A diet of crumbs

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

Suzanne Moore uses the term in her article (thread elsewhere) and it struck a chord with me as it's something I've thought before. There have been a lot of victories in the last year but they are all so tiny.

Danny Dyer got sacked from Zoo Magazine.
The attempt to make rape defendants anonymous was warded off (important but defending our position rather than claiming new ground.)
The woman who was imprisoned for withdrawing a rape allegation was let out (but we don't know if she got her children back).
Miriam O'Reilly won her case against the BBC on age discrimination though not on sex discrimination.

And now Mumsnet is involved in campaigning to have lads' mags displayed away from children, which is good, but it's not exactly a huge demand is it?!

Meanwhile the patriarchy goes on as normal.

These are all things that are important to the individuals involved and are worth doing, but they are so small. How can feminists begin to operate on a larger scale?

does this question make sense to anyone?

Course it makes sense SSM.

I feel like it's not the crumbs, but a lot of groundwork being laid. UK Feminista is the first functioning national feminism network (AFAIK) that allows women to find other feminists in their local area. This section is here :o There was a conference which filled a bloody great hall brimful.

A TORY govt is making plans to introduce shared parental leave - I don't know the details of this so can't say how good it is. But I never thought I would see the day.

But I agree, this is the scary part where we need to start making bigger leaps.

What are the most important progressive aims, do you think? Rather than just standing-still type things I mean.

We got the law changed on sex entertainment venues and have persuaded many councils to adopt it.

I think that's a pretty impressive achievement on the part of Object.

(Anyone know where Hackney are up to on this?)

Any large change is going to need a drip, drip, drip effect. And things are changing, however slowly. I'm just reading a little introduction to feminism book, and when you realise how long it's taken to get this far - hundreds of years - it makes you realise that, even though it feels like crumbs to us, and maybe won't make any significant effect in our lifetime, or even that of our children, it is going to make a difference. Hold onto that - every single victory, however small it is, counts.

As long as you don't let the small-ness of it stop you aiming high, then there is always the chance that large victories will be won.

You're right Jess, that was a big one. Our council has adopted it.

Elephants, I like the concept of groundwork.
It is true that the network of organisations is growing all the time.

'What are the most important progressive aims?' I don't know, any ideas? I would like to have some that don't just involve banning things.

Flamingo - you're right about historical perspective, it does look different when you put it in that context.

Abortion on request, not only by permission of two different doctors - and legal penalties against medical professionals who allow their superstitions to affect their treatment of patients WRT misleading them about abortion or refusing them the MAP.

And adapting the law of sucession so that women have an equal right to inherit the throne. It might sound like something unimportant, but while the law still insists that a woman can only inherit the throne if there's no available man, particularly when there's been a queen rather than a king for more than 50 years, it just says that the UK still considers women inferior and second class.

That will do for starters.

Re the law of succession, there's been talk:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7841414.stm

Two very good ones there, SGB.

I want that idea that companies publish their internal pay gap to come back.

dittany - hope you don't mind me asking what kind of activism you get involved in? You seem a bit further on with the whole feminism thing, and thought you might have worked out what (if anything) works.

I was thinking of starting a thread of "firsts" including Carol Ann Duffy poet laureate, the first woman to join red arrows etc. Good idea? Or just depressing? I think seeing how these things come up can fortify us by reminding us how much is still boundary breaking.

You are right SGM. I also thought the way AA Gill (wasn't it?) was dealt with for his words about Claire Balding was good. Because usually slagging women off for their looks/sexual proclivities is quite ok with everyone.

I think that would make an interesting thread Elephants.

SGM - if the Danny Dyer case sets a precedent I agree it will have been very significant.

exactly. maybe crumb isn't the right word for it but it's another of these 'running as hard as we can to stay still' cases.

90% of absent parents are men and 3/5 of them do not pay one penny of maintenance. There are no sanctions for this whatsoever. There is nothing a parent with care can do, to recover the money owing to her and her children if a man is really determined not to pay.

Of the 2/5 who do pay maintenance, the payments are generally set at such paltry levels, that they nowhere near reflect anything like the cost of bringing up children. (For example, my xp was ordered to pay £2.50 per week per child and that is not unusual. But even where sums are more reasonable, we're talking in the order of £40, £50, £60 a week and no absent parent has to pay more than 25% of their income for maintenance, even if their income is enormous.)

If you're the child of a lone parent in this country, you really are allocated a diet of crumbs from the absent parent's feast. I'd like to see that changed.