pedantry, I genuinely found Moran’s book enjoyable, passionate and vociferous on a lot of issues I strongly agree with. With rapidly increasing grassroots feminist groups apparently sprouting out of social media, a backlash against one-dimensional reality TV stars, glamour models and indeed social constructions of glamour, this is just the sort of thing we need to be hitting bookshelves. I will be buying a copy for my 12 year old sister tomorrow.

It’s reasonably typical in an economic downturn, especially in economic downturn that is so manipulated by political houses to demonstrate who is right and who is wrong, but the issue of tax avoidance is never far from the news nowadays.

In line with this, the work by the Coalition, comprised of the centre-left Liberal Democrat presence and the centre-right Conservative presence is always presented in two lights to the media; and as a result nobody wins.

Today’s issue in question is that of those wealthy individuals that make large-scale donations to charity so that they can write this off as non-taxable income. Donations to charity which can gain such relief will now be capped at £50,000 or 25%. Spare change to many people, but certainly not spare change to charities.

From the left perspective, this is surely fantastic? All of the protests against the rich can now cease because we are tackling one way that they are avoiding paying tax and therefore gaining more income to repay the deficit and reduce pressure on the individual. Or so you would think.

With campaigns like Occupy still going strong in various guises, alongside apparent civilly disobedient, but often just bored teenage UKUncut, one would think that such proposals by the Chancellor would be met with pleasure.

But no. Already, the left-wing press is calling it an attack on philanthropists, an attack on charities who may not receive as much money and not good enough.

However, far from causing a philanthropic crisis with charities dropping like flies, we should look at the statistics before denouncing the move. According to the Charity Commission, just 21.9% of charities earn over £250,000 on an annual basis. Or five major donor donations. Out of the 6% of charities that earn over £1 million, it is highly unlikely that, as insinuated by Number 10, people are setting up charities for non-charitable pursuits as a way of avoiding tax, or certainly not in the UK. So the hyperbole being stirred by the left-wing press is highly unlikely to cause charities come crashing to the ground.

In direct comparison, the right-wing press are accusing the government of picking on those poor millionaires, misrepresenting them all as tax avoiding, tax dodging, malevolent spendrifts. Ironically, where as the those of right wing internation tend to believe in capital and all-encompassing punishment, their press now state that we should be using the carrots not sticks to encourage tax donation. We should be throwing parties for every millionaire that pays tax. Not quite what the Coalition had in mind.

If the cap on donations to charities prevents a percentage of people from avoiding tax deliberately on minimal parts of their income (Bear in mind that the average house price for a three-bedroom home in Kent is £242,000 and hardly what one would consider to be a millionaire’s salary), then that’s fantastic. It stops the wealthy from exploiting another tax loophole in the future.

When taken in line with the coalition policy to tax offshore bank accounts introduced in the summer last year, as a key part of the Liberal Democrat manifesto, it’s clear that there is a significant crackdown on tax avoidance, and evasion, going on. Take into account the raising of Capital Gains tax which was one of the first moves by the Coalition in 2010, there seems to be little way that these (nefarious) millionaires can escape their duty as British citizens.

However, it is worth noting that a full-on crackdown on those of us who find tax avoidance morally repugnant would like to see is unlikely to happen just yet.

The report that George Osborne has recently conducted into anonymised miscreant millionaires identified the key ways in which wealthy individuals avoid paying tax. Outside of capital gains in offshore bank accounts, and other way was through charitable donations.

However, there does not yet seem to be a plan in place, for tackling the largest area of tax avoidance; offsetting business losses.

Of course, if the Coalition, that perpetual battle between left and right, were to start denouncing businesses and preventing offsetting business losses, then the Conservatives would find themselves severely criticised.

There must be a way around people offsetting business losses as the huge form of tax avoidance without penalising all businesses unfairly. To do so without such guidance would result in stalling growth, impacting on jobs and businesses across the country and on our import/export market. A significantly detrimental move for any country in an economic downturn.

In the meantime, we should be rejoicing significant inroads into tax avoidance and evasion through measures already implemented by the coalition, not whingeing about non-existent statistics that will apparently bring the charity industry to its knees.