So I was on The Big Questions again this morning. And it's up on iPlayer for the next 7 days if you want to watch it,
click here. There's no particular bit to watch - I speak in all three debates.
I didn't get a chance to reply to some points though. I guess the biggest two are:
(1) "Islam's not a sexist religion, what do you know - you haven't read the Koran". Well firstly I have read quite a lot of the Koran but more to the point the people telling me Islam isn't sexist have also just said they would accept their husband having more than one wife but not accept a woman with several husbands. That's erm, what's the word, yes, sexist. And one of the people saying this is veiled to the point of only having her eyes visible - I have never seen a Muslim man dressed like this.
(2) "But as a feminist you must support these women converting to Islam because it's their 'choice'". No. I'm absolutely in favour of women having the right to make choices for themselves but only when they are able to do so on the basis of fair circumstances and true information.
The phrase "pro-choice" is used a lot when it comes to abortion - the right to choose what happens to your own body. But that's different when we're talking about a woman in China who has discovered she is pregnant with a girl in a family and culture where only a boy will do. She might be making that choice but it's not a choice made in fair circumstances. Similarly a vulnerable young woman who chooses not to terminate because a counsellor on a fake help line has told her to do so will give her breast cancer isn't acting on true information so again it's not a case of "her choice".
What we need to do is to take away the unfair circumstances and give women ready access to true information. Then their choice will be meaningful. But in the meantime we need to make sure women are not pushed into choices like this which can ruin their lives and leave them timidly peering out at what is left of their world through a tiny slit in a piece of fabric.
I had a very interesting message on the way home from a viewer: "I work for social services in mental health and I’ve seen a disturbing amount of converts (mostly female) to [Islam] I’m even working with the police as it would seem that there are radicals targeting people with mental health or people with a low IQ. I myself work with 4 people who have converted or are thinking about it. Any who I just wanted to say it’s great to see someone like yourself voicing there [their] opinions on national TV." Now that is both unsurprising and deeply deeply frightening.
This evening I did a much lighter piece on LBC about the British Comedy Awards and how Frankie "isn't Down's Syndrome hilarious" Boyle isn't even up for one or involved in the awards show. My conclusion was: great news, lets hope he stops it and/or goes away now. An on the other awards I'd like to give them to (from the nominees): David Mitchell, Jo Brand, Sarah Millican and Britain's best sitcom: Miranda! Love you all! You can listen to the show on the podcast from LBC but you have to register and I think pay money so I'll leave the link
here - you have to follow the Richard Arnold show and today's episode is called 'Colin flying the flag' - but frankly if it's more than £2.50 I will cut you a deal and repeat my words verbatim over the phone for £2*!!
* Which would by the way be £2 more than my TBQ and LBC appearance fees combined, just for the next time someone says since they saw me on TV I must be super-rich!
