Mum in the know

Knickerbocker Glory

2010-12-06T19:38:00.002Z

This is a guest post I wrote for my friend Sasha's new company website - Knickerbocker Glory. It's about the challenges facing girls today (and how her line of "underouts" solves one of these challenges!!).

Girls today are growing up in a world full of contradictions..

A budget challenge

2010-12-05T19:52:00.005Z

If you worked in the Treasury, which you may do (I do not), what information would you want to make available to those making budgeting decisions? If you were George Osborne (unlikely), what information would you want to have at your fingertips to help you make the choices that will impact the lives of your fellow country men and women? If you were David Cameron (also unlikely) and you were reviewing the draft budget produced by the Treasury - what questions would you ask to ensure that the budget was going to appropriately represent your policies and serve the needs of the country? Now revisit these questions keeping in mind that the budget you are about to make is the most radical and far-reaching budget in recent times.

Clearly much of your focus would need to be on figuring out quite how on earth you were going to balance the books. Having decided on a need to bring down the deficit by a certain amount - you have the final answer. Now all that remains is to figure out how to take the pain.

I've never worked in government, but I have worked in Finance for big business. The closest equivalent to a budget from a business perspective is probably the annual 5 year planning process. I'm sure most large organisations do this to some extent. From my experience it usually involves the central management team (possibly equivalent to David Cameron & team) deciding on some over-arching goals and boundary conditions within the context of the organisation's strategy. Then the individual business areas (say the individual government departments) come up with a financial and operational plan based on those objectives and submit them to the central group. There is then an extremely frustrating but necessary process in which the central group review the data from a variety of perspectives, and a certain amount of iteration is required to adjust before the plan is agreed.

The question in my mind is, what things should the central group (David Cameron and George Osborne and teams) be reviewing when making their decisions to ensure that the answers actually fit with the strategy? Clearly they need to figure out if the numbers add up, they need to figure out if key manifesto pledges have been adhered to, but over and above this - surely there is a set of data which any Prime Minister or Treasurer would want to know, which is how these changes are going to affect their country. How will they affect the poorest in the country? How will they affect the richest? What about families? What about pensioners? What about those with disabilities? What about single parents? What will happen to the income distribution? What will be the impact on business? What about children? What about women? What about men? Will there be a geographical impact?

It may be difficult to accurately calculate all of this - but some level of analysis could surely be done to start to answer these questions. Surely this analysis should not only be produced prior to the decisions being taken (or else what use is it?), but also it should be transparently available to the public who can see for themselves what the government is committing to. Instead, we have a government who proclaims that their spending review is progressive, only to be told by the Institute for Fiscal studies that it will be the poorest who are hardest hit. It requires independent analysis to show that women will be hit disproportionately hard by the budget, even though conducting a gender impact assessment is actually required by law.

To a simple mind, it seems as though there are 2 possible explanations here. First, that the government and treasury do all of this analysis, that the politicians know exactly the impact on their country, and yet they choose not to disclose it (or even worse, blatantly lie about it). Second, that they don't do this analysis, so they don't fully realise the impact of their decisions, and then have to defend it when they realise the truth some weeks later. It may be that the answer lies somewhere in the middle - that the analysis is done but only partially and perhaps not presented particularly well?

None of these explanations is good enough for me. I would like to live in a country where the government makes fully informed decisions, and communicates to me clearly the impact of those decisions. If they are making a decision that means the poorest carry a larger burden, or that women face disproportionately higher cuts, I would like to know that they knew this when making the decision, and that they have a reason for it. I could then weigh up whether or not I agreed with the reason, and my decision to vote for them next time would become clear.

Tomorrow the Fawcett society's legal case against the budget reaches the high court. This will determine whether or not a judicial review of the budget will be granted. Far from being an unnecessary burden on government to review the gender impact of their decisions, I would argue that a transparent impact assessment process for key decisions such as the budget is a necessary tool for any government. Whatever happens tomorrow, I hope that someone in the government thinks so too!

What we tell our children..

2010-11-03T20:10:00.008Z

I have been thinking recently about the unintended messages that our children hear day in and day out when we talk to them. In particular the messages we send to teach them their place in the world according to (amongst other things) their gender. I expect that most parents probably want "well behaved" children - but what are well behaved children? Are they children who analyse each situation, weigh up risks and alternative approaches and calculate a response - or are they children who behave in a manner appropriate to society's norms? Are we teaching our children to look at everyone as an individual, with their own specific interests and talents, or are we teaching them to judge based on appearance and gender?

A few examples from the last few days..
Me: "Hello, pretty one. You've been such a good girl today!"
Daughter hears: It's really great to be pretty and I'm pretty. Girls are good and always do what they are told. (Adds to herself - I don't think boys are as good as girls!)

Tom's Mum: "Tom, don't be so rough with the girls"
Tom (and all surrounding children) hear: It's good for boys to be rough but not girls. Girls might cry if you're rough with them - better just play with the other boys.

Swimming teacher: "Boys, you need to listen to me"
Children hear: The boys never listen. Girls always listen.

School teacher: "Boys and girls, time for class."
Children hear: Boys and girls are different, but we all have to go in to class now.

My friend to me: "My son's such a boy, he just loves trains. He'll sit for hours playing with the trains while my daughter colours."
Any children in earshot hear: Boys play with trains, girls like colouring.
Note: There are hundreds of different versions of this - just substitute cars, balls etc. for trains, and dressing up, playing with dolls etc for colouring.

An example that I particularly enjoyed from a recent playground experience:
The scene: Children's playground with large pyramid-like rope structure in the centre. My 3 year-old daughter is somewhere near the top, probably about 3-4 metres off the ground.
Father of 2 year-old boy positioned precariously about 1 metre off the ground: "Come on, son. If she can get up there you can too." (Looks slightly embarrassed at his son's lack of skills relative to older girl)
Boy hears: Boys must be better than girls at climbing, even older girls. I must be rubbish if I can't climb as high as that girl (starts crying)

A few minutes later...
Father of 5 year old girl: "Go carefully now, Georgia, you know what you're like!"
Georgia hears: I always fall off things, better not go too high.

It would give me great pleasure to be able to say that these things are just words, that they don't mean anything, and that children form their own opinions - but I just don't think it's true. My 3 year old regularly tells me that the boys are naughty and rough at school. At this age, she has figured out that gender is a major aspect of being well behaved. As a girl, she is expected to be "good", sit still, listen, and do colouring at school. She loves pink, she dresses up as a princess, and likes dolls. She also knows that boys are rough and sometimes naughty at school. They like trains, cars and balls and dressing up as super heroes. She even talks about what shapes she likes - girls like circles and hearts whereas boys like triangles and squares apparently!

Take the playground example from above - I realise it is just an anecdote, it is in no way a scientific study. However, it is reasonable to assume that Georgia might have climbed higher had she not been reminded of her clumsiness and lack of ability by her father. How often do these kinds of words limit children's abilities and aspirations, and how often are these limiting expressions used to describe behaviour that is non gender-typical? And let's take the little boy. It is extremely likely that he picked up on the competitive nature of his Dad's remarks. Over time he may learn the kinds of things he is expected to be better than girls at. He may try particularly hard in these areas, so as not to be embarrassed again in the future by being beaten by a girl.

And yet many, if not most, of my school-related friends and acquaintances believe that these gender differences are innate. They truly believe that their children are born already equipped with a set of skills and abilities marked in blue or pink. How is it that we are systematically overlooking this massive influence on our children and describing it as innate??? I don't think we are doing it consciously. Every one of us parents was brought up in a world even more focused on gender differences than today's world. We underwent the brainwashing ourselves at those tender ages and have mostly not even questioned it. So strong are those beliefs that we may unknowingly reinforce them as we make our way through life, propagating them into areas of our influence. Scientists might look at brain scans that (with the benefit of years of brainwashing) seem to suggest innate differences and write books about gender hard-wiring. Politicians might assume that women have an innate need to enter "caring" professions, and that men do not have the innate capabilities to look after small children, and influence policy accordingly. Employers might assume that a male candidate will be a better leader than a female candidate.

What would our own aspirations be if we could erase the years of brainwashing and start again with a clean slate? How would we talk to our children if they were born into this clean slate world. If gender was really not that big of a deal we might call our children by their names instead of by their sex. We might try to evaluate their abilities and interests as individuals. We might teach them that it is ok to play rough sometimes as long as no one gets hurt - and to watch out for those smaller, younger or less able than themselves. We might teach woodwork, football or sewing to any child that was interested - fostering talent where we spotted it. We might encourage all children to be caring individuals, knowing that one day they will probably be a primary carer for their own children. We might teach them that being fit and healthy is important, and that clothes should be practical - but are also a way of expressing individuality.

So, when you talk to your child tomorrow - listen to yourself. Which world are you teaching your child about? Your child will help create the world of tomorrow - so which world would you like that to be?

Back to blogging (a cowardly approach?)

2010-10-28T20:18:00.006+01:00

Ok - so I haven't posted anything since August. Because it was the summer holidays and then because my daughter started school which seemed like a big thing - but really those are just excuses. The real reason was that I had tried blogging, found some initial fame (see CiF article here), tried a couple of different approaches and then lost heart. I wasn't really sure why I was doing it, whether it was adding anything at all to the world or whether it was something I could enjoy doing as a permanent hobby (I'm one of those ideas people who loves to start new projects, but when it comes to finishing off I tend to get bored and ruin the whole thing!).

But in the meantime I have been thinking lots of feminist thoughts, I have also been to TAM London, a skeptic conference run by the James Randi Educational Foundation, and I have been reading. I recently read a book by Cordelia Fine called "Delusions of Gender", which I found particularly thought-provoking. More on that probably in a later post.

But the thinking part of me seems to have raced ahead of my public persona. I haven't yet figured out how to tell people about this part of my life, and actually I feel slightly embarrassed by it. I have talked about feminism or skepticism now with a handful of my friends but I seriously struggle with speaking out about things I disagree with that my friends and acquaintances say or do. I can certainly relate to my 5 year-old's nervousness about speaking out in circle time - I'd rather keep my mouth shut! And because I haven't had much practice - when I do become unwittingly involved in a conversation I don't handle it at all well. (Particularly clear in my mind is the conversation about Christianity I had over the phone with my Mum last week.) The thing is, if someone is happy with their religion / alternative medicine / unequal lifestyle (delete as appropriate) then I just don't want to get into the conversation. It would only be incredibly difficult, and if I happened to "win" the argument - they would be unhappy because they would lose faith in a part of their life. Better not to go there in the first place! And yet - it feels cowardly not to be honest about my beliefs.

The great thing about blogging is that I can write all the things I would like to be able to say directly but don't yet have the guts to. It enables me to think through the arguments without being interrupted, and be completely honest. And yet - there is a "Publish" button. And then after that I have the option to post it to facebook, or to twitter (easier because I don't actually know most of the people who follow me on twitter), and to do things like attach links to my emails. Each of these things requires courage, but each of these things is also a way in to a conversation. More conversations will actually help me to figure out what I do believe is right, and will also hopefully raise awareness of important issues with those who wouldn't have even thought about it before. And gradually I will be able to merge (or at least come to terms with the difference) between the public me and the thinking me.

The other hope that I have is that these conversations will lead me in the direction of what I'm going to do when my 3 1/2 year old starts school. From September I will have free time - at least till 3pm each day in term time. I want to put this to good use, both for my own sake and because I want to give something back to the world (I realise that sounds corny - hey I'm quite a corny person!). So anyway - here I am back at blogging. Next up will probably be parenting (in a gender-equal and critical-thinking kind of way!)

Rape anonymity - U Turn or a publicity stunt?

2010-08-01T18:22:00.004+01:00

News has been reported over the last few days of a U-turn from the government on rape anonymity. In fact, as far as I can see, there has been no announced U-turn on the policy, but there has been a decision not to legislate during this session. In the Commons on July 26th Rosie Winterton asked

"Will the Leader of the House ensure that when the Government have made up their mind about their policy on rape anonymity, it will be communicated when the House is sitting, especially given that there is another leak in today's papers suggesting that the Government have reversed their stated position?"

to which Sir George Young responded:

"The right hon. Lady knows that no legislation on rape anonymity is planned for the current Session, but of course the Government will make their views on the issue known at the right time."

Watching the process of this particular pledge has been an interesting one. It started with the coalition agreement which stated that

"We will extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants"

It didn't say that they would consult on the issue, or that they would consider it - but that they would do it. This, of course, caused a bit of a stir given that it hadn't appeared in either party's manifestos. Following on from this, on 2nd June, Harriet Harman took the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister in his first Prime Minister's Questions about the issue. He responded that

"On the issue of anonymity, I sat on the Home Affairs Committee that examined this issue; it was of course a Committee in a previous Parliament, dominated by Labour Members, and very ably chaired by Chris Mullin. We came to the conclusion that there was a case for saying that between arrest and charge there was a case for anonymity. The coalition agreement mentions the issue of anonymity, and we will of course be bringing forward proposals, which the House can then examine and debate."

The following week, a half-hour adjournment debate was scheduled, and Mr Crispin Blunt made it clear at this point that the government did not actually have a specific proposal, but that they would consider all options carefully before bringing proposals to Parliament.

A week later on June 15th it was Ken Clarke's turn, who said that

"We are not likely to have early legislation on the matter."

Interestingly - he was also asked by Maria Eagle how many women had been involved in the decision to include it in the coalition agreement, to which he replied

"the idea that the proposal was a male decision to the exclusion of female sensitivity on the subject is, frankly, slightly wide of the mark."

So, as early as June 15th it became clear that early legislation is not being sought. The more telling point I think is that the lack of substance in the government position, the lack of clear policy direction, and the speed at which legislation was delayed suggests to me that not an awful lot of thinking or analysis was done before those 9 words were published in the coalition document. Maybe, as Ken Clarke says, there was an awareness of female sensitivity on the subject. If so, it is perhaps more scary that it was included anyway.

The next stage of the saga occurred on July 8th, when Crispin Blunt addressed the house for the second time on the subject of rape anonymity. This session was fascinating because it sparked a massive interest from members, particularly from women and although the majority were Labour / Lib Dem, there were also active Conservative participants. It was a fascinating debate and Mr Blunt struggled time and again to answer the question of why rape defendants should be particularly singled out. But I am concerned primarily in this piece about the process, and this information came towards the end of his address when he said

"Finally, I would like to explain how we intend to take matters forward over the summer. I want to stress that we have been treating this issue as a priority, and we will continue to do so. We recognise that the subject is of considerable interest to many people inside and outside the House, and in another place. In the circumstances, it would be undesirable to allow it to slip..... Our aim is to set out our detailed position at an early date. We envisage making a further announcement in the autumn, as soon as possible after the summer recess."

He continued on to mention the summer period, saying the government would use it to engage the media, but that they saw no case for a formal consultation, which would be

"capable of obscuring the real issues, and would certainly delay matters considerably. That cannot be in anybody's interests."

So I hope you are now clear on the exact process as of this date. The government sees the issue as a priority and is gathering evidence, but there will be no early legislation and certainly no formal consultation. Does that make sense to you? What has happened since then I think only further muddies the water...

Over the last weekend it was reported in the Telegraph and elsewhere that the government had done a U-turn on rape anonymity. But was there actually any new information? Apparently Ministry of Justice sources confirmed there would not be legislation (for now or ever??) and the Press Complaints Commission is being engaged. Well, we knew that much on 8th July. It sounds great, and it has now been widely reported, but my concern is that we don't know the Government have done a U-turn. Yes, they are not pressing for early legislation (Mr Blunt confirmed on July 20th that he would look in the first instance for a "non-statutory solution"), but they are still following the process Mr Blunt set out on July 8th of engaging the PCC.

In fact, does it potentially benefit the government for it to be seen that there is a U-turn? Will it get everyone off their back while they explore achieving the same goal through press censorship? As of last count there were 105 signatures on Fiona Mactaggart's Early Day Motion asking the government to withdraw their proposal. Has all the action by these MPs, feminists and other activists worked, or is that just what the government would like us to believe for now? Certainly I do not believe Mr Blunt has had a change of heart. He has made much in the debates about his commitment to Teachers accused of crimes as well as those accused of rape, and until I hear him say so I will not believe he has given up on those goals. So, all you worthy activists, do not claim victory too soon. This is still a case worth following carefully.

The benefits of anonymity for rape defendants

2010-07-26T13:38:00.001+01:00

The coalition government wants to give anonymity to defendants of rape, well possibly - maybe just up to charge, actually perhaps there's a non-statutory way of doing it... In fact today the press has reported that there will not be a change in the law.

Since I set myself this task as my first evidence-based piece, I have struggled with a number of different issues; the mass of research to wade through, a lack of time, and my own emotional responses to the debate. Whilst up to my neck in research reports I also wondered how on earth I would ever distil this down to something shorter and more palatable than a text book.

In the House of Commons debate on this subject on 8th July, Stella Creasy said that

"The test for this proposal must be whether the intended benefits it could offer outweigh the risks that it poses to detection and prosecution of rape"

I broadly agree, and this has provided the basic method of my analysis, other than I will add that this test must be applied in the context of the overall aims and priorities of the government. In other words, there may be many proposals that could be beneficial, but to be effective a government must choose which ones help it to achieve its overall aims and goals, whilst weighing up priorities in a time and money-constrained world. So I have decided to split this piece into 3 distinct blog-posts. This, the first one, will deal with the evidence to support the benefits of introducing anonymity for defendants. The second with the risks to the overall convicting of rapists. The third will attempt to weigh up the benefits and risks in the relevant context.

So: How does anonymity work? How will it positively impact the right of the defendant to a fair trial? How widespread is the issue of false allegations of rape, and what impact is it having on those innocent defendants? Are there alternative measures that have been considered to protect those falsely accused?

Anonymity works by making it a criminal offence for the media to reveal the identity of the individual in question, or to reveal other information that might lead to them being identified. Anonymity is currently granted for complainants in rape (and in some other offences) although there is an opt-out which allows a judge to overturn this anonymity in certain situations. Anonymity does not in itself impact the court or trial proceedings, in which the complainant is still able to be named, so it is difficult to see the direct impact of anonymity on the trial itself. I do not have legal or trial experience – it is possible that pre-trial publicity could impact the decisions of trials by jury, but I have not seen anything either in the research, media reports or commons debates to suggest this is a reason for granting anonymity. Rather the arguments center around the issue that the publicity itself causes a media trial, which is potentially ruinous for the individual, who may never fully shake the stigma associated with the false accusation, and goes against our principle of being innocent until proven guilty.

So how widespread is this? The prevalence of false allegations of rape could be pretty much anything depending on which studies you believe. Philip Rumney’s paper "False Allegations of Rape" in the Cambridge Law Journal March 2006 is an excellent summary of the issues and evidence as regards false allegations of rape in law and its enforcement. It seems that although studies are not lacking in number, they vary widely in quality as well as in results, and suffer from inconsistency in the definition of false allegation, methodological flaws, small sample sizes, and the fact that deciding which cases are false allegations is predominantly subjective and therefore open to interpretation and prejudice. A selection of studies which Rumney collated into a table showed that the results ranged from 1.5% to 90% and the sample size from 18 individuals to 2643. Taking the total number of false allegations divided by the total sample group gives an overall rate of 12.5%, whereas the mean of the rates is 24% and the median 19%. Pick your number!

Baroness Stern has recently been widely quoted from her independent review of how rape complaints are handled by public authorities, as saying that

“the research that is available gives a wide range of suggested percentages. Some research suggests that a figure of eight to ten per cent of reported rapes could well be false reports. However, those we spoke to in the system felt that there were very few.”

Interestingly both Philip Rumney and Baroness Stern felt that more independent research into this controversial issue would be valuable and add to the debate about legal provisions of anonymity. To my mind the rate and impact of false allegations on innocent defendants of rape compared with other crimes is highly significant to this debate. Slightly bizarrely, I think, Crispin Blunt disagrees and said at the Commons debate on July 8th on this issue, that

“I want to make it clear that the issue of false allegations is not one of the reasons for considering changes to our policy on rape defendants. It would be were there strong evidence that a significantly greater number of false allegations are associated with rape than with other offences, but the Government do not believe that to be the case.”

To attempt to get some idea of the scale of these false allegations, let's look in a bit more detail at one study published in 2007 (after Rumney's article) by the Home Office, which looked at attrition in reported cases of rape of a female in England and Wales in 2003/4. 676 cases were randomly selected from 8 police forces in England and Wales. Of this sample, 8% of reported cases were identified as being false allegations, mainly through the victim’s own admission, and were “no-crimed” by the police. However, this 8% only refers to those false allegations that are specifically “no-crimed” by the police, and suggests that all cases that get as far as being called a crime are therefore not false allegations. This may be because in this study there were no cases of false allegation beyond the "criming" stage, or it may be that there were a number of undiscovered false allegations. In this study 68% of "crimed" cases do not result in a charge or caution of any kind, but the reasons for these cases being lost do not include false allegation (the majority are due to insufficient evidence or the case being withdrawn). Is it possible that some of those withdrawn at this stage were in fact false allegations? Another approach would be to look at the number of prosecutions for false allegations of rape, but there does not appear to be any data available on this. We know anecdotally of cases in the media (see this link for a list), but this does not prove that they are widely prevalent.

If we assumed 10% of reported cases were deliberate false allegations (a little more than the 8% above and in line with Crispin Blunt’s assertion) that would have been 1309 cases in 2008. What effect did this have on the assumed 1309? How many of them had their names published in the media, lost their jobs, suffered stress or committed suicide as a result, and how does this compare with other crimes? I’m sure we have all heard of anecdotal cases, but it is impossible to get a true ideal of scale without the research being done. Given that most of these cases of false allegation would be classified as a no-crime (8% out of our assumed 10% from the study mentioned above) and therefore not get as far as a detailed investigation, I can't believe that they all receive high profile "media-trials" - but I have no real evidence to back up that assertion.

The guidance notes issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers state that

"Generally people under investigation should not be named but they can and will, with certain exceptions, be identified once they have been charged. This approach balances the principles of open justice with the rights of the individual to privacy, a fair trial and damage to the reputation of individual if no charge is made against them.”

However they go on to say that if the media have the name already of someone they believe is being investigated, that name may be confirmed. This may explain why the cases that we get to hear of are often those concerning individuals already in the public eye. It also provides some credence to my assumption above that not all false allegations are subject to the trial by media issue.

This brings us on to another related question - are there other ways to solve the issue than legislation? The police guidelines above are clearly not stopping identities being published pre-charge, either because they are not adhered to or because the media knew about them anyway. During the House of Lords debate in 2003 when the sexual offences bill was returned from the Commons with an additional clause regarding anonymity for defendants, Baroness Scotland said that

“We have listened very carefully to the representations from those concerned about the real harm that can be caused by the reporting of defendants' details. We also recognise that much concern in such cases arises from the damaging publicity that is often generated pre-charge. We believe that informed and strengthened guidance to the police and the media is preferable to any change in legislation.”

Following this the Press Complaints Commission issued a note in 2004 to clarify the guidelines relating to those accused of crime (see here and here) but as far as I could tell there is nothing which really addresses the issue head on. This is about as specific as it gets:

"Given that there will be occasions where allegations turn out to be ill-founded, particular care must be taken to ensure that they are presented accurately and that conjecture is distinguished from fact."

There is some evidence that Blunt may now be agreeing with Baroness Scotland as he said last Tuesday that

"We want in the first instance to try to find a non-statutory solution, and given that we had 21 Criminal Justice Acts passed over the 13 years of the last Administration, I am sure that Labour Members will understand why we are loth to find even more statutes to put on the statute book"

There is 1 other argument that I have heard that relates to the benefits of extending anonymity to defendants. It was mentioned by both Ken Clarke and Crispin Blunt on separate occasions in the Commons. It is to do with the fact that the complainant has anonymity which apparently creates an uneven playing field, thereby disadvantaging the defendant. I have to admit that I find this case a hard one to make. Equality between the two parties (complainant and defendant) sounds right if you don't really think about it. But we know that the complainant is named in the court and during the trial - so from that perspective they are treated the same. It is possible that the impact is indirect, with the complainant feeling they have the upper hand and this on some level influencing the outcome of the trial, but this seems a pretty flimsy case to make. The main reason for giving the complainant anonymity is because it is in the public interest to do so, encouraging more victims of rape to come forward. There is no equivalent public interest argument for giving anonymity to defendants. When anonymity was first introduced in 1975, the Heilbron Committee (Report of the Advisory Group on the Law of Rape: Cmnd 6352, December 1975) concluded for this reason that anonymity should not be extended to defendants, and the Fifteenth Report of Criminal Law Revision Committee, Sexual Offences, Cmnd 9213, April 1984 also agreed saying that

"the tit for tat argument, that the man should be granted anonymity because the woman has it - is not in our opinion valid despite its superficial attractiveness"

Having reviewed the evidence, what are the benefits of granting anonymity to defendants? It is clear from anecdotal evidence that real harm is sometimes caused by reporting details of innocent defendants, yet we do not know how widespread this is, how many innocent defendants are having their details published, and what adverse affects this is having. Bringing in anonymity would certainly benefit those who are falsely accused of rape, but is this enough to justify introducing it? If we have no evidence to demonstrate that rape is a crime that has a particularly high rate of false allegation, and no evidence (other than anecdotal) as to the impact on those falsely accused of rape compared to other crimes, why would the government choose to do this?

Personally I do not believe the equality argument between complainant and defendant, but I would be prepared to consider the possibility that rape has a particularly high rate of false allegations and defendants in this case deserve special protection. To convince me of this fact I would need to see a detailed, objective study of the rate of false allegations and of the impact of these on the individual. Given that the government do not appear to be commissioning any new studies (although the Ministry of Justice has been asked to produce an independent assessment of the current research and statistics on defendant anonymity in rape cases - delayed now until Autumn) it seems I will not be convinced in the near future.

In the next blog post I will look at the evidence for the potential negative impacts of defendant anonymity on the detection and prosecution of rape.

Researching rape anonymity

2010-06-14T21:12:00.001+01:00

If you read my last post you will know that I am going to try my hand at writing well researched, evidence-based pieces on gender-equality issues. This is a bit of an experiment. I have a feeling that my career and education should have prepared me well for this kind of work, and that I should be at least reasonable at it. On the other hand the writing will be certainly not be as passionate as the personal posts I have written so far, and so there's a danger it will end up being incredibly dull. At this stage I'm really not sure which way it's going to go.

The topic I have picked is the issue of rape anonymity. When the Final Coalition Agreement was published last month, 9 words in particular caused a massive reaction from women's groups across the country - "We will extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants". As this was largely a surprise (neither the Conservative nor Lib Dem manifestos had contained this pledge) it received a large amount of media coverage. Since then David Cameron has partially backtracked, saying in his first Prime Minister's Questions that he had sat in a Home Affairs Committee and that "We came to the conclusion that there was a case for saying that between arrest and charge there was a case for anonymity". Fiona Mactaggart tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the government to withdraw it's proposal, and you can sign an online petition here to drop the proposal.

As I read various articles quoting statistics (e.g. 6% of reported cases end in conviction) I found myself questioning and wanting to know more. Is that 6% of all cases, or just those reported to police, or those that police designate as a crime? How does this compare to other crimes? How does the rate of false allegation compare from one crime to another? What are the arguments for granting anonymity to the defendant and why propose it now in a coalition agreement? Was there any supporting data?

And so it has become my first evidence-based project. I am now at the stage of being completely inundated with data, reports and surveys on a subject which 2 weeks ago I knew very little about. It is absolutely fascinating and I hope that at some point soon I will emerge from the woods in a position to put together a coherent blogpost on the topic. In the meantime, if anyone has anything they think I should particularly consider on this topic, please let me know and I will add it to the mix.

Feminism, an evidence-based approach

2010-06-07T09:35:00.000+01:00

It's been about 2 months since I "came out" as a feminist. It wasn't that I'd been deliberately hiding it before, just that I hadn't sat down and properly thought it through....

From the time I left my all-girls school and went to a mixed 6th form, in which I was often the only girl in my classes (Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Electronics), through my time at University studying Engineering, and throughout my career at bp in Finance, I have been accustomed to competing in a world of men. In fact I quite liked this world of men and was a pretty good competitor. I still remember vividly the kick I used to get out of coming top in a physics test, climbing the tallest tree in the road, or out-running the boys in kiss-chase. It was the thrill of beating the boys at their own game, and being respected for it. Now I'm sure there are all kinds of sexual and Freudian interpretations of this, but the point is that I have never in my life for one minute doubted that women can be and are at least as intelligent as men, as competitive as men, and as capable in almost all ways. I guess at the same time I realised (perhaps subconsciously) that men often did not believe this, and so part of the thrill came from proving them wrong. I didn't think about calling myself a feminist, I just saw this as life's game, and rejoiced in each point scored for team womankind.

Now that I have put a name and a label to these feelings, a whole new sense of responsibility and commitment seems to have arrived along with it. It's no longer acceptable for me to participate in the game for my own benefit, it has to be a broader participation for the benefit of equality. And yet I realise that my own narrow experiences in life cannot in any way qualify me to speak for all women. And so I have started reading, and have become painfully aware of the level of injustice and inequality still in society today. I believe sexism is still institutionalised in schools, in businesses and in government and we are far from an equal society. I have also become aware of the passion and strength of feeling that exists on this topic. I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise to me that just as I believe so strongly in equality, there are those who believe equally as strongly in subordination and suppression of women. But what has really struck me is not only that feminist articles seem to attract opposition from men and women alike, but also that feminists can be very scathing of each other. There is no one accepted brand of feminism, no one set of approved ideals that all feminists sign up to, and feminists come from all different walks of life and will undoubtedly have different priorities. One thing that does seem to unite most feminists is the level of passion they feel. This passion combined with these differences leads to extremely high levels of public conflict. It is a bit like a political party without a manifesto or party whip - massive in-fighting and backbench revolting!

It is therefore with a certain amount of trepidation that I am contemplating actively researching, studying and writing about feminism. Not only is being a feminist still pretty uncool these days, and feminists themselves often a divided bunch, but I think there will always be an inertia, a resistance to change, a "regression to the norm" by society which will attempt to drag us backwards again, ridiculing and silencing feminist ideals along the way. And yet I don't think I would embark on this ambition unless I felt that it could make a difference. The internet is connecting feminists from around the world and allowing open debate, and just from my brief 2 months of research I have found there are many feminist websites, writers, and bloggers out there. Will one more make a difference? Maybe. One more writer with a passion for equality, a passion for data and a passion for evidence. One writer with a career based in analysing and interpreting data and presenting it to inform decision-making. One writer used to putting logical and economic arguments to (mainly male) managers. Maybe...

And so this is the approach I will bring to feminism. A well researched, evidence-based analysis of feminist issues with proposed solutions. I will link to my sources so that readers can examine the evidence, I will welcome constructive debate, and I will let the data and the analysis do the talking. I am a bit nervous, but quite excited. I feel as though I may have found my second career.

Mum beyond petroleum

2010-05-13T20:57:00.000+01:00

Since I started writing this blog I have known I wanted to write about my decision to leave my career at bp to stay at home and look after the children, but I have had so many thoughts whirling around in my head that it has been very difficult to commit the story to keyboard. So this is a start, and there will probably be more to follow as I figure it out...

When I resigned from bp, many people asked me why, and I gave a very sensible, well thought-through, and slightly sad answer. I enjoyed the job immensely, I was very proud to have been part of one of the only job-shares at team leader level that I knew of, I loved my team and felt enormous satisfaction from helping them, protecting them from crap, and seeing them do well and I felt I was good at it. But it wasn’t enough. The hard work and long hours, the getting home for the nanny, the interrupted night’s sleep, the running the household – all of it together was tough, and when we realised that as a family we could afford for me to stay at home – well it was a no-brainer!

So, another intelligent 30-something woman bit the dust. Another woman lost to a world of children and household matters. That is until about 2 weeks ago, when part of my brain imprisoned inside a world of grocery shopping, cleaning and school runs suddenly shouted “enough”. All at once I was angry and frustrated, bored with my routine – bored of cooking sausages, putting on laundry and brushing children’s hair, bored of picking up toys, stacking the dishwasher and reading the gruffalo, and bored of being in my house for so many hours in one day. My brain was craving true intellectual stimulation. My husband started coming home to a “mum-on-strike” kind of situation. The house was a state, the children were under-stimulated and grumpy, and a highly emotional wife was trying to discuss politics and the meaning of life!

Luckily these things pass – but once let out of jail, this part of my brain has refused to shut down. It has caused me to think about my decision to leave bp in a different way. In the world of work we might have called it a post project review, or even a root cause analysis to pinch a term from the world of Health, Safety and Environment. What are the underlying factors that have lead me and so many other women to quit their jobs and stay at home? Why is it that women, who fought so hard for the right to work, are choosing the traditional role of the house-wife and mother? My analysis goes something like this:

Women have won the right to work, to vote and supposedly to be paid equally with men. To accommodate this new load of women in the work place, society has made a few adjustments – maternity leave, some part-time jobs, flexible working, parental leave. However, the world of work is still largely designed by and for men, with the expectation that they will work full time to support the family, and the women will maybe work or maybe stay at home. It is not based on true equality. It is in this world, somewhere inbetween suppression of women, and true equality, that decisions need to be made. It is in this world, of a performance culture which drives and rewards long hours at work, of predominantly full-time jobs, of a predominantly male environment with predominantly male bosses and male senior leaders, and of a culture in which the majority of household chores, cooking, cleaning, laundry and child care are done by women, that the decision has to be taken as to how to divide up the new responsibilities of caring for a baby and the additional household chores that brings with it.

Let’s examine this decision from the point of view of a young couple. It is likely that when a new baby is born the man (let’s call him Peter) will be earning more than the woman (Jane) (men working full time without kids are paid 6.3% more than women). Jane is given the right to 6 months or longer off work, which then not only places her squarely in the role of key child-care provider and household manager, but also often serves to increase any gap in pay that may have existed. Now cleverly positioned as the one who is best placed to look after the baby, and the one with the deepest emotional attachment to the baby, she is likely to request flexible working or a part-time role. This then reduces significantly her chances of promotion, it reduces the amount of time she spends on the job and on training, and in many cases it reduces the likelihood of her being able to achieve a positive rating or ranking on her performance appraisals. As a result of all this Jane is likely to downgrade her career aspirations, and may find her interest and satisfaction with the job decrease as well. A second and third child may well follow, and by now the cycle is well set up, further maternity leave, further household duties. For Jane now, life is now pretty tough. For Peter, he certainly has less sleep than before, and finds his weekends less flexible, but he has worked full time throughout (except a week’s extra paternity leave for each baby) and is now earning considerably more than Jane.

So this is the situation. At this point, Peter and Jane are quite likely to weigh up their financial position, the level of stress in the household, the emotional feelings involved and make a sensible and well-thought through decision for Jane to give up work.

Isn’t it great that she has the choice, though. (I have found that this is what people tend to say at this point in the conversation). Bollocks! What kind of a choice is that? If you choose, as I did, to stay at home, you do so knowing that you are losing your independence, that you are further reducing your future earning capability, and that you are by accident actively promoting the sexist suppression of women that you feel so strongly against. If you choose to go back to work full time and fight the system, then you will have a constant battle in a world dominated by men, and will struggle to find the quality time to spend with your children, and if you choose the part-time route it is likely that you will struggle to find jobs that really satisfy you.

This root cause analysis is the cause of the anger and frustration within me these last 2 weeks. But it is this kind of anger and frustration that we need if we are going to continue to move progressively towards true equality of the sexes. It is this kind of anger and frustration that will convince the government to offer equal paternity and maternity leave, that will convince companies like bp to offer a massive increase in part-time roles, job-shares and flexible hours to both men and women, and this kind of anger and frustration that will push more women into politics and into influential roles in society, where we can start to re-dress the balance.

So you may be forgiven for thinking that someone who stays at home to look after their children is a traditionalist at heart. For me, it is this decision to stay at home which has ultimately made me realise how strongly I feel about the search for equality, and how important it is to be a feminist today.

Mums and the election - a process of extrapolation

2010-05-06T13:40:00.000+01:00

Our 2nd Mums in the know discussion was held last night to talk about, no surprises here, the election!

We were 3 conservative and 2 lib dem mums discussing the economy, education, health, crime and immigration. We debated, we discussed, we had opinions, and we were all intending to vote today. Fantastic! and yet it is also fascinating that 5 intelligent, educated women who spent a considerable amount of time researching topics, comparing manifestos and reading relevant articles found real answers elusive. The election PR machine seems to be focused on buzzwords and soundbites that will appeal to "the masses" but where is the substance behind it? Where is the clear, reasoned policy built on evidence and independent thinking?

Take the economy: A massive £70+bn gap to close in the deficit and yet no real plans as to how to cut spending, and no impact assessment of those not-yet-existent cuts. The potentially biggest game-changer of all and yet the electorate are left to somehow extrapolate from "big society" or "a future fair for all" to the reality of serious spending choices. Whatever the difficulties ahead of us, the need to cut the deficit so dramatically also provides us with some opportunities. Opportunities to reduce income inequality, to cut waste and bureaucracy, and to make sure women are not further disadvantaged. Unfortunately mention of these opportunities does not fall neatly under one party, and I am left to choose between them.

We didn't talk last night about the impact of this election on women, but if we are expected to use the same extrapolation technique from an election devoid of any coverage of senior women candidates, then we would be seriously worried. The Fawcett campaign found that fewer than 1/5th of candidates supported detailed moves to improve gender equality. Although Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg both answered yes to questions about improving the gender pay gap, increasing support services for rape victims, and conducting a gender impact assessment of deficit cutting proposals, David Cameron referred instead to his party's general position on gender issues. His record on abortion rights and his focus on tax breaks for married people suggest to me (based on my new extrapolation process) a party that will try to take us back towards traditional expectations of women staying in the home. So for this reason alone the conservatives will not be getting my vote.

I did not feel any of this angst as I positively skipped and bounced to my voting station this morning, feeling genuinely excited and empowered. Others I talked to this morning seemed to have a similar feeling of excitement, that something is changing, or beginning perhaps. Maybe it is the prospect of a coalition government bringing some real debate to the table, maybe it is the effect of the televised debates which have struck a chord, or maybe just the thought of not having to see Gordon's smile for much longer!

Whatever the reason, I felt that my vote for Lib Dems today (even in a Tory safe seat) was a vote that counts by someone who cares. A vote for voting reform, a vote for parliamentary reform, a vote for libel reform, and a vote for the party who seem to me to be most open to practical evidence-based policy making.

Mums and Feminism

2010-04-26T16:52:00.000+01:00

Last month heralded the first session of the "Mums in the know" discussion group. 5 of us gathered together over pizza and wine to discuss "Feminism in the 21st century", a topic picked by me following the 100th International Women's Day and the associated publicity.

I picked the topic almost at random, but strangely as I started to read articles on feminism, watch the BBC4 series on Women, and in particular as I read Kat Banyard's book "The Equality Illusion" I began to get more and more obsessed by it. Suddenly I started looking at pretty much everything in my life through a different lens. I began to understand why my decision to quit my job to look after the kids (even though I had a ground-breaking and successful job-share) was not really a decision at all. I began to wonder about the influences in my life which lead to my taking a degree in Engineering and the subsequent decision to quit engineering and take a job in Finance instead. I shuddered when the pre-school Mother's Day service included a thank you song to Mummy for cooking the food, and I wondered at the truth of the school's equality policies when the deputy headmaster thanked the "ladies" of the pre-school for their role in putting the service together. I vowed to buy a rape alarm as I read about the pervasive use of pornography and it's predominantly violent manner - towards women of course. I began to think about the way my husband and I are bringing up our two girls, about the role models they see, the activities they engage in and the other children they play with. And I was intrigued as to whether any of the other Mums in the know would have become hooked in the same way as me.

The evening arrived. I was nervous. The whole thing was my idea and I really was not sure how it was going to work out, whether anyone would have bothered doing any research, and quite how the debate would flow. Although most of the women present have had (or still do have) serious jobs, the only familiar conversation between us is about childhood bugs, tantrums, sleep deprivation and the like. As the others filed into my kitchen I got the sense that I wasn't the only one with first-night nerves.

Although perhaps a little stilted at first, the discussion got going and we talked about the gender pay gap, discussed whether women can really have it all, about the sexualisation of society and the impact of pornography. For once we were having an in-depth, relatively knowledgable discussion about something other than childcare, and yet as the evening ended I felt strangely dissatisfied.

As I've analysed this feeling over the last couple of weeks I think it comes down to this. As women and mums in this society, we are very rarely truly honest with each other about our opinions and feelings. We realise that the way to make friends, get things done and to impress people is to be pleasant and nice. If we disagree with someone - we find an appropriate way of making it seem as though we really agree, without telling an outright lie. When we find someone who seems aligned on the key (predominantly childcare) issues, we breathe a sigh of relief and are quick to laugh at the expense of the person with whom we had only recently pretended to agree.

So it really doesn't seem surprising, then, that relaxed, open, honest debate about a subject on which none of us know the others' opinions, might be a little stilted. In fact I found myself veering from my "workplace meeting persona" to my "school playground persona" and back again. How is it that as an educated, intelligent human being I should find it so difficult to talk honestly and openly about my opinions? Would a group of Dads sitting there have the same reservations? Is there something about the way women learn to communicate with each other that fundamentally inhibits free debate? Or is it just me?

While I don't have the answers to these questions, I do have some resolutions. I will try to teach my girls that women can have opinions on all kinds of different topics; I will try to disagree honestly with those I disagree with; and at our next Mums in the know I will relax and realise that it doesn't matter if everyone agrees with me - it matters that we have the debate.

A virgin blogger

2010-04-23T19:54:00.000+01:00

Ok so this is my first ever blog. I am feeling quite proud of myself for having taken this first step. I feel intuitively that this is a very positive thing to do, but am as yet unsure as to where it is going to take me. Through a large part of my life I have been an observer, tending not to have (or at least verbalise) strong opinions unless I am super-confident of my subject area, and being generally happy to go with the flow.

Over the last five years of pregnancy and baby stuff (my two girls are now 4 1/2 and 3) I haven't even had time or the energy to have opinions. In fact it is only recently that I have allowed myself to watch programs other than Top Gear - most others were censored for being too emotionally draining.

So it is liberating to find that as I start to have snatches of time to myself I do have opinions and I do feel strongly about certain things. At the same time I've discovered that there is a massive online community that I was never previously aware of, which enables debate on all kinds of issues.

So far I have done 2 things about this liberating revelation. First I have created a discussion group called "Mums in the know", which is made up of a few of my closer Mum friends. We meet once a month over pizza and wine to discuss a pre-chosen topic which we have all spent time researching. It may seem crazy but without this we spend 90% of our time discussing our common interest - children. It requires structure to escape from that mould, and so that is what I have created. We are only on our second month so it's a little early to tell how successful this will be. So far the signs are encouraging.

The second thing I have done is to create this blog. My vague plan is that this will be an outlet for my opinions on topics such as feminism, equality, evidence-based decision making, and perhaps also a reflection on our monthly Mums in the know discussions.

I am a bit nervous and also feel slightly gratuitous for writing this many words largely about me - but hey ho I've done it now. Here goes...