Not Again

Someone got upset that a female member of the LGBTQSoc page wrote something along the lines of 'let's have more girls turning up at events!'  - This was deemed offensive by some people, because she should have said 'women'. As if what was discouraging women from going to the events was they were all really upset about being called 'girls'.

I shit you not.

There's a really bizarre tendency some people have where they think that having an incredibly thin skin is somehow virtuous, and if they make a big song and dance about any minor infraction of what they consider to be politically correct then that somehow makes the world a better place. But here's the thing: they are wrong.

You've got to question their motives. Why must they be so boring? There is so much joy to be had in life. Yesterday I saw a crow pecking away at a Dairy Milk wrapper before carrying it off to its nest on the roof of a train station. A baby waved at me on a train. I waved back. Then the baby's sister, who was maybe two or three years old, waved at me. And then my mum picked me up from the train station and timed it so that I was waiting at the station for less than 30 seconds. These are a few tiny examples of good things in life that we can all be grateful for.

Here are a few bad things in life:

Sayeeda Warsi

James Ibori

Paul Dacre

Someone casually referring to female students as 'girls'

WAIT A MINUTE - That last one. Isn't really a big deal. Now, I'm not going to go along the derailment tactic of 'it isn't that much of a big deal so you should get over it' - nope. I'm going to explain why it is not any kind of deal.

When has anyone ever heard an undergraduate (of either gender) refer to one of their peers (of either gender) as a 'man' or a 'woman'? I'm sure it happens every now and then, but the answer is 'very rarely'. I, and just about everyone I know, would say 'some boy I know' or 'some girl I know'. It's a question of formality. Later in this post I delve into a slightly more serious tone and do use the word 'woman', but it's all about context. Making a massive hoo-ha just makes you look like you take yourself far too seriously. You sound like child who insists they're eight 'and a half' years old.

I'll refer to one of the comments I got about this post I wrote last week.

a big part of being a man involved in feminism is knowing when to listen to women telling you that they're offended or hurt

But is it really that feminist to kick up a fuss because another woman has written something you don't think is politically correct enough? Being a boy - or maybe I should write man at this point, I'm kinda confused - I don't have the right to decide what women collectively should or shouldn't find offensive. But women don't share one collective brain, and they won't all agree on what is isn't offensive.

This post isn't very well-written but I'm going to fail my degree if I devote as much time as I to making my thoughts clear. I'll refer you to the wise words of Latrice Royale: Five Gs, please.

Good God girl, get a grip.

Oh and one last thing before I forget (seeing as these are kinda linked in theme): in response to that other post of mine someone threw down the gauntlet over Facebook and she made a good point I think.

I think while we're all taught that making fun of women can be funny, and indeed women themselves are taught to self-effacingly laugh at their 'silliness', and dismiss their discomfort with particular social situations as merely an over-reaction, the reason feminists bristle at this is that this kind of humour doesn't permit the questioning of social norms and stereotypes. It's sexist because it allows the woman no space to explain herself, indeed it's 'laughing at' rather than 'laughing with' and brushes under the carpet someone's discomfort with a situation without allowing any examination of why they feel this. It's possible to have a lot of fun and have a great sense of humour while still being PC, and as people who have the benefit of a great education, among other things, I think we should try.

I'll really briefly say that though I did make a joke about women I don't think this was really about trying to belittle them - it was as much about women being a different species to men and men's inability to understand women as it was a 'LOL women'-type joke. This is an issue I intend to respond to in a bit more detail at some point but I really should get on with some revision now. Ciao.

Rambly blog post takes its cue from misguided article

I read this article by David Shariatmadari about Stonewall's 'Some people are gay. Get over it!' adverts and it raised a few good points, although I didn't arrive to the same conclusion as him. He wondered:

Who was it aimed at, I wondered? Was it a) homophobic people? Well, I'd be surprised if anyone actually believes it has the power to inspire Damascene conversions among the prejudiced. So that leaves b) gay people, who I'm confident don't need much convincing that they – we – exist and c) sympathetic straight people, who equally don't need to be persuaded. 

Well, is it as simple as dividing straight people into homophobes and sympathisers? Despite the fact that us gays like to imagine we are the centre of attention the whole time, there are lots of people who perhaps don't have any gay friends or acquaintances and haven't given a huge amount of thought to it either way. People like my grandparents who, upon hearing "Tom's news" have never had a bad word to say about it. One congratulated me on the fact that even though I was gay, at least I wasn't "like that Chinese chap". Their assertion that being gay wasn't a problem as long as I was slightly less camp than Gok Wan  was obviously meant with love, and despite the anti-Gok Wan overtones I'm sure if I was as camp as Gok Wan they'd have thought of something else supportive to say.

I nearly wrote: "He thought that the whole point of  campaign was about equal marriage rights (it isn't)". I'm wrong about this - the campaign is now all about marriage apparently. Or sort of. They've had the exact same campaign for a few years now, although currently on bus adverts instead of directing people to stonewall.org.uk, it has the web address stonewall.org.uk/marriage. Great. A campaign about fighting equality and discrimination is now all about getting married. Even though we already have civil partnerships.

'Get over it!' could be viewed as kinda confrontational, although it makes a pretty good point. Some people are gay. So? It doesn't even really mean you have to like gay people, or condone the horrifying sex acts we get up to. It just asks you to leave us alone. Which is why I'm surprised they've bastardised this old campaign into being about marriage, when the slogan doesn't really fit. 'Some people are gay. Therefore we should change the law to allow same-sex marriages!' - would be more appropriate. 'Get over it!' vaguely implies that the only thing that needs to change is your attitude, and not a centuries-old law.

Saying that - I don't really approve of Stonewall banging on about marriage so I should be grateful that they've changed tack in a really half-arsed way. The campaign keeps its its original message intact, despite the url change.

Back to the 'who was it aimed at?' point. Well, not just people's grandparents. Basically, people are more impressionable than we think. Especially young people. As Judge Judy once said to a 16-year old girl who'd crashed her friend's car, "When you're 16, you're not fully cooked". Stonewall does a lot of important work fighting homophobia in schools, and seeing these ads all over buses probably hammers the point home a bit.

I take issue with this paragraph:

Being gay is still seen as fine in some contexts, but not all. It's acceptable in your proverbial Islington dining room (though perhaps not in the Islington registry office), fine according to the statute book, but not if you try kissing your same-sex partner in public. Or sit next to them on the bus. Or hold hands in the street.

You sure about that David? Not to say I've never had any problems with random members of the public, but is it sensible to let a few hate crimes intimidate us? Don't let the terrorists win. Letting random attacks deter us from holding hands in public seems a pretty defeatist attitude.

But when I saw the advert it occurred to me that it, and that supercilious exclamation mark in particular, could in fact give people an excuse to express their homophobia. Stonewall's good intentions might simply end up making gay people's lives more difficult.

And so it came to pass. The Core Issues Trust ("God's heart in sexual and relational brokenness") and Anglican Mainstream, a group of hyper-conservatives within a generally quite gay-friendly church, took the bait. They booked space on buses to display a different tagline: "Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!" Slightly baffling, but definitely homophobic, and obviously intended as a riposte to Stonewall.

OH MY GOD.

Remember on that show Dead Ringers, how Jan Ravens took the piss out of Kirsty Wark, and deadpanned the lyrics to rubbish pop songs "don't be shy, touch my bum this is life"? Maybe just me then. These crazy gay-curing people already existed. The fact they somewhat unhilariously satirised a gay-rights campaign is not really going to make our lives any harder. And pointing out they copied Stonewall so it's Stonewall's fault this story even happened is a bit like saying If Kirsty Wark didn't present Newsnight that the first minute of Dead Ringers would have been that old BBC test card of the girl with the creepy clown.

Gay people have been pointlessly reminded, not that homophobia is unacceptable, but that there exist organised groups that detest them.

Thanks David. Yeah, gay people are that forgetful. We had no idea that there were some Christian groups who are jealous of our fabulousness until I heard about yesterday. I was so wrapped up in making myself margaritas and browsing the Ikea catalogue that I just forgot some people reckon they can cure me of my inherent deviance by electrocuting me whilst showing me slide after slide of gay pornography.

What he's trying to say is that we can blame homophobia on gay people. As long as we play nice and don't make too much noise, the homophobes will leave us alone. Basically, we should hide.

He makes one very good point though:

If that weren't enough it's now impinged on the mayoral race as a dream pseudo-controversy for Boris, an opportunity to flaunt his inclusivity and his modernising credentials just before polling day.

We really need to think what Ken would have done here, and it would have been the exact same. Ken Livingstone has an amazing record of fighting for gay rights and let's not let Boris use this as point-scoring to win the gay vote. (Btw: I have a few issues with Ken, but he's a better mayoral candidate than Boris).

Oh and because I'm feeling generous, let's pick one more issue with the article.

Stonewall could learn a thing or two about campaigning, and changing attitudes, from Dan Savage

Well no, Dan Savage isn't as great as you think. He thought of those 'It Gets Better' videos, good on him, but read this article where he comes across as a complete dick.

The tranny activists are going to jump down my throat for this, but it seems to me that your ex could’ve put off the sex change until after his son was out of high school. One of the things parents are supposed to do is make sacrifices, big and small, for the sake of their children. And while I think people have a right to do pretty much as they please (and parents are people), I also believe that children have a right to some stability and constancy from the adults in their lives. Perhaps I’m a transphobic bigot, but I honestly think waiting a measly 36 months to cut your dick is a sacrifice any father should be willing to make for his 15-year-old son. Call me old-fashioned.

Unfortunately, your ex wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice (selfish tranny!) or it never occurred to him to make that sacrifice (stupid tranny!). So what do you tell your son? Tell him his father can do what he likes—suck dick, flaunt it; get his dick cut off, flaunt that. If dear ol’ dad chooses to live as a woman, well, there’s not a lot you or your son can do. But guess what? Your son is old enough to do what he likes and if he chooses to live without seeing or speaking to his father, well, there’s not a whole lot his father can do. If your son can’t deal with having his dad/mom/whatever around right now, support your son and tell his dad/mom/whatever to leave the two of you alone for the time being.

Now I am sometimes tactless. But this? You've gotta admit this isn't nice. It's more of this 'I'm gay but discreet' bullshit.

People shouldn't be afraid to challenge homophobia. It's all about context I know (if a drunk stranger shouts something at me then I'll run away if it looks like there's the slightest chance they're good at punching) and it's not like the situation is all that terrible in this country when we compare it to other parts of the world - but this doesn't mean we should chastise people for trying to make a difference.

We don't hear about racism and say it's because there's too much anti-racism campaigning going on, or that the anti-racism campaigning is too aggressive. We shouldn't do the same for homophobia.

In defence of humour (and feminism)

I'm really sick of being told off for being funny when I'm actually being funny. There's this girl I know who's bisexual and reads this magazine called DIVA, which is the only national magazine for queer women in the UK. And she's always complaining about it, be it the fact that they fucked her over for an internship, or that they allegedly write articles hating on bisexual women. Actually, it might not be the only magazine catering to her demographic, but when I asked her why she reads the magazine despite always complaining about it, she replied somewhat sarcastically with the following:"Because there are just so many other magazines for queer women in the UK, yeah." (I love it when a chat happens on Facebook because you can quote them directly.)

Taken aback as I was by this (sarcasm is the lowest form of wit after all), it sort of amused me how her reply sort of took it for granted that she needed a magazine to read, as if it was somewhere on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Food, shelter, DIVA magazine. I thought it was funny, so I wrote "what is it with women and magazines".

This was clearly sexist. It was suggesting there's an unholy relationship between magazines and women that doesn't happen with men. It was also, shock horror, a joke. It was a comment so throwaway that it didn't even have any punctuation attached. This isn't actually because I typed it so fast that I forgot to properly complete the interrogative, it's more that recently in text messages or online communications I've developed a habit of 'forgetting' the question mark because I like the way it looks and it adds a slighlty gormless or exasperated tone of voice to otherwise boring questions - "where are you", "why are you 10 minutes late", "why can't you just be on time", for example. Omitting the punctuation adds little something extra to these ungrammatical sentences and I'm not entirely sure why.

The backlash I subsequently received was hardly severe enough to warrant as many paragraphs as I am thus devoting to it, but a word that struck me as out of place was 'misogynist'. This isn't fair. I was not being a misogynist. Another gem was "the point stands that he made an assumption and then used it to be prejudicial" - the he in question was me, and yes I made an assumption. The assumption I made was that the circulation figures for "women's magazines" are way higher than for "men's magazines" (unless you wanna include the sort of hobby magazine that might have a slightly more male-oriented audience, like a magazine about fishing). I've not actually done any research on this but if you look in any newsagents the women's magazines take up at least two-thirds of the space, and this is a conservative estimate (I'm ignoring the 80% figure that my heart tells me must be so - I don't want to risk exaggerating). And while I'm sure that a sizeable proportion of the people reading celebrity-focussed ones like Heat Magazine are in fact gay men, there's no way there's enough gay men in this country to make up the difference, unless perhaps if we all subscribed to every women's magazine there is.

As a gay man I am incredibly lucky to have a choice of two national magazines specifically targeted at me, the GT and Attitude. (There might be others but I've never heard of them.) But, ya know, I'd rather not read either. Personally I find magazines a bit frivolous and the kind of men who buy magazines tend to be a bit thick. If you hate me for this statement, then I would like to reassure you that I extend this condescending sentiment to the following categories of men as well: fans of spectator sports, fitness enthusiasts, tory voters. If you're a tory-voting football-watching magazine-reading gym nut, you're probably thick.

With women it seems like they're all it, buying magazines all over the place. And this of course is a sexist generalisation, and not actually true. But like I've said - I'm guessing it might have been somewhat obvious that I was making a joke. Another accusation levelled against me is that the joke wasn't funny, which is fair - you can't please all the people all the time and if someone says your joke isn't funny then this is the kind of situation where you have to respect that. When arguing with people on the internet you can enter a minefield of saying "that's your opinion" until anything that's deemed an "opinion" cannot be false. This doesn't ring true for a lot of topics, but when a joke is deemed unfunny you can't expect someone to change their mind by saying "YES IT IS FUNNY, IT WAS FUNNY, OH MY GOD ADMIT IT WAS FUNNY WHY WON'T YOU ADMIT IT WAS FUNNY".

The conversation then went like this:

Humourless person: MISOGYNISTIC JOKES ARE NOT OK 

Me: YEAH LET'S NEVER HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR ABOUT ANYTHING

HP: Oh god, Tom, really? Objecting to a sexist joke is having no humour?

Me: OH MY GOD YOU HATE THIS MAGAZINE SO MUCH BUT ALSO CAN'T STOP READING IT. YEAH, I WAS BEING SEXIST. IT WAS A JOKE. YEAH, YOU ARE BEING HUMOURLESS. REALLY.

AHP (Another humourless person): Question for the audience: why is it that people who accuse feminists of humourlessness are always the first and most egregious ones to flip their ever-loving, overly-defensive shit whenever we point out that it is in fact they who are unfunny?

Now, I realise I've decided to paint all these guys as humourless and have sorta presented this as a factual statement, but it's within the context of an opinion piece where I don't shy away from carpetbombing my words with my outrageous opinions. Or the occasional burst of caps lock. They, on the other hand, have said I'm unfunny like it's a fact. And this, dear readers, hurt me deeply. Also, they introduced the f-word to the conversation in such a way as if to suggest I am not a feminist. They tried to start a fight of Tom vs the feminists.

But that does not wash with me. I am a massive feminist. I can't be bothered to explain all the ways in which I support feminism, but I don't think 'being really humourless' is one of the principal axioms of feminist thought. I did a tiny bit of research on this matter and searched the Wikipedia page on feminism for the word "humourless", and I couldn't find a single result. Humourless people do not have a monopoly on feminism. Disagreeing with someone who identifies as feminist doesn't mean you're any less feminist. It's an umbrella term for a number of political movements, and not all feminists will agree on their beliefs and aims.

Is feminism about suggesting we can't poke a little fun at differences between genders? When women suggest men love football or golf or formula 1 racing is it gender hatred? Is saying 'women love shoes' or 'women love reading crappy chick lit novels' gender hatred?

It's all about context. If I worked in a bookshop and suggested with a straight face that a woman should stop looking at serious works of literature and instead browse in a section filled with books about fabulous thirtysomething women who have fabulous careers and buy lots of shoes and are looking for love, this would be sexist. If I worked in a newsagent and suggested to a woman trying to buy the New Statesman that she might prefer to read Take a Break magazine, that would be sexist. If I was a journalist writing an article about the new head of the IMF in which I talked mostly about her appearance and feminine charm, that would be sexist. All of these are sexist in a bad way.

If someone was to interpret what I said about women and magazines as suggesting that women are incredibly frivolous and would rather read magazines than a serious publication, I can see where the problem might lie. But they'd be making a quantum leap of reading between the line (line, not lines) to do so. This was a conversation about magazines. It wasn't as though I waded into a chat about newspapers and said "women don't read newspapers, they're more interested in magazines. Because woman is stupid."

The reason, AHP, as to why I'm feeling so defensive is that I think people should be able to take a joke. Within reason. There's obviously a line to be drawn somewhere, but was I really going too far? I think it's seriously lame when people want to cry discrimination at every corner. And when people suggest that having a sense of humour and being feminist are incompatible, it damages feminism.

There are loads and loads of people I know, male and female, who don't identify as feminist. And these are otherwise sensible people. Humourless feminists (not as in all feminists are humourless, I mean those feminists who are also humourless) have tarnished its name, and made out that being insanely politically correct and never having a laugh are what it's all about.

You can go pretty deep into any political/philosophical theory and after a while it can all start to sound like bullshit. Like on the Wikipedia page for misogyny there's this:

Feminist theorist Marilyn Frye claims that misogyny is phallogocentric and homoerotic at its root. In Politics of Reality, Frye analyzes the alleged misogyny characteristic of the fiction and Christian apologetics of C.S. Lewis. Frye argues that such misogyny privileges the masculine as a subject of erotic attention. She compares the alleged misogyny characteristic of Lewis' ideal of gender relations to underground male prostitution rings, which allegedly share the quality of men seeking to dominate subjects seen as less likely to take on submissive roles by a patriarchal society, but in both cases doing so as a theatrical mockery of women.

Right. I literally have no idea what that means. But this isn't really what it's all about.

For those of us who are into less wordy analysis of really old children's books, there are a few fundamental ideas of feminism. It's late so I'll shamelessly paraphrase Wikipedia again - it's about women having equal political, economic and social rights, and equal opportunities in education and employment. So this means women getting paid the same, women having the vote, women being equally represented on boardrooms and in government. If you believe in all of this then you're a feminist.

So how can I justify making a funny at the expense of women despite being feminist? Well, I'll give you an example of when 'LOL it's a joke' goes too far. There are a load of Facebook pages based on 'Lad' humour which seems to be all about encouraging young men to be really misogynist. Immature boys will make jokes about rape or repeatedly say 'make me a sandwich' or 'get back in the kitchen', all in aid of 'banter'. If I was to turn 'go read a magazine' into that sort of joke, and constantly interrupt every woman I know with this suggestion every time they try try to make a serious point, then I'd be being pretty misogynist.

But that's not what I did. I made one little joke. And in the context, it made sense. It seemed kinda funny at the time but once you write a million paragraphs defending yourself it seems a little less so.

I wrote a Facebook retort which was basically a shorter version of this, and AHP concluded:

As they say: if you have to explain the joke via multiple boring, tedious, self-righteous, rules-lawyering, inane paragraphs...it probably wasn't that funny to begin with. Troll smarter next time. 

To which I'm tempted to retort with something so misogynist that it completely undermines my original argument and makes me sound like a sexist bully, but I'll bite my tongue. For now.

~~~~~

Quick disclaimer: I don't know this AHP in real life so haven't put any information up about them -cyberbullying is a real thing after all. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that once you write a sentence on Facebook then technically Mark Zuckerberg owns your words so I didn't have any qualms about ripping direct quotes. Also, AHP isn't the person whose blog I referred to at the beginning. (That's HP).

Anti-choice in Oxford

I wasn't exactly thrilled today to see in my college JCR bulletin (a weekly mailout to all the undergrads) the following item:

 Tuesday 1^st May – 7.30pm – Ferrar Room (Hertford College) If you’re concerned about the issue of abortion, or would like to know more about the debate, then Students for Life Oxford would love to hear from you. We aim to raise awareness within the student body regarding topical issues related to the protection of life, by facilitating discussion on contemporary developments and social questions, and to take practical action by participating in local and national campaigns. We are a pro-life organisation with no religious affiliation, in favour of resisting attempts to legalise euthanasia, and of reducing the frequency of abortion within the United Kingdom.Whether you’d like to take part in the philosophical, legal and scientific debate (both in the public forum or just down the pub with us), or want to know about ways you can get involved with our work; from volunteering to help with the provision of support for women during and after pregnancy to joining a national campaign.Come along to the meeting to find out more! We’ll be discussing primarily the narrow approach of OUSU to the issue, given its affiliation to the controversial organisation Abortion Rights. Even if pro-life activism isn’t particularly your cup of tea, if you feel that the explicit support of a group that wishes to establish the provision of abortion up to birth, on demand, by a body that seeks to represent a diverse student population, is not something you are comfortable with, please join us on Tuesday of 2^nd Week.

Yay. People trying to restrict women's reproductive rights. In my college. The item in the bulletin is decorated with words such as 'discussion' and 'debate', but it doesn't really look as if this will not be an open forum in which to discuss both sides of the argument regarding a woman's right to abortion. They present Abortion Rights as a “controversial” organisation, and suggest OUSU takes a “narrow approach” to the issue of abortion by being affiliated with it. Abortion Rights has the support of the NUS as well as the TUC. I also find their claim that Abortion Rights advocate extending the time limit for access to legal abortion from the current 24 weeks “up to birth” dubious at best, and I've written to Abortion Rights asking them to clarify their position on this.

Abortion Rights is clear on its website in what they aim to do:

Oppose any restrictions in women’s current rights and access to abortion.
Improve the current UK abortion law for women, to make abortion available on the request of the woman.
Improve women’s access to, and experience of , abortion – ensure all women in the UK have equal access to safe, legal, and free abortion.

So they're pretty unambiguous in their aims. Yes, they want to extend access to abortion, but there isn't any mention of extending the time limit. But you know, let's not let the truth get in the way of a good story or anything. Googling 'Students for Life Oxford' yielded no results, but if they're anything to do with the American Students for Life, then we are in problem territory.

I shared my concerns with the JCR (via our Facebook group) and a charge repeatedly levied against me was that I was trying to curtail this group's right to freedom of speech, just because I disagree with them. So I had a read of the university's freedom of speech guidelines and there's a few interesting points.

10. The Proctors will not seek to curtail or cancel a meeting or event unless in their considered opinion the meeting or event infringes on the legitimate rights and freedoms of others or poses a significant risk to health and safety or there is some other substantial and lawful ground for the curtailment or cancellation. The Proctors will consult as necessary with the Vice-Chancellor, or in his absence the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education, Academic Services and University Collections), and where necessary with the University Marshal and police about forthcoming meetings and events covered by the Code. In any case where serious disruption may be anticipated which may not be effectively addressed by any condition specified under paragraph 9 above, the Proctors shall have power, having taken into consideration any advice received from the Marshal and/or police, to order or to advise the cancellation, postponement, or relocation of the meeting.

14. It is the duty of every member, student, and employee of the University not to impede any person entitled to be present from entering or leaving a place where the right to freedom of speech is being or is to be exercised. This duty is subject only to such conditions as may have been specified in accordance with the terms of this Policy or any limitations imposed or directions given by the police or other relevant public authority.

Which seems to suggest that I should maybe just shut up and let them have their meeting, but  also that I'm allowed to go there, wearing a t-shirt with that photo of Gerri Santoro printed on it, and a few printouts of this news article pointing out that "a comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not".

 I suppose at this point I need to acknowledge the parallel between me being annoyed about this and the similar backlash surrounding Exeter College's recent decision to host the Christian Concern spring conference. One graduate decided to return his degree, which I reckon was a bit of a show-offy gesture but it garnered him enough attention that The Guardian asked him to write this article, from which I will quote the following:

To say, as some have, that the conference should go ahead on grounds of free speech is erroneous. This is not a debate in the Oxford Union, nor is it an academic conference in which the views of Christian Concern will be debated alongside opposing views from both within and outside the church, with repudiation from psychiatric bodies and academics. This is a private conference, hiring space, making full use of their prestigious association with Oxford University but going utterly unchallenged.
I, along with many others, would defend the freedom of people to speak out in the public sphere. But this is not the public sphere – it is a private community in which the consideration of its members and the defence of their rights should be paramount. It is the difference between defending the rights of the BNP to be heard while not wishing to invite them into my living room.

I realise I'm going a bit quote-heavy but here's what another Hertford undergraduate (a certain Adam Tyndall) had to say on the subject:

1) Is this the sort of event for which Hertford wishes to provide a room?
2) Is this the sort of event which Hertford JCR wishes to go unchallenged?
A few other thoughts on the issue. This is not primarily an issue of free speech. In providing a room for the event, Hertford is choosing to support it. This is especially true given that no charge is being levied. The issue is the access to the room, not whether I disagree with what is being said in it (although an informed prediction of the latter may play a part in any decision on the former).
Secondly, "free speech" is not an absolute ideal. We curtail it in all sorts of ways on a regular basis. We ban hate speech, for example, because there are other important considerations.
Thirdly, my concern is not that the debate shouldn't happen at all but about Hertford's involvement and what it says about the college. Consider a member of Hertford JCR inviting Nick Griffin to speak to a group of students. I, for one, would object to this. My primary objection is that Hertford should remain an open and inclusive college and the presence of such a vocally racist man might make many in the college (or thinking about applying to the college) feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. There are probably current members of Hertford college who have had abortions and I would hate for them to feel as though they were part of an institution that supported an organisation who believes that they should seem themselves as a "victim".

So I suppose the real question is: what sort of event is this? This is certainly not an Oxford Union-style independent debate, but it doesn't fall under the category of a private conference either. The freedom of speech policy statement tries to set out the jurisdiction for which it applies

4. In this part of the Code reference to a meeting or an event refers to meetings or other events where the nature of the meeting or event, the identity of the speaker or speakers or some other factor gives rise to reasonable concern on the part of the organisers, the Proctors or other individuals that the proposed meeting or event may be disrupted or may result in violence, disorder, harassment or any other unlawful activity.

I'm not threatening these pro-lifers with violence or harassment, but what about disruption? There's a very real chance that I might wish to correct someone if I feel they are spreading lies, like their unsubstantiated claim about Abortion Rights, and their attempts to misrepresent them as a fringe organisation that OUSU has an unusually close connection with. Would this render the meeting sufficiently 'disrupted'?

What I find particularly annoying about the freedom of speech argument is how it's being invoked by a group of people who are actively campaigning to restrict other people's freedom, and they have a room booked in my college, for free. The difference between being pro-choice and anti-choice is that pro-choice people are not actively campaigning to remove a woman's rights not to have an abortion. By all means be 'pro-life' in a personal capacity, nobody says you have to have an abortion. Just keep your hands off my uterus, okay?

By providing Students for Life with a room free of charge, Hertford is effectively sponsoring the event and making itself complicit in their activities - their American counterparts can be heard bragging about how they harass students ("I want to be in their faces about it, I want them to not have any choice but to think about it", one can be heard saying). This is not something I am willing to ignore. As it stands, Hertford does not appear to have a distinct set of guidelines regarding its policy on who can or cannot make use of its facilities  - currently any college member can book out a room for free. This could do with revision.

Basically, I would be a lot happier if these pro-lifers would make alternative arrangements. I don't spend my time picketing all the various groups I disagree with, but if they're going to rock up on my doorstep and tell lies to my fellow students then I think I have something of a legitimate grievance. There is no doubt in my mind that there isn't a catholic church hall (or similar) somewhere in Oxford where they'd be greeted with open arms, and I wouldn't have to see them hanging around in the quad. Please go away. Please.

Brief thoughts on the budget

I'm painfully aware that I'm too lazy and ignorant to write a properly reasoned argument against the injustices I perceive in yesterday's budget without merely repeating things that have already been said by people who understand it all a bit better than me, but allow me if you will a moment to jot down some alternate suggestions instead.

1. Anyone earning less than the threshold for the 40p tax rate has the right to demand 5p of anyone who earns above 150k, at any time of the day and in any situation. It is a legal requirement for them to then provide you with a five pence piece. You can only ask for a 5p coin once a day though, although if you ask a different rich person on the same day then that is allowed. A quick spot of googling informs me that there are 275,000 people earning this much, and realistically it is unlikely they will want to carry round a massive wheelbarrow of 5p coins themselves. Thus over a quarter of a million jobs will be created which will stimulate the economy and bring down unemployment. Hooray. As well as this, I'm pretty sure there aren't currently enough 5p coins for this, so jobs will be created in manufacturing these coins. And finally, supposing the supply of 5p coins cannot keep up with demand, the coins will end up being worth more. And of course as the pound is in fact just twenty 5p pieces, this will make the pound worth more, and thus we will outperform the dollar and the euro. Everybody wins.

2. Miranda Green will be made in charge of hair for both Newsnight and Question Time, and in fact any vaguely serious news-type show on the television (so not Sky News obviously). It's hard to tell whether her slightly messy all-over-the-place-but-looking-effortlessly-cool look was due to hours of trying to look messy and effortlessly cool, or if she just didn't have time to go for the sort of regulation "me on Newsnight, me boring" that all the other ladies on the show did, but it was bloody fabulous and I like her for it.

3. Miranda Green will be brainwashed into supporting the Labour Party.

4. Miranda Green will teach me how to say the word "no" like she did when she was asked if she would have chosen to cut the 50p tax. The mixture of authority and surprise at having been asked such a bloody stupid question was enough to melt my heart, even though a few minutes later it solidified again and then froze over (like a block of Lurpak in a freezer) when she started attacking the shadow cabinet and saying they weren't fit to rule etc.

At this stage I now realise that 3 of my 4 points are about Miranda Green, freelance journalist and former policy advisor to the Liberal Democrats. I watched a bit of Newsnight last night and she made something of a lasting impression on me. Anyway, point five has now formed itself in my brain.

5. George Osborne will stack shelves in Poundland. For no salary. Until he dies.