Should MPs be allowed to take their babies into the voting lobby?

There's been a bit of controversy over the issue of breastfeeding in the House of Commons and taking babies into the voting lobby sparked by comments by Jo Swinson, who gave birth to her son Andrew on 22 December. The argument goes that you can take a sword into the Commons voting lobby, but not a baby. On face value, it sounds like yet another way in which Westminster needs to be dragged into the 21st century.

Jo said to the Guardian:

"I think it's been lovely the way people have been really supportive in parliament of my pregnancy," she said. "[But] I think some of the structures of the institutions of the House of Commons probably don't make it as easy as it could be, in particular that you don't get maternity cover. As a minister, I get cover for my work … but nobody else will be being the MP for East Dunbartonshire."

Swinson said her staff would do a fantastic job of looking after her constituents but other countries allow a replacement MP to stand in.

I don't think it's impossible or insurmountable but I don't think there's any job that's particularly easy to have a baby when you're in it," she said. "There's always going to be a lot of challenges and there's plenty of people who have jobs with even more difficult challenges, like people who are self-employed and running a business."

She condemned the "bizarre" ban on walking through the House of Commons voting lobby while holding a baby. "I hardly think it would be too much of a disruption," she said. "You can take a sword through there but you can't a baby.

There has been a change that women who are breastfeeding can be nodded through. But I think when you are perfectly capable of walking through the lobby holding a small baby, I think there would be a better way of just allowing that. But parliament moves but slowly.

Channel 4's Cathy Newman, writing in the Telegraph, criticised Jo, saying:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for mums being encouraged to breastfeed, though too many are made to feel terribly guilty if they can't make it work. I'm afraid, though, that it doesn't greatly advance the feminist cause to allow MPs to cart their bawling babies through the lobby. The Commons is a workplace unlike any other, but a workplace nevertheless. And how many new mums in other walks of life can bring their babies to work day in day out?

To be fair to Cathy, she does eventually get round to talking about the fact that no cover is provided and the hours are long, but I think her conclusion is flawed. If you've just had a baby and there's a vote that affects your constituency, you kind of have to be there. The same applies at Council level. I know of one councillor who had to turn up to vote when her baby was days old to get the budget through. So if you go to Westminster for the day, for that vote, you don't have childcare, you don't have a nursery place. You either have to take someone with you to look after the baby, or you can't vote. How much simpler would it be to walk in from your flat, leave the pram at the entrance of the voting lobby and carry the baby through. It disrupts nobody. And for those who worry about prams taking up too much space, well, the House of Lords has room for lots of mobility scooters. They've managed to adapt themselves to the needs of their members. The Commons should follow suit.

We should be looking at ways of making it easier for mothers, parents to participate in Parliament and take down any barriers that present themselves. There have been several attempts to change things over the years. In 2000, a ruling was made that no baby could be breastfed in a committee room because standing orders said that only committee members could consume refreshments. At that stage there was nowhere else where babies could be breastfed in Parliament and that led to the establishment of breastfeeding rooms.

To my eternal disappointment, David Steel, when he was Presiding Officer at the Scottish Parliament, refused to allow breastfeeding in the Chamber. Voting is a far less archaic process there. Members press a button at their desks. They don't have to spend 15 minutes of their life per vote in a queue.  Maybe one way round this is to actually get rid of the voting lobby itself.

Jenny Willott, in a recent AD LIB interview, talked about having to leave her baby in the arms of a Conservative MP, Edward Timpson, while she went to vote. Timpson isn't a random stranger, Jenny went to school with him, but even so, it's hardly ideal. When a vote is called in the Commons, the division bell rings. Members then have 8 minutes to get themselves from wherever they are on the parliamentary estate to the voting lobbies which are then locked. They may have to do this many times, at 20 minutes at least a time, at unsocial hours and sometimes unpredictably so. In Holyrood, you have Decision Time on all matters at the end of the day's business at 5pm. It's quite simple and takes a matter of minutes to get through it all.

Having said that, I have absolutely no problem with babes-in-arms being breastfed in the chamber itself. What better sign of a modern, inclusive Parliament could there be? It allows mum to participate in the proceedings and baby to be fed and nobody else is affected. It's a win all round.  I've loved the pictures of Italian MEP Lucia Ronzulli with her daughter in the chamber of the European Parliament. She gets some stick for it, but she's a pioneer. It would be great if this was a much more commonplace sight.

Nick Clegg and Jo have championed a very flexible and liberal approach to shared parental leave. I think it's also worth encouraging employers to be much more accommodating to their employees in terms of breastfeeding and childcare. We have this idea that when parents return to work their children are put into nursery, or have a childminder or nanny. For some it might work better if the caregiver brings the baby in at certain times to be fed. It's much quicker and more efficient than using a pump. That wouldn't work for everybody in every job, but it should be an option for those for whom it would work. Employers generally should be encouraged to be flexible and to try to meet their employees' individual needs. They get more out of them that way.

The work of an MP, though, is not like most jobs. Mothers in traditional employment get up to a year at home with their baby without having to think about the place. Self employed mothers can often organise their work around their babies. This is not the case for someone who has to represent their constituents. It's about time Parliament stopped being so unsufferably traditional and stuffy and set a positive example which could then permeate through the rest of society.

Dear Daily Mail, if a man is left in charge of his own child, he is parenting, not babysitting

One of my most re-tweeted comments ever. Must have struck a nerve. Or maybe Mitch Benn retweeting it helped:

Daily Fail say Kate left William to babysit. Why is there this idea that men looking after their own child is babysitting?
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) October 25, 2013

In the hour since I posted it, my phone has gone a bit mad, beeping every few seconds, with retweets from men and women. Nobody would ever suggest a woman looking over her own child was babysitting, but for some reason parenting can be viewed as an opt-in, part-time occupation for men.

Why does this idea that women do the parenting and men help out when they feel like it persist in the second decade of the 21st century? I know so many families where Dad swans in and out when he pleases, continues with his own interests unfettered by childcare duties. The only exception to this seems to be when the mother is going out to work, although she will normally prepare meals, do the housework and otherwise make sure life is comfortable for everyone before she goes out. Dad, on the other hand, if he fancies going to some sporting event or participating, just gets on with it and the family has to reorganise their lives around him, however inconvenient it may be. Mum's interests, if she has time to pursue any, conversely, have to fit in with everyone else.

Caroline Page responded to my tweet by making this very valid point too.

@caronmlindsay If an absent dad visits his kids once a week/month, whatever, too many people say "He's so good, keeping in touch like that"
— Caroline Page (@CroPage) October 25, 2013

The Daily Fail has form on promoting the idea that men can just pass on responsibility for looking after their children. In July 2011, Quentin Letts wrote an article entitled:

Hen-pecked Cleggy should tell his wife that running the country matters more than the school run

 And, no, I'm not going to link to such utter rubbish.

It makes me wonder. Nick Clegg and Jo Swinson have long championed and are now implementing changes to parental leave which enable couples to decide for themselves how they split parental, not maternity, leave between them. That will make it much more of a level playing field for women at work and maybe at home as well, driving cultural change as well as giving parents more choice. It will only make sense, though, where women earn more than men. What about those who don't. We need to think more about how we make sure that equality isn't just linked to economic contribution.

There has, of course, been progress since my childhood where my mum worked full time and my dad did very little in the way of either childcare or housework, but we're nowhere near where we need to be. Women's lives are still lacking many of the freedoms that men take for granted, even here, a top 20 nation for gender equality. We need to look at what we can learn from those above us in the list.

Would you have helped Nigella?

Everyone's been pretty shocked by the photos of Charles Saatchi's assault on Nigella Lawson for which he has now received a Police caution.

Just out of interest, I looked up the criteria for giving a caution and the procedures for doing so on the Ministry of Justice website. It appears that domestic assault is not normally the sort of offence considered appropriate for a simple caution:

Positive action is recommended in cases of domestic violence and abuse to ensure the safety and protection of victims and children while allowing the Criminal Justice System to hold the offender to account. Domestic violence and abuse cases often involve a number of incidents prior to reporting to the police. A positive action approach considers the incident in its entirety and should focus investigative efforts on gathering sufficient evidence to be able to build a prosecution case that does not rely entirely on the victim’s statement. Police and prosecutors should refer to the ACPO/CPS Charging checklist3 to help secure evidence-based prosecutions which are not solely victim reliant.

The next paragraph may offer a clue as to why a caution was given in this circumstance:

 However, where a positive action policy has been adhered to but the victim does not support a prosecution and the available evidence (including any additional evidence adduced) would only disclose a very minor offence a simple caution can be considered in preference to a decision to take no further action.

This is obviously a very difficult time for Nigella and she should be subject to no criticism whatsoever for any decisions she makes or doesn't make in relation to this. The fault lies entirely with Charles Saatchi. It's to be hoped that having to sign a bit of paper admitting his guilt in front of a Police Officer will teach him a lesson.

I'm not his biggest fan, it's fair to say. Nigella once famously said that he preferred a bowl of cereal to her cooking. If he's said that to her, even privately, it's a bit demeaning, to be honest. If you have a spouse who's achieved a great deal in their field, you would surely be really proud of them, wouldn't you? Such an attitude seems quite belittling of someone who's made millions from her unique and slightly salacious style of cookery programme.

One thing that's been vexing many is that nobody went to help Nigella on the night. Had I been there, I'd have intervened if I'd seen anyone put their hands round someone else's throat, especially if that other person looked distressed. And if I had taken any pictures, I'd have sent them to the Police, not a downmarket Sunday scandal rag.

Yesterday I asked on Twitter if anyone had ever intervened in a case of domestic assault. I had 11 replies, not bad for a quick tweet in the middle of the afternoon, from people who had either got directly involved or who had called the Police, including one from someone who had tried to stop a hammer attack on a family. Thankfully everybody was ok in that instance.

I've never had to intervene between spouses, but I have done so when I've seen parents behave really unpleasantly towards their children, giving them verbal abuse or pushing them around. There is never, and I mean never, any circumstance when it's justified to scream at your child, calling them a "wee f***ing s***e. Once I saw a mum push a shopping trolley really viciously at a boy of about 8. In both instances I got abuse from the parents but at least their anger was focused on me, not the child.

Alecia Simmonds has put forward her ideas as to why nobody helped Nigella. She said:

The reason, I think, is not that the 70 year old Saatchi posed such a hulking physical threat. It is simply because what they saw would normally have taken place behind closed doors, in a domestic setting where law, for most of our history, has refused to enter. Thanks to years of feminist campaigning domestic violence legislation has relatively recently sought to challenge the idea that these incidences are ‘just another domestic’ and to end the violent tyranny too many men wield over their partners. Yet for all our legal reforms, the Nigella incident proves that domestic violence is still considered a private matter between husband and wife. Domestic violence is simply not taken as seriously by our society as other crimes.

 I think she might have a point. At least the legislative protections are there victims of domestic violence, but our attitude towards it needs to catch up.

Another article I read today showed, though, that there are some men who have no issue with treating women as equals. In the Brisbane Times, John Birmingham writes about the monumental misogyny of the last week and calls upon the decent men of this world to stand with women against this nonsense:

Because the truth is the world is not solely populated by misogynists and homophobes and embittered, deeply stupid and potentially violent males. It’s also full of calmer, gentler, more intelligent and wiser men who know better than these fools and who are perfectly capable of standing them down. Men who want better for women because so many of the people they care most about in the world are women.

Where are these blokes when a man puts his hands around a woman’s neck and starts to squeeze? Where are they when some idiot demeans and disrespects a prime minister, not because of what she’s done, but because of what she is? Where are you guys? Because if you just stepped up and said no at the very moment that it's happening, not later, but right then and there, some of this wretched dickishness might finally die out.

Birmingham's view echoes that of Helena Morrissey when she said that it can't just be women calling for better representation within the party - men have to take ownership of the issues we've had as well. 

I hadn't, by the way, been aware of the goings on in the Australian army where emails depicting demeaning images of female officers  have been doing the rounds. That's appalling in an environment where you have to be able to trust your colleagues 100%. The army chief Lt General David Morrison certainly let the perpetrators have it. 

The attitudes prevalent around these issues shows that there is still a long way to go before men and women achieve true equality. What would you do if you saw someone upset by the violent behaviour of a partner while you were out and about?

Tesco can be a dangerous place.....#losetheladsmags

A couple of weeks ago I wrote on Liberal Democrat Voice asking if it was time to lose the lads' mags in light of a new campaign set up by UK Feminista and Object. Even though my article was quite mild, and suggested no legislative change whatsoever, merely urging a think about the damage lads' mags and our hypersexualised culture does to women, it attracted some quite aggressive comments. Any time a woman speaks up about these things, there is a queue of mostly men waiting to shout her down and call her names, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. As you can imagine, I'm not one to be put off.

The Lose the Lads' Mags campaign aims to rid the magazine shelves of pictures of half naked women. If men want to read the stuff that's in them, then that's up to them, but do women really have to be subjected to images of scantily clad women on the front covers of these things? What does it tell kids about the world in which they are growing up? Today, they are taking the campaign a step further by asking Tesco to lose the lads' mags.

Simple trips to the supermarket can be quite damaging in that regard. Let's face it, you take your little girl to Tesco and the first thing she's likely to see is pouting, half naked women from the covers of the likes of Nuts and Zoo, not always from a high shelf either. Then you go to the toy bit and she finds herself being pigeonholed into pink and sparkly. Rather than just let kids choose for themselves what they want to play with, toys are segregated into frills and froth for girls and practical, interesting ones for boys. Some egregious examples, like the Early Learning Centre marketing doctors' outfits for boys and nurses' outfits for girls were withdrawn after pressure built on social media.

And if the message is damaging for girls, it's part of the mix that tells boys that the world is run by and for men, that women are second class citizens. When they then, and most of them do, access internet porn and see women being treated as mere receptacles rather than equal partners, they accept that and their expectations of how their own relationships will work are adjusted accordingly.

People have the right to buy whatever rubbish they like. I certainly do. The lure of a Nigel Slater recipe card or Les Miserables DVD have even on rare occasion persuaded me to buy the Dail Fail. What the Lose the Lads' Mags campaign is about is about the imagery that pervades the public space. Women in demeaning, half naked poses on the front pages of magazines where anyone can see them sends a message that women are second class citizens and that has to be wrong and contributes to a misogyny that is much more malevolent than anything I remember when I was growing up. Laura Bates of Everyday Sexism today writes at the Huffington Post about the sorts of things they hear from young girls. There are triggery elements for sexual assault in what follows:

One 13-year-old girl wrote to the Everyday Sexism Project in desperation, saying "I am so scared to have sex it makes me cry nearly every day... some of the boys at school keep sending us these videos of sex... and it looks so horrible and like it hurts... [it's] so scary and painful and the woman is crying and getting hurt." Without any other information to offset these messages, she believed that this was simply what sex was like.

Other young people spoke of boys in school discussions saying "rape is a compliment really" and "it's not rape if you enjoy it". One woman told me of her shock at seeing her 12-year old sister's social networking profiles, where boys in her year left messages saying "Give me a blow job you slag" and "you have no idea how hard I would fuck the living shit out of you". When she refused to send them explicit photographs of herself, they called her "a frigid little bitch". Boys, too, are in desperate need of clear support to overcome the misleading messages they may be receiving online at a young age about their role in sexual relationships and how they should treat partners.

Yes, you read that right. 12 year olds leaving sexually explicit, insulting and intimidating messages on girls' social media profiles.

Last year I wrote about how uncomfortable I felt when a man next to me on the plane was reading one of these lads' mags. Why, I said, do men think it's ok to get their nuts out in public?

If men (I could say people, but who are we trying to kid here?) want to look at this stuff, then there's very little I can do to stop them, but for heavens' sake, can they not do it in the privacy of their own homes? When men ostentatiously read stuff like this in public, it's like they're making a huge statement that they see women as simply being there as window dressing, as decoration, as pleasure enhancers rather than their equals. They clearly feel that they have a right to own all the public space. I felt it was so rude of him and it made me feel uncomfortable. Now, I don't have the right to be protected from being offended, and nor am I asking for it, but I think I have every right to express my displeasure at such insensitive and crude behaviour.

There is so much that needs to be done in terms of changing a culture that is deeply damaging towards women. A debate about the images we consider appropriate in the public space is only a small part of it. In the 70s, every workplace would have had a girly calendar and women just had to put up with it. Things have changed now, and such displays are no longer seen as acceptable. Lads' mags are a regressive step back and their publishers need to think about the images that they put on the covers. If retailers can put pressure of them in that regard, so much the better.

Taking those images out of the public space will give the vital work that comes through education, to promoting understanding, as Laura Bates says, of what a healthy relationship should be, more chance of success.  Is it really too much to ask that women are treated as equal citizens in the media? Caroline Lucas has a Westminster Hall debate on media sexism tomorrow and as I'm in London, I hope to be able to see it. I'll tell you all about it when I do.

If you want to tell Tesco to lose the lads' mags, then you can do so via Facebook, Twitter and Email here.

Lynne Featherstone's message for International Women's Day #IWD

 DFID Minister Lynne Featherstone has been in New York this week at the UN working with other countries to tackle violence against women. There's a nifty map which shows exactly where our money is helping women across the world.

This was her message to Scotland - remember DFID head office is here, in East Kilbride - for International Women's Day.

Scottish society has a strong history of supporting International Women's Day by celebrating the achievements of women and girls against the barriers of discrimination and inequality as well as showing solidarity with those who continue to face various forms of oppression.

There are women and girls around the world who are shot at simply for campaigning for girls education; raped while collecting water in a refugee camp; or attacked by their partner after his team lost the match.

I've long been a campaigner for gender equality at home, and as the UK Government's champion for tackling violence against women overseas, it infuriates me that across the world one in three women is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. Whilst reading this you will probably think of a friend or family member, a colleague or client who is a victim.

Enough is enough and we must stand up and work together to eliminate violence against women and girls.

The Coalition Government will be stepping up our efforts to tackle gender-based violence. We want to galvanise a global movement, which is why it will be a priority during our Presidency of the G8 throughout 2013. In particular, we are looking to secure new commitments from some of the world's most powerful nations to tackle sexual violence in conflict.

Earlier this week I represented the UK at the annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and lobbied other governments to agree a common set of global standards to protect women and girls from discrimination and violence. When CSW ends next week, I hope my efforts will not have been in vain.

The UK's Department for International Development, with a head office in East Kilbride, is working in 21 countries to directly address violence against women. We have launched a new fund for research that will collect evidence of violence against women and girls from ten countries in Africa and Asia to help understand the causes of violence and shape new methods of prevention. In our Afghanistan country plan we have put a greater emphasis on initiatives to tackle violence against women and girls and ensure that the progressive gains for women and girls are not lost but built on.

On Tuesday I announced a new £35 million DFID programme to support an African-led movement to end Female Genital Mutilation. Like foot-binding in China, I believe we can end this harmful practice within a generation.

These are just some of the initiatives the UK Government is leading on, but there is always more we can do.
These are just some of the initiatives the UK Government is leading on, but there is always more we can do.

Nick Clegg in Africa - a missed opportunity?

Nick Clegg and Lynne Featherstone went to Africa this week. Shortly after he picked up every banana skin left for him at Deputy Prime Minister's Questions by Labour and the incomparable Peter Bone, and lobbed them back with vigour, he took a flight to Mozambique and Ethiopia.

He was there to highlight the Girls' Education Challenge Fund set up by the Department of International Development. Its aim is to give a million of the world's poorest girls the chance to improve their life chances by giving them access to education. Nick said that this would help them escape HIV, domestic violence and poverty.

African women should be driving  economic growth, not be driven into poverty and dependency. From what I have seen today, I’m convinced that giving girls a good education is the single most effective thing we can do to break the cycle of poverty.

Africa’s recent economic success – growth rates from five to seven per cent – owes much to its women. Sustaining and increasing the pace of growth will depend on them too.

Projects such as this one are getting girls into good quality education and are vital to help African women escape poverty, disease and domestic violence. The girls I have met here are enthusiastic, committed and dedicated to learning. They are clearly the key to unlocking Africa’s potential.

He is absolutely right and this is exactly what we should be doing. His Letter from the Leader told us more about his visit to Africa:

In meetings with leaders from both countries I particularly highlighted the need for global action on tax avoidance and evasion. Developing countries have suffered from this for years but the developed world is now waking up too. Big companies can move quicker and easier than national tax laws and they end up playing us off against each other. Only by working together - developed and developing nations - can we make sure that tax is properly collected and spent on the public services we all need, whatever country we live in.

I also took a business delegation with me because the opportunity for British businesses in Africa are enormous. Seven out of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are on the continent and it's part of the job as a Government Minister to make sure they are getting the best access to these booming emerging markets.

I think there's one huge issue he's missing out, though. And it has to do with reining in corporate greed and improving the health of kids. If kids are going to benefit from education, we need to get them through the perilous first five years of life. A Save the Children report last year highlighted the importance of breastfeeding, amongst other things, in that.

There are lots of interventions Governments can make  to support breastfeeding. Some of them are very simple - like making sure babies are put to the breast and encouraged to feed within an hour of birth. Others are much more complex - getting the formula companies to behave. Nestle,and others, for example, is threatening the Government of the Philippines with withdrawal of investment if it does not reduce its regulations on the marketing of infant formula according to Baby Milk Action.

Friday's Guardian carried a horrific report by Zoe Williams on how the antics of the formula companies put babies in danger. Heavens above, a wee bit of horsemeat in our food, which won't harm us, and we all go mad. That's nothing compared to what's happening in Indonesia and elsewhere. The article highlights 20 year old Fifi who was given a sample of formula for her daughter by her midwife of all people.Now she has to spend half her husband's income on formula, but that's not the worst of it:

But at Fifi's home, it became obvious that the sanitation problem towers over this one – 45% of Indonesians have no access to clean water. There are only two places in the capital where anyone can drink from a tap, and that's the American embassy and Jakarta international school. But Fifi can't afford gas to boil water either. She has no kitchen. She has to pay every time she goes to the loo, which is shared between 26 people, and sometimes she cuts a deal with a neighbour where one of them goes to the loo while another has a shower, to save money.

Clean hands, clean utensils, clean bottles, clean anything, it's all a total pipe dream. A paediatrician in a separate Jakartan clinic, Dr Asti Praborini, said: "Selling formula is like the killing fields, in my opinion. The babies will die of diarrhoea and they will die of malnutrition.

The report highlights how formula companies work with midwives to get them to sell their products, flouting the law in the process.It is time that Governments did something about this.Otherwise babies will continue to die unnecessarily of diahorrea and malnutrition. I'd really like to see Nick Clegg and Lynne Featherstone get some international action going on this.

The countries they visited last week are classified "good" on Save the Children's scale. They still have room for improvement, though. Countries like Malawi and the Solomon Islands where they are putting a lot of effort into encouraging breastfeeding are seeing child mortality rates fall. Obviously.

And it'snot just in the poorer parts of the world where improving breastfeeding rates  makes a difference. You might be interested in this post I wrote last year telling Nick Clegg how action now could both save money and tackle inequality in health, quoting current research which says clearly that:

Breast fed children from lower socio-economic groups had better outcomes than formula fed children from more affluent families.

 It's time to take this issue seriously by making it easier for mothers to breastfeed and clamping down on formula companies both at home and abroad.

South Bronx is just as important as Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall

It is lovely to watch a US President taking the oath of office and not be scared. The feeling of dread I experienced in 1981 and 2001 when Reagan and the younger Bush took office was not pleasant. While Barack Obama has not been perfect, his heart is generally in the right place. His achievements in his first term are all the more remarkable when you consider that he faced a Congress full of some of the most right wing, conservative Republicans we've seen in our lifetimes whose sole aim was to thwart his every move.

Obama's inaugural speech was stirring and inspiring to liberal ears. His main theme was that every American should have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on which the nation was founded.

For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law  –-  -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

He talked about how the "most evident of truths, that all of us are created equal....guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall." It's strange to think that a strong declaration in favour of gay rights by the "leader of the free world" is seen as remarkable. All of this is great stuff and he was right to mention those places were so pivotal in developing equal rights. There is another place beginning with S, though, which symbolises action required to tackle another great barrier to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. South Bronx is the poorest Congressional District in the US.

While I'm glad to hear politicians embrace the prospect of equal rights, they are relatively inexpensive for a Government or Parliament with a majority in favour to implement. Even David Cameron is in favour of equal civil marriage. Developing a strategy which will lift people from appalling poverty is so much harder because it involves a huge amount of political will to put the resources in to do it. The US and UK are, despite the talk of deficits and debts, among the most affluent countries in the world yet at the same time as Obama was speaking, the UK Parliament was debating a measure that will cut benefits for the poorest here.

To give Obama credit, he did recognise the need to tackle poverty:

 For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.

We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.  We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm.  The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.

But I found this line depressing:

We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else.

If you grow up cold, or hungry, in poor housing, you don't have the same life chances as everyone else. That's the simple truth. Why do we accept that people should be born into bleak poverty at all? While I  realise we can't change everything overnight, all politicians need to raise their sights and get more ambitious about eradicating poverty. For Liberal Democrats, this is a core part of our values. Our membership cards say that we seek to create a fair, free and open society where no-one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance and conformity. Obamacare across the Atlantic and raising the tax threshold and building more affordable housing here are good things but are nowhere near enough. The least we should be aiming for is that everyone has enough to eat and a warm home that meets their needs. Whilst it's fine to give ourselves a pat on the back for small successes along the way, we can't afford to lose a sense of urgency about the rest of the journey.

Caron's Corkers Special - a bit of empathy and goodness from the internet

As I said yesterday, I wanted to throw a few posts filled with understanding and empathy in order to counteract the hate and negativity put out there by Suzanne Moore and Julie Burchill.

And so, here is a selection of posts from the last few days.

First of all, the word "intersectionality" was being thrown around the place. If, like me, you were wondering what that's all about, Den of the Hyena explains it for us - and tells us why things that are different about us shouldn't divide us:

It is time for people to realise that there need be no conflict between recognition of social minority issues and of class issues, between fighting or social change and upholding liberal values. The belief that such a conflict is necessary has been a gift to the traditionalist right. It is not giving due consideration to intersectionality that divides us – it is getting into petty arguments over it. The way to avoid this is not to shut down minority voices but to listen, learn, and move on. To respect that those voices matter, that they are part of us. To show solidarity.

A brilliant piece from Girl on the net on "Julie Burchill, hatred and a massive crisis in empathy" just asking us to communicate with a bit more understanding and less insult throwing:

Sometimes I’ll say things you disagree with. Sometimes I’ll use words you don’t like. Sometimes (and this may be one of those times) you’ll want to hurl your laptop out of the window in frustration at the way I have callously dismissed or ignored something that’s precious to you.

But I promise you this: I will never deliberately say hateful, horrible things that ignore my privilege and make life harder for you. I will always try to empathise and – if you correct me – I’ll try to clarify what I’m saying, or apologise if I’m wrong. If you tell me about my mistakes I can correct and clarify. If you call me a hateful psycho bitch-whore, I’ll never fucking learn.

I’m just a girl, standing in front of an angry internet, asking you all to be a bit more understanding. That goes for the writers as well as the commenters and all of the people who retweet us and keep us afloat. 

Paris Lees wrote an open letter to Suzanne Moore, as a fan of hers,asking her to understand why so many trans people were angered by her comment. If I were Moore, I'd be mortified:

And you, Suzanne, are a very clever woman. You know about patriarchy, and rape culture, and racism, and capitalism and every other system of oppression, of signs and actions that contribute violence to the unlucky minorities they persecute. I don't think it is difficult for you to understand the frustration trans people feel from living in a culture that relentlessly ridicules them, at every level of society. I know you must feel the injustice of this. And I know you never set out to hurt anyone. It's been another long day for me. Once again I'm reminded of the wallpaper in my mind; that ever-present knowledge that trans people are objects of ridicule in public life, things to be referred to and smirked at, not real, valid living human beings with fears and weaknesses and hopes and dreams and all the other things that you and I and every one else on the planet feels. And I find I don't want to be angry; I don't want you to be just another person making off comments about trans people. I want you to be Suzanne Moore, my hero. You're so much better than the article Julie Burchill wrote in your defence. But I want people to stop ridiculing people like me - and I want today to be the day they stop.

Hussein-Ece and Brinton on stalking, under-representation of women and gender based violence

November 25th saw the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This occasion was marked by a debate in the House of Lords last Thursday.

Just reading the Hansard account of the debate made me feel sick. There was a former surgeon describe the hours of surgery it took to reconstruct one woman's face after a violent attack by her partner. There were descriptions of how girls as young as 12 were subjected to Female Genital Mutilation in this country despite laws against it. Where is the worst place in the world to be a woman? Reputedly a province in the Democratic Republic of Congo where 40 women are raped every day. In India, 50% of men and women believe that wife-beating is justified if a woman disrespects her in-laws or neglects the house.

Two Liberal Democrat peers spoke in the Debate. Sal Brinton wrote for Liberal Democrat Voice in 2008 about the awful campaign of intimidation and harassment inflicted on her and other Watford Liberal Democrats by Ian Oakley. In the week the new Anti-Stalking law came into force, she talked about what that would mean for people who had been in her situation:

I give my personal thanks to all Ministers who supported this legislation as it progressed through Parliament, and particularly to Lynne Featherstone, who made it a priority to champion the fight against violence against women in any form. It remains essential that we hear the voices of the victims and assess the risks to them. An anti-stalking law is only as effective as those who enforce it. The culture change proposed in the new law may take a while to implement, but I am sure that now we have a tool that can give women peace of mind and safety from the persistent nightmare of stalkers.

Meral Hussein-Ece made some very important points about the underlying culture. Having laws giving women rights is one thing, but if men still dominate the law enforcement organisations, these laws are unlikely to be implemented as well as they could be. She recounted how she  had been threatened for trying to help women:

 Recently, a high-profile, educated woman from the Indian sub-continent told me of an incident where a senior official casually in conversation talked of how when he beat his wife, she knew what she had done wrong. This is by no means an unusual attitude and is not necessarily confined to poorer communities. I experienced threats of violence myself some years ago, when I set up the first project and centre to support Turkish and Kurdish women who experienced violence in the UK, from the very men who perpetrated that violence against women and their family behind closed doors, or who, often in the name of their so-called honour, which, as we all know, is dishonour, tried to control women by using violent methods.

Having laws in place is not enough. We need those laws to be properly implemented. We know that legislatures and enforcement authorities are usually dominated by men who often do not see this issue as a priority. We must do better to protect women and prevent this pervasive human rights violation.

She went on to add that we hadn't quite got it right in the UK yet either, citing media portrayal of women and its consequences:

Here in the UK, we are still working hard to eliminate and educate people in our society to change behaviour and attitudes, but according to the NSPCC sadly one in three teenage girls experience sexual violence from their boyfriends. We need to look at how women are being portrayed in some sections of the media, particularly in online sites.

If you ever wondered why I go on about this stuff as much as I do, the transcript of the debate will give you a good idea. Every day women are beaten, raped, mutilated or killed, denied education and denied their equal right to power and participation in government. That's not a situation we should tolerate, either here or internationally.

The Independent on Sunday's  Christmas appeal this year is in aid of Refuge, a charity which supports women and children who have been through domestic violence. Yesterday actor Sir Patrick Stewart told of his experience of having to protect his mother from his violent father. A few newspaper articles and a debate on a Thursday evening alone won't change things for the many women whose lives are made intolerable. It will take sustained national and international effort for many years to come. Everyone involved in politics should be working towards the aim of eliminating violence against women.

Michelle Obama and magnetic misogyny

Michelle Obama is a formidable woman. She combines intelligence with warmth and is an inspiration to a generation of women not only in the US but worldwide. A magnetic personality, you might say.

Who can forget the affection she inspired after her visit to a London girls' school in 2009. Look at this. Three years on, it still makes me cry.



She had a message so important for girls to hear:

"We need strong, smart confident young women to stand up and take the reins. I want you to know that we have very much in common. Nothing in my life's path would have predicted that I'd be standing here as the first African American First Lady of the USA.  wasn't raised with wealth or resources....you too can control your own destiny. Please remember that."

She's had a real impact as First Lady with her campaign to get families exercising and eating healthily to combat childhood obesity and to get people giving armed services veterans the support they need.

But while she does all this good work, she's undermined by the usual sexism in the media. Try and find a profile or article about her that doesn't mention her clothes. I mean, how is it news that she wore the same outfit twice?  You might expect that from a US entertainment site, but the BBC should know better. 

It was profoundly depressing to see, on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning, the two presenters joking about a piece of Michelle merchandise:

A magnetic, 37 piece dress-up set

Heavens above. And while the BBC presenters were joking about it, there was nothing in their comments which indicated that there was anything just a bit sexist about the product. Did they just not see it?

This is just another example of the casual sexism which permeates our everyday lives. When there's a female President, as I hope there will be in 2016 (go, Hillary), I bet if she has a husband, he won't be subjected to this sort of magnetic misogyny.

Childcare, Home Rule and Hardest Hit - my most anticipated events at Scottish Liberal Democrat conference

Tomorrow we Scottish Liberal Democrats hold our Autumn Conference. We're going back to the Vine Venue in Dunfermline and have a really busy agenda.

For me, the debate I'm most looking forward to is the one on affordable childcare, calling on the SNP Government to do more to invest in nursery education for 2 year olds. They accept that it makes a difference for vulnerable 2 year olds, but only provide places for 1% of our toddlers as compared to 40% in England - a move championed by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

I particularly want to talk about the difficulty of obtaining childcare outside normal working hours. It can be challenging enough finding it between the hours of 8 and 6 but imagine you're a nurse, for example. What if your relationship breaks down and there's nobody to look after your children? What do you do if yo have no family around and you have to work 12.5 hour shifts, day, night and weekend? You might, if you're lucky, be able to find someone who'll take your kids in at 7 am and keep them until 8 at night, but few would take them at nights and weekends. Your ability to provide for your family would be severely compromised. It would cost the state far more in the long run if you had to give up work than to provide some sort of affordable childcare.

The second thing I'm awaiting with great interest is the debate on the Home Rule Commission. As I said on Lib Dem Voice last week, the Report has been written both with intelligence and feeling, incorporating our values. I do think that it should have considered immigration, however.

There are fringe meetings on Land Reform, whether independence would be good for the environment, how Lib Dems can help with Better Together and the one I hope to get to, by The Hardest Hit. I'm glad that they are coming to talk to us. We need to know the specifics of how the welfare reforms are hitting vulnerable people to build an evidence based case for change. However unhappy I might feel about certain aspects of the reforms, I know that our ministers have succeeded in changing much. I am well aware that these reforms cause real suffering to people who are sick and disabled and it's not easy to live with. I will continue to try to change things, though and throw my energies into making sure Cameron and IDS don't implement their even crazier ideas to cut the welfare bill even more. Ken Reid, Chair of RNIB Scotland and Carolyn Roberts of SAMH are among the speakers.

All that and the hustings for the European election selection contest as well.... There will also be keynote speeches from Mike Moore and Willie Rennie and a Q and A with Danny Alexander.

That's a lot to pack in to a day. I'll be shattered by the end of it...I'll be tweeting my way through the day using the hashtag #sldconf.

Help raise money to help women and girls by sponsoring the Rosa UK team.

It occurred to me that you might like to sponsor Jo Shaw, someone who's well known to many readers of this blog in her latest venture. 

Jo is running 10k next weekend to raise money for the Charity, Rosa UK, that she has recently joined as Chief Executive. An example of the work they do is found here at Shape your Culture. There are so many aspects of our culture and expectations of how women should behave and look which are really toxic and SYC aims to change that. Anyway, you can sponsor the Rosa team here. 

Page 3 is the tip of a huge iceberg which threatens our society #nomorepage3

The No More Page 3 Campaign hurtles towards 50,000 signatures, and has attracted the backing of some more Liberal Democrat MPs, MSPs and councillors.

Julian Huppert, Tom Brake and Stephen Williams have signed up, along with Alison McInnes MSP, Sarah Ludford MEP and Ruth Dombey the Leader of Sutton Borough Council.

I asked Julian Huppert on Twitter why he supported the campaign and this was his reply:

I'm pleased to see this - but there are still a good 50 Lib Dem MPs who have yet to sign. If you know any of them, why not contact them and tell them about the campaign and invite them to sign.

Tim Farron has not signed the letter, but he did tell me on Twitter the other day that he was not a fan of Page 3:

There are a couple of things I'd like to make clear, though. I might support the campaign to end Page 3, but that it doesn't mean I have either a hang up about nudity or sex. What I do object to is the exclusivity of one particular group of people being set up to be leered at, especially when that one group of people does not have an equal share of power.

There have been a few intelligent articles against the Page 3 campaign written by people I respect. Martin Robbins suggests the page 3 campaign is sinister and  makes it more difficult for mothers to breastfeed in public. I beg to differ with that one. I think that the presence of Page 3 actually encourages the idea that breasts are only for sex. I was almost thrown out of a tea room for breastfeeding Anna when she was 4 months old. The manager failed to see the irony of providing the Sun to read for her customers.

Iain Roberts wrote on Liberal Democrat Voice recently that:

So what’s really the problem? I suspect the Page 3 debate may be asking the wrong question. It isn’t Page 3 (or indeed pornography in general) that’s intrinsically good or bad. The problems we see may be caused by a society that sends out all sorts of mixed messages about how men and women should be and behave.

It's all a bit which came first, the chicken or the egg. We have to look, I think, at who has the power in society and we find that, even in a developed industrialised, educated society, men have more than their fair share. Martin and Iain write from a position of privilege. I wonder how they would feel if the gender situation was reversed. If Page 3 showed pictures of men's backsides or worse every day, never any women at all. How would they feel if everywhere around them, there were women leering at these pictures of men saying "Ooh, I'd like a bit of that.". You'd also have to imagine that there were a majority of women in Parliament, as judges, that men were predominantly cast in caring roles and seen as responsible for domestic tasks. Add to this a situation where their female colleagues are paid around 15% more than. And then pile on top of that every magazine being filled with pictures of what men should look like, what weight they should be and how they have to stay looking nice for their wives or they'll be left for a younger, more compliant model. In short, a world made for women by women. 

That's a bit how it is for women. It's not a mindset, it's an actual cultural phenomenon that needs to change. Page 3 is a symptom of the patriarchal nonsense that rules our world, not its cause. Nobody's arguing about that. Getting rid of it would be a huge step forward. Things have changed in the last 40 years, but not enough.

The 70s were the age of Benny Hill, of scantily clad women on beer cans, of Carry On films, of Miss World, of leering men with medallions. I grew up in that environment, bombarded with all these images and it certainly left me with a sense of injustice that women were treated as playthings just because they had breasts. 

Things are a bit better now - sexual harassment, if not eliminated, is not tolerated and there are healthier expectations of appropriate behaviour at work. But there are vestiges of that very sinister culture which give out the same messages. Page 3 is one of them. Iain argues that there is no evidence linking Page 3 or porn to abuse. That's not what the Deputy Children's Commissioner told Parliament earlier this year. Young people are acting out what they see in pornography where often women are portrayed as mere receptacles, in subjugative roles. How much easier is that for young boys to think that sex is there to benefit them and them alone if they are brought up in an environment where women are depicted, in everyday publications, as sexual playthings? A whole generation of kids is growing up with some very harmful ideas about appropriate behaviour within a relationship and that way lies the potential for abuse to just get worse. Maybe the reason some sexual abuse doesn't get reported is because girls are growing up thinking that's the way things are. If that's the case, then that's a massive step backwards from the fair and liberal society we want to deliver. 

Not only do we have the Deputy Children's Commissioner's evidence to go on, but Laura Bates from the Everyday Sexism project wrote an extremely disturbing article about the way young women are treated at university freshers' events and beyond. Particularly gut wrenching is the practice of "slut dropping."

The process, they explained, involves driving around town with friends in the early hours of the morning and offering a lift home to a young woman they deem a “slut” (usually a woman in a “post-club state”). After asking her address, they drive as fast and as far as possible in the opposite direction before forcing the woman out of the car and using a camera to film her “standing by the side of the road as they drive away”.  It’s difficult to know how widely this has occurred but the concept is reminiscent of a disturbing new trend of ‘slut-shaming’. On one occasion, the first-year added, it had taken the girl eight hours to get home. When asked how he knew, he explained that they were ‘friends’ on Facebook.

So, a young woman making her way home is subjected to a terrifying ordeal and left in a vulnerable situation at the hands of someone she vaguely knows. Can you imagine how she must have felt, how she must have feared for what was going to happen to her? The idea of decrying a woman as a slut just for having been at a nightclub and deeming she must somehow be punished should be repugnant to all. I have no doubt that some people will have a go at me for not being able to take a joke but I'm sure most people will consider it distasteful at worst.

On Saturday night's X Factor, Tulisa described one of contestants as a MILF - a term commonly used in pornography. It means "Moms I Like to F***". When did that sort of language and idea become appropriate for a family show? And don't tell me that it was ok because it was after the watershed. It's a show watched by families and there were bound to be children around. The half hearted apology given by presenter Dermot O'Leary "that's why we love her" showed that ITV really didn't get it.

When you are getting the Police called to schools because of Facebook pages giving the names of the establishment's "sluts and players", you know it's high time for some serious action on the issue. Education is always the key and it appears to me that kids need to get a few strong messages about what is appropriate behaviour.

I wasn't best chuffed to see Nick Clegg's take on the Page 3 debate as reported in the Guardian. He seems to have misunderstood what the campaign is trying to do, which is to get the Sun to realise that it's inappropriate for modern society and withdraw the feature itself. Nick is right that banning Page 3 would be illiberal, but it's not what the campaign is about. He said himself that he wouldn't have it in his  house around his 3 young boys. I was going to write a piece specifically around Nick's comments, which gained him the Sun's accolade of "Hero of the Week", but my colleague Paul Walter has done so admirably so I don't need to.

It's very clear to me that there are very frightening and worrying things going on as regards the treatment and portrayal of women and girls. This is very unhealthy and needs liberal action, urgently. Page 3 is a small but significant part of what's wrong. If that tumbles, it would be a symbol of progress being made. I actually think that the pressures on young girls have got much worse since I was that age - and as I have a teenage daughter, that worries me greatly.

If you agree with me and haven't already signed the petition calling on the editor of the Sun to remove the Page 3 feature, you can do so here.

How dare the Taliban shoot a 14 year old girl who just wants to go to school! #dayofthegirl

I look at the two 13 year old girls in my lounge just now. They've had a great day at school, learning about all sorts of things. One of them had a profound exchange with her science teacher about gender and sex being two different things.

Every day they pile into the car with a new story to tell, a discussion had, a maths problem solved, some new controversy in science. They are having a great time.

I think of my niece, just started studying Psychology at Edinburgh University with all the opportunities that await her.

It breaks my heart to think that education is not freely available to every child - and most especially not to every girl. And when I think that a girl just a few months older than the teenagers in my lounge, who should be having the same sorts of conversations, has been shot in North West Pakistan by the Taliban, it makes me furious.

A mere 14, Malala Yousafzai already has a proud history of activism and campaigning dating back 3 years, when she wrote a blog for the BBC about life under Taliban control.

Sophie Bridger has written about Malala and the wider issue of educating girls over on Wild Women, the Scottish Women Liberal Democrats' blog. Please go and read what she has to say and sign up to the Plan petition that she mentions for the International Day of the Girl on Thursday. On their website you can download a banner for Facebook. It would be great to see lots of them proudly displayed between now and Thursday.

Why do men think it's ok to get their Nuts out in public?

I don't know much about the man who sat two seats along from me on the flight home from Gatwick last night, but he made me deeply uneasy. I know that he's a Rangers fan, and that he's on Twitter, although I don't know his user name, and that he doesn't see women as equals in society. How do I know the third fact? Because he spent a large part of the hour long flight reading, although that's probably the wrong word, the lads' magazine "Nuts." This is not the first time that's happened recently. On a train journey to London in June, the guy in front of me was reading an actual proper porn magazine which made me feel really icky indeed.

Since when did it become socially acceptable to publicly ogle photos of half naked seductively posed women? The equivalent would be me sitting there openly looking at pictures of men's naked backsides - or worse. But we never see that. The ogling is all very one-sided. It's only women's bodies which are public property. To all the men reading this, how would you like it if you were in that position? I was travelling with a male friend who was equally disgusted with the display.

If men (I could say people, but who are we trying to kid here?) want to look at this stuff, then there's very little I can do to stop them, but for heavens' sake, can they not do it in the privacy of their own homes?  When men ostentatiously read stuff like this in public, it's like they're making a huge statement that they see women as simply being there as window dressing, as decoration, as pleasure enhancers rather than their equals. They clearly feel that they have a right to own all the public space. I felt it was so rude of him and it made me feel uncomfortable. Now, I don't have the right to be protected from being offended, and nor am I asking for it, but I think I have every right to express my displeasure at such insensitive and crude behaviour. I am kicking myself today for not saying something to him at the time. This post will have to do. I'd love it if he read it and responded - I'd really like to know why he thought it was ok. On a plane, when you're all crammed in like sardines, what you look at, you share with the rest of your row whether they like it or not. Surely some sensitivity is required.

I must admit my friend and I had a discreet giggle and raised a few eyebrows between ourselves about the spectacle that was going on beside us.We mostly spent the flight chatting quietly.  We were both incredulous, though, when to add insult to injury, this man gave a deep sigh and put on his headphones as though we were disturbing him.

It's good that we have become more relaxed about some of the things we do in public - I mean, when my husband was a little boy in the 50s, it was frowned upon to eat in the street. However, I think that casual browsing of pornography lite is going too far. Do you agree?

The Sun's Page 3 has seriously outstayed its welcome

Way back in the mists of time, one of the first debates I ever attended at university was on the subject "This House would ban page 3." Clare Short came all the way to Aberdeen to speak in favour of the motion that eventually won the support of the majority in the audience. I can't, however, still believe that after all this time, a whole quarter of a century, we are still discussing the existence of Page 3. Why in this day and age is it still there?

In those days I would have supported a ban. These days, I wouldn't because I realise that the Government starts interfering with the content of newspapers that I don't like, they'll do the same with content that I do like. Freedom of expression has to be closely protected.

That said, I have every right to campaign against things that I don't like. That's why I've signed up to a new No more Page 3 campaign. Now, this isn't addressed to Maria Miller, the new Culture Secretary. It's addressed to Dominic Mohan, the editor of the Sun.

The petition, started by Lucy Holmes, says this:

We are asking Dominic Mohan to drop the bare boobs from The Sun newspaper.

We are asking very nicely.

Please, Dominic.

No More Page 3.

George Alagiah doesn’t say, ‘And now let’s look at Courtney, 21, from Warrington’s bare breasts,’ in the middle of the 6 O’ Clock News, does he, Dominic?

Philip and Holly don’t flash up pictures of Danni, 19, from Plymouth, in just her pants and a necklace, on This Morning, do they, Dominic?

No, they don’t.

There would be an outcry.

And you shouldn’t show the naked breasts of young women in your widely read ‘family’ newspaper either.

Consider this a long overdue outcry.

Dominic, stop showing topless pictures of young women in Britain’s most widely read newspaper, stop conditioning your readers to view women as sex objects.

Enough is enough.

When my daughter was 4 months old, I was having a cup of tea in the local tea room in the Nottinghamshire village of Edwinstowe. I was shocked when the manager, a woman, believe it or not, shouted, actually shouted, from one corner of the room at me to stop nursing Anna. Why she should be bothered was a mystery to me given that all that was on show was the back of Anna's head. The reason, apparently, was that a man might come in and be offended. She saw no irony in the fact that there were much more in the way of exposed breasts  in the copies of the Sun she had displayed for her customers to read. My offence at that counted for nothing. A prime example of screwed up patriarchal nonsense if ever there was one.

Naturally, I refused, very politely, to stop nursing my baby. She needed to eat, after all. A big group of pensioners, both men and women, then came in and sat at the next table. They had no problems with what I was doing and chatted to me quite happily.

I find it extraordinary that 25 years after that debate with Clare Short, these pictures of half naked women are still appearing on a daily basis in what's supposedly a family newspaper. How am I supposed to tell my daughter she's an equal member of society when these other girls are treated like mere window dressing for the express entertainment of men?

You don't find men being set up in the same way. Ok, Heat magazine has its Torso of the Week feature, which has actually, believe it or not, included both David Cameron and Barack Obama. Men aren't ogled in quite the same way, though. There's no sense of ownership over them in the same way that women are treated. Coincidentally, I found this article on Facebook last night, which shows that merely the act of being female on an underground train can routinely lead to very scary harassment. The likes of Page 3 and other disrespectful and degrading portrayals of women as mere window dressing for men's enjoyment just adds to the culture where those sorts of attitude prevail.

A photo of a man's torso, though, isn't the equivalent of exposing a woman's breasts. We routinely see torsos exposed in public. For a man to truly understand what it feels like, he'd have to imagine a daily male backside or worse on prominent display in the tabloid press. In the olden days, when I was growing up, it was seen as perfectly fine for calendars showing half naked women to be pinned on the walls in work places. How much harder is it for a women working in a place with that sort of culture to be taken seriously? Page 3 is a significant background note in the cultural melody that keeps women from achieving genuine equality. The routine exposure in the name of entertainment, of a part of the body, unique to one gender, that is generally  kept covered, is not a mark of respect.

Slave to the Passions has only two posts so far - and I've linked to both of them. Author Rebecca Reilly-Cooper has a highly persuasive and forensic way of making her case. She writes about why she supports the latest campaign to get rid of page 3on both liberal and feminist grounds:

But this campaign is not attempting to restrict anybody’s right to free expression – it is notcalling for any form of legal censorship. What it is doing is exercising our own right of freedom of expression to call on the editor of The Sun, and ask him to exercise his right more responsibly. Just because you have a right to do something, doesn’t mean that you should do it, and doesn’t mean that others can’t ask you to reconsider whether it is the correct thing to do. That is why I support this campaign. It is not aiming to ban Page 3, and does not represent a call for censorship of the media. Instead, it is a call to newspaper editors to recognise the influence they exert when they exercise this right, and to ask them not to exercise it in ways that are damaging to their fellow citizens. It is also asking consumers of The Sun to reflect upon the view of women they are being offered, and to reject the sexist and archaic ideas about the place of women in society it promotes.

I also found Caroline Criado-Perez's Huffington Post article very informative as it discusses how women who oppose page 3 and the like are denigrated and intimidated.

If you agree with Lucy, Rebecca, Caroline and I, please sign the petition, follow @nomorepage3 on Twitter and like the Facebook page.  Above all, share with everyone you know in whatever real world or online way you like.

Wee Nippy? How very dare you, Alan Cochrane?

It's been a few hours now since I first saw the headline in Alan Cochrane's column in the Telegraph today. "Wee Nippy's role may signal big changes in strategy". I wondered who Wee Nippy was. Could it be some cartoon character in a forthcoming film or something?

But no. Cochrane is referring to our Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, whose new role in Government is to sort all the independence related matters out, to agree the process with the UK Govenrment, to pilot the legislation for the independence referendum through Parliament. Now, it has to be said, that the second part is not likely to trouble her greatly given that she has a built in majority.

The substance of his article doesn't really matter, but who the blazes does he think he is referring to the  Deputy First Minister of the country in such a derogatory manner? You can bet your Better Together car sticker that if she were male, she would not be referred to in that way. If you type "Nicola Sturgeon nippy" into Google you come up with numerous examples of male journalists writing about her in this way. Cochrane was far from being original.

So what is it about Nicola that makes her "nippy". Well, she has a straightforward way of communicating with people that's arguably more effective than Salmond's bluster. That's why it was quite a clever move to put her in charge of the referendum. She says what she thinks clearly and without any sort of apology. Men do that all the time, of course, but when a woman does it, she's seen as strident, or nippy, or opinionated.

One of the things women do too often - and I have been very guilty of it myself - is to apologise for their opinions before they start talking. "I might be being stupid here, but....... How many times have you heard that? I expect that this phrase has never passed Nicola Sturgeon's lips. She's confident about what she's saying and just gets on with it. This is a good thing. I mentioned my disquiet at Cochrane's article on Twitter and @fingchewy referred me to this post by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper on Assertiveness and testimonial injustice. It's very well written and, although I'm not sure that I agree with all of her conclusions, I do think it's important that we try to identify and banish prejudice in our communications with each other. Reilly-Cooper explores the idea that apologetic communication from women doubly undermines them:

So then the worry is that when I make these self-effacing, timid sounding preambles to my arguments, I am not only undermining my own status as a bearer of knowledge and encouraging my listeners not to take me seriously. I am also reinforcing these prejudices in the minds of my audience. Given that I am a woman, they may have already been predisposed to deflate my credibility. When I express myself in an apologetic, tentative manner, I thereby present them with more evidence to confirm their biases, both with respect to myself, and women speakers in general. The prejudice is perpetuated, and my listeners are more inclined to dismiss my contributions, and further, those of other women. So perhaps I owe it not only to myself, but also to other women, to try to eradicate these displays of reticence from my speech, and be more confident and assertive. Perhaps I ought to be much bolder, more direct, perhaps even aggressive, in the way so many other people (men?) seem to be when engaging in debate.

Changing her behaviour is an idea she later rejects on the basis that timid people will just shrink from a debate they have every right to be a part of if they are expected to change their behaviour to become more combative. For me, the other side of the coin is that when women do behave in an  assertive manner, they are penalised for it and that's just as wrong.

Cochrane and his male journalist colleagues, even if they don't say it out loud, or even admit it to themselves, seem to have been socialised into thinking that women, when offering an opinion, should do so with eyes downcast, demurely and prettily. In other words, she should be as inoffensive as possible and definitely not scare any horses. It's all very Stepford, don't you think?

Sturgeon has a lot to prove in her new role, and she needn't think she's going to get an easy ride from me in it. What she doesn't have to prove is her right to be taken seriously and be treated the same way as a male politician would be. In a man, being able to make your point clearly and effectively would be seen as an asset. In a woman, it's seen as somewhere between strident and inappropriate.

In the second decade of the 21st century, it's not too much to ask that our male journalists should shed their stone age ideas and treat people equally.