This wasn’t his first time. Whoever killed Sabina Nessa – and we know a man has been arrested on suspicion of murder – it wasn’t his first time hurting or intimidating a woman. Of that, we can be more or less certain. Because, as writer and campaigner Jamie Klingler said in an interview with the… Continue reading It’s never the first time
Category: sexual assault
What we accept as normal
You can judge a society by what it accepts as ‘normal’ and whose truths it takes at face value, I think. What it doesn’t see as particularly remarkable, or out of the ordinary. Who, when they speak, it decides to automatically believe, and who it chooses to doubt and interrogate. We started the week of… Continue reading What we accept as normal
Call it what it is
I wish they’d just be honest, you know? I wish the 25 Alabama senators who voted to pass a bill effectively banning abortion could just be honest about their reasoning. Because of course, they say it’s about protecting the unborn child. Protecting a potential new life. They turn it into an argument about defending the defenceless,… Continue reading Call it what it is
My favourite t-shirt
My favourite t-shirt is from Alliance For Choice, a not-for-profit organisation that campaigns for abortion rights in Northern Ireland. It’s one of those tops I wear to walk the dog, or to bed, or when I’m working from home. It says #trustwomen on it, and almost every time I catch sight of the lettering, I… Continue reading My favourite t-shirt
For shame
I recently had a conversation with an older female friend about Harvey Weinstein. “What I don’t get,” she said, “is why all the women that have made accusations in the last year or so didn’t say anything at the time”. Yes, this was recently. No, I didn’t roll my eyes and stalk off while muttering furiously to myself… Continue reading For shame
Behind closed doors
Hello, people I’m related to. Sorry about this. I’ve never had sex, ever, but please feel free to not read on anyway. In the summer, I went to one of the events Caitlin Moran did to promote her latest book, How To Be Famous. And something she said that night, during some chat about the #MeToo movement,… Continue reading Behind closed doors
On mixed signals
In the 2012 film Mud, the eponymous hero – played beautifully by Matthew McConaughey – utters the line: “a boat in a tree – hell of a thing, ain’t it? A hell of a thing.” A hell of a thing. “Mixed signals” – hell of a phrase, isn’t it? It can mean whatever the person… Continue reading On mixed signals
If ignorance were a crime
Ched Evans makes me wish ignorance was a crime. He makes me wish we could prosecute for stupidity, and for callous entitlement. I’m not usually one to hold a grudge, but if a sheer lack of decency were punishable by law, we could lock men like Evans up and lob the keys into the nearest… Continue reading If ignorance were a crime
On choosing ignorance
Imagine for a moment that History was made an optional subject for schools to teach. “You can teach them about the past – tell them about world wars, and uprisings, and revolutions and dictatorships. Like, if you want. If you’ve got a spare hour or two in the timetable to fill, that’s cool, revisit the… Continue reading On choosing ignorance
Girl problems
What’s wrong with this poster? So this is festive. I wrote about sex & relationship education relatively recently, but in the last week or two, I’ve stumbled across a couple of articles that only reinforce the worry that our whole attitude to teaching young people about relationships is dangerously out-of-touch. Firstly, there was this, which… Continue reading Girl problems
Inbetween Girl 