Kicking like a girl

Good old FIFA are at it again - insisting that women shouldn't be allowed to play in men's football teams. Whatever next? No gay people in the straight olympics please! Seperate teams for for black people and white people? Oh please...!

Well I have written a nice email to Mr Blatter letting him know what I think of his rulings. He may remember me from the last time I wrote to tell him what I thought about his suggestion that the best way to raise the profile of women's football would be to insist on skimpier outfits for female players...

I do have some sympathy with those who fear that letting a few elite women in to the men's league would be harmful to the women's leagues. However I think the disadvantages there are more than outweighed by the thousands of women who would likely be inspired to take the sport up if they saw women competing in this way. And it would encourage girls to go down the park and join the local boy's team if that was the easiest way to learn to play.

Doing this at the highest level however sets a precedent for teams right the way through the league system to exclude women. Especially in rural areas this can mean the difference for women between having the chance to play and not having the chance to play.

Personally I used to play for a women's team until last season but there are far too few teams around central London and competition for places is desperately fought. I ended up registered with a team but very rarely getting a game. So now I play for a men's team, and its great fun. OK, so what I should have done is started my own women's team, but I don't have time anymore [I ran my own team for 3 years in Japan a few years back]. In the past I've played for a lot of different mens and womens teams and the variety of experience has unsurprisingly made me a better all-round player.

Anyway as its Christmas and since you're all so special I thought I'd risk the threat to my blogging anonymity (I've had a very different hair-do since then) and post up a picture of me lined up to play for the "Vagabonds" team. This was 2002 in a mini-world cup friendly tournament in Tokyo, despite being English I was playing for the USA (anything for a game!). Actually I was the only woman in the whole competition and ended up being interviewed on local TV.

Well that's the piccie there folks as promised. Have a good Christmas now!

The Kindness of Strangers

I'm glad I'm not the only one seriously wound up by the new advert warning women of the dangers of unlicensed minicabs. Why are we asked to accept that there "just are" nasty people out there and therefore it's really our own fault if we - or our female friends - get violently raped on the way home?

At the age of fifteen I used to walk the mile to the bus-stop and sometimes, if I missed it, the 3-4 miles into my local town to my Saturday job. Since I could hardly have been headed anywhere but the town centre, barely a week went by when someone did not stop and offer me a lift. And I always accepted, never thought twice about it. In fact last time I was back in that part of the world I bumped in to one of the guys who used to give me a lift and we had a drink and a chat. Nowadays no doubt I would be personally responsible for encouraging paedophiles. Crime rates have not increased in the intervening period.

I'm also seeing adverts on TV telling me that I need to fit burglar alarms, double-lock my door when I go out and not use my mobile phone in public in case mysterious evil-doers see it and steal it. The government is, it would seem, topping up the efforts it has already made to cultivate a climate of fear and mistrust just in time for bringing in 1984-style identity cards.

Statistically, as a woman, you are much more likely to be raped by someone you know than by a stranger. I always think of that when some pushy guy I've met within the last few hours starts insisting on walking me to the bus stop.

Finally, ladies, let me remind you who you are most at risk of being physically hurt by: your own husband or boyfriend. Would your friends let you get into a car with him?

Sexism? What sexism?

What hope do women have of a fair and equal society when the government, whose job it is to legislate for a fair and equal society, behaves like this?

If you think you're smart...

...try this Geography Olympics, I was horrified to discover how many I didn't know or could only place in a rough area. Actually I'd like to see Bush and Blair playing this against other world leaders. Meanwhile it is a bit of fun and passed the time here.

Fathers 4 Injustice?

The other night I watch Fiona Bruce's "Real Story" about Fathers 4 Justice. She's not one to shy away from challenging issues and I was particulary interested in two statistics:

1) 99.2% of court applications for access are granted. Is it possible that the remaining less-than-one-percent of fathers who apply are actually not fit to be left in charge of children? Remember that if the mother grants access anyway there will be no need for a court order, only those where the mother is unhappy go to court. If the access order isn't observed, the father should have a good case for applying for full-time custody. ...but the pyjama-wearing protestors don't seem to want to take on the hard work part of child-raising.

2) Compare that to 25% of women experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. Now of course it depends how many times we keep on letting these guys come out of prison (if we even send them there in the first place) and beat someone else up as to what percentage of men we have to assume are inclined to violence against women. Even a conservative estimate would suggest 2-3% however.

And F4J are claiming that Ms Bruce is biased because she knows someone who was a victim of domestic violence. ONE IN FOUR women are. Surely she would be more biased if she didn't know a victim of domestic violence, most people do. I do, I know several.

And, yeah, sure, so people can reform, and become fit fathers again. It's possible. But shouldn't the law assume that violent men aren't fit to be left alone with kids and then let them come to court to prove that they are? Rather than handing over the kids and seeing what happens in the meantime while their mothers are trying to build a case against them?

The guardian had this excellent article on the situation a month or so back.

Trojan horses...

Further evidence today from the BBC on the influence of advertising on children. Regular Cru-blog readership will be aware of my on-going enthusiasm for a ban on advertising aimed at the under-12s in the UK. On the basis that they're too young to understand the difference between what an advertiser tells them: "you must have a doll with her own make-up bag and beauty equipment" and what a teacher or adult tells them: "you must look both ways before crossing roads". As Adbusters like to periodically remind us - the average American teenager sees 100,000 alcohol advertsisements before reaching the legal drinking age (point taken - these are not necessarily aimed at children, although I think some alcopops ones do appear to be). Compare this with, at best, a few hours of education about the risks of alcohol and drugs and smoking. Net result: they don't stand a chance.

And in answer to the most popular counter-arguements on the subject...

1) It would hurt the economy.

It might be bad for the advertising industry, true. But it would probably be great news for places like the early learning centre which sell educational toys. It might be bad for the bigger chains, like McDonalds, but it would be good for smaller family-run restaurants. And the loss to chains like McDonalds would be partly recouped by the reduced cost to them of advertising. And if kids demanded less stuff from their parents, the parents would have more money to save or to spend on other things. And even if netting all these factors off it did hurt the economy a little, who is to say it wouldn't be worth it?

2) Why can't we give people free choice?

In order for people to effectively exercise free choice they need balanced unbiased information on the situation. Children can make their own choice about advertising once they are old enough to recognise it as such and understand what that means and what views it therefore represents. Personally I think 12 is a pretty low estimate of the age at which that is possible. We don't let kids drink or smoke at that age. So why should we allow them to be bombarded with messages advocating unhealthy and addictive lifestyles?

3) What about the sports, public transport, etc that is partially funded by advertising?

There's a reason why advertisers are prepared to pay for good advertising slots. Because it brings in more money than it costs. We shouldn't be running out sports facilities or our public transport on money donated by corporations alone. The next step is advertising in schools (already happpening in the US - see these horror stories) and a slippery slope to advertisers being involved on decisions about what to sell in school tuck shops (to the point of guaranteeing certain levels of sales to the pop manufacturers) and what to put on the curriculum . Eventually the corporations would run our education system. Is that what we want?

...oh and by the way - today is Buy Nothing Day. Why not see how hard you find it to go 24 hours without buying anything. Pretty hard huh? And if it goes well the next event in the anti-consumerist, anti-media diary is TV turn-off week in April.

Spiralling out of control

Further to my last post, I should point out that I am really not complaining about the individual soldier involved, but the US administration and it's failure to manage the invasion properly. I remember when the mission in question was to win the "hearts and minds of the Iraqi people". Then they launched a major offensive on the holiest day of the year. Can you imagine if a foreign government decided to bomb us on Christmas day? Would that win over "hearts and minds"?

If anyone was in any doubt that the situation in Iraq is now desperately out of control, that the US cannot effectively look after or control its own troops and doesn't have enough troops out there, try this article, which among other things mentions that the marine who shot the injured man "had been shot in the face the day before but had already returned to duty". When asked by his lieutenant if the man/men shot had been armed, the marine apparently shrugged. Draw your own conclusions.

Who needs an international criminal court?

Clearly not the US, who continue as ever taking matters into their own hands. Yes the evil commie Fidel Castro has been convicted of executing a CIA pilot who was trying to invade his country and "overthrow" (i.e. kill) him. And this guy's daughter will be getting $80m in compensation out of frozen Cuban assets.

What was Mr Castro supposed to do with the guy? Give him a cup of tea and a biscuit and send him on his way? This wasn't really a warfare situation - more a small piece of terrorism. So I figure Cuban law applies to the guy. No-one is questioning the guy's guilt, the US admits he was attempting to overthrow Castro, i.e. a crime of something like "treason". The death penalty exists in Cuba, like in the US. So at worst here Castro is guilty of not following correct legal proceedure, he didn't have to kill the guy, he could have just taken him prisoner and then subjected him to a full trial. Under the circumstances $80m seems a bit steep to me.

However this must be good news for the bereaved family of the injured and unarmed Iraqi man shot dead at point blank range (in a Mosque for good measure...) on TV footage shown around the world on Monday. Presumably his family can sue for $80m too.

If Bush really believes in what he's doing...

...why is he behaving like this? Anyone who has read "Killing Hope" (and if you haven't I recommend it, and further if you are London-based and get in touch you would be welcome to borrow my copy) will be very surprised to see them described as a "hotbed of liberals"!

Is there a "boycott coke" campaign?

Actually there is! I have only just found it today. Related to murders of Colombian trade unionists.

There probably should be a bigger one since I seem to hear a lot of stuff about how they try to foist their products onto school kids, etc. Personally I don't really believe that consumers have the power to govern corporate policy, I think that's a bit of a myth. Its all very well in theory but most consumers are restricted by things like poverty, addiction, lack of education and misunderstandings based on biased advertising campaigns, lack of time and lack of genuine choice in the markets. On top of this a lot of companies don't sell to consumers directly - they sell to other companies or government departments which in theory we should still be able to influence with our voting policy and through secondary level consumer influence. In practice however, corporates are doing everything they can to make this as difficult as possible (err like murdering trade unionists for one thing).

However there are times when we can do something. Maybe not solve the problem but consumer pressure has clearly affected policy at McDonalds. Coke - with its 100% reliance on consumer buyers, should be vulnerable too. I shall stop drinking Coke and Coke-made brands today.

For those who would like to do the same but can't live without a fizzy caffeinated drink I recommend switching to Irn Bru, which is independently produced within the UK - where trade unionist murders are fairly rare and pollution controls are a little tighter. And is produced under a strict environmental policy, viewable on their website.

A bastion of democracy?

Apparently the Bush campaign have said that John Kerry "should concede to spare the voters a drawn-out battle".

When was the result of a democratic election decided by one party telling another party to concede? Surely the way to decide a democratic election result is to count the votes. It amazes me that either party has anything to say about who's winning. Shouldn't the chief vote-counter be the one to talk first?

Election delayed so that Bush can finish cheating

Of course the US wouldn't have this problem if they didn't have a large number of people who genuinely choose to vote for Bush...

If I was the leader of an extremist Islamic terror group I can imagine I might see Republican voters as legitimate targets.

As a nice, middle-class English woman however I'll say just this: isn't it confusing how the "lefties" are in blue and the "righties" in red?

Letter from Diane Abbott

I received this following in reply to my suggestion that Ms Abbott (who is my local MP) should sign up to the movement to impeach Tony Blair over his actions on Iraq:
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Dear Ms Cruella*,

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Iraq conflict and the involvement of British troops. As you may know I have been opposed to the invasion from the beginning. I voted against it, partly because in my judgement it was illegal, but also I feared we could be drawn into a quagmire. I am as saddened as you to see the present security situation as bad as it is.

One of my key concerns following the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime has been whether we are actually making the region any more stable. As we know there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. But now Iraq is awash with Islamic terrorists. With every day that goes by the American and British forces look less like an army of liberation and more like an occupying force. I am also concerned about ‘mission creep’. I am reluctant to draw comparisons to the Vietnam conflict but there is a danger that the withdrawal of other national forces such as Spain our troops will be drawn deeper into the conflict rather than a staged withdrawal. We should be looking at options to bring troops home rather than deploying more. Whatever the reason for them being there I am deeply concerned with the welfare of British troops as well as the Iraqi people.

After invading Iraq we do owe the people there security and a safe passage towards some level of peace and prosperity. I personally would favour the current force in Iraq being replaced with a more international force with a focus on troops coming from Muslim states. This would not only allow British troops to leave but would also give the troops more of a peace keeping role rather than the perceived invasion force that is there at present. Ultimately Iraqi’s must be given the chance to govern and keep the peace themselves, and this cannot happen with foreign troops on their soil. I assure you I will continue to speak on this matter at every opportunity.

Best Wishes

Diane Abbott MP

Laurence Meehan Research Assistant to Diane Abbott MP
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*Name changed to protect what limited blog anonimity I have. you need to use your real name and address so you can be confirmed as a genuine resident of the constituency and voter, otherwise you'll be lucky to get a reply.

Shame really that despite her having views, and expressing them periodically in the house, which are not entirely dissimilar to my own, I still can't vote for her because the party she stands for doesn't adhere to those views and the leader she votes for is no longer responsible to either the party or the country.

Still the encouraging news is that MPs, even senior ones like Ms Abbott, do read letters sent in by contituents, or at least ask their research assistants to do so. Other bloggers who wish to do likewise avail their local MP of thier views should try this very helpful website.

Does David Blunkett think we're all stupid?

...he's probably right. The latest news is that juries are to be allowed access to a defendant's criminal record in cases involving child sex abuse and theft. Seems to me to beg the question: why are those two crimes being linked, and others ignored?

Now as this article explains, the government would love to get a higher conviction rate in courts. They could achieve this by spending more money hiring and training police and giving them the equipment to conduct better forensic research. But why spend money when there's a short cut?

Child sex abuse has been a big cause of public outcry recently. So it seems likely that the tabloid headlines are going to be all in favour of this move, and full of photographs of Roy Whiting - who already had child sexual abuse convictions on his record when he was convicted of the abduction and murder of Sarah Payne. Note firstly that Roy Whiting was convicted without the need for this law change. Secondly can you imagine someone who the jury knew had a criminal record for child sex abuse being found innocent of anything? The law will effectively condemn those with any record to being emprisonned at the whim of those who know about their past. If the courts believe however that it will boost their ability to catch people who abuse children then it may be worth doing. Courts, it appears, believe this because they see child abuse as stemming from a pathological desire to abuse and hurt children.

And theft? Now just a minute, I do not lie awake at night worrying about shop-lifters. Surely theft is not the sort of crime which we need to step in and "get tough" on. Theft in itself doesn't hurt anybody, it might do when its combined with assault, but previous convictions for assault will not be revealed. This means that juries will know if there is a conviction for theft, but not whether or not that theft was violent. Well my best guess is that juries are going to assume the worst and this is going to knock up conviction rates massively and end up with stacks of innocent people in jail. Just a hunch. Then the government will be bragging about how they catch more criminals than previous governments.

And we still don't have disclosure of previous criminal records for rape. Even though we've been asking the longest. Ask any victim of rape whether they'd rather have been a victim of theft and they'll tell you yes. Is there any evidence to suggest rapists have a pathological desire to abuse and hurt women? Err, yes, loads.

Of course bringing the previous conviction diclosure in for rape is not without its risks. While it seems likely that the number of false claims brought is extremely low, there is always someone out there hoping to abuse the system and victimise someone with a date-rape conviction on their record.

Well its here that I depart from traditional feminist thinking and suggest something shocking: maybe we should have three degrees of rape - like we do for murder. So that date rape is no longer the same crime as the Ealing Vicarage cases of the 1980s. Then we can insist on disclosure, as well as much longer sentences, for the worst cases, and still convict and sentence those whose crimes are less premeditated.

But what I see here from Mr Blunkett is an attempt to hide behind the paedophile issue to sneak in legislation which will artificially inflate the conviction rate without actually improving the overall justive rate. And legislation which sounds like it might but actually won't make life any better for the one group of people who could really benefit from this type of move.

Whoever said cheats never prosper?

Clearly the organisers of the US elections haven't heard this one yet. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Kofi break

Kofi Annan and I agree on a lot of things. And today I've discovered another one for the list: he thinks the Tory party is irrelevant too! Mr Annan is coming to the UK to meet the Queen, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, a few other dignitaries and Charles Kennedy. Not bothering to see Michael Howard though! The Liberal Democrats are the opposition these days, the Conservative Party is a minority interest group. Hurray, good news for once!

What an unholy mess...

...our education system has become.

Tuition fees, declining standards, truancy, coursework and cheating, poor teaching standards. So is the new diploma system going to help? Err, no.

Here are just a few edited highlights of what's wrong with it:

1) The various modules are not as clearly broken down as GCSEs and A-levels are, meaning that students wishing to take courses later in life or from prison, etc, will end up with a part of a qualification rather than a clear level.

2) Nothing is getting harder. The new A++ is a joke, the problem of schools choosing the easiest exam board and the exam boards getting progressively easier to increase their market share will persist.

3) The system is unfair on students doing Scottish Highers and International Bacalaureats since these continue to receive less "points" on the university application system.

4) The idea that the new system will give greater credibility to vocational courses is wholly speculative. There's no reason why it should.

5) Focus on vocational skills and "apprenticeships" may be a good thing, however a simultaneous focus on employers to find "skilled" opportunities - rather than "McJobs" is likely needed to counteract the way in which the job market has shifted since the last time we all had apprenticeships.

6) The shift away from exams to teachers marks frightens me greatly. Smart kids who are bored in lessons and become a nuisance to teachers (like I did many years ago) will be at risk of being marked down.

7) Problem of coursework and cheating not addressed. Everyone at my school did it more than ten years ago: teachers, parents and children copying each other.

Ok and enough whinging. Here's what we SHOULD do instead:

1) Centralise the exam board system. Some flexibility in terms of syllabus would probably be helpful, but lets have a standardised system so that everyone's results are comparable and we can stop the drift of standards.

2) No more coursework. Kids need to learn not to be intimidated by exams. We could have some exams which kids are allowed to bring text-books in to, to reduce the need to memorise things.

3) Exams get harder, like they used to be. No A+ or A*. Just an A grade that means something.

4) Everyone studies English, Maths, a Science, IT and a language up to GCSE. Top students should be doing 10 GCSEs, less academic kids do these 5 and vocational stuff.

5) Schools to teach "life skills" one afternoon per week (shame that they need to, but they do). Students should leave able to cook healthy meals, repair clothes, put up shelves, wire plugs, basic gardening, first aid, child care, etc and kids with skills and interests in these areas should be offered the opportunity to spend more time on them, leading to apprenticeships.

6) Instead of trying to recruit teachers straight out of uni, lets try to recruit more coming out of industry and other professions. Offer shorter conversion courses for people who already have the skills to become teachers, treat the long holidays as semi-retirement, and bring real role models with real life experiences into school.

...well I could go on all day...I think you can see what I mean...

The Life group on their high-horses again

I'm reading on the BBC about plans to help women taking the pill do so at the right time and regularity by sending them text messages. The pill has long since been dispensed in date-labelled packs, i.e. with mon-tue-wed-... next to each one. I have for many years wondered why that is done for the pill but not for anti-biotics and other medication where it is important to take the drugs regularly. Maybe other drugs have different instructions and doses for different ailments and are more easily dispensed in a bottle with instructions on the side. I must admit I even feel a bit twitchy about it, as if women are being patronised a bit.

Still the new service being offered cannot be doing any harm really since its very much up to individuals to sign up for it.

Ok, now lets see the reaction from the Pro-Life Group: "The anti-abortion charity Life condemned the idea and said it would lead to increased promiscuity. "

Now I wonder if women are being treated as stupid by having their pills date-labelled. This lot seem to think women are so stupid that more will start taking the pill now they can receive reminders by text-message. Never mind the fact that anyone can set up a regular text alert or phone-based alarm for themselves very easily if they find that's the best way to organise their lives. Never mind that everybody knows that the pill is only suitable for long-term monogamous relationships since it doesn't protect against STDs... or that the new service is only being offered to those already on the pill. I wonder why the BBC felt the need to ask these guys for a comment.

If this development does anything at all I have to guess it would cut the number of abortions going on by cutting down the number of accidentally missed pills. If that is what the Life group really want, they should welcome this move. They should also focus the centrepiece of their campaign on raising money to support women who fall pregnant and wish to continue their pregnancies, since by far the biggest deciding factor in worldwide abortion rates is poverty. This will never happen because, I believe, this group is nothing more than a collection of mysogynists trying to deny women control over their own lives and bodies.

The other point that jumps out at me is that the fear raised by the Life input to the news story is that the new initiative might encourage promiscuity. So they're taking as read that promiscuity is a terrible thing. Some of us, mainly the ones who've tried it, might beg to differ.

There's very little religious basis for the condemnation of promiscuity, as long as people aren't married. They were all up to it in the old testament, actually even the married ones. Jesus seemed to suggest it might distract people from seeking their more spiritual side, but that was about as much attention as it got. Other religions similarly seem to have focussed in on obscure pieces of their holy texts to suggest that this should be a standardised law, when in fact it has never been a core message (like for example "thou shallt not kill", leaving some of us to wonder where exactly the basis for "honor killings" of women suspected of pre-marital sex or infidelity has arisen from).

For the practising atheist the only issues raised however are the spread of STDs - use condoms kids - and the social and emotional risks. While this latter is not to be ignored, I can't help thinking the social and emotional impact of staying home and missing out on the (metaphorical) orgy of life, lust and love would be risking a lot more.

To complete the full cycle and head into very deep feminist waters (hurray!). Personally I wouldn't dream of taking the pill and messing about with my natural hormones. The balance of estrogen, etc (and testosterone too) in my system is a part of who I am as a woman and I'm quite happy with it as it is and have no desire to mess with it.

Who would Jesus vote for?

Quote Alan Keyes, Republican candidate for Illinois: "I think it's perfectly clear if you ask people are you going to vote against God or for the Democratic party they will stand with God,". Now aside from the gramatical error in that statement which makes it sound as though he's encouraging only devil-worshippers to vote for him, how scary is the US these days?

There are two issues here:

1) Would Jesus really have voted Republican? Clearly not. Firstly he made a big noise about how a rich man could not serve God, he didn't suggest top bracket tax cuts. He spent his life helping the poor and sick, not forcing them to work for a pathetic minimum wage. He also had these rules: the ten commandments, big stone tablets, etc and one of them said "THOU SHALT NOT KILL", but none of them said anything about pre-emptive invasion. Even after he had been wronged he said "turn the other cheek", not "carpet bomb civilians at will",...

2) Has anyone noticed that the first victim of fundamentalism, whatever the religion, is always women? Next up is banning abortion, banning the pill, the horror stories discussed earlier about "encouraging marriage".

We're all told, always, that we must have religious tolerance. In general I agree, but surely human rights have to come first. In a free society those who wish to observe religious practices still can, those that prefer not to have that freedom too. Meanwhile I should like to invite all and sundry to exercise their religious freedom with a wander over into one of the few global religions where women have completely equal and sometimes even senior status...wiccanism!