The festive period is traditionally a time for comedy routines, which is perhaps why the home secretary thought he’d venture some jokes at a Downing Street reception in the run-up to Christmas. That very day, his own department had announced it would be designating drink-spiking as a specific offence in law — so what better occasion to try out some edgy new material about Rohypnol? Or at least that’s what some kamikaze part of James Cleverly’s brain must have been whispering when he decided to riff about “mildly” sedating his wife with the date-rape drug so that “she can never realise there are better men out there”. A few days later, on Christmas Eve, Santa brought him an embarrassing newspaper article. He and his colleagues have been facing down the fuss ever since.
How Cleverly’s routine was received in the room is unrecorded, but I confess that, had I been there, I probably would have sniggered. Sudden transgressive forays into taboos are a staple of dark humour, especially when uttered by an unexpected source playing against type. Never mind the Spanish Inquisition: no one expects the home secretary to make jokes about slipping his wife a roofie. I can see why the remarks might have raised smirks in context.
But it seems that in this sentiment I find myself almost entirely alone, and especially among feminists. Instead, to judge by the outraged responses of female politicians and charity bosses, we are supposed to act as if Cleverly had suddenly announced wife-sedation as official government policy.
Yvette Cooper called his comments “truly unbelievable”. Gina Miller said they were “beyond appalling”. Women’s Aid declared: “It is vital that spiking survivors see ministers treating the subject seriously and not downplaying the reality so many women face.” The Fawcett Society went further, calling for Cleverly’s resignation and pronouncing it “sickening” that “the senior minister in charge of keeping women safe thinks that something as terrifying as drugging women is a laughing matter”.
Let’s be honest, though. This is all confected nonsense, isn’t it? It’s not just that, had these people been genuinely worried about protecting victims from Cleverly’s remarks, they probably shouldn’t have helped broadcast them so enthusiastically in the first place. It’s also that, once again, professional feminist organisations are cranking themselves up into high dudgeon about a basically superficial issue — a joke — while judiciously ignoring much bigger harms to women’s interests that are too awkward to mention.
What are the most pressing issues facing women globally at the moment? As vividly demonstrated to the world recently by Hamas, sexualised violence as a weapon of war seems to be one of them — but, peculiarly, UK feminist organisations have had little to say about that. Israel’s treatment of impoverished, disenfranchised Palestinian women as expendable collateral in a bloody conflict started by men could be another topical issue to focus upon — but, again, far too sensitive for many right now.
Closer to home, what about the thousands of women stuck in prostitution and sexual exploitation? Or the effective destruction of single-sex prisons and rape crisis services, strong-armed into admitting males who say they are women? Or if that’s all too difficult, how about grooming gangs, or forced marriages, or religious milieus in which it’s impossible to come out as a lesbian for fear of violence and ostracism? These are all culturally sensitive issues in different ways, which means that they are the very last things a self-interested feminist leader would risk having an opinion about in public. Much better to fixate on some off-colour comments made semi-privately by a politician and ratchet up the outrage.
In reality, joking about a terrible thing doesn’t put you on a slippery slope towards doing that thing; nor does it imply approval of others doing it. That’s not how humour works. Women can joke about castrating philandering husbands without it following they would get the meat-cleaver out, given the chance. Most people grasp this difference — thank God, because otherwise everyday conversations would be a lot less fun.
Yet in the world of progressive NGOs, off-colour jokes are often treated, ludicrously, as a gateway to serious abuse. This is certainly the conceit behind the mayor of London’s recent public education campaign urging men to “say maaate to a mate” — a campaign that begins with the confident if vaguely evidenced premise that “violence against women and girls starts with words”, and goes on to insist that “sexist jokes and ‘banter’ can contribute towards a culture of abuse”. Whereas there are clearly places where such language is inappropriate — workplaces and classrooms spring to mind — Khan’s campaign expresses the heroic ambition of trying to eliminate it from every pub and locker room in the land, based on the dubious idea this would reduce violence against women specifically.
But this seems to me a bit too convenient — yet another realm where, supposedly, the solution to a complicated problem with long economic and sociocultural roots is to guilt-trip the average person into changing his vocabulary. I’m sure violent men often make sexist jokes, but it doesn’t follow that making sexist jokes is a meaningful precursor to violence in otherwise peaceable characters.
As it happens, I know plenty of grassroots campaigners concerned by the problem of male violence who are unafraid to state culturally delicate facts that better-paid feminists would rather avoid. It’s probably no coincidence that many of them are also fond of dark humour, a trait that can sustain you when you are faced every day with the worst things men can do to women. I know which kind of feminist I’d rather hang out in the pub with; but, more importantly, I also know who the more effective campaigners are. Despite modern linguistic obsessions, when it comes to sticking up for women, criticising deeds is more important than criticising words.