First allow me to make some statements from the viewpoint of my beliefs.
All violence is wrong.
Violence against women is abominable and should be eradicated.
Most men are not violent.
The minority who are violent either have reasons for their violence (psychological damage, upbringing, street culture) or are rewarded for their behaviour.
We live in a sexualised society where women are demeaned through pornography (I have nothing against eroticism or graphic sexual imagery – sex is normal – but most pornography depicts women as sluts being bebased and abused).
Sexism is as bad as racism and leads to misogyny.
Women should be free to go where they like, wear what they like and act what they like without fear of violence, rape or murder.
Many men feel the same fear. They too are preyed on by these violent individuals.
Minority groups and gay men are also victimised.
How To Deal with this culture.
The main problem is that this attitude is firmly entrenched in most human societies.
In many parts of the world women are treated as second-class citizens, possessions or chattels. They are controlled by men, made to dress in certain ways, have FGM performed on them, have subservient roles, are kept from power and kept in the home performing menial tasks and producing babies.
Female education is a battle. Equality is a dream.
Even in liberated western countries there is little equality. Our CEOs, Politicians and Religious leaders are predominantly men. Women only recently were given the vote. Their status is still lower than that of men.
We still, as a culture, value macho male decisiveness and posturing over female intellect. Hence we elect macho fools with abusive misogynistic attitudes over sensible women and excuse their sexism and abuse of women. So Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Erdogan and Modi are elected.
The performance of these macho men is lamentable – one only has to look at the pandemic and compare the death-rates with that of female leaders such as Jacinda Ardhern.
Yet still we take macho sexist arrogant males over sensible females.
I spent thirty-six years in education, including head of the pastoral system and as headteacher, attemping to eradicate bullying, sexism, racism and macho culture (with great success).
It is not easy and cannot be achieved by tagging on a few lessons into a crowded curriculum. It has to be a pervasive culture.
The trouble is that many boys come from backgrounds and cultures which are sexist and misogynistic. They are brought up without respect for women. Women must be masked, covered up, consigned to cooking, housework and babies, have no power, are segregated and given secondary roles. They already have a negative view of women and do not see them as equal. Many cultures – particularly the Abrahamic ones – Islam, Judaism and Christianity, subjugate women.
Many boys come from streets where if you do not fight and stand up for yourself you become bullied, beaten up and ostracised. Gang culture values macho posturing and misogyny.
Some females encourage misogyny. They call each other sluts. They bully and they deliberately incite violence against other women.
Macho boys are rewarded with respect from their peers for their ripped bodies and violent ways. They gain status from being tough, rough, violent and sexist.
Macho boys are rewarded with sex. It is the tough hardnuts who get the girlfriends and sex while the kind, considerate boys are considered geeks and given low status.
Time and again I have had to deal with violent incidents and watched videos of these tough kids beating someone to a pulp. Very often the incident was incited by a girl and has a bunch of baying girls demanding even greater violence.
Our justice system and policing are sexist. Girls who dress immodestly or get drunk are said to be asking for it and are not taken seriously. Girls who are walking alone at night or going through dangerous areas are considered foolhardy and asking for it. In rape cases, girls who are sexually active are considered almost as if they can’t be raped and it is no big deal.
How to deal with it.
I do not think it is as simple as education or even getting males to take responsibility. Most males do. Most males are victims of this macho culture themselves. They do not support sexism or misogyny but if they stand up against the macho minority they become victimised, labelled as weak and bullied.
So:
I really do not think this is easy to solve. I think that Trump and Brexit have given power to violent groups of macho fascists, racists and misogynists. It has put back the climate of racial and sexual harmony a few decades. We were making good progress but the condoning of Trump’s misogyny, Johnson’s philandering and the open racism that underlies both leaders is all part of the same problem.
Until we change our culture, systems and voting patterns we are stuck with endemic racism, sexism and misogyny. It comes from both the top and the bottom.
Time for radical change!!
There should be no place for violence against women!!
Hide
Hide your camera,
Hide your cash,
Conceal your wealth.
Wear no jewellery,
Disguise yourself.
You are entering the land of hopelessness.
Hide your conscience too;
Because their poverty is down to you.
In a world of such inequality
What we have creates their misery.
Cream rises to the top
But so does shit.
Our smart clothes
And easy lives
Rubs their noses in it.
There is nothing to lose
When there is no way to gain.
They are victims on the streets
In a world
Run by
The criminally insane.
Opher 18.1.2016
Hide
I wrote this poem after arriving in Brazil. We were told that poverty was rife and crime and violence endemic. We should take care at all times and be sure to hide all valuables such as cameras. We should leave money and jewellery in our safes.
I walked around Recife and Olinda. There were little children with young teenage mothers begging in the streets. There was garbage and there were shanty towns of corrugated iron. There were also immense multimillion pound apartment blocks for the wealthy.
This system does not happen by chance. It is the result of the schemes we operate. We human beings have designed a way of operating that create poverty. The inequality is the result of how we run things. It does not come about naturally.
It does not have to be this way. We can design better systems. What prevents us from designing something fairer is greed and the desire for power.
I consider both of those desires to be criminally insane.
I would prefer to live in a fairer world where there were not huge numbers of people living on the edge. That would benefit them and me.
This chasing after money and power leaves misery in its wake.
There are better ways.
Firstly we could stop voting in power-mad politicians and secondly we could start thinking more globally.
So what do you have to do in order to get impeached these days? If inciting treason and the storming of the Capitol is not sufficient what is? Do you actually have to kill people and be at the front leading an armed mob into the Capitol and string up Pelosi and Pence? Or would that be thought OK by a majority of Republicans too?
It seems to me that the Trumpists are continuing with their threats. Any Republican in the Senate or Congress who speaks out against Trump is inundated with death-threats to themselves and their family and fears for their re-election. Violence and intimidation rules. It’s the rule of armed thugs.
The Republican Party is in thrall to Trumpist extremists – and there are a lot of them.
When are Republican leaders going to stand up against the intimidation and grow a backbone? When are they going to rediscover some shreds of morality?
When are they going to stop spouting Trumpist lies that they know are untrue?
I think America is in dire trouble. While there is no accountability for violence and lies, while there is mob rule, democracy and morality are in tatters.
Republicans should all be ashamed of the party they have been voting for – it stinks!
Sacha Baron speaks great sense. We are living in an age of unreason. Conspiracy theories abound – lies, hate and propaganda. People are being led by demagogues in an age of darkness and superstition. These populist leaders are preying on peoples’ fears and stoking hatred. At the same time, they are waging a war against nature for profit. Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson are all tearing up environmental legislation in order to maximise profits for greed. We are fed conspiracy theories and anti-science through social media – there is no global warming, the earth is flat, 9/11 was the CIA, the UN is a Deep State conspiracy, science is in the pay of politicians, all politicians are corrupt, experts are all wrong, we never landed on the moon.
This allows superstition and populist propaganda to flourish.
People are being duped by right-wing politicians for their own selfish lust for power and wealth.
It needs controlling.
Trump’s 40,000 lies have been tweeted to his base. They are a stream of poison.
The perverted minds of modern-day barbarians using religion as an excuse for their barbaric thuggery.
History is littered with the horrendous acts of religious fanatics as they force their ridiculous views on others through torture, cruelty and the infliction of as much pain and terror as they can manufacture.
No sane god would sanction the cruelty of religious fanatics.
Stoning
Burning
Beheading
Crucifixion
Impalement
Indoctrination of children
Judaism and Christianity have both had their barbaric pasts but Islam is presently the most inhuman.
If there was a god who sanctioned such things he would have to be fundamentally evil.
It is time we put religion back into its mediaeval past along with all its crusades, jihads, pogroms, inquisitions, blasphemy laws and other superstitious nonsense constructed out of the fears, weaknesses, stupidity and flawed logic of men.
There is no god. It is time we stopped using that excuse and grow up. There is no justification for beheading an innocent man, flying a plane full of innocent people into a building or forcing women to have to wear burqas.
Let us build a new zeitgeist built on fairness and equality!!
