Double Rant

OK, so I have to have one little rant about this issue, but I won't get OTT about it... But where the fuck are all the feminists?!! I feel totally alone here. I'm a freak for keeping my own name when I got married (in the last few years I can count at least six women I know who have got married and changed their names, not one who has kept their own), I'm a freak for thinking women should be paid the same wage for the same job as men. I get accused of not caring about the plight of women on an international scale just because I realise there is still inequality in our own country and other developed nations.

When I was younger, well until quite recently I suppose, I assumed that the vast majority of women my age (and a little older and younger) were feminists, or at least held a few of the same views as me. But I'm really struggling to meet another woman who thinks like I do and cares about the issues I do. It's like we got the vote then all the feminists hung up their sashes and went back to the kitchen sink.

So please, answer me this, where are all the feminists?

Second, this is ridiculous. Andy directed me to the story and at the time he was distinctly more aggravated about it than me, but having sat on it for 24 hours, I'm now kinda frustrated about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/5297600.stm

It's a story about a woman who has been campaigning to ban violent porn after the death of her daughter by strangulation, the government have just agreed to close a loophole in the law. Now, not condoning what the guy did, he strangled her without consent and it happened that he owned some strangulation fetish porn, but this is such a gross overreaction and complete lack of understanding of humanity. OK, the guy was a killer, but I highly doubt that the films made him that way. More likely is he was predisposed to strangulation and sought out films depicting it, not every strangulation fetishist is going to kill someone, the overwhelming majority are going to practice it safely and have a safety signal arranged with their partner.

So such films are already illegal, but they're criminalising possession of "material featuring violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in serious and disabling injury". So we're actually talking about all action films, horrors, thrillers, some sci-fi and fantasy, crime dramas etc. We'll be left with a few romcoms. OK, so the wording of the law probably relates it directly to sex, rather than this general, catch-all wording quoted on the beeb. It just bothers me that the government would give in to this old lady who simply doesn't understand fetishes.

With or without porn, people are going to practice suffocation and strangulation and some people are going to take it too far and have accidents and even fewer are going to go out and kill people on purpose. It was like with the Jamie Bulger situation and people reacted by wanting to ban films like Child's Play, or with Columbine and the parents felt that Marilyn Manson was to blame. It is assuming that all people are vulnerable and easily led and that these influences are outright malicious, ignoring freedom of speech and the fact that millions of people get enjoyment out of these films and music without hurting themselves or anyone else. ARGH!!!