Why stay-at-home dads are still the invisible men of the house

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Children, choice, economy, family, fathers, house dads, househusband, parenting, parents, primary carers, relationships, women

Why stay-at-home dads are still the invisible men of the house

Edmund Farrow is facing redundancy. For 11 years he has worked up to 90 hours a week, looking after Matthew, 11, Daniel, nine, and seven-year-old Joanna.

“I haven’t regretted being a house dad, but now we’re at a stage where I have to think about what next. I used to be a computer programmer, so obviously things have moved on a bit in that field.

“I got used to being the only man in a hall of 30 women and learned that if I saw another dad at the school gates he’d probably have a day off. The numbers of dads looking after young children is still very small.”

Small but growing. Whether changing nappies, playing with the children or reading a bedtime story, most fathers are undoubtedly far more involved in their children’s lives than their own fathers would have been 30 or 40 years ago.

New research from the Office of National Statistics suggests the phenomenon of the househusband has seen a rapid explosion in numbers, but experts say the trend is less about choice and nurture than an economic necessity that is not being recognised by policymakers.

Last year 62,000 men were classed as “economically inactive” and at home looking after children, tripling from 21,000 in 1996. The figures did not include fathers working from home or part-time in order to be the main stay-at-home parent.

A survey out last week from the insurance company Aviva suggested there could be 600,000 men, 6% of British fathers, in that role, a further rise from the ONS figures which recorded 192,000 British men as the primary carer for children in 2009 and 119,000 in 1993.

Farrow, from Edinburgh, who set up DadsDinner.com to tackle the gap in services, said: “My wife and I made the decision that I would stay at home because of personality. My temperament meant I’m better with the kids for long periods of time, whereas she can get wound up more easily by them and needs to be out and about. So it suited us. But every other dad I’ve talked to has done it for financial reasons.”

Adrienne Burgess, head of research at the Fatherhood Institute, feels there is little understanding in government about family life and that more men could be househusbands. “What’s changing is not the fathers but the mothers,” she said. “More mothers at the time of their first child are earning as much or more than their partner. So couples make rational economic decisions. By the time the child is 18 months old, three quarters of mothers are back in paid work and those who aren’t tend to be the most poor or disadvantaged who don’t have the options because of the cost of childcare. The fully fledged stay-at-home parent is a dying breed.

“Go to any antenatal class today and there’s a split between the mothers who are going back to work and those who aren’t, each side a bit beleaguered. Motherhood is still in that flux and, while men are seeing being the primary parent as an option, their voices aren’t heard. They are ghettoised. What holds a lot of men back is a lack of confidence and a culture that is sometimes hostile and excluding of men.”

Anne Longfield, chief executive of the family charity 4Children, said efforts were under way to make a transition to equal parenting and for services to target fathers “despite society’s undeniable prejudice towards seeing mothers as the core carers”.

“Whether or not dads are full- or part-time carers for their children, what we have seen is their increased presence, and this is fantastic. However, there is still work to do – while mothers are often involved in their children’s centres as volunteers, fathers are less likely to be, and there are still some who do not always routinely seek to involve both parents in their children’s early education and play. The wider issues of workplace flexibility and the gender pay gap are also still relevant if we are to seek a more even balance.”

But others warn how changing roles throw up new pressures for the fraught modern family. Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt said she was seeing a trend of relationships suffering because of resentment building up between couples trying to navigate traditional gender roles. “I hate to say it but things are changing so fast for women and an awful lot of men are not moving forward. Relationships are suffering.

“I noticed a trend some years ago. I started to act for a lot of husbands who were staying at home. There had been this revolution, women earning more, then children arrive and sometimes they don’t want to give that career up, or the husband just can’t earn as much.

“For some people it worked, it’s essential to say that, but for others there is a pattern of dissatisfaction set off by this reversal of fortune. That resentment builds up after a few years and suddenly the woman is working really, really hard and thinks the husband is sitting around with his feet up, and the man has seen his career fold and his ego is mush.”

It’s a pattern recognised by Andrew Holmes, 52, from Devon. He has started working again part-time now that his children are at school, but remains the primary carer. “Leaving work to pick the kids up still gets comments from other blokes. There is the sense that I’m not putting in a full day. It can be hard going at times. I did feel quite isolated and resentment did build up between my wife and I. She envied me spending so much time with the kids and I envied her freedom when she went off to work. Neither of us was entirely happy with the way things were, but it was the only way financially.

“I value having been at home with the kids, but if I was to do it again I’d do it differently. I’d force myself into social situations a bit more. Mothers definitely didn’t invite me round for a cup of tea and it’s difficult when you go to a toddler group and women sit talking about pregnancy, as invariably they did.”

The rise of the stay-at-home father remains against a backdrop of social pressures on women to be good mothers and on men to be economic providers. Half of fathers still do not take the legal fortnight’s paternity leave because of fears that it will affect their careers or because they can’t afford to.

Men also seem to stay at home for a shorter time than women, said psychology professor Dr Charlie Lewis of Lancaster University. “It’s difficult to do research because they are such a transitory group,” he said. “A lot of people go into it with rose-tinted spectacles and great enthusiasm and then, partly to do with the social isolation, find it doesn’t suit them. They think they are breaking the mould, but then realise what it’s all about and bolt.

“Dads have to surmount a lot of problems, not least that women can be very unwilling to delegate parenting, even to their partner. There is so much pressure to be the good mother that it can lead to them holding men at bay, even when they desperately want to be involved.”

He added: “The economic climate compounds the problem. People are under stress and families are more complex than ever, complexities rarely conceded in statistics. One study five years ago looking at 5,000 households identified 73 different family types. Yet we continue to hold to the simplistic stereotype of motherhood, but there are many permutations of what makes a good parent.

“To declaim role reversal as a bad thing is just as catastrophic as to declaim it as a good thing. When people change roles with great gusto and intent and it doesn’t work out, then that disappointment can destroy the relationship. What we should be thinking about is how can social policy support systems fit all types of families.

“There really has been a seismic shift in gender roles, but really we will only know it’s changed when men start cleaning the toilet. That’s the last bastion.”

But, for most couples, childcare remains a juggle in changing social and economic times. Dan and Ilana Rapaport-Clark, from north London, both work part-time, although Dan is the main parent for Lola, three, and Jacob, one.

“I always wanted to do it, even before we had kids,” he said. “My family was supportive but some of my friends thought it was a bit odd. You definitely have a different experience to mothers and you rarely see another dad. A lot of men who would like to do it are put off by the dominance of women, so it becomes a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I wanted to see them walk and hear their first words, childhood is such a finite time. I love hanging out with my kids.”

See also:

Fathers are happier when doing more housework, says study

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How do we teach young people what sexual consent really means?

Tags

consent, peer pressure, rape, relationships, responsibility, Self-esteem, sexual assault

How do we teach young people what sexual consent really means?

“Young people will describe scenarios where, I think ‘this sounds abusive’,” says Rhiannon Holder, a youth worker for Brook, the sexual advisory service for young people and co-chair of Bread, a Bristol youth project.

“They’re not sure if they had sex or they wanted sex – and if they did have sex they’re not sure if they consented to it. As professionals, we’re having to reflect to young people [that some] of the situations they have experienced could be labelled as sexual bullying or assault, or rape.”

With politicians such as George Galloway and Tony Benn spouting shameful ideas of what consent means (having sex with someone who is asleep is “bad sexual etiquette”, not rape, according to Galloway), a worryingly high proportion of the adult public doesn’t seem to grasp it either. A survey for Amnesty found 37% of respondents thought a woman was responsible for being raped if she didn’t say “no” clearly enough. With attitudes like this, is it any surprise young people may be dangerously confused?

They certainly seem to be. Only 69% of young men would not try to have sex with someone who did not want to, and one in 20 said they would try to have sex with someone who was asleep, according to a shocking 2010 survey of young people aged between 18 and 25 by the Havens, the specialist London-based sexual assault referral centres. A significant proportion also seemed confused about what constitutes rape: only 77% of young men agreed that having sex with someone who has said no was rape. While in 2009, a study for the NSPCC found a third of girls aged between 13 and 17 who were in relationships had experienced unwanted sexual acts, and one in 16 had been raped.

So, what needs to change? “Too often [consent] is viewed as a simple yes or no, and it’s much more complex than that,” says Holder. “I don’t think many young people are offered the opportunity to explore all of the factors involved in giving consent: peer pressure, alcohol and drugs, self-esteem, coercion, gender issues.”

When Holder does workshops with young people, she asks them to consider different scenarios, “and generate discussion around what it means to be in a relationship; what it means to have safe and positive sex. For instance, we would look at situations where you have had sex with someone before, or if you’ve kissed somebody; does that mean you have to go on and have sex? Also it’s about taking responsibility for consent, so making it clear it’s not just the person who has the responsibility for saying ‘yes’. Young men should actively be seeking consent.”

It isn’t just about the words, she says. “We’ll explore what ‘yes’ does, and doesn’t, look like.”

“Often people don’t say ‘no’ but they’ll say ‘that hurts’, or ‘not yet’, or ‘I don’t like it’. Or it might be in their body language,” she adds.

Then there are the assumptions about timing, she says. “A lot of the young people I have met are shocked that you can revoke consent – you might have had sex with somebody before, or started a sexual act, but that doesn’t mean the sex can’t stop at any time.

“I’ve spoken to young people who have said they didn’t really want to do it, but they didn’t know how to say ‘no’ or ‘stop’.”

Whitney Iles, a community activist, agrees. She thinks many young people are confused by “so many different messages. On one side, you’re told about how you should have sex within a loving relationship, on the other side you can see how pop culture is highly sexualised. It’s a real confusion over identity and value of self, which then makes it harder to know what you want and where the line is. There is a blurred line of what is normal, or what has become normalised, and what is crossing a line.”

Earlier this year, the government launched an online and TV advertising campaign to educate teenagers about rape, and consent, but it seems a poor substitute for good sex education in schools. The problem, says Simon Blake, chief executive of Brook, is that sex education “is incredibly patchy, and what young people have been saying for a really long time is ‘too little, too late, too biological’.”

The Labour government failed to do enough to make personal, social, health and economics education (PSHE), of which sex and relationships education (SRE) is a part, a statutory requirement for schools. “Although secondary schools have to teach some SRE, virtually nothing is specified and there is no agreed curriculum for it, so schools can teach what they like,” says Jane Lees, chair of the Sex Education Forum.

The government’s review of PSHE, which ended last year, is still to report, but things could get even worse, Lees fears. “Our concern is that it is likely to slim it down much more, or reduce the expectation that schools will teach it,” she says. “When the coalition came in and started the review of PSHE, one of the issues that they raised was about consent, so it is on their minds but we still have no final outcomes from it. We’re in limbo at the moment.”

“A lot of young people are growing up without really knowing what consent means,” says Whitney Iles. “But then I think a lot of adults don’t really know either.”

Time to lay responsibility at the rapist’s door

Tags

behaviour, blame, challenge, low self-esteem, perpetrators, prevention, rape, relationships, responsibility, Sexual Violence, support, Teens, vulnerability, women

Time to lay responsibility at the rapist’s door

A 15-year-old boy was describing to me and a group of 12 other young men his relationships with teenage girls. He held firm with his opinion that if a girl came round to his house it implied that she wanted to have sex. But there was one boy in the group who, even in the face of pressure from the others, was certain that “even if she’s naked, she’s not supposed to be raped”.

I was interviewing the young men about their experiences of relationships for the Female Voice in Violence project, and it was clear that the majority of the boys did not understand the concept of rape. They could not see it.

Would you “see” rape? This is the question being asked in the second stage of a government campaign to raise awareness of abuse in teenage relationships. The initiative is launched at a time when there is an increasing focus on young women’s experiences of sexual violence. To date, those shouldering the responsibility of rape prevention have been the victims: girls are blamed for making themselves vulnerable to rape, and their low self-esteem or a craving to belong is the reason, we are told, that they place themselves in situations where they may be victimised. Now, however, it is the turn of those who commit sexual violence to be challenged to recognise it.

It is right that girls are supported to reduce their vulnerability. However, there is a growing sense of frustration among girls, and some services that work with them, that this vulnerability is communicated as the cause of sexual violence. The message they hear is that girls are raped because they are vulnerable. Where, they ask, is the space to consider the responsibility of those who are perpetrating abuse? So a campaign that challenges the perpetrators to ask whether they see rape is welcome.

Girls have told me they are relieved that they are not once again being told to modify their behaviour in order to avoid abuse. Those same girls would call for services to support victims of sexual violence; these are essential. However, providing services to pick up the pieces, or reduce vulnerabilities, will never, on their own, prevent sexual violence. Until the behaviour of rapists is understood and challenged the abuse will continue.

The campaign signals a move to reframe and revisit questions about how to prevent sexual violence, so it is crucial that the response on the ground is able to mirror this. While investment has been made in services for boys and men who commit forms of violence such as gun and knife crime, little attention has been given to preventing their use of sexual violence. This needs to change.

Young people’s views are shaped by a mosaic of messages, images and attitudes. Professionals need to be supported to challenge these ideas in order to stem the development of abusive attitudes and behaviours.

Challenging the ideas that normalise sexual violence, from the outset, should underpin any such preventive work. The inclusion of men and boys in this debate is critical. The young man who condemned rape in the face of peer pressure is not a one-off. We need to understand the difference in attitudes between young men. Only then will we move from seeing rape to stopping it.

How would it feel if you couldn’t recognise your own family?

Tags

'face blindness', Alzheimer's, autism, brain impairment, brain injury, Children, dementia, face processing, facial perception, Memory, new national centre to study, parents, prosopagnosia, stroke, treatment

How would it feel if you couldn’t recognise your own family?

Imagine waking up and not knowing who’s sharing your bed. Imagine collecting a child from school – but picking up the wrong one. Or being a mother and not being recognised by your own child. These are all the problems faced by around a million people in the UK today. Among the famous sufferers are Duncan Bannatyne of Dragons’ Den, playwright Tom Stoppard and Jane Goodall.

It’s called face blindness – or prosopagnosia. It affects more people than Alzheimer’s and autism and, just like dyslexia before it, it’s a hidden handicap that gets people in trouble every day.

But a new national centre to study the condition has been established and pressure is building up on the NHS to recognise the condition and to get the public to understand it and sympathise with the sufferers. There’s also pressure for children to be tested because, after an experiment in Australia there may be hope of treatment. There, in Sydney, an eight-year-old boy identified only as “AL” was put through a long series of tests using grey scale photographs to retrain his brain. For the first time psychologists here are hoping there might finally be a solution. In a letter to the British Medical Journal Dr David Fine, himself a sufferer, revealed the torment of his early life. He wrote that the condition “has shaped my life”. He added: “I often fail to recognise my children or even my wife.” The doctor, from Southampton, is calling for a simple children’s test “so that the next generation of sufferers grows up in a society that understands and recognises our disability”.

Leading researcher Dr Sarah Bate, of Bournemouth University, also wants to develop a way of training sufferers with the condition. She’s just got funding to start a new national centre to study prosopagnosia and she’s already been contacted by 700 individuals offering to be tested. A number of parents who think their children might be sufferers have been in touch and now a joint project with the University of St Andrews is under way – the first attempt to improve these children’s skills at face processing.

Bate has found that part of the problem is the British tradition of wearing school uniforms. She says: “We had one boy of five and the only friend he could make – simply because her face was different – was a Chinese girl.”

In the United States, where they don’t use school uniforms, there was no such problem. And some children, she found, couldn’t even recognise their own parents. One teacher with the condition only coped by the use of seating plans. But when the pupils played up by swapping seats he got depressed and got a post at the Open University corresponding by email.

Dr Bate says: “We’re wondering whether, if we could test children at, say, seven, there might be a chance that some training could help. It’s going to be an uphill battle but we do need those tests – just as they have them for dyslexia.”

A classic case is former IT teacher Jo Livingston, 67, from Bexley. She suffers from the condition and, having retired, is now touring schools and giving talks to make people aware of the problem. Even now, she only recognises her husband “because he has a beard and talks a lot”. They met in their 20s as members of a climbing club.

She says: “When you’re climbing you always wear the same clothes and if someone wears a red anorak they’ll be in a red anorak next week. So I married the one in the red anorak because that was the one I was looking for. Now I do the talks so that people can know about it – so they can have that ‘that’s me’ moment.”

Livingston has found instances where a woman could only be sure it was her baby in hospital if it was the one with a cuddly toy in the cot. Another woman said she was at a festival, looking for someone she’d planned to meet and only later found she’d been chatting to Ronan Keating. And a Hollywood engineer couldn’t even recognise Brad Pitt when they shared a lift.

“Television’s very difficult because characters change clothes and hairstyles and sometimes the plot hinges on that,” Livingston says. “You see two young blond women and you think they’re the same person until they appear on screen together and then you mentally have to rewrite the entire plot. It’s quite exhausting.”

Another sufferer is social worker Nerina Parr, 44, from Brighton. She says: “It’s the new dyslexia… nobody could explain what it was and half the time they didn’t have any sympathy with it anyway. It’s always getting me into trouble. For instance, my partner changed the picture of us on my bedside and I got really jealous and demanded to know who this new person was… then there’s the nightmare of walking into work meetings and not knowing who the people are – even though you work with them.”

Anna Cady, a 60-year-old artist from Winchester, thought at one stage that she had Alzheimer’s or dementia. “So when I found out what it was it was a tremendous relief. Then again, I did some tests on the internet and ended up sobbing my eyes out because I couldn’t even tell when they changed the faces. The awful thing is that you dread going outside because you might offend someone by not recognising them. When someone says ‘hello, Anna’ your heart sinks because you just hope you aren’t going to offend someone.”

If you think you have face blindness and would like to be part of the research you can register at prosopagnosiaresearch.org

Face blindness: Causes and cures

Prosopagnosia or face blindness can be caused by stroke or brain injury, but some people are born with it or develop it despite having no other signs of brain impairment. Recent research suggests it may sometimes be genetic.

It is thought to be caused by abnormality of or damage to a part of the brain that controls memory and facial perception.

In extreme cases, those with the condition are unable to recognise their own faces or tell the difference between a face and an object.

Treatment focuses on teaching coping strategies and the use of a variety of prompts and cues to recognise people by other means. But research is under way and it is hoped an effective prevention or cure may be found.

Rape is not a dirty secret, it is a violent crime

Tags

blame, crime, culture, myths, secret, sexual assault, shame

Rape is not a dirty secret, it is a violent crime

It is troubling enough that such a small proportion of reported rapes make it to court, worse still that so few victims come forward in the first place. But most disturbing of all is the reason why so many people keep their suffering to themselves: because they do not think they will be believed. That rape is still a dirty secret, hedged about with so much blame and shame that victims feel they cannot come forward, is testament to how far we still have to go.

There are, of course, great legal difficulties in rape trials. Sexual assault is one of the few crimes where proof lies not in the physical facts of the matter, but in the subjective intentions of those involved. One person’s word against another’s, with no corroborating witnesses, is highly problematic for a legal system predicated on the concepts of innocent until proven guilty and proof beyond reasonable doubt.

This is no call for the wholesale abandonment of basic tenets of justice. But simply to shrug our collective shoulders, blame intractable issues of principle, and thereby leave a swathe of victims of violent assault with insufficient legal protection cannot be acceptable in what purports to be a civilised society.

The latest statistics make gruelling reading. More than a third of British women have been subjected to some kind of sexual assault, and one in 10 has been raped, according to the Mumsnet social networking site. Barely a third of victims go to the police, and another third tell no one at all, not even close friends.

In fairness, there has been significant progress in terms of institutional procedures. In many areas of the country, for example, there are now specially trained police officers and court prosecutors for cases of sexual assault. But uneven regional conviction rates only underline the extent to which such practices remain an optional extra rather than standard.

Equally, although victims no longer face the prospect of being cross-questioned by their attacker in court, pursuing a case to trial remains a horrifying ordeal. As a witness for the prosecution, the victim has no legal support, and faces intensely personal questioning from defence lawyers, often while face-to-face with their rapist for the first time since the assault. Even within the framework of innocent until proven guilty, there is more that can be done to ease the burden on victims, not least allowing them legal representation in court.

But the shortcomings of our institutions are merely part and parcel of a wider cultural understanding of rape that still militates against justice. It is that culture that must change if victims are to be encouraged to speak up. Comments from the Justice Secretary last year that appeared to imply that some rapes are more “serious” than others have hardly helped, adding to the persistent fallacy – often stoked by the media – that a person being either drunk or dressed in a certain way must take some responsibility for the actions of their attacker.

Part of the problem is the myth that rape is primarily a threat on the streets at night. Far from it. In fact, rape rarely occurs in the proverbial dark alley. The truth is both more banal, and more appalling: two-thirds of victims know their attacker, and assaults commonly take place in the home of either the victim or the rapist. Perpetrators rely on shame to keep their crime secret. Too often they are proved right. And if the conspiracy of silence is a problem for women who are raped, it is even worse for men.

Mumsnet is, therefore, to be applauded for its efforts to create a climate where victims feel they can come forward. The current Survivors UK ad campaign encouraging male victims to seek help is also welcome. But each is just one small step. Rape is one of the more appalling things that one human being can do to another, and yet there is no other crime about which our society is so ambivalent. That must change.

One in five American women has been raped

Tags

abuse, relationships, sexual assault, stalking, violence

2011:

One in five American women ‘has been raped’

More than one in five women questioned for a US survey reported having been raped. Nearly a third of all women said they had experienced episodes of sexual assault, physical violence or stalking at the hands of an intimate partner.

The study, compiled by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, offers a disturbing glimpse into the private lives of women in America, particularly to abuse within a relationship that often goes unreported.

Victims of rape or other forms of physical violence were also more likely to suffer mental ailments as a consequence of the attacks, it said.

For the survey data was collected in 2010 from phone interviews with 16,500 adult Americans. Results indicated that some 12 million Americans may have been victims of rape, stalking or physical violence – 24 victims of these violations in the US every minute.

For most women the assaults come when they are still young. The CDC reported that 80 per cent of rape victims said they were targeted before the age of 25.

Is Helen Mirren right about date rape?

Controversial:

2008

Is Helen Mirren right about date rape?

It might be that Helen Mirren didn’t quite know what she was doing when she, casually it seemed, ventured the thought that date rape was, in some circumstances not an issue for the courts but one which needed to be worked through as part of the subtle negotiations of modern gender manners. Or it may be that the award-winning actress deliberately wandered into a political minefield out of a conviction that the pendulum has swung too far on the issue. There is, controversially, a new sense of that in the air.

Dame Helen’s contention was that a woman who voluntarily ended up in a man’s bedroom and engaged in sexual activity – but then said no to intercourse – could not seriously expect to take that man to court on a charge of rape if he ignored her last-minute insistence that she did not want full sex.

That had happened to her “a couple of times” 40 years ago when she was a budding actress. She had not reported the incidents to police because “you couldn’t do that in those days”. And perhaps, she suggested, that was not such a bad thing.

Such views violate the current orthodoxy that, when it comes to sexual consent, no means no. Women’s groups and anti-rape campaigners were infuriated by the 63-year-old’s views, which, they insist, hark back to a mindset that transferred the blame for rape from the rapist to the victim, by suggesting that what a woman wears, or how she behaves, can in someway mitigate the culpability of the man who violates her. It is back to the subliminal “she was asking for it” defence.

There was a time when such arguments were openly advanced in court by defence barristers – and police officers, who in their initial investigations would aggressively interrogate women reporting rape on the commonly held assumption that 60 per cent of all rape claims were false, and that women needed to be given the kind of hard time they could expect in court. Such a case was graphically catalogued in 1982 by the criminologist and film-maker Roger Graef, in a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the Thames Valley Police. The film was instrumental in the changes in the law that followed.

But Mr Graef himself came in for some fierce criticism earlier this month when, 25 years on, he made a follow-up film for Panorama. He found that specially trained officers now treat women with a sensitivity unheard of before his previous film. But he also discovered that the conviction rate for rape was even lower than it was two decades ago. Only 5 per cent of reported rapes in Britain now end in a successful prosecution – one of the lowest conviction rates in the developed world. A key determinant, Mr Graef concluded, was today’s “ladette culture” in which young women routinely drink to excess.

Where victims of rape have been drinking, the chances of conviction are seriously lowered. Defence barristers who can no longer raise questions in court about the victim’s “provocative” clothes, or her previous history of sexual liaisons, can raise questions about the amount of alcohol she has consumed – and introduce CCTV footage of the woman in a drunken state.

Since in almost half of all rapes, both victim and perpetrator have been drinking, that has a material impact on the rate of conviction. And the impact goes beyond the courtroom. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority recently revealed it had reduced payouts to 14 rape victimsbecause they had been drinking.

Mr Graef has, for his pains, been lambasted for all this on a variety of feminist websites. Now Helen Mirren is coming in for the same stick. What part of “no” does she not understand, they ask.

But rape, like abortion, is one of those totemic subjects that sets off resonances across a wider landscape of social politics. Questions about personal responsibility here became entangled with different models of feminism and femininity.

There are those, like Mr Graef, who clearly lament that – in his words – a “ladette culture has spread across UK towns and cities and abroad, more and more women have gone out on the town, drinking to excess and behaving ever more raucously, sending blunt signals to young men also on the prowl”.

Opposed to that is the opinion of one of their website critics, to the effect that “Men go and get smashed and nothing happens to them. If we want gender equality, women should be able to go and get smashed without fear of being taken advantage of.”

Or, in the words of another of Roger Graef’s interlocutors: “Although this culture does result in some of the most pitifully overdressed, over-tanned, overly made-up women getting completely trashed, and stumbling barefoot on Dublin’s cobblestones, what Mr Graef is essentially saying is they’re ‘asking’ for it. Nowhere does he discuss why these girls are doing the completely idiotic things they’re doing.”

It is impossible, says another feminist blogger, to contend that “a woman must take responsibility for her actions” and simultaneously to insist that “there’s no excuse for rape”.

Yet that is precisely what Dame Helen clearly believes. She pulls no punches in her account of what happened when she was forced to have sex at the end of dates in her late teens and twenties when she moved to London. There was not, she says, “excessive violence”. She was not hit. But she was “locked in a room and made to have sex against my will”.

But for all that, she insists that, although it was rape, the men involved should not necessarily be considered rapists in a criminal sense. She even raised doubts about the case of the boxer Mike Tyson, who was convicted of raping a Miss Black America contestant in a hotel room in 1992, concluding: “It’s such a tricky area isn’t it? Especially if there is no violence. I mean, look at Mike Tyson. I don’t think he was a rapist.”

Those who have made the journey from this old paradigm of semiotic complexity and sexual confusion to the more black-and-white view that all non-consensual sex is a crime are angered by those such as Dame Helen who refuse to make the same journey. And, like so many illiberal liberals in modern political debate, they are intolerant of those who do not conform to their new orthodoxy.

But there are still clearly issues here which have not been resolved. One of the great fears about rape is that it will be perpetrated by a stranger but the vast majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. Likewise, fears about the spiking of drinks are often disproportionate to the true risks; date-rape drugs are rarely detected in tests on rape victims – the figure is as low as 2 per cent according to one British study.

The commonest drug involved is alcohol. Fewer than 30 per cent of all rapes, according to one American study, are committed where neither the victim nor the perpetrator had been drinking.

It raises tricky issues on the question of consent. “Drunken consent is still consent,” a barrister submitted in one rape case recently – and was backed by the judge who dismissed allegations of rape brought by a 21-year-old Aberystwyth student, who had got drunk at a party at the university arts centre and subsequently had sex with a college security guard. But, conversely, it can potently be argued that no one can give proper consent to anything when they are so drunk. And things become more confused when it is perceptions of consent, not just actual consent, that are in dispute.

There are also issues on degree. Is there a material psychological distinction to be drawn between the act of power and control in a stranger rape, and failure to control lost in a sexual encounter by two individuals in a relationship?

On the question of personal responsibility, it is clear that it is the rapist who must bear all moral blame for a rape. Women always retain the right to say no whatever condition they are in. But is consuming crippling doses of alcohol a violation of personal responsibility that materially compromises them? A drunken driver may have to accept total responsibility for a car he crashes but if the driver in the car he hits is not wearing a seatbelt, the insurance companies involved will not ignore that fact.

These are issues of real contention which are not easily dispensed with.

It is, of course, possible to generate false controversy about rape – as twits like the wannabe pop star and actor Rhys Ifans did earlier this month with a puerile remark about date rape being a good thing, for guys at any rate.

There was even a saddo Californian rock band that released a single called “Date Rape” which included the line “If it wasn’t for date rape I’d never get laid”. Such controversialists deserve all the opprobrium that has been is showered upon them. But Helen Mirren’s thoughts deserve a response which is altogether more considered.

What the experts think of rape law

Martyn Day, Partner, Leigh Day & Co Solicitors

“I am a great admirer of Helen Mirren’s work on the screen and stage but her views on date rape are old fashioned and do not do her any credit. It is right that a woman has the right to choose to say no at any point and for the man to force himself after that is widely accepted to be rape. I can but hope that Ms Mirren’s views will be quickly consigned to the can and she gets on with what she does best.”

Diana Nammi, Director, Iranian and kurdish women’s rights organisation

“Each individual case can be subtly different, including that of Mike Tyson. But the definition of rape should remain straightforward. Whenever an individual is unhappy about engaging in sexual liaison with another person, but is forced to do so, their wishes are not being respected. In such instance, a lack of consent is a clear indication of rape. It’s true that consent can occur by degrees, from full to partial to none. That’s why so many rapes occur within marriage: when a man and woman have voluntarily decided to sleep in the same bed, consent often becomes presumed when in fact it is not. I think Helen Mirren’s comments sound too much like they presume consent, and she goes too far in suggesting women ‘ask for it’ when in fact they don’t.”

Ann Widdecombe, Conservative MP

“Dame Helen is absolutely right. This is sheer common sense prevailing. Of course if a woman goes back to a man’s room she has responsibility for her actions. Of course she should accept that she has got herself into that position. What’s she asking for? A cup of tea? If we say to women that you can go as far as you like with a man but once you don’t like it then you can go running to the law, well then we are offering them a false comfort. I think Dame Helen is absolutely correct. We can’t simply say that women have no responsibility whatsoever: to do that is to treat us like complete idiots.”

 

Number of older people living with cancer ‘to treble’ by 2040

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Cancer, discrimination, older adults, support, treatment

Number of older people living with cancer ‘to treble’ by 2040

The number of older people living with cancer will more than treble by 2040, say experts, who warn of a “ticking timebomb” for society if the NHS and social care systems are not geared up to help them in time.

Macmillan Cancer Support says the number of over-65s who have received a cancer diagnosis will go up from 1.3 million in 2010 to 4.1 million in 2040.

Its estimates – based on research from Kings College London, which it funded – mean that nearly a quarter of all older people (23%) will be living with cancer within 30 years. At the moment, the figure is 13%.

The biggest increase, according to the study – published online by the British Journal of Cancer – will be in lung cancer in women, which is expected to more than double from 319 to 813 per 100,000 people. While the number of men smoking has declined markedly since the 1970s, women have not quit in the same numbers.

Professor Henrik Møller, one of the study’s authors at King’s College London, said: “The aim of this research is to provide long-term projections of cancer prevalence in the UK.

“The research shows that large increases can be expected in the oldest age groups in the coming decades and, with this, an increased demand upon health services,” he said.

Cancer is predominantly a disease of older age. More than 60% of people living with cancer are over the age of 65 and half are over 70. The numbers of older people with cancer are rising sharply because the population is living longer, but also because cancer rates are increasing and treatments are improving so that more patients are surviving for longer or are cured altogether.

But in spite of this, Macmillan argues that older people who are diagnosed do not always get the best care. Decisions about which treatments to give people are too often based on age, rather than on fitness, says the charity.

Older patients are less likely to have radical surgery or radiotherapy and some studies suggest that their survival is less likely because of it. Older people are also more likely to find it harder to recover after their treatment and more likely to feel abandoned by the health service than younger people.

Ciarán Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “The care of older cancer patients is the ticking timebomb for society.

“These stark predictions should act as a warning to the NHS and social care providers of the problems ahead if older cancer patients are not offered the best treatment and support.

“We have a moral duty to give people the best chance of beating cancer, regardless of their age. For cancer survival to improve, older people must be given the right treatment at the correct level of intensity, together with the practical support to enable them to take it up.

“The barriers to older people getting treatment must be tackled. If we don’t get this right now, many older people will be dying unnecessarily from cancer in the future,” he said.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “It’s good news that improvements in cancer treatment mean more people are surviving after cancer.

“We know more can be done to improve cancer care for older people, which is why we are working with Macmillan Cancer Support and Age UK on a £1m programme to ensure that older people’s needs are properly assessed and met.

“From 1 October 2012, it will be unlawful to discriminate in health and social care on the basis of age. Adults of all ages will benefit from better access to services, and for the first time people will have a legal right to redress from the courts if they are unjustifiably discriminated against because of their age.”

Male Anorexia

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anorexia, anxiety, binge eating, Body Image, bulimia, Depression, fashion industry, health problems, Male Eating Disorders, mental health issues, obsessive compulsive hoarders, perfectionism, skinny male models

Male Anorexia

When in history has a male ever been concerned about fitting into a pair of skinny jeans? Media has hyper-focused on the skinny male model. Today’s fashion is geared towards the emaciated male in a pair of skinny jeans. This male body image does not occur naturally unless someone is ill. We now have a whole culture of men trying to obtain an impossible body image.

There appears to be a rise in the number of males with eating disorders. According to NEDA, at least one million males in the United States have an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. But these numbers are skewed due to the high prevalence of undiagnosed males with eating disorders.

Twenty years ago, very few people even knew what an eating disorder was. Today, the public awareness of eating disorders has allowed some men with anorexia to come forward. But most males will not seek treatment for eating disorders because of the shame, the fact that there are fewer male residential treatment centers and the misperception that eating disorders only occurs in females or gay men.

How can you tell if someone has anorexia nervosa? A male with anorexia nervosa is less than 85 percent of normal body weight. He avoids eating, has poor body image and may exercise obsessively. He is intensely concerned about losing flab or building muscle. He believes he is fat when others are telling him that he is too thin. It is important to note that he really does see himself as fat. It is caused by deficiencies in the brain brought on by starvation. Anorexia nervosa may actually compromise the ability to reason in its victims.

People with anorexia usually also have one or more co-occurring disorders such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression. Males and females both suffer many of the same symptoms of anorexia, such as:

• Dehydration (fainting)
• Performing food rituals
• Bursts of energy followed by fatigue
• Constantly talks about body image, weight and diets
• Avoids eating
• Purges (anorexia nervosa — purge type)
• Isolates
• Thin hair and brittle nails
• Excessive movements even when seated to burn calories

When someone with anorexia under-eats, the brain may dispense feelings of euphoria that briefly counteract anxious or depressed feelings. In this way, food restriction is used as an anti-depressant or a way to “zone out.” A male with anorexia uses the obsessive thoughts of weight, diet, food (not eating) and body image as a way of pushing down feelings or past traumas. This is common for all types of eating disorders.

The highest number of males with eating disorders have binge eating disorder, compulsive overeating or obesity. These boys and men often do not get treatment until they have diabetes, heart attacks or other weight-related diseases.

There are many causes of eating disorders. Genetics can make a person more predisposed to acquiring an eating disorder. This usually occurs in families who have eating disorders or other addictions.

The desire for control makes a male more vulnerable to the disease. This is often the result of feeling smothered or abandoned and misunderstood by their families. Many males report that they had parents who overemphasized physical appearances. In these families, the individual learned to keep his feelings, doubts, fears, anxieties and imperfections hidden. There may be family issues that they try to avoid by focusing on their disorders and their ability to control their food intake.

Having a perfectionistic personality type can be a factor in the development of anorexia. Most males with anorexia are above average students and may have excelled at sports. Some say perfectionism is the leading cause of male anorexia. Perfectionism leads to the desire to be good, accepted, perfect and in control — all of which are prerequisites of anorexia.

Male anorexia is lethal. When the body is not fed it will take fat from the muscles and organs to sustain life. Males generally have less fat than females, so there is the added complication of losing muscle mass. The heart is an important muscle that may be affected. In addition, potassium and electrolyte imbalances may be a risk factor for cardiac problems such as heart attacks.

With the rise in male eating disorders and associated risks, it is imperative that men with eating disorders seek help!

Immigraton Officials ‘Too Dismissive’ Of Detainee Torture Claims

Immigraton Officials ‘Too Dismissive’ Of Detainee Torture Claims

Officials at an immigration removal centre were too dismissive of reports from detainees claiming to be victims of torture, inspectors have said.

The so-called Rule 35 reports at Dover immigration removal centre in Kent were poor, “often hand-written and difficult to read and did not contain photographs or body maps”, the Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick said.

“Cases involving torture described scarring but lacked photographs or body maps,” he said.

“There were no judgments on whether scarring was consistent with the alleged method of abuse. For example, in a case where the detainee claimed to have been shot, there was no judgment on whether the scars were consistent with gunshot wounds.”

Calling for the troubled UK Border Agency (UKBA) to urgently improve its response to such claims, Mr Hardwick said the replies were “dismissive and none had led to the release of a detainee”.

“In one case, despite a report by a health care professional which described scarring, the reply stated: ‘There is no medical evidence to support your contentions…

“‘Were it even vaguely credible that you were ill-treated in the manner described, it is considered that you would have raised this at the earliest opportunity.'”

Overall, the inspectors found the centre had improved in April since it was last inspected in May last year.

But Mr Hardwick added: “The two key areas that still needed to be addressed were the poor quality of information provided by UKBA to detainees and the lack of adequate support to help detainees prepare for release or removal.”

Keith Best, chief executive of campaign group Freedom from Torture, said: “When it comes to the UKBA’s efforts to fix the chronically dysfunctional rule 35 process, HMIP’s verdict of ‘prompt but dismissive’ says it all.

“The UKBA has ploughed its energies into speeding up processing of rule 35 forms but these efforts have come to nought for survivors of torture who remain in detention because case owners dismiss the medical evidence in these reports out of hand.

“The example of the case owner flatly rejecting the possibility that someone would make a late disclosure of torture involving anal rape is sadly very typical of the cases we see on a regular basis.”

He went on: “This inspectorate has repeatedly castigated the UKBA for frustrating the operation of rule 35.

“Parliament, which created rule 35, must take further action to hold the UKBA to account and ensure rule 35 is a meaningful safeguard for torture survivors wrongly detained in these detention centres.”