The One Where I Publicly Thank Jeremy Clarkson For Proving My Point

Who knew there'd actually be a day when I'd have to thank Jeremy Clarkson for anything? He is a misogynistic arsewipe of epic proportions whose "opinions" are merely abusive and arrogant twaddle. Why he's given a public platform for anything is beyond me. Nor do I get the obsession with cars in general. Yes, they are useful for travelling with small children and assorted paraphernalia, moving furniture and lugging groceries. Other than that, they are pretty much environmentally destructive and, frequently, unnecessary status symbols; especially the penis replacement versions favoured by Clarkson.

But, Clarkson has proved useful in one area. He's just withdrawn an injunction he took out against a former spouse preventing her from publishing statements about their marriage. Now, this is the self-aggrandising shite with which Clarkson came out as a "defence" for withdrawing the complaint: 

"I've overturned my own injunction – how cool is that? Injunctions don't work, they're completely pointless and unbelievably expensive. And due to a new interpretation of the law you might have to go to trial if you take an injunction out and that's even more expensive.
"I thought 'Just let her run about saying what she wants to say' and people can say 'I believe that or I don't believe it'. Either way it makes no difference to me, it's as simple as that. Frankly I've got more important things to worry about than a woman I was married to for five minutes 30 years ago. So now I have no stress of an injunction and I can look Ian Hislop in the eye." 

The one thing Clarkson has never been and never will be is cool but I think I can let that particular delusion of his stand. But, let's be honest here, he only withdrew it because social media has made injunctions and superinjunctions pointless. Whilst I am firmly on the right to privacy, I believe that injunctions [and confidentiality agreements] only protect those with power; usually that requires a penis. I don't believe that we can expand the current laws on privacy and free speech  to protect women. We need to completely eradicate and rebuild the legal system so that those who aren't white men are given equal protection without caveat or exclusion from the creation of the law rather than writing clauses to cover those excluded the first time round.

After all, does anyone really believe that Clarkson's ex-wife would have been granted an injunction to prevent Clarkson speaking about her publicly? I sure don't.

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The Official Magnetic List of Acceptable Boy and Girl Words

Because gender stereotyping and hatred of women is just so fucking funny. God forbid girls like helicopters and aeroplanes. Probably their vaginas would dry up. Or something equally tedious. And, I do love the inclusion of sweets, sherbert, candy, ice cream and chocolate on the girls list whilst the boys only get sweets. Setting up our girls for a life time of eating disorders, self-loathing and low self-confidence. That way they will spend time failing to meet the heinous Patriarchal Fuckability Test rather than kick-starting the Revolution.

 Just for once I'd like to see this shit written about in terms of the emotional and psychological abuse of children.

This came via A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World on Facebook. They are pretty awesome and are well worth following.

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The Lorax: Interesting Environmental Message Served With a Side of Sexism

I took small to see The Muppet Movie; an experience which was ruined by the inclusion of the utterly misogynistic Aquafresh Nurdle World ad. And, then we saw an add for the new Dr. Seuss film The Lorax. It looks brilliant fun; a film about being yourself, questioning authority and respecting/ caring for the environment. That would be brilliant fun right up until the point where there was a lurvely 'joke' about gender and violence.

It was the same tired old joke about not threatening violence against women unless they don't 'look' like women: that is too say fat. Because, it's just totally okay for children's films to reinforce the same tired old stereotypes about women only having value if they are skinny and pretty. Or, that women can only 'look' like women if they are skinny. Or something.

It would be nice if just one film directed at children didn't include threats of violence and gender stereotyping. Is that really so much to ask? Is Hollywood so lacking in imagination that they can't imagine a world where people don't run about threatening to punch anyone who disagrees with them or denigrating those who don't fit Patriarchal Constructions of Fuckability?

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Free Speech: The Right to be a Jackass?

Free speech is a fallacious construct which is designed to keep the masses in denial of their lack of power.

It doesn't actually exist. It never has, but, if it did, it wouldn't be the right to be a jackass.

There is no guarantee to free speech in the UK. There never has been. People who insist we do have free speech are confused or watch way too much American television. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America is technically the guarantee to free speech, you know, in the United States of which the UK is NOT a part [in case anyone remains confused about that tidbit]:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Originally, it only applied to laws enacted by Congress but this changed with the Gitlow v New York case wherein the Supreme Court of the US applied the First Amendment to all states via the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Obviously, this is only interesting if you're a history nerd like me. The real point here is that the US, supposed protector of Free Speech, has enacted numerous laws which limit free speech. These are the obvious exceptions like child obscenity, incitement to hatred or violence and the much repeated axiom of not being allowed to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Limits to free speech exist because some people are simply arrogant arseholes lacking both empathy and intelligence.

Even if we had the legal right to "free speech", [or believed that "free speech" actually existed] it doesn't mean we should use it. The right to free speech isn't the right to be a jerk. Free speech shouldn't mean that people get to use misogynistic, racist, homophobic or disablist language because they want to without any consideration of the hurt caused to others. It doesn't mean that comedians like Daniel Tosh should be allowed to make jokes about rape just because they can [and this is a brilliant critique of Tosh's arrogance]. The right to free speech is the right to criticise and challenge. It is not the right to be a jackass because you want to be a jackass.

I have to say the only people I ever hear going on about the right to free speech are those privileged self-entitled nincompoops who want to silence the opinions of others. It's the rape apologists who whine about the right to call rape victims liars who demand "free speech". It's the racists who insist on the right to use the words "Paki" and "Chink". It's the homophobes who think "Gay" should be an insult and those disablists who want the right to use "spaz" and "retard". Those of us with empathy and critical literacy know that the theory of "free speech" is something that is the preserve of the powerful and the ignorant; we know that it is used to control the people.

Those of us who use the social construct of free speech in order to critique and challenge do so without behaving like a bunch of abusive nincompoops. That is the real challenge in a civilised society: using the theory of free speech whilst recognising that we will always need to limit it because of the arrogance and ignorance of a few. We will always need to limit "free speech" to prevent the abuse and objectification of vulnerable people. We always need to limit "free speech" when there are nincompoops like PETA running about.

Turns out, the real theory of "free speech" is just the preserve of the powerful who use it to silence those who demand basic human kindness.

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Pimp my Whatever is Vile Misogynistic Twaddle

I can not express just how much I hate this expression. I genuinely can not believe that people blither on about "Pimp my ride" and don't get just how offensive it is. The origins of the term "pimp" are obvious. It originates in patriarchal-capitalist discourse. The term refers to the prostituting and sexual abuse of women's bodies. Pimps make money from the rape and abuse of vulnerable women.

I don't buy into this theory that we can reclaim the words of our oppressors. The meaning of pimp is the practise of rape. The increasing use of the verb "pimping" to mean promote or decorate an item is beyond disrespectful to the women's whose bodies have been abused, tortured and raped because of pimps. Language has power. The word pimp is misogynistic. It should not and can not be used in a "positive" manner. The excuse of "evolving" language should not apply to words whose origins are in racist, disablist, homophobic or misogynistic language. The women and children whose bodies and souls have been harmed by prostitution deserve better than to hear their experiences obscured by minimising language.

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Language, Feminism and Reclaiming the Nincompoop

So, I've been contemplating my use of language, particularly those defined as 'rude', for a while now. I've been trying to stop using words whose origins are in disablist, homophobic, racist and misogynistic language. Words which are racist are, culturally and politically, more likely to be frowned upon; although the number of Scottish people I hear using "chink" and "paki" never fails to shock me. I also still visibly twitch when I hear British people say they are going out for a fag. For me, that word will always be homophobic. That is the context of the word where I grew up and I can not remove it from my personal-historical context. I also think its telling that the use of the word 'gay' as an insult is increasing exponentially in  teenagers as it is rooted in both homophobia and misogyny. They are both part of the backlash to Feminism as well as the Gay Rights movement [notably I think the issue of gay marriage has kicked off the homophobic backlash]. The refusal to remove these words is an example of heteronormative privilege (and the I'm all right so you must just be whiny bullshit favoured by those who refuse to acknowledge that their behaviour is anything less than perfect).

It's been much harder to remove words which are disablist and misogynist. There are obvious words like 'retard' and 'spaz' which most people, with an ounce of compassion, have already removed from their vocabulary. But, there are so many common words whose origins are rooted in disablism, particularly of people suffering with their mental health, that it's very hard to stop using them. Words like idiot and moron are so culturally ingrained that calling people on it just provokes whinging about 'political correctness' (that term bandied about by rude people demanding the right to be rude regardless of the hurt it causes others). But, these are all obvious terms of insults. It's the much more casual "are you insane" or "have you lost the plot" [which I'm ashamed to say I've used today] which are extremely harmful because they don't seem to cause harm. It's the very "innocence" of their usage which reinforces the very harmful cultural practices we should be challenging.

I know there is an argument for reclaiming words used to oppress from your oppressors but I am not sure how successful this is; after all even 5 years ago gay was being used positively. Now, it is steeped in the very homophobia it was reclaimed to contravene. It is now the insult par excellence to challenge someone's masculinity. I struggle with reclaiming words like bitch, cunt and slut. Are we not implying there are women who are still "sluts" when we try to use slut in a positive manner? How can we challenge misogyny by continuing to use words which define women by their sexuality and behaviour?  It is why I find "Slutwalk" so problematic as an anti-rape awareness campaign. The focus is on the word "slut" and not on the issue of rape. I think it reinforces the very rape myths it seeks to challenge [and that's without getting into the issue of racism and the experience of Black and First Nations women who have always been defined by their sexuality].

I've tried to stop using any words that fall under this rubric and replaced them with words like nincompoop [my new favourite word] and buckethead (a la SGB). But, really, once you've removed insults which don't originate in homophobic bullying, or demeaning mental illness or denigrating genitalia, you are pretty much reduced to poop-based insults like a 5 year old. I love the word nincompoop but even its origins are questionable. Yes, language evolves but, sometimes vocabulary should simply be erased rather than evolved or "reclaimed"; even nincompoop.

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