The French Burkini Ban: State-Sanctioned Violence Against Women

 Pictures surfaced yesterday of armed French police on a beach in Cannes confronting a woman lying on the beach, forcing her to remove her coverings. The controversial Burkini Ban came into force at the end of July after the horrific Bastille Day killings in Nice in an apparent bid to tackle radical Islam. After becoming the first European country to implement a law prohibiting "concealment of the face in public space" back in 2004 - applying to Burqas, Niqābs and balaclavas - this law has been predominantly used to target Muslim women, with the European Court of Human Rights ruling to uphold the ban back in 2014.

 With that bit of background out of the way, the recent Burkini Ban has sparked outrage across the internet, from religious rights groups, to feminist groups, and many others who believe in basic human rights; the image of armed police confronting a woman has been widely circulated and fuelled this anger. If it were anybody else toting a gun, coming up to a woman and forcing her to remove her clothing it would be treated, rightly so, as sexual harassment under threat of violence. Yet as they are police officers enforcing a bigoted law the onlooking crowd did nothing other than applaud, as well as throwing in racial slurs and harassment. I find the images of this absolutely heartbreaking. Imagine for a moment you're on the beach, enjoying a day of sea and sun with your daughter, and a group of armed men are suddenly standing over you and forcing you to remove your clothes. It's a sickening feeling, isn't it? You get a tightness in your throat, you start to shake, all eyes are on you; you're a spectacle, being humiliated in public. These women are enjoying the sun with their families, they are not criminals.

 Then why, just why, is this law being enforced?

 According to The Guardian the ban is being enforced by 15 local authorities in order to "citing public concern following recent terrorist attacks in the country." You know, rather than teaching the public about tolerance, putting programmes and services in place to help make Muslim communities feel safer and more included in their local areas, therefore less likely to want to get involved with extremist groups.  No, we'll just enforce violent bans to make non-Muslims feel safer by spreading Islamophobic messages and making spectacles out of them. That'll make French Muslims less likely to want to act out against the government and authorities!

 Except... No.

Source: Thanh Nien news

 By taking away somebody's basic human right to personally express their religion, all they are doing is fear mongering and alienating French Muslims. They are forcing them away, telling them that their religion and French values are not compatible, that they are outsiders. These attitudes also spark fear and mistrust of Muslims in the widers French population, with hate crimes against Muslims having trebled in 2015 that number is only set to rise if the message doesn't change from one of distrust and persecution to one of tolerance and coexistence. One argument used to justify the initial ban of face covering religious dress was to stop women being forced to wear them by men in their communities and families. Yes, this does happen in some areas - notably the Burqa being enforced by the Taliban and Daesh (the so-called Islamic State). Yet where is the liberation in violently forcing somebody to remove their clothing, as opposed to violently forcing them to wear something they do not want to?

 Many Muslim women in the West choose to wear the form of religious dress that they feel most comfortable with themselves. They find it liberating and a way to feel closer to God, who do the French government think they are to tell them "No, you are not allowed to feel comfortable with yourself and practice your religion in a way you want to"? It is famously a secular country yet most targeted hate crimes regarding dress have been against Muslims and Jews. There would be national outrage if groups of roaming atheists went around ripping off Nuns' Coifs and Habits, holding them at gunpoint and claiming their modesty is oppressing them.

 There is a long history of laws and 'morality' being used to police women's bodies, like the picture above which shows a police officer from the West Palm Beach police force measuring Betty Fringle's bathing suit to see if it's long and modest enough. Again in the eyes of a man with no regard for a woman's comfort and freedom of expression. It's been 91 years, can we not just bloody swim in peace?? Certainly this modern case reeks of racism and Islamophobia but it is just another example of taking away our right of how to present our own bodies in public.

 As a white, atheist woman I can't fully relate to these experiences. My closest experience to something like this would have been in secondary school where we would be made to kneel on the floor to see if our skirts were long enough (no option to wear trousers), or receiving detention for wearing a bra any other colour than white as it was a distraction to male pupils; often with older male teachers pointing out such infringements, it makes me feel physically sick thinking about these memories. Personally I love how burkinis look, when doing research for images I came across so many beautiful and well put together designs, why deprive women of the joy of going to the beach, spending time with family and friends and feeling comfortable while doing so? Women will never be free and equal until such instances no longer happen.

UPDATE: After publishing this post I spotted this very welcome contrast from Scotland, introducing a uniform Hijab for women in the police force. Thank you for being the voice of reason, Scotland!

The Atheist on the Bus goes Think Think Think...

Bus musing:

Since video games were first revealed to the public you had parent and religious groups going on about how they're graphically violent, even when they were nothing more than blurry pixels.

But I've just gone past a Catholic primary school with a really sad looking Jesus on the cross in the middle of the freakin playground! Now that and the whole story of the crucifixion is pretty gory, but you don't get parents kicking off about their kids being exposed to biblical story violence (unless they're atheists who don't want their kids exposed to religion).

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that religion has sparked more wars and mass shootings than bloody Minecraft.

Just a thought...

Thank You Body Form! #PeriodPride

(Some quarter to four musings about adverts)

Just seen the new (well I say new, first time I've seen it) advert for Body Form sanitary towels and I was actually really fucking impressed! No sarcasm, believe it or not, I'm actually praising something for once. Regular readers who enjoy rants may be disappointed but bare with me, there will be ranting about other sanitary products.

I currently can't find a YouTube link for the ad or any news articles on it but a little research has shown that Body Form are getting good on their adverts and steering away from the traditional shying away from menstruation that a lot of others tend to do. (I'll edit and add these in when I find them).

Like I say it's almost four in the morning, sat up watching telly before bed and the advert comes on the telly. I'm so used to seeing adverts for sanitary products and wanting to tear my fucking hair out!! Fair enough there has been a big move towards pseudo-feminist advertising of products aimed towards women/those in need of sanitary products/other femme products; however their main message is that you can only be an awesome, confident lady type IF you buy their products. While there's still a lot of this I'll finish that ramble and get into my main point.

This is the first advert where I've seen a sanitary product being USED.

Now some readers may recoil in horror here I don't mean used as in being bled on, I mean used as in being applied to underwear. It may seem silly but this is a big step forward, and a huge leap from that awful blue stuff that is always used in ads to show how absorbent something is. Seriously, why is it blue!? If your vagina is producing anything blue that you can't account for (example: this week I'd been wearing new jeans after their first wash and things got a little indigo in the knicker department) then PLEASE SEE A GYNO!!

It was just nice to see for a change that yes, those of us who have periods tend to get them in our underwear department (hard to believe I know!!). It was such a nice surprise that I actually had to rewind the TiVo and show my partner the bit where the pad is applied to the knickers. And that such an important part of the menstrual cycle isn't being overlooked.

Now there will be a part two to this on my issues with the majority of sanitary products - bleach, chemicals, the pharmaceutical side of it etc - but as it's just past 4 now I'll leave you on this nice one and go to sleep feeling a little better than I did earlier!

Sussex University: The Education and Justice System are Failing Women

 So many of you will have read about the horrific situation at Sussex University where senior lecturer Dr Lee Salter was allowed to continue teaching until media inquiries began coming in about him. The inquiries were made regarding his relationship with a student and the abuse she faced from him. When I saw this I doubt I was alone in my first reaction containing liberal use of the words 'fuck', 'fuck sake', 'fucking hell' and 'are you fucking serious?'. It made me sick to my stomach. I cried with anger. I screamed in frustration. 

 It's 2016, why was this allowed to happen?

 Salter received a six month sentence, suspended for eight, and given the extent of her injuries it further added to the mind fuck that is this case. He was in a position of power both inside and outside of the classroom, he actively made the choice to abuse this power, he actively made the choice to abuse Allison Smith. A six month sentence that he will most likely not serve doesn't even put a dent in justice for her. 

 Something else that occurred to me though, while reading about similar cases, is how prevalent a trend this is. Campaigns by police encouraging people to come forward and report domestic violence, politicians making promises that there will be help and support for victims and survivors; when cases like this make headlines - they only make up a small fraction of cases of domestic violence - it cuts through this rhetoric and exposes those promises for the steaming piles of horseshit they are. We are angry, really fucking angry, that a) in the 21st century we still have to protest and shout about this shit and b) a higher education institute, a place of learning, somewhere that is meant to be progressive and at the forefront of fighting against these issues is enabling a fucking abuser. They are allowing him to teach in an environment with potentially vulnerable young people, where he has easy access to young people to manipulate and exploit. And the fucking cherry on the top  of this shitcake? They're paying NINE FUCKING GRAND A YEAR for this, and he is being PAID for the pleasure of this.

(Fuck) The Education System

 By keeping him on with a violent criminal conviction they are sending a message to (mostly) women students that higher education is not a place for them. That their fees are being used to keep him there, allowing the university to say "look at what a good lecturer we have, your safety is secondary to us being able to show him off". Myself and others who have been involved with Student Union campaigns against intimate partner violence and domestic violence, through our institutions and nationally through the NUS, are blue in the fucking face and sick to the back teeth of shouting about this as an issue; yet normally we focus on on-campus, student-against-student violence. But violence from a lecturer against a student is a new one for many of us. Where is the statement from the UCU about this? Where is the outrage? It took 3,000 people signing a petition for the university to finally cave and for this bastard to lose his job.

 Think of it this way: if they had been 'just friends', or 'just student and teacher', and he committed the acts he did against here what would the public reaction be? What would the judicial reaction be? Would he be behind bars (where he belongs) for grievous bodily harm? Very probably. Would the university have kept him as a lecturer? Fuck NO! He'd be a risk to students. Oh wait... But because they were in an intimate relationship did that make it less serious? The old approach of 'a private matter', 'a lovers' tiff'? This is by no stretch of  the imagination me placing any blame on Allison because she was in a relationship with a lecturer, this is me being so fucking angry that the charge was likely a lesser one because they were intimately involved.

The (In)Justice System

 This brings me onto part two of my rant, primarily about his sentence. It also goes back to 2014 when I was assaulted by a man on the Metro, along with several others he attacked that day. the case came to court in May 2015 (swift justice, my arse). For a month spent doped up on painkillers for a shoulder injury, what were probably hundreds of calls to the police to see how the case was progressing, and a fear of using the Metro alone which still stands to this day (I'm much better at it now, I need a sticker :) ), myself and the others received.... £50 compensation each. He received that fine and probation. We received trauma and anger. He is free, more so than the lasting effects have left me feeling.It's not fair.

 In my second year of university I took a module called Gender, Crime and Justice; the content covered everything from women as victims of crime to women who commit crimes, the types of crimes, and the punishments they receive. The course was taught by Pam Davies, she's extremely experienced in the field of gender and the criminal justice service, it was one of my favourites of the year. What left me gobsmacked was the types of crimes women tend to be prosecuted and imprisoned for. The most recent statistics reveal that women make up less than 5% of the total UK prison population (at the time of this post this stands at 3,898 out of 85,188 - August 2016). While these figures erase Trans* and Non-Binary offenders it does show the staggering difference in prison population makeup. Fraud, theft and drug charges make up the most common types of offences committed by women in prison, with only 19% of women in prison are there for violent crimes. 

 Could somebody please justify to me how there are over 3,000 women in prison for non-violent crimes, yet men like Lee Salter are allowed - by law - to continue having their freedom. Now some may argue that the media backlash against him, losing his job blah blah blah may indicate that he's lost some of his freedom, despite not being in prison. But really? He is an abuser who is allowed to carry on roaming the streets, having the freewill and agency that he wouldn't behind bars, and not living in fear of, well, people like himself.



 By this point I feel absolutely done, it's times like this I want to just stop the planet and get off. It's further evidence to support switching off 2016, waiting ten seconds, turn it back on and see if that helps. Neither of these solutions will do any good/actually happen unless space travel hurries its arse up and becomes a lot cheaper. It's totally understandable to see these examples, drop out of activism and move to a remote island populated by only flamingos. But I don't think I could take the smell of bird poo for that long, so for now I'm going to clear my head (what most of this post was), take a good few deep breaths and do everything in my power to make sure that cases like this are not overlooked or blindly accepted as the justice and education systems doing their best ever again.



 Now somebody pass the gin!!

Bitch in the Kitch: Cooking Therapy and Self-Love

 Welcome back! After another (though slightly shorter than last time) hiatus I'm back to the bloggersphere, I did warn you folks! As has been mentioned in previous posts my mental health hasn't been great but it's certainly on the up at the minute. It's a bit like a seesaw, normally with the kid on one end having rocks in their pockets. At the minute though I think both kids have stopped and are just chilling, chatting and eating cake on there - with the odd wobble up or down. Anyway, glad to be back.

 Some of you probably already know that I'm quite a big foodie, I love everything from cooking it to eating it. And this might come as quite a surprise, but it's actually a common thing for those of us with/in recovery from eating disorders/distress to enjoy making food for various reasons; be it feeling we have control over food, control over our bodies through that, and/or loving ourselves and nourishing ourselves in the recovery process. I find that there's something therapeutic about following a recipe and making something delicious. I love the structure of recipes, almost in a way of being given instructions, otherwise I can get a bit panicky and edgy; recovery is a long (again) seesaw-y process and I'm still at the stage of needing to know EXACTLY how much and of what I'm putting into food. The kitchen has always felt like a safe haven for me. It's where I first learned the joy of making things with my hands, making play doh with my Mam, and baking and cooking as a child, the feeling of eaten something I'd created (yes, I may have had a few nibbles on the play doh...). It's where I'd first drink with my friend and her Mam in their kitchen, enjoying Saturday nights as a teenager giggling over wine and discussing the world ahead of us. It's where I feel I do my best for my partner; I may have my shortcomings but I'll always say I'm a damn good cook and being able to feed people I love brings me a lot of happiness, leaving me feeling whole and refreshed.

 While looking for something yummy to cook for myself and Paulobear I found myself on Cooking On A Bootstrap, the website of the incredible Mx. Jack Monroe featuring delicious recipes interspersed with political and social justice activism, I'm such a huge fan of them!!  Their writing is so poetic and relatable, and at the same time so accessible and non-threatening. Admission time: I've grown up always being told what a clever girl I am, yet at the same time I feel like a total, total fraud because I struggle with a lot of words; not the spellings or pronunciations of them but the meanings. I often end up feeling embarrassed in conversations when unknown words come up, so I'll either keep my head down and keep quiet, or feel like a muppet and ask what it means while thinking they must think I'm ridiculous. Or secret option number three: slyly Google a word, worry I look ignorant for looking at my phone instead of paying attention, then continue to berate and shame myself for not knowing the word. Getting back to the topic at hand though!

 I came across a delicious looking recipe today that I will be making for tea tonight, and not only do I have all the ingredients to hand (including fresh kale from my Grandma and Granddad's garden!!) it was so beautifully written that I just had to share it with you folks. Very aptly titled Self-Love Stew one part particularly stood out to me:

"The stirring is key. It is soothing. It is mindless, not mindful. Sod mindful. My mind is full enough. It is a minefield. Tonight I want to stir some stuff and stare at my hands or into nothing."

 It isn't written as a traditional recipe but it's more or less a much better alternative (for me personally, and most likely others of you out there) to guided meditation. I'm so fed up with being told I need to be more mindful, I find the whole concept difficult to grasp and apply to myself, so such advice on mindfulness and exercises to become 'mindful' etc stress me beyond what I already had been. It creates a feeling that I'm failing at mental health recovery, that I'm even rubbish at trying to get better. 

 Looking at cooking and eating as a way of showing care to myself and others has also been an incredibly helpful tool in my mental health and more specifically eating distress recovery, rather than food being a way to control and punish myself. And while I now and then get the odd stupid comment along the lines of "hahaha, you're a rubbish feminist! Being in a kitchen and looking after a man hahaha *tips fedora*" I find it to be the exact opposite. Using it as a tool to look after myself and making myself a better person to be around, I've never felt like a better feminist.

 A huge thank you to Jack Monroe for their wonderful recipe and their general being wonderful-ness, you are an incredible human being!!

 Much love, this Bitch is off to the Kitch! xx