Vagina Dentata

I haven’t blogged about abortion for, oh, 3 or 4 posts so thought I’d revisit. Prompted by a great blog about the horrendous Nadine Dorries MP on Liberal Conspiracy from the Lay Scientist.

I written quite a lot about this in the past particularly at the time of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (now Act) and the activism I was involved in then (I’ll get around to posting some of that information here at some point).

This blog is going to focus on abortion as a public health issue, but I’m also working on a post about data on abortion in the UK and the oft repeated claim that ‘there are too many abortions’ which I believe is based on flawed logic. But that post requires some graph compiling so will take me a little longer. In the meantime…

I personally do not see abortion as a moral issue but primarily as a public health issue. As a medical procedure we treat it differently to any other, such as the continuing need for two doctors’ signatures which seriously undermines the concept of women’s consent to medical procedure. No other procedure puts the authority squarely with the medical profession rather than the female patient, and this is not an authority that health professionals are comfortable with and have repeatedly called for this to be changed.

Globally approximately 67,000 women every year due to unsafe illegal abortions. The deaths of women due to unsafe abortions are counted among the staggering statistics on maternal mortality where it is believed that a woman dies every minute due to reproductive related issues. The vast majority of these deaths are preventable easily and cheaply and primarily through empowering women through access to information, education and even the most basic healthcare that their predominantly developing world country can offer (99% of maternal deaths happen in the developing world).

Plus, all of these statistics are at best an educated guess because statistics on maternal mortality are notoriously terrible. The fact is that we don’t count dead women and we particularly don’t count those who have died after a botched abortion.

The best way to prevent deaths through unsafe abortion, is unsurprisingly, to offer access to safe and legal abortion. This has had a dramatic affect on the maternal mortality and morbidity stats for Bangladesh.

Not only does a restriction on access to abortion put women seeking an abortion at risk, it also regularly creates a chilling effect that prevents doctors performing therapeutic abortions for ectopic pregnancies and even from performing routine gynaecological examinations. This is most starkly apparent in Nicaragua where the complete ban on abortion has even lead the State being taken to the UN Committee against Torture on the basis of their abortion laws amounting to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

The chilling effect can extent to women being criminalised when they suffer a miscarriage and are accused of abortion as has been documented in West Africa (currently unpublished).

All of these examples put the UK situation into context but we also need to be vigilant against unscientific attacks on women access to health services in the UK. The attempts to reduce time limits in this country during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill were based on bad science and instigated by those morally and religiously entirely opposed to abortion.

What is worse is that it would have put particularly vulnerable women at risk of being excluded from vital health services in this country. So what was the evidence?

UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008
Forty years on from the passing of the Abortion Act, the Westminster Science and Technology Committee examined whether advances in science require a change in the law. Many advocating reducing time limits did so on the basis of “advances in medical science”. This was not however, supported by the evidence or medical establishment. (This is where in fact the Nadine Dorries story started, see Ben Goldacre’s blog on this at the time)

The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, neither known for their radical feminism, both submitted evidence in support of the 24 week time limit and a liberalisation of access to abortion in the first trimester (e.g. removing need for doctors signatures among other things).

So where are the medics and scientists marching in the streets asking for the law to be changed? Well, there were submissions to the Science and Technology Committee advocating time limit restrictions from medical professionals who have not declared their religious affiliations. Luckily the press can do this for us. The majority of them are activists from the Christian Medical Fellowship, an organisation which is opposed to abortion (unlike most Christians) and had made its own submission as an organisation

The scientific case hinges on the principle of the “viability” of the foetus outside the womb. It is claimed that foetuses that have been born prematurely at 24 or 22 weeks have be kept alive by ‘science’. As stated by the BMA, it is only a fraction of births at this gestation that survive, and most of those are severely disabled. A study in the British Medical Journal reiterated the point – the latest stats indicate that survival pre-24 weeks has not improved since 1995. It is also important to draw attention to the conflation between the theoretical viability of a foetus at 22 weeks and the viability of a foetus that a woman chooses to abort at this time – these are two distinct situations.

Women get a scan at 20 weeks which can show up problems with the pregnancy. Obviously we can’t be certain, but it is very very likely that those being terminated at this late stage have serious problems. Let’s remember that 20 weeks is half way through a pregnancy, women would have a very good reason for going through what is a particularly invasive surgical procedure. Either the foetus is in fact not viable or these are particularly vulnerable women. Restricting their rights further is hardly the answer.

So if the evidence didn’t back up the claim that there had been ‘scientific and medical advancements”, why were we talking about time limits? Suspicions rise further when we start looking at how many abortions we are actually talking about – in England and Wales 1.5% of all abortions in 2008 were over 20 weeks (that percentage is even lower in Scotland and abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland). So we are talking about a fraction of the abortions that take place in the UK which became a lightening rod for the abortion debate.

Why? Because this is a tactic, part of a wider strategy to chip away at the right to abortion. Banning by increment. This isn’t my wild paranoia; this is exactly the course of action taken by the Anti-Choice movement in the USA. Lowering time limits, reducing services, enforcing health professionals read out ‘warnings’ to women before a termination, ‘cooling off’ periods, parental consent, arguing against the licensing of drugs for chemical terminations with the regulators – all of these mount until it is effectively banned in some States and restricted to 13 weeks in others.

Abortion laws in the global North affect not only women in those countries, as Bush’s global gag rule demonstrates. Not only is this about public health and women’s access to safe and legal health services, it is also fundamental to the principle of female reproductive autonomy and about women’s rights over their own physical integrity. Women and girls are brought up in a global society where their bodies are open spaces for public debate. Where individuals believe their morality justifies a violent imposition on another female human being. I do not believe that I have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body and that is why I am a pro-choice campaigner.

[picture from the fab Jackie Fleming]

OK, this isn’t exactly about science, although it does have relevance, but I have to blog about this rather than just have drunken rows with feminists in the pub about it. The Observer today has an article representing an ongoing debate/discussion/all-out war within British and American feminism at the moment, one which is regularly crudely characterised as ‘old’ second-wave feminism against ‘young’ third wave/post feminism.

Firstly, to divide feminism up like this is crude, simplistic, adversarial and damaging. Feminisms have always existed, it is not a monolith, there are not keepers of the flame, if you don’t believe me ask any black feminist, Marxist feminist, Feminist Marxist, liberal feminist, Muslim feminist, postmodern feminist, eco-feminist, anarcho-feminist, etc etc yawn etc.

I agree that sexual liberation does not equal emancipation, this is as true for gay politics as for women. I agree that we have a pornification of Western culture (I use that word for US/UK as I can’t speak for Europe etc). I agree that sexual objectification has been packaged, branded and resold to women by a sophisticated Western Capitalism. And I agree that selfish individualism is damaging for feminism which is built on solidarity, activism and an analysis of power whether cultural, economic, religious, social etc.

However.

I am deeply suspicious of feminists telling women that they are not feminists. Firstly, there are not enough of us and we are not winning, so let’s not become arrogant, superior and exclusionary. Secondly, sexual liberation is a very important part of emancipation and sex is a very important part of life for most people. And yet feminist sexual liberation has mutated into looking at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it rather than what you want and your freedom to choose.

Some feminists have become deeply chauvinistic towards, often younger, women who define themselves as feminists. I think this is really exposed by Julie Bindel referring to them as “lazy, bone-idle women” who “can’t claim to be a feminist simply because you’re a woman”. There is nothing lazy or bone-idle about calling yourself a feminist, it is still a difficult thing to do as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of women in this country do not want to associate themselves with that word. I have no time for the idea that women ‘can’t claim to be a feminist’ as though there is a governing body of feminism that you have to apply to be let into the old boy’s girl’s network. Aren’t we replicating male forms of power here? Are we continuing to tell women what to think, how to dress, how to have sex and what to say? That isn’t why I’m a feminist. I want women to be emancipated not simply live, dress and fuck in a way I want them to.

I am also particularly concerned by the false generation divide that is being created which is deeply patronising and alienating. I have personally encountered this – older feminists dismissing me as young and naïve and not respecting their god-given right to dictate the rules of feminism to me. This is particularly stinging for me given how much I have educated myself in the feminist canon. Given that at 16 years old I was reading Kate Millett while my friends were getting fingered. This is the ultimate adoption of patriarchal power-dynamics and will lead to young feminists rejecting feminism rather than critically engaging with it.

You cannot fossilise political discourse. Feminism is not an ideology it is an analysis of power. And attempting to stop women calling themselves feminists because they are revelling in their sexual promiscuity is as redundant as the Christian Right trying to enforce chastity. That genie is out of the bottle, so how are we going to engage in it. Call these women traitors? Or think how can sexual liberation can continue to be a force for further emancipation?

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that while we’re all having this little inter-feminist war the rest of the world is not listening. Girls are still acid attacked in Afghanistan for going to school. Women and girls are still being raped in shocking numbers in South Africa. As uncovered in the New Scientist, female foetuses are being sex-selectively aborted in Vietnam. Now is not the time to push feminists out of our ever-decreasing circle. If you don’t think sex-feminists are feminist enough, why don’t you tell them to get involved in women’s rights in the global South, raise money for their local rape crisis shelter or stand for election – that will be far more helpful than calling them tarts and traitors. There are enough men out there to do that for us.

Yet again, it is the bloggers at the F Word that make the best contribution to this debate. Do you think that’s because bloggers engage in debate and embrace the principles of open discussion, the free-flow of ideas and encourage arguments to be picked apart, dissected and put back together again? I think so.

[Oliver Reed in The Brood]

I could rant for hours about why I hate Oliver James but to spare you that I thought I’d just focus on a recent article of his in the Guardian as emblematic of his biased reporting of scientific research to primarily serve his anti-women analysis of mental illness.

In his ‘Family Under the Microscope’ series, James wrote ‘Do absent fathers trigger early puberty in girls?’ as a eulogy against family breakdown and claiming throughout that yes, indeed the absence of fathers is in fact the main reason for females entering puberty earlier (average age at which a British girl had her first period has gone from 13yrs 6ms in 50s/60s to 12 yrs 11ms now, average drop of 7 months in 50 years: not insignificant but lets have a little perspective).

He goes on to talk about the risk factors associated with early pubescence in girls as a signifier of anxiety, depression and teenage pregnancy etc. Now we’re in perfect epidemiology causation/association territory here; are we feeling a few confounding factors coming on?

Now as far as I can tell, these assertions being made by James are based on a longitudinal cohort study of 173 girls in Tennessee published back in 1999 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (As an aside, this was in the same volume where Dunning and Kruger first published their study, what a coincidence…) The Tennessee study made a link between negative-coercive family relationships and early puberty.

A more recent review study was published in Clinical Psychology Review in Feb this year which reviewed the empirical evidence of an association between puberty and anxiety. They found that:

There is some evidence that among girls, but not boys, a more advanced pubertal status (controlling for age) is associated with higher reported anxiety symptoms. Also among girls, earlier pubertal timing is linked to higher anxiety scores. It is unclear whether early puberty may lead to increased anxiety or if high anxiety influences pubertal timing.

(I’m afraid I can only get the abstract because my login isn’t working, I’ll try again at work and will update when I do)

So yes there is evidence that anxiety is associated with early puberty in girls but it is not necessarily causal and certainly not directly linked to father-daughter relationships. There are a huge amount of confounding factors and if James is correct and depression and teenage pregnancies are associated with early female puberty than I would suggest that there are a number of socio-economic factors at play here as with any association between parental split and health outcomes.

James pretty much dismisses the association between earlier puberty in girls and increased weight, despite the huge amount of evidence linking weight gain/loss to affects on menstruation. As James asserts “But by far the most important factor seems to be a girl’s relationship with her dad.”

Now, this article is in the Guardian so James is aware that readers probably also read Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science and so would be looking out for trifling things like ‘evidence’ and reports in academic journals. So at the end of the column, he helpfully references a journal article from Pediatrics billing it as “Evidence relating to decreased puberty age” – and the link to absentee fathers you’d assume. He doesn’t however, give you the title of the article safe in the knowledge that the vast majority of people won’t actually look it up. Here’s the title: Weight Status in Young Girls and the Onset of Puberty

So evidence of weight status affecting early puberty then. And I think we can safely say that the average weight of children has increased in Britain since the 1950s. Yet, James is hanging on to absentee fathers being the “main cause”. Why? Because that’s how he makes his money. As you may know he wrote the book ‘They F*** You Up (Your Mum and Dad)’ and so generally sees parenting as THE primary cause of mental health issues. I will return to slagging this book off in the future, but for now I’ll stick to this article.

So herein lies the problem with so much science reporting, the way it is used to push a particular, usually socially conservative agenda. James bemoans the impact on increased divorce rates at every opportunity. Linking divorce and working women to everything from early periods to schizophrenia.

The implications of his agenda impact mostly on women as his message is ‘ending an unhappy relationship and mothers working will fuck up your kids’. He tries to imply that ‘blind feminism’ (whatever that means) has degraded the role of stay-at-home mothers and he is battling alone to defend the role of women. For ‘blind feminism’ read ‘straw man’ as feminists have always campaigned for the recognition of women’s contribution to society as care-givers.

The key is equality and choice rather than advocating stifling traditional roles through fear and scaremongering. And he dresses this up with sciencey sounding stuff, transforming associations into causes and making incredible death-defying leaps of logic.

I despair of this man.

Great article from Allyson Kapin entitled: Is the Tech World Really Sexist? Not only does it point out that yes it is along with most other industries, but she gives practical advice to women who work in tech and want to break through the digital ceiling.

It is important for women to challenge social norms in this way and indeed we wouldn’t have the vote without the women who protested and were forced to eat tar or Emily Wilding Davison throwing herself in front of a horse. However, men can do their bit too. And not being utter fuckwits would be a start.

Kaplin made reference to Matt Aimonetti’s presentation at the Golden Gate Ruby Conference. Here’s a few stats from the slideshow:

• There are 32 slides with images on them (including photos, logos and graphics)
• 17 of the slides have images of women, 7 have images of men and 2 have images of Viagra which I would argue evokes a certain image of men
• Of the images of women; 10 were overtly sexualised (women in micro skirts, naked arses, pr0n scene with 1 man 4 women etc), 2 were primarily demeaning (i.e. ‘funny’ pictures of an old woman and a fat woman), 2 included Jen, the female character from the IT Crowd, and the remaining three although not overtly sexualised (I’m being generous here) would have been chosen to be titillating (woman being massaged, woman’s mouth and women boxing).
• Of the images of men: 2 were of Dr Manhattan (drawing attention to his godlike power and penis), 2 were of men surrounded by sexually available women, 2 were the other members of the IT Crowd and one was of Sting (fully clothed and to my mind deeply unsexual, although he is there to reference tantric sex – something to do with ‘performance’, geddit?)
• Eight of the slides contain the logo for CouchDB which I presume is linked to whatever Aimonetti is peddling. This logo is a graphic representation of a ‘slacker’ bloke on a couch.

Now I can understand that this was probably an incredibly boring talk and Aimonetti thought the only way to engage what would have been a predominantly male audience would be to come across as blokey and use demeaning and objectifying images of women to ‘spice it up’. I also acknowledge that the demographic of the audience for this presentation (whether physically or online) would be one that consumes online pornography and so would identify with the imagery of naked women’s arses, women writhing around in simulated orgies, pole-dancers, thigh-high boots etc.

And therein lies the problem. This is what alienates women, this is what has led to the mainstreaming of images once the preserve of girlie mags now proudly boasted as pr0n. Not only does it stereotype Techy men as sexually-repressive, social misfits who can only conduct a ‘relationship’ with an animated Japanese teenager, it also makes the women who work in Tech, use it, and consume it (increasingly the majority) hate you.

You might think of yourselves as terribly intellectual but there is no difference between this kind of presentation and having a titty calendar up in a garage.

So yes, women can start promoting themselves within Tech and speaking out more. But the men in Tech are going to have to stop being such sad wankers and stop with the lame lame lame Tech porn.

Disclaimer: I know the title of this post and some comments are terribly heteronormative – but then so is most porn. I’ll post some other time about sexuality and science reporting. Although have done some here.

Do NOT share cups with pigs

OK, I can’t have a science blog without mentioning swine flu. Is there a gendered analysis? Well probably in the access to healthcare for women, particularly poor women but there’s no data at this time. Generally, women do worst in natural disasters – most shocking stat I’ve come across is that between 70%-80% of the people who died in Southeast Asia after the tsunami of 2004 were female.

But also on searching for swine flu and women, I can across this hilarious conspiracy theory from Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America (Unconcerned Women of America never really got off the ground). The ironically named Wright opined that Obama’s declaration of a state of emergency was a ruse for appointing Kathleen Sebelius as health secretary by stealth. Will this man stop at nothing?

Of course, the interesting thing is not Wright’s lunacy but the fact that she opposes the appointment of Sebelius because she is pro-choice. Sebelius has a great record of vetoing anti-abortion legislation in Kansas where she was Governor and she has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood which has fund-raised for her. All this and she is a Catholic too! Maybe she’s a fan of Catholics for Choice.

Wendy Wright on the other hand is staunchly anti-abortion which has included challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s licensing of emergency contraception, trying to stop the appointment of anyone who has had anything to do with any organisation that has advocated for women’s access to safe abortions, and she also went to Kosovo to lobby against specific articles in the constitution of the emerging state which provided:

• the right to make decisions in relation to reproduction in accordance with the rules and procedures set forth by law.
• the right to have control over his/her body in accordance with law

Apparently these are ‘bad things’. Shockingly arrogant but at least unsuccessful.

(She’s also opposed hate crime legislation and marriage equality so obviously sidelines in homophobia)

What is most concerning for feminists and the rational, is the language Wright uses to oppose reproductive rights and other politically motivated positions on science such as all forms of human cloning; saying that this is about women’s safety and protections against exploitation and the harvesting of eggs. The Right are very adroit at using feminist language when it suits them (see arguments made for the invasion of Afghanistan), but this is particularly dangerous when sisterly language is used to undermine women’s access to safe and legal healthcare and drugs:

“When a drug is easily available, it is a public health hazard to women.”
Wendy Wright talking about FDA licensed emergency contraception

OK, so it wasn’t about swine flu. But you’ve gotta love that quote.

(image from the fabulous xkcd)

Righty ho. I’ve been tardy at blogging of late, well blogging here anyway as I do also blog for work here. But I came across this very interesting study via Women Who Tech about the numbers of women who use Open Source software. OK, when I say interesting you’re going to have to bear with me…

I was first exposed to OS (and by that I mean enforced) by a dear friend, Patrick Harvie MSP. He would go on and on and on and on and on about it and I would smile and nod (because I was brought up correctly) while actually thinking about what I was going to drink that night. It went a bit far when he tried to get me to watch a DVD of Eben Moglen.

Then I started my Masters in global healthcare financing and got more and more into pharmaceutical financing and intellectual property rights. I had a eureka moment – this was what Patrick was droning on and on and on and on and on about, now I get it, now I care!

To be honest, software doesn’t float my boat. But the principles are incredibly important and they are important for women. Which brings me back to this study which explores the reasons why a tiny 1.5% of F/LOSS community members are female and many of these reasons are as equally applicable to other scientific/skeptical arenas as to OS. Some reasons summarised here:

• Women are actively (if unconsciously) excluded rather than passively disinterested. The exclusion happens among people who often do not mean to appear, and who do not interpret their own actions, as hostile to women.

• F/LOSS communities actively perpetuate a ‘hacker’ ethic, which situates itself outside the ‘mainstream’ sociality, but equates women with that mainstream seen in a contrast to the ‘technical’ realm ascribed to men. Women are treated as either alien Other or (in online contexts) are assumed to be male and thus made invisible.

• F/LOSS rewards the producing code rather than the producing software. It thereby puts most emphasis on a particular skill set devaluing other activities such as interface design or documentation which women often engage in.

• F/LOSS production and infrastructure is designed and built assuming contributors have a long history with computers, but women tend to engage later in their lives with computers. In order to join women have a larger amount of catching up work to do, which they must do in an environment that almost exclusively values independent discovery.

• Inflammatory talk and aggressive posturing (‘flaming’) is accepted within many F/LOSS projects as a key means of developing reputation. This is often off-putting for newcomers and less experienced contributors who are not yet familiar with the community, its norms, or its real hierarchy and is therefore particularly pronounced in the case of women.

These reasons such as exclusion through an imposed hierarchy of skills, advancement through aggressive posturing and equating dynamism against a mainstream that is identified as feminine are all eerily familiar to most spheres of life, be it work, politics or the family.

I’ve spoken to many many male bloggers who are really interested (or pretend to be) when I talk about a feminist analysis of science and mainstream media reporting but then say “Yeah, as a bloke I don’t really do or understand gender.” This is the same as people saying they don’t really have an accent. It is not just women’s responsibility to engage with science and scientific reporting (which in fact they are doing and have done in increasing numbers for decades). Men have to acknowledge the extent to which they are excluding women, however unconsciously this is claimed to be.

This isn’t just women harping on about wanting to be involved in your little subculture, it will actually benefit the F/LOSS community, lead to a richer understanding of the power dynamics involved in media reporting and foster greater creativity and energy. And who knows, you might even get laid more often.

I love geeks. I love them because they know stuff. I may accuse the press wildly of sexism and I pick easy targets (although bear in mind that A LOT of people take most stuff in the press at face value). However, there are those that can methodically and mathematically tear apart sexist science reporting, such as this blog on women and alcohol. Story in the press here, and here.

After such expert and rational analysis – now for the feminist dogma…. There are repeated stories and commentary in the press about women drinking and this being; Britain Going To Hell In A Handcart, Feminism Going Too Far, Ladette Culture Going Too Far etc etc. Fact is, men still beat women when it comes to alcoholism, alcohol related deaths, and many indeed beat them when drunk.

I am not saying ‘Yay, women should drink till they get cancer!’, I am saying that research into women drinking is suspiciously over-reported, regularly misinterpreted and uniformly accompanied with moralising about wimmin and how awful they are.

Declared Interest
I drink. A Lot.

Now of course I’m the first to criticise men. Horrid, despicable men. And I agree that there is a huge problem with the sexual objectification of women which feeds inequality, discrimination and ultimately violence. Yawn, heard it.

However, even I’m not convinced that a brain scan can show that men think of women in the same way as “tools, like spanners and screwdrivers” (note confusion in above pic). Bad science, possibly but definitely badly reported.

Now I’ve criticised psychologists before. And we must remember that a psychologist is neither a radiologist nor a neuroscientist. But it does seem that they are making the fairly unremarkable claim that “When there are sexualised images in the workplace, it’s hard for people not to think about their female colleagues in those terms.”

So yes, girly calendars in the office are inappropriate and are a key signifier of a sexist culture. But there being a “screwdriver” part of a man’s brain? Even I wouldn’t go that far.

Here we go again. Everything that is wrong with the world is women’s fault. Here, Children’s Society blames working women for family breakdown, under-achieving children and getting themselves into poverty.

I’d first like to declare an interest, my parents divorced when I was 7. I have two degrees, a successful career and an ability to make friends. You know why? Partly, yes I’m fabulous, but I’m also middle class.

What angers me about these kind of stories is not that the data is wrong, although sometimes it is (links to a comment I made on another blog but haven’t got round to blogging on here, tut). Its the inference it makes and the information is leaves out.

So if economic independence is allowing women to leave unsatisfactory relationships. So what do you suggest? Making women more dependent on men? Make them stay in unsatisfactory relationships?

The information that is missing here is about men. Men and women get divorced, why then to men disappear? Why is it divorced women that largely have sole responsibility for bringing up children? Because our society puts more responsibility on women for childcare than on fathers. Women being economically independent is the problem rather than men not being able to adapt to their changing role in society and in the family. Relationship breakdown is the problem rather than adults not being able to break up without turning into sadists intent on harming their previous loved one and often using the children to do that.

The genie is out of the bottle. Women are not going to stop working because they have a right to do so. Couples are not going to stop splitting up, because it is unhealthy for people to be trapped in a loveless relationship. The key here is the information buried deep in the article:
Figures published by Unicef in 2007 showed that children in Scandinavian countries – where rates of family break-up are similar to the UK – are happier than British children.

Why? Its the Economy, stupid. “Broken” families end up in poverty because (and bear with me this is quite mathematically complicated) two incomes are better than one. Childcare is expensive, before women were working they were doing the childcare for free. Only around 12.5% of absentee parents pay child support. Having this ‘Men, tuh‘ attitude is letting them off the hook and blaming women for not putting up with it.

And I’m not even going to start on the often implicit ‘children being brought up solely by women are crap because women are crap’ argument, I’m sure I’ll return to that another day. See picture above instead.

Ok, there are a lot of bad things about living in London and I am still mighty pissed off that I have been forced to live here due to our over-centralised economy. BUT my curmudgeonality is being regularly undermined by all the great stuff here.

This includes Skeptics in a Pub (Scottish skeptics note, no groups north of the border) and brilliant stuff at the Women’s Library.

From the Skeptics website, I then stumbled upon the fabulastic Skepchick.org.

I AM NOT ALONE! HURRAH!