Justin Bieber says a big FUCK YOU to women's rights

Today, in what can only be described as an ABORTION EXTRAVAGANZA, we bring to you not one, not two, but THREE news stories that should cause sighs of woe from all sensible (i.e. pro-choice) people.

First and most stupidly of all, is the worrying news that pre-teen hearthrob and Leftfield laughing stock Justin Bieber is ignorantly and vocally anti-choice. Not only is he against a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body & mental health because “it’s like, killing a baby yeah?”, he also has some very worrying views on rape too.

Speaking to Rolling Stone Magazine, J.Biebs said he didn’t agree with abortion, and was asked by the interviewer one of the obvious questions – “but what about in cases of rape?”

Instead of sticking to his bollocks “babykilling” line, The Biebs went further, saying “Um, well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason [to have an abortion].”

Bieber, listen up, or I’ll fucking abort you. Rape does not “happen for a reason”, other than the ‘reason’ that there are some disgusting men who make the choice to horrendously abuse women. Being raped is not a woman’s “fate”. The idea that “everything happens for a reason” is nonsense invented to try to force people in disadvantaged and oppressed positions to accept the abuse and discrimination that they face from privileged sections of society. Usually with some sort of religious undertone of “it’ll all work itself out when you get to heaven, so just accept your shit life and get on with it and don’t question authority”.

Women should be the only people allowed to judge whether they want to have a baby or get an abortion, and to make the vital decisions at this time regarding their physical and mental health. In an ideal world, that would be accepted as a matter of principle. However, it seems that Justin Bieber is so far behind in his social attitudes that he hasn’t yet even accepted the basic right of women who’ve been raped to not be forced to have a child that their rapist forced into their body without their consent, under violent and/or emotionally damaging circumstances. Even most right wing fuckwads generally make a wishy-washy type of exception for abortion in cases of rape, so it’s particularly disheartening to hear The Biebs hold that kind of backwards view. Get yourself a clue, Bieber.

I suppose some might say, Justin Bieber is only 17. It may sound excessive to judge the views of a stupit wee boy so harshly. However, two things are important to remember here – Justin Bieber is old enough to get a girl pregnant (and has many young girls flinging themselves at him daily, so it’s not unlikely), and therefore it’s time he grew up a bit and thought about the real issues at stake here before he opens his mouth to the media.

Secondly, Justin Bieber is inexplicably worshipped as a god by very young and impressionable girls the world over. Well, maybe it’s not so inexplicable when you hear his songs, which are designed to sound as if he is personally serenading each and every girl about how she’s his “baby” and he’ll never ever leave her. There’s something (creepy) about him that they just go batshit crazy for. His views MATTER to them, and therefore it matters when he says really really bad things. He has the ability to make a genuinely negative effect with his views, and if he’s starting to spread conservative anti-woman tropes, that’s really quite worrying. Just look at how absolutely loopy he sends girls as young as 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTCm8tdHkfI

They go fucking DEMENTED for him and anything that tumbles out of his mouth. He needs to be educated, fast. On the one hand his carefully cultivated image is selling false ideas of intense and everlasting love and early sexualisation to girls as young as 3, and on the other he’s promoting outdated views of the realities of having sex and babies.

And so on to the second story. While The Biebs’s unfortunate quotes have the potential to cause fucked-up internal conflicts in future generations of women, there’s another story in the Guardian today that highlights a real and direct problem regarding early medical abortions for women in the UK today.

Early medical abortions are standard practice in most countries where abortions are legally available. When a termination is sought in the early stages of a pregnancy (which is the case in the majority of abortions), there is no need for a doctor or nurse to perform any medical procedure. Instead, a woman can visit a clinic and take a pill which terminates the pregnancy. Two days later, the woman must return to the clinic for a second pill, which causes a miscarriage to happen, so that the embryo leaves the body.

BAN THIS SICK FILTH!

In almost every country which offers this medical service, when a woman visits a clinic for the first pill, she is allowed to take the second pill home with her in order to take it at home in a comfortable environment. The main reasoning for this is that most women who take the second pill in a clinic will miscarry on their journey home, which for many women will be inconvenient, humiliating, uncomfortable or traumatic. In the UK, women are not entrusted with taking the second pill home, and must return to the clinic in order to induce miscarriage.

A high court judge on Monday ruled that, unless the Tory Health Secretary Andrew Lansley decides to change the law to state otherwise, women must continue to travel to clinics for the second pill and, in many cases, miscarry in public. The proposal, put forward by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (a charity), has been incorrectly labelled a proposal for “home abortions” – this is not true, as the actual termination of pregnancy occurs with the first pill provided, and changing the circumstances under which the second pill is taken would in reality only be a matter of creating a more comfortable environment for women during an uncomfortable time. Nevertheless, the judge ruled that it was only within the Health Secretary’s power to approve a wider remit of places under which an abortion could *technically* take place, including the home. Even though health is a devolved matter, the ruling would have applied to England, Scotland and Wales.

In Wales, the Guardian points out, there are no abortion clinics outside of Cardiff, so it is a myth that abortions are easy to access in countries which supposedly care about women’s rights like the UK. There should be no problem with a woman wishing to terminate a pregnancy in a comfortable home environment. Obviously in the current climate, where women require the permission of 2 separate doctors to gain access to legal abortion services (and many doctors are very rude and judgemental about the issue which is completely inappropriate), there of course could be the worry that allowing “home” abortions could lead to women who are scared to approach unfriendly doctors or who don’t know where to turn to get adequate advice and help, being offered potentially dodgy “home abortions” which may not comply to health standards. However, this is clearly not the case in this situation, where the practice can be changed without even changing the law or the interpretation of the word “abortion”. It is important that we remove all barriers to safe and easy to access legal and free abortions. It is such a fundamental right, and anything that places pressure or anxiety on women in the situation of requiring an abortion only serves to make abortions less safe and more traumatic.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is actually on record as saying that he is in favour of home abortions and getting rid of the 2-doctor requirement, although at the same time he argued for a reduction in the time limit that abortions are legally available within, causing misery for women in some of the most desperate circumstances. Still, he has said that he thinks abortions should be easier to access for women, and that is a very positive opinion for the Health Minister to be holding while we’re stuck with a generally backward and anti-women Tory government. And yet his response to this ruling has been… silence. Hopefully he will pull his finger out soon, but Zoe Williams makes a good point when she notes that while Lansley is the only person now with the power to change this anomaly in the UK’s abortion rights policy, he’s likely to remain quiet. Sadly, this is the case too often – pro-choice politicians are forced to stay quiet about their views because the anti-choice lobby is so aggressive, dangerous and downright crazy. And so the oppression of women continues de facto.

Abortion saves lives

The third story is one we’ve been meaning to make a point about for a while, but it’s something that’s ongoing and urgently needs to be addressed by the NHS. The Daily Mail recently hailed a ‘Victory for Christianity‘ in its murky, hate-filled pages, as someone who acted inappropriately at work was allowed to return to work, even though they were never fired anyway and were always simply suspended pending review.

It’s been a tough old time for those hard done by Christians of late here in PC GONE MAD GENDER BENDING BABY KILLING Britain. What with the draconian law stating that, shockingly, people who run businesses aren’t allowed to discriminate against people based on their sexuality (Suggestion: SSY Femi-Nazi Woofter roadtrip to Penzance?? We could descend on the town and really put the shits up them with our ceaseless arse-fucking), it’s almost as if the gay feminist mafia elite are trying to OUTLAW THE RIGHT TO HOLD BELIEFS!

Well, there’s some beliefs that should be outlawed, to be honest. The belief that it’s okay for you to use and manipulate your position as a worker in a public health service to put up blocks to or refuse someone access to an abortion that they want and need, for example.

The Mail’s “victory” was in fact the tale of an NHS worker who was suspended for distributing ideologically motivated lies in pamphlets about how abortion ruins womens lives. She never lost her job, and was in fact rewarded for not doing her job correctly by being offered a better job in a different department. She claimed she had been “bullied for expressing religious views”. But in fact it was her that was doing the bullying. She offered the misleading pamphlets to a colleague who worked in family planning, which amounts to attempting to persuade a worker who provides a vital medical service for women to either quit her “immoral” job or start fucking things up for women who came in to use the services. That’s an offensive way to conduct yourself while working for the public health service, and if there was any sense in the world the woman wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near family planning services ever again.

Thankfully, the health worker in question’s employer said:

‘The booklet implies that abortion can lead to alcohol and drug abuse, suicidal thoughts and increased risk of cancer. This could be very worrying and deeply offensive for women who may need an abortion and want balanced, sensible advice. We simply cannot allow NHS staff to distribute material that we know to be seriously unbalanced.’

Here’s a suggestion: if you don’t agree with providing medical services, DON’ T WORK FOR THE FUCKING NHS! It’s not a matter of “personal morality”, it’s a matter of you not doing the job you trained and signed up to do. If you have a fundamental disagreement with abortion, fine, no one’s forcing you to perform one. There are literally millions of other types of jobs which don’t involve administering abortion services. No one has the right to restrict the CHOICE of others to access abortions though, in any way – whether that’s murdering doctors, blocking the doors to clinics, or telling lies about abortion to women who need to have one. No one should be allowed to abuse their position of power (and that is exactly what is occurring when doctors refuse to give their permission for access to abortion services) to cause misery for women, and as a public service those who refuse to do their job or try to interfere with their opinions into the provision of and access to those services should lose their job immediately. They cannot be trusted with their power, and they should not be anywhere near the medical profession.

Giles Coren: just fuck off

Giles Coren – star of food history programme The Supersizers, posh food critic, winner of an award for writing the shittest sex scene of any novel in 2005, “Fuck the Poles” racist and general snobby bastard (see his twitter at any one given time for evidence) – has authored an article for the Daily Mail today. About the sexist comments made by Sky sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray (and his caught-on-camera sexual harassment), two old misogynists unable to accept that women are real people with the ability to work competently, and their subsequent sacking/resignation. Coren starts from the ever-promising position of ‘I’m not sexist, but…’ and from there on blunders into a horrifying public display of loathing for women that would shock even Tommy Sheridan.

The article is actually so offensive it makes the rest of the Mail’s content look like it’s been written by the Teletubbies loved up out their bins on MDMA. I can practically see the eternally offensive Jan Moir, Bel Mooney and Richard Littlejohn hugging each other and intently discussing how they totally now really get why hate and fear is just a media ploy to keep us from joining together in happiness and song. Coren’s article is THAT bad. Yes, I know it’s in the Daily Mail, so I shouldn’t expect better. That doesn’t make it okay for something this sexist to be published, especially as Giles Coren often presents himself as some kind of average liberal middle class guy whose opinions educated people should listen to. It’s like he’s tried to pack every offensive trope out there into the one piece. How bad the article is really can’t be explained adequately second hand, so we’ll just have to show you exactly what he said. And demolish his pish line by line.

“So why is it all right for women to be sexist about MEN?“

That’s his title. The piece isn’t even started and he’s already talking out his hole. Let’s make this clear: sexism involves power relations. For someone to discriminate against someone else, they have to hold the power to discriminate in the first place. Men hold this power, women do not. So while I’m sure there are women out there who have said unpleasant or untrue things about men, there is no sexism by women against men. It’s not a thing that is able to happen because that’s not the world that men and women live in. Just like how racism by blacks against whites isn’t a real thing.

Two thumbs up if you're a cunt!

And besides, MEN (the concept, i.e how men as a whole act and are encouraged to act) ARE deeply unpleasant. There is no low to which the concept of MEN won’t stoop. That’s of course not to say that all men are horrible. There are many lovely men who don’t do nasty things to women, especially outright nasty things. However, the concept of MEN dominates, usurps and controls both the concept of WOMEN and real individual women’s lives on a day to day basis.

“Andy Gray and Richard Keys are a couple of dull, flabby, middle-aged football bores and are just the sort of doddering old clowns you would expect to relax off camera by swapping ancient prejudices and poking fun at women — in this case a female linesman — for not understanding the offside rule.

You shouldn’t pass unflattering remarks about women behind their backs because it is not a well brought-up thing to do, and they needed to be told. I would never do it myself. Not because I am a feminist, but because I am a gentleman.”

And his classist prejudices show through. I don’t give a fuck if you were “well brought up” you posh dick, and I don’t want you to be a “gentleman”, I think we’d all just like it if you could get your head round the concept of being a decent human being. That’s a lot more worthwhile than being a “gentleman”, an outdated and patriarchal view of the world being the property of men and a space in which to dominate women. But, so long as they hold open the door and don’t use sweary words cause that’s what poor people do, apparently gentlemen have the moral highground. On everything.

Bear that paragraph in mind, as Giles seems to do a pretty good job of demolishing all of his protestations that he’s a nice guy who doesn’t talk smack about women in the rest of the article…

“We will hear an endless shrieking to ‘kick sexism out of football’; a PE teacher will be fired for telling his goalkeeper to ‘stop crying like a girl’; and a hapless League One manager will be deported for describing a fight between players as ‘handbags at dawn’”

No you won’t. Stop making shit up. Your slippery slope is a logical fallacy.

“There will be the endless apologies, public soul-searching and self-flagellation. And as usual the rest of us men will be expected to atone as a sex for a couple of remarks by two fat, superannuated fools on the telly, and to grovel for forgiveness with every snivel and cringe of our waking lives”

See above response. God, Giles, you really fucking do hate women don’t you. Get over yourself. Not everything is about you.

“Not that that’s anything new. To be a man in this country is constantly to have to apologise for oneself and to be ever so very careful about every sentence we speak or write which contains any reference at all to members of the opposite sex”

Nothing seems to be stopping you Giles from doing exactly what you say you can never do here. No one is making you apologise for anything. But you do have a duty to recognise your male privilege. And your white privilege. And your straight privilege. You don’t need to apologise for it – it’s not your fault you were born with these constructed social, economic and political advantages over so many others – but you do have to accept it, challenge it, and move on.

“While at the same time, and this is the shame of it, we ourselves are fair game for women. While sexism from men is the outstanding social crime of the modern world, women can say absolutely whatever they like about us”

Sexism from men is not “the outstanding social crime of the modern world”. Do you EVER read newspapers? Watch TV? Listen to conversations about women? I can only assume not,  because if you did you’d know that sexism is everywhere, all the time, and it never went away.

You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. You have no idea what it’s like to have a man stand up to his full height and shout in his deepest voice to intimidate you because you said something that he disagreed with. You have no idea what it’s like to have men sneer at and talk over your contributions in classes and at work, male habits which are so ingrained many men don’t even notice they are doing it. You have no idea what it’s like to sprint from the bus stop to your front door because you are terrified that the man who is staring at you, jeering at you or following you (which happens so often you’d shit your pants if you had to experience it for a month) could hurt you.

Jo Brand: stabby stabby stabby manny manny manny

So no, Giles Coren, women can’t say absolutely whatever they like about men. MEN (the concept again) simply don’t allow it. But if a woman does make a point about the way that MEN behave, she’s perfectly fucking entitled to do so as I can guarantee it is based in truth and is brave,  knowing the kind of boorish comments people like you will inevitably throw back in her face when they wish to reassert their authority of her. Whether that be physically, mentally, or through a pathetic and cowardly Daily Mail article.

“Only last week, for example, Jo Brand, the newly crowned Best Female TV Comic at the British Comedy Awards, was on Have I Got News For You and replied to the question ‘What’s your favourite kind of man, Jo?’ by saying: ‘A dead one.’ Oh, how the audience fell about. And the other contestants, all male, chortled away too.

I’m not saying it wasn’t funny. I’m just saying we live in a world where the thorough-going awfulness, uselessness and superfluity of the male sex is such a given, that a frontline television comic can get big laughs by saying she’d prefer it if we were all dead.

And I’m trying to imagine a world in which I am on that show and they say, ‘What kind of women do you like, Giles?’ and I reply: ‘Dead ones.’ I just don’t think it would get the same laughs, do you?

Here’s another of Jo Brand’s (excellent) gags. ‘What’s the way to a man’s heart? Straight through the chest with a kitchen knife!’ Again, not unfunny. But predicated on the idea that killing men is hilarious. Whereas killing women, as we all know, is a very serious affair and not to be joked about.”

Did you ever think that maybe it’s not funny for men to joke about killing women because that’s precisely what men do across the world every week? Women are raped and killed by men who don’t like them, BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN, with everything that entails for the patriarchal psyche of ownership, not-letting-women-step-out-of-line, etc.

More than 2 women each week are killed by their current or ex partners. 1 in 4 women in the UK will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. Police receive a domestic violence call every minute, yet less than half of incidents are reported. Women are killed and harmed because of sexism. Men are not. And you think Jo Brand making a joke about men being useless therefore should enable men to make jokes/threats like that to women, when men are already out there doing it constantly? Fuck. Off.

And anyway, men DO make jokes like that all the time, to women’s faces. We’re back to Giles just making shit up again.

“It’s not just Brand, it’s all women. ‘What do you call the useless flap of skin attached to a penis?’ they joke. ‘A man!’ they all reply, and clink their chardonnay glasses and chortle till dawn. How on earth did this get to be OK?”

What Giles Coren is made of

And now, ‘women are all lushes’.

“I’ll tell you how. It is because pretty much from birth women are schooled by their mothers to deride men. They are sugar and spice, we are slugs and snails.

They are reflective and sensitive, while we run around kicking balls and shouting. And then as girls push towards puberty their mothers take them aside and tell them: ‘Boys are only after one thing!’”

MOTHERS ARE EVIL. EVIL EVIL WOMEN MOTHERS.

“The great lie. All men want is sex. Not so. If anything, it is women who think only of having it off. Girls on average lose their virginity much younger than boys and have more sexual partners in youth.”

OH MY GOD did he just say that the fact that young girls are pressured into early sexualisation and having sex with older boys is the same as women “thinking only of having it off”? There’s something seriously creepy about this statement.

“As a teenager, I was terribly shy about sex and yet girls were trying to do it with me all the time. I used to run, literally run, from their bedrooms when they tried it on. And yet women are allowed endlessly to harangue us with our supposed lechery”

And now we get to the crux of this whole article. Giles thinks he’s a “nice guy”, and therefore women are horrible. He’s got seriously issues with bitterness towards women, there’s a psychological connection of women with hate here. Giles is not a nice guy. See here for an excellent explanation of why the “nice guy” shtick is a misogynist bag of shite.

“And the prejudice festers. Harriet Harman says that men caused the banking crisis, and the harridan legions nod their heads. ‘If women ruled the world,’ they cry, ‘there would be no wars.’”

“Harridan legions”… FNASKJNFEKJNFHJESBFAKLM YOU ARE SUCH A SEXIST SHITEBAG.

“What nonsense. Women are far meaner, more brutal, aggressive, small-minded, jealous, petty and venal than any man.

If women ruled the world countries would be invaded because ‘she’s always been jealous of my feet’ and because ‘she looks down on me for going out to work’.

Millions would die, torture would increase. If women ruled the world there would be carnage.”

It’s getting to the point where I think I can just let Giles Coren’s deep rooted misogyny speak for itself. He’s truly horrible, isn’t he?

“And what sort of an insult is it anyway to suggest that most women don’t understand the offside rule? It’s true, for a start. Most women don’t. And most of them declare it proudly.”

Hang on, didn’t you start this article by saying how you totally didn’t approve of the sexist comments made by Gray and Keys? Did you forget about your ‘I’m not sexist, but…’ lie amidst all your mad rampaging sexism?

Oh and it is an insult, because beyond the casual sexism of the idea that women can’t be interested in or understand football, the person that Gray and Keys were saying didn’t understand the offside rule is a qualified linesman. That’s her job. She knows how to do it. They were suggesting otherwise because she is a woman, regardless of her obvious job competence. It wasn’t casual sexism it was a direct sexist slur on her abilities and character.

“Most of them use football as an example of one of their favourite gags, the one about how men never grow up, about how we’re all just children — most often manifested in the one where a mother-of-two says ‘I’ve got three children’, you raise an eyebrow, and she nods towards her husband. Hilarious.”

Did you forget your line on comedy gags about men, Giles? Jokes about killing men are okay, because they give you the opportunity to argue that jokes about killing women should be okay. But jokes about men being childish? How awful these so called “wives” and “girlfriends” must be if they find THAT funny. They should of course only laugh at what their man decrees is funny.

And nor are men, in this female narrative, merely puerile, aggressive and underdeveloped. They are hypochondriacs, too.

‘He’s got a touch of man flu,’ say the womenfolk and titter. But what nonsense is that? It is women who make a big fuss about mild discomfort, not men.

I have never had so much as a cold in my life, nor claimed to. I even suspect sometimes that the whole palaver about the pain of childbirth is a conspiracy to ride roughshod over men.

My own mother, a consultant anaesthetist herself, has always claimed that giving birth was a breeze but that she pretended it had been painful to build bargaining chips with my father.”

Did I miss the point at which this became a parody of sexist men? You seriously don’t believe childbirth is painful? Is it a ‘mild discomfort’? This is ridiculous because you obviously don’t believe that. You’re just saying that to get a rise. Conspiracy LOL.

So close and yet so far, ladies

And all this business about man flu – honestly, does any man really care if a woman suggests he has ‘manflu’? The vast majority of female partners will still act as caregivers for their poor manflued up partners, how horrible of them to make light of the fact that men are far less likely to feel pain on the level that a woman is throughout their lives.

“You look at shows like Loose Women and you wonder how on earth they get away with the terrible things they say about men. I went on once and it was horrific. I wanted to die.”

Next time, wish a bit harder.

“No male-hosted show could treat women the way those outsized harpies treat men”

“Outsized harpies”.. again with the ffskljnfhsebgjsbngkjsnegaak!!!

“They retire younger and live longer to such an extent that minor inequalities in pay levels are obliterated when you consider whose money pays for those 25 years of retirement. And it just isn’t fair that they are allowed to be so vile about us”

A 20% pay gap is not a minor inequality. Money might be alright for you, posh boy, but you’ve never had to live the life of a single mother.

Women are not vile about men. I like men who aren’t dicks, and I don’t like men who are. You don’t like any women. So get over yourself. Who knows how many men have raped, killed, hurt, humiliated or manipulated women, propped up by the heterosexual male dominated system, in the amount of time it took you to spit your misogyny at your computer and come up with possibly the world’s shittest article?

“I suppose, in a way, British men are like white people were in Nineties South Africa or young Germans after the Second World War.”

Oh here we go. No, British men are not like anything except privileged British men.

“We are expected to go through a period of atonement for the sins of our fathers. To be treated worse than we merit because of crimes previously committed in our name: in this case the crime of feeding, protecting, loving and nurturing women in accordance with our biological imperative”

Firstly, I think this article you’ve written proves conclusively that your sins when it comes to being a sexist prick are not your father’s, they are very much YOURS, happening right here and now.

Secondly, what? It’s not your ‘biological imperative’ to do anything, we are human beings capable of logical thought, not mating insects, who are probably more emotionally intelligent than you anyway. “The crime of feeding, protecting, loving and nurturing women”… there’s something about that sentence that is very controlling, very patriarchal, very abuse-enabling, and very full of shite.

“They don’t want that any more. They want to be linesmen. And so we have to let them tell us endlessly how they wish we were all dead.

If that’s not off-side, I don’t know what is.”

Yes, how dare women want to be treated with respect when doing a job that they’re qualified for and that they enjoy.

Weren’t you just saying how you found Jo Brand’s joke funny? Oh forget it, you’re obviously just confused about which unpleasant persona you’re playing at any one given time.

If you don’t want yet another row in the media about how you’re kind of a bit of a prick, maybe you should keep your pathological hatred of women to a more private arena. Your poor, poor wife.

Articles like this are not fun and games. They are dangerous. At a time when for once some sexist men have actually been taken to task for their sexist outbursts, people like Giles Coren come along on their white hetero middle class steeds of male honour and attempt to undermine it. Giles, you’re no good, and you have no place in journalism. And FYI Giles, when I’m harsh about you in this article, it’s NOT because you’re a man. It’s because you’ve said the disgusting things that you have. That’s your fault.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w

A public information announcment from Giles Coren’s brain.

UPDATE:

An SSP member sent this article to Giles Coren on twitter, and he gave this surprisingly uncunty response:

However, some of his twitter followers decided to go out of their way to prove just how sexist they could be:

No thanks, I'll stick with my vagina ta

No, but thanks for your confidence in women's ability to be legitimately angry about genuinely horrible statements regardless of whether they're bleeding or not

What a pleasant fellow

Thanks for entirely proving my point by firstly misquoting me and secondly calling me a 'poisonous bitch' for speaking an opinion that differs to a man's

Some people on the other hand, just don’t get it:

The idea that swearing delegitimises your argument is a heap of balls. Swearwords are some of the most nuanced and expressive language tools we have at our disposal. It's fine if you don't want to swear in your own points, but SSY likes to make use of swear words to express our real feelings better and without reservation. I don't care if you accept that or not.

No it doesn't. Lol. It just proves he said some out of order things, that's all. Men are not automatically right.

It's not challenging dogma, it's spreading lies intended to uphold patriarchy.

Lol, no, I'm really not a hippy

But thankfully there are some folk out there that get it, women who aren’t afraid to speak truth to patriarchy and who we’re very proud to share membership of the SSP with!:

Criticism has been wiped out from the mainstream media. Few are willing to raise their heads above the parapet and question the nature of, let alone criticise, the ‘wedding of the century‘, in a manner which bears huge similarities to the ‘poppy fascism’ that we wrote about last week, where subservience to a supposedly apolitical  ’national institution’ becomes mandatory.

Which makes it all the more surprising, and brilliant, when the first major criticism of the wedding to be splashed across the national media comes from someone who is, in theory, under the direct authority of the Monarchy. Yep, far from a ‘usual suspect’, the man who’s managed to outrage the Daily Mail, the Tories and the Church hierarchy is, believe it or not, a Church of England bishop, Pete Broadbent. Writing on his twitter and facebook page, Bishop Broadment has attacked the wedding as ‘nauseauting tosh’, and said that ‘I don’t care about the royals, I’m a republican. Talent isn’t passed on through peoples’ bloodstock, the hereditary principle is corrupt and sexist.’

In something which has particularly outraged right-wing sensibilities, he also added: ‘As with most shallow celebrities, they will be set up to fail by the gutter press. I give the marriage seven years.’

Legend.

Republican hero Bishop Broadbent also commented, “I managed to avoid the last disaster in slow motion between Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll, and I hope to avoid this one too… I think we need a party in Calais for all good republicans who can’t stand the nauseating tosh that surrounds this event.”

We’ve got a better idea. The wedding is reportedly to be on Thursday 28 April, at Westminster Abbey. David Cameron is even giving us proles a day off to celebrate. Let’s go and join them? After all, International Workers Day slash May Day pagan-fest  is only a couple of days later.

I’ll bring the wickerman.

After interviewing only a small percentage of the population the ONS have come to the ‘concrete’ conclusion that only “480,000 adults describe themselves as homosexuals — just one in every 100. Another 245,000 — or one in 200 — are bisexual.”

Their statistics also claim to prove that the majority of those who openly admitted to being gay were more likely to have jobs higher up the career ladder than their heterosexual colleagues. 49.1% of gay people are in managerial or professional positions compared to 30.6% of straight people. However, that 49.1% of the boss class have already built up enough cushioning to be able to give up their straight ‘privilege’ and don’t have the worry of losing their position within society because they have the power to control any homophobia they might face. Whereas less powerful working class people, lower down the career ladder, don’t have this protection and have a lot more to lose. The statistic that 38% of gay people are also apparently better educated compared to 21.9% of straight people also backs this up – the ONS just haven’t thought very deeply about why that might be.

Homosexuals, according to this data, are also much younger than the rest of society with “66 percent under the age of 44 and 17 percent aged 16-24″. Which is most probably due to the fact that it’s more ‘acceptable’ to be out in today’s youth cultures than it has been in previous generations.

This survey also explains that: “A third of bisexual households include at least one child but only 8.6 per cent of gay or lesbian respondents live with a child.” Did it even cross these closed minded peoples’ heads that the one third of bisexual families mentioned were quite possibly living in a happy straight household and that the low rate of gay families with children might possibly have something to do with the way society has scapegoated gay parents and how much mad controversy there was about letting gay people adopt.

Naturally surveys like this must be taken seriously due to their obvious ‘accuracy’ and ‘impartiality’. If these articles tell us that only 480,000 adults describe themselves as gay or lesbian then of course we should ignore the fact that 2.2 million or 6.7% of British citizens use Gaydar or Gaydar Girls, just one of the many internet dating websites for LGBT members of society. Never mind the fact that most gay people, just like most straight people, aren’t even on sex hook up or dating websites.

Now that those champions of equality such as The Sun and The Daily Mail have given us this information, which shows us the ‘correct’ percentage of gay people in the British population, The Sun suggests that:

“Now we have a clearer view of the real figures, we need to start asking some serious questions about the vast sums of taxpayers’ money being spent on such a small minority and the disproportionate amount of attention they receive both in Whitehall and in the media.”

You know what would be easier? Turning around

And The Daily Mail proudly states that this survey has exploded “the assumption – long promoted by social experts and lobbyists – that the number is up to ten times higher than this at one in ten.”

Obviously The Sun aren’t completely hostile towards lesbians, as long as it blurs the line between news and porn. The image they used to illustrate the story is obviously a correct representation of lesbians in today’s society and NOT two women both contorting themselves to face the camera for the pleasure of shit head male Sun readers.

Although this ridiculous survey was probably just the result of stupidity at the ONS, the reaction of the right wing press shows that they clearly have an agenda to use homophobia as a way of cutting vital services that the LGBT community depends on, as seen in Glasgow. Here it is pretty much impossible to meet other gay or lesbian people unless you’re one of these well educated, confident, managerial types, who can afford to go to an expensive bar or club. Obviously unsure young people trying to figure out who they are DO NOT EXIST so they don’t need any money spent on supporting their needs.

For those that can’t be bothered clicking the link, the article is a kind of hideous mash up of Countryside Alliance rhetoric and the Daily Mail’s own special brand of moral crusading; it would seem that, for them, foxes are the new terrorists. According to the ‘journalist’ who wrote this, Rory Knight Bruce, there’s a concerted PR campaign to give foxes a false cuddly image, which unites animal rights activists and Roald Dahl in a fiendish conspiracy to make children think foxes are their friends. Presumably the foxes made a generous contribution to Dahl’s estate so that it would be easy for them to find vulnerable children whose faces they can rip off.

A few years back, I was walking home and I saw a red fox just outside my house. I stopped downwind of it and crouched down to watch it a wee while, because I’ve always been an obsessive fan of animals. There was another girl coming from the opposite direction, and she had a pretty different reaction. She saw the fox, froze, and then ran screaming away from it. I laughed at the time, but apparently the mail considers that a measured reaction to these clearly evil and vicious little bastards.

They interview a completely unbiased trapper who makes his living shooting foxes, and surprisingly enough he says anyone who views them as essentially benign is “living in cloud cuckoo land” and then goes on to list a number of domestic animals that have supposedly been lost to fox attacks. Did anyone really need this wanker to give them the news that foxes like to eat small furry animals that have probably been left outside? He also totally overstates the incidence of foxes attacking dogs and cats. Foxes tend to be not much bigger than your average cat, and much smaller than the dogs most people have. Also, a lot of small dogs such as terriers have been bred for killing ‘vermin’ and would easily beat a fox in a fight. It would seem though that it’s the eating of a koi carp that cost £1500 that really offends Trapper Wank. Those damn foxes have no respect for private property! What are they, animals?! No doubt they raised the money to bribe Roald Dahl and the pro-fox sophists by selling the expensive koi meat down Brick Lane.

The mail then goes on to give us the shocking news that foxes mark their territory by pissing and shitting! You know, unlike nearly every other animal to walk the planet. What dirty wee bastards! See if you’re THAT bothered about foxes coming in your garden for a shit and your chickens are actually being taken by them, then there are a couple of things you can do.  You need to get a handy male friend and ask him to piss all over your garden instead. Oh, and dig your fucking coop fence in, you stupid noob.

A fox lets out a groan of satisfaction after taking a huge dump on the Daily Mail editor's head.

Of course, it’s not just that fox shit is clearly disgusting, oh no, we have to remember that these dangerous animals can give us diseases as well! The Daily Mail informs us that fox shit can carry Toxascaris, a variety of parasitic roundworm. We’re also given the scary statistic that there are around one hundred new cases of Toxascaris a year in humans! If you know anything about statistics, medicine or not being a chump, then you should be pissing yourself right now, because one hundred cases a year is nothing. It’s the same as the number of cases of the very rare Q Fever, an infection that usually turns up in people who work closely with animals. Of course, the mail doesn’t tell you that, and they also don’t tell you that domestic dogs and cats also carry Toxascaris.

Hillariously, the mail also mentions a few foxes who, in the course of their natural chewing behaviour, developed a taste for brake fluid and started biting through the cables on cars, and it’s almost like the writer thinks there was some kind of malicious intent behind it. However, this shouldn’t really surprise us given that he spends a couple of paragraphs whining about how nasty foxes have been to him and his family. One vixen, who he tried to rescue from a collapsed earth, had the temerity to bite him! Why, who could imagine a frightened and cornered wild animal biting a person who touched them? Any animal worker will tell you that being bitten is part of the job when you get close to wildlife.

He also tells us that he believes two of his family terriers were killed by foxes. One through mange (because dogs never, ever get mange without the help of a fox) and one due to a “characteristically vicious assault”, which suggests to me that he didn’t actually see the fox killing his dog. Quite apart from that, if his dog was killed by a fox, it’s very likely that the terrier (as I’ve already said, they have hunting and killing in their genes) started the fight.

And then there’s the big issue. Rory cites two instances of foxes attacking children to boost his campaign against their brushy reign of terror. What he doesn’t tell you is that these two cases are pretty much the only two in a fucking age. The BBC felt the need to do a measured evaluation of how often foxes attack people, and I can save you the bother of going to look it up. The answer is (drumroll) almost never, you foaming at the mouth mail reading chumps.

From all this easily debunked nonsense, Rory reaches “the inescapable conclusion that the urban fox is a pest that needs to be controlled.” Well I’ll tell you what, following his logic (disease, bite rates etc.) then clearly we need to shoot all the domestic dogs and cats in the UK, and probably all the small furry pets too, because they bite people a hell of a lot more than foxes do. SSY demands that we start to eliminate this dangerous menace NOW, and we further posit that any objections to this plan are just lily livered liberal nonsense that does not recognise the fact that humans are clearly superior to other animals, and have a right to destroy any part of the natural world that inconveniences them in any way.

The face of evil.

A study/case report/article today published by a medical research group/university/charity revealed that a popular food/lifesaving medicine/controversial activity may cause/reduce risk of cancer/heart disease/stroke. It was found that some people who ate the food/took the medicine/did the activity later went on to develop/did not develop cancer/heart disease/stroke and despite that fact that no link between them has been shown, this newspaper/magazine/blog recommends immediately eating/taking/doing more/less of the food/medicine/activity. This research contradicts previous studies/case reports/articles that have shown the opposite effect, but this article will conveniently forget the results we distorted last week to cause fear and sell more papers/magazines/get more blog hits. This newspaper/magazine/blog also recommends ignoring the advice of your well qualified and experienced doctor/nurse/pharmacist and instead taking all of your medical advice from some journalist looking for a good story. Further handpicked results/inspirational tales/hate speech will follow later in the week to rile up public support/anger/disgust for whoever/whatever/wherever we’re telling you to worship/hate/throw bricks through the window of and campaign outside with poorly spelled placards this week.

Even as drunken student antics go, it was, by any stretch of the imagination, a disturbing scene. Surrounded by cheering rugby players, applauded by fellow members of the university netball team, 19-year-old Melissa Fontaine tipped back her head and giggled as fellow drinkers in the Students’ Union bar pulled apart her eyelids and allowed them to pour a shot of vodka into her left eye.

‘Vodka eyeballing’, as it is known in student circles, is the latest drinking craze to sweep through Britain’s universities.

Now, let’s get one thing straight before we begin – people getting really fucked and trying to do so through orifices other than their mouths is not a new thing. A quick straw poll among the SSY members at hand shows that all but one of us had heard of or seen people putting shots of vodka in their eye – fucking years ago. As the Daily Mail themselves mention, it was even featured in the film Kevin and Perry Go Large which was released ten years ago. And if the Daily Mail think drinking through your eye is bad, they must not have met anyone who’s doused a tampon in vodka and stuck it up their arse – or at least anyone that’s admitted to it.

Their story is based on a exclusive interview with Melissa, one victim of the eyeballing trend – but there’s a shocking twist in Melissa’s tale…

It would be easy, of course, to dismiss Melissa as nothing more than a silly ‘ladette’. But it is hard to reconcile that stereotype with the young woman she is today, fresh out of university in London with a first-class English degree, the privately-educated daughter of financiers, and an aspiring writer.

In short she is not the kind of young woman who might naturally be associated with Britain’s spiralling binge-drinking youth culture.

??The rugby players were the worst, but because of feminism, you’re expected, as a woman, to keep up with them. The guys set a precedent and you have to follow. That’s what drives the whole ladette culture. Women believing they have to be equal in every single way.

Despite this fantastic growth, there has been very little discussion or criticism of UKIP on the Left. This is despite UKIP representing a “radical” right-wing constituency, with MEP’s further to the right than most Tory MP’s and who would attack the standard of living of working people quite dramatically if elected.

Most concern on the Left to radical right wing parties has been directed to the growth of the BNP, who picked up 2 MEP’s at the last European Election. UKIP is very obviously and clearly not the same kind of party as the BNP but there is definitely competition between both parties for the same anti-EU, anti-Immigration, nationalist vote. This vote isn’t homogeneous however and there are important differences. UKIP attract a wealthier, home counties right-wing vote, compared to the BNP who attract support from much poorer areas in English cities.

UKIP and the BNP also have differences in how they view society should be organised; UKIP are made up of Thatcherites who are too Eurosceptic for the Tory Party but still uphold the free market and libertarian values. The BNP in contrast support protectionism for British companies – this has led to some on the Tory nutter right to attack the BNP as “Left-wing”. Farage, UKIP’s former leader and best known public figure says the difference between them and the BNP is that they are the “do what you like party” and the BNP are the “hang em and flog em party”.

Parliament for the jocks you say? What ho, no, let them use the one behind me!

Of course the biggest and most fundamental difference between the two parties is that the BNP is still a neo-Nazi organisation pretending to be a populist right wing one, while UKIP is just a populist right-wing party. UKIP doesn’t believe in the racial supremacy fantasies of the BNP and has no problems with ethnic minorities as candidates or members. It’s for this reason that it would be unimaginable (and wrong) for UKIP to be no platformed the way the BNP is.

Despite these important differences however, UKIP deserves a lot more attention and criticism from the Left than it has got. It’s generally been ignored by the Left as it is not in any position to control the Government or Local councils and because its not a fascist organisation like the BNP. However UKIP may not always be the eccentric party of ex-Tory Daily Mail readers, able to attract a bit of a laugh now and again with some Bernard Manning style comments about women or attacking the EU President as a damp rag.

UKIP’s potential danger can be seen in the man they invited last week to the House of Lords – Geert Wilders. UKIP’s leader, Lord Pearson invited Wilders to broadcast his anti-Muslim film “Fitna”. Wilders was also welcomed to London by the English Defence Leage, producing an unholy trinity of football casuals, ex-Tory lords and Wilders. This display was another example of the EDL are acting as violent thugs for ideas which are circulated and promoted by well heeled members of the establishment who are far more “respectable” than they are.

I likesh a shmoke and a pancake, but I don't likesh the Mushlimsh

UKIP have tried to justify their love in with Wilders on the basis that we need to have a discussion about “radical Islam”. Time and time again however Wilders has made clear that his problem is with Islam, and sees no difference between moderate and radical Muslims. Wilders today is the most successful far-Right politician in Europe, and has a real chance of becoming the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

Wilders has made it a demand for any coalition Government in which his Party for Freedom (PVV) takes part, that the hijab is banned from all public institutions; meaning any Muslim who wears the hijab will be banned from working in or using a library, swimming pool, school etc. Wilders does not even attempt to cover his attack on Muslims by saying its about secularism – he openly says Jewish skull caps and crucifixes will not be affected by this law, as they are a part of western culture.

People should remember that the hijab is not the burqa. Unlike the burqa, which is an extreme form of Islamic dress worn by a very small number of Muslims in Europe the Hijab is a far more modest headscarf little different from a nuns habit. The hijab is worn by a massive proportion of Muslim women – banning them from wearing it is a clear attack on their civil rights. There is no practical difference between someone who wears a hijab, a turban or skullcap in how they do their job or use public services. They have been singled out because they are Muslims.

Wilders has also called for the banning of the Koran, and for Guantanamo bay style facilities for Muslims in the Netherlands. He is also a staunch defender of Israel – Wilders PVV is in fact interested with fighting a war against the freedoms of the Netherlands’s Muslim minority.

How far UKIP will go down the PVV road remains to be seen, but it is clear that they are attempting to win support not just from attacking the EU but now from attacking Muslims. UKIP have become the first party in the UK to call for the banning of the Burka in all public places. This is further than even the BNP wants to go – they only want the burka banned in govt buildings. Whatever criticism can be made of the burka for it’s attacks on women’s rights it’s clear that if UKIP are cosying up with Wilders it is unlikely they are banning it to emancipate Muslim women.

UKIP also need to be dug up by the Left for their hypocrisy on the issues of democracy and accountability they claim to uphold. UKIP have won virtually all their support on their largely correct attacks on the European President and European Commission for being totally unaccountable and unelected – but they see no contradiction between these institutions and having an unelected Lord as leader! There is no attack on the House of Lords from UKIP on what it is, an undemocratic chamber which has the power to stop laws being made by a parliament with elected MP’s.

UKIP’s policy on Scotland also betrays their Tory roots – they call for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament, an act that would return Scotland to the bad old days of the 80′s where our votes were irrelevant, and the votes of middle England would decide who rules Scotland.

After all as bad as the EU parliament is, its done nothing like force the poll tax on Scotland using MP’s elected in England – but then again, that wouldn’t bother UKIP much seeing as they argue for a “flat tax”. A flat tax means that everyone pays the same amount of tax for their services regardless of their income, which was of course the exact same principle the poll tax used. They also call for a reduction in the rate of corporation tax, referring to Thatcher and Reagan’s UK and USA as a justification. This flat tax would also mean less funding for public services, cutting jobs and services in order to transfer even more wealth to the rich. This “freedom” for companies to do whatever they want is part of UKIP’s attack on the alleged “social democratic consensus” at Westminster.

Both this flat tax and reduction in corporation tax would be another salvo in a war which has been going on for 30 years, a war between the richest 1% of the population who have seen their wealth skyrocket whilst the working majority have seen their wealth stagnate or barely increase. Alongside their cosying up to someone who is determined to deny public services and jobs to Muslims in the Netherlands, it shows up UKIP as being a bit more dangerous than their charismatic and dotty English Toff MEP’s suggest.

Right now UKIP are unlikely to put into practice any of these policies. Both parties of the radical right in the UK, the BNP and UKIP have major barriers to growth. In the case of the BNP it’s their racism and neo-Nazi baggage. For UKIP its being identified as solely interested in Europe.

The PVV in the Netherlands shows that these barriers can be overcome however. If UKIP and the BNP dealt with these barriers by dumping Griffin and other neo-Nazis, paid more attention to domestic affairs and founded a new radical right party along the lines of the PVV there is little to stop them from emulating Wilders success. There is clearly a very large vote for opposing the EU, immigration, political correctness and for old school Tory values that Cameron has had to cede somewhat to take the centre ground.

Such a party of the radical right would pose a threat to Scotland’s democratic rights, working peoples status in the tax system, funding to public services and civil rights of Muslims in the UK. Remember that the next time you see Nigel Farage guffaw on Question Time and ask if anyone wants to go for a punt and a Pimms.

The Flawless Logic Behind the MMR Scare

The Lancet has made a full retraction of the article, the report’s lead researcher, Dr Andrew Wakefield, is facing a General Medical Council tribunal and the newspapers’ ten year run of scare stories has been made to look a bit silly. While the medical community has known for quite some time that there is absolutely no evidence of a link between MMR and autism, the newspaper scare stories kept the fear alive. Why? Because fear sells papers. Never mind the potential damage to people’s lives, the babies killed by measles, the old lady who dies because she’s scared to take her blood pressure tablets – readers are scared of what vital information they could be missing by not buying the paper. Pick up any copy of the Daily Mail or Take a Break and turn to the health section. Every day something different is giving you cancer, a different medication is apparently unnecessary or a new treatment is going to kill you. Its irresponsible reporting and it can damage lives. These articles aren’t written by doctors, they’re written by journalists and cobbled together from hearsay, taken out of context and bent to suit their message. No-one wants to hear about the 19,999,999 people whose lives were saved, let’s hear about the one person whose hair fell out! (and whose life was also saved, but that bit isn’t important) This is what capitalism is about: make money at any cost. Its easy to get taken in by newspapers and magazines pretending to care about your health but they just want you to stay scared enough to keep buying their rag. The whole MMR scare could have been over years ago if it wasn’t for the fact that it sold papers. Check out kill-or-cure.heroku.com for a full list of what the Daily Mail says will either cause or cure cancer and you’ll soon see that either they aren’t to be believed or we’re all going to die pretty soon. And don’t forget that if you ever do worry about biscuits causing cancer, the best person to ask is your doctor or pharmacist. If only That’s Life magazine asked them, some more kids might be alive today.

I’d like to be able to say that they’ve exceeded themselves with their latest exploits, but in reality it’s just more of the same pish. Unless you’re a middle class, middle aged, straight white man, the Daily Mail hates you – and it hates a big proportion of the people in that bracket, too.

What’ve they done this time? Stephen Fry said it pretty well with this:

I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane.

Exactly. Some idiot has written a lovely article about how Stephen Gately being dead is proof that gays are evil, civil partnerships are depraved, and happy gay families are a myth. Fuck off!

When, quite rightly, there was an outcry, the author published a response, stating:

In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

Well, we at SSY have always taken pride in being mischievous and will continue to do so.

You can make a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission  here.