Leeds Redux Mumsnet Strikes Back

So this was a piece I was intending to write after the ELSC exhibitions and performances. However certain feminists have been busy commenting on my flying penis avatar on twitter, which of course would be very easy for me to comment on and mock. But to be honest the way these feminists have been carrying on they need no help from me on creating a highly amusing set of comments. So who are these warriors of truth, justice and the feminist ways? Well it is our good friends on the Mumsnet feminist boards, you know the ones who raise a hue and cry based on beliefs rather that facts. No apologies for the length of this piece nor on the lack of images.

As people who read the blog regularly know I have a fascination with crime figures and when I did a comparison on the Lilith report with a control being Wandsworth and allowing for population changes which Lilith didn't do the figures changed a tad with rape falling over 12 years in Camden and increasing in the control being Wandsworth. So we were seeing pointers towards the fact that any claims of links to sexual violence were in fact a little off. Add to this the figures produced by a local paper in Newquay after a certain Inspector Drummond opened mouth and engaged foot and any claims about the fact that SEVs cause sexual violence seem to have disappeared. However facts can never keep a good Woozle down.

So if people remember I produced figures around every single SEV in England and Wales back in 2012 for the year 2011. Now the methodology wasn't mine but one used by Bristol and Coventry feminists in the campaign against clubs in those areas. They took an arbitrary 50 metres around each club and assumed any and all violent and sexual crimes were linked to the SEV at the centre of the zone, now I have no idea why 50 metres but it does create an image of what happens around SEVs apparently. The methodology was created by Bristol and they passed the figures for Bristol to Coventry Women's Voices for them to use in their campaign. So I had figures for 2011 for the Headrow in Leeds where 2 clubs closed and now the clubs have been clubs long enough that I can do a comparative analysis of what has gone on since the 2 clubs in the area closed, the clubs were fairly close to each other and created overlapping fields of influence so I have taken the two as a single entity.

Looking back at 2011 we saw a grand total of 15 sexual and violent crimes whilst from August 2014 to July 2015 37 violent and sexual crimes in the same area. So 12 months and allowing for any residual impact of the clubs on the area I worked back from the latest date for one year. Not rocket science and to be perfectly honest I am not sure if proves much other than the claims made by radical feminists in an effort to close clubs are not based on any sort of reality. If I was a victim of sexual or violent crime in the Headrow area since the SEVs closed I would be questioning the council about the fact that no impact analysis was done on the closing on venues and losing bouncers and CCTV. I e-mailed the licensing committee to ask if anyone had thought to consider what might happen if the clubs closed and was told the licensing committee had no interest in doing an impact analysis as they could not see any possible reason. And this is where the ignorance created by claiming clubs cause Sexual Violence people will not think that losing CCTV and door staff could possibly have a negative impact.

The fact is after looking at every venue in England and Wales back in 2012 I can be certain that the only places that have localised issues with sexual and violent crimes are night clubs. So I am certain there will be a backlash from this after all this is only a blog and I don't get peer reviewed as I don't publish papers. What I do is look at claims pointing SEVs as being linked to sex crimes. The clubs are no more linked than banks or even women's centres. The claims were made and the fact is the claims have no bearing on reality, so please if you are going to make claims about the clubs please be aware I will be here to double check any claims. I could pick a woman's centre in a locality that has a lot of sexual and violent crimes close by and make the whole thing look incredibly edgy.

One thing that has had me laughing about Mumsnet boards is that one section of the feminists have basically ignored all evidence including Eaves withdrawing Lilith and still believe that SEVs cause localised sexual violence, this might be called cognitive dissonance? And on the other hand some being accepting of the facts are now trying to justify the attitude of close all clubs because they allow men to let off rabid misogyny and come out of the club worse than when they went in. Now apart from the fact there was almost two separate groups of radical feminists with diametrically opposed points of view the thing that I found most funny (apart from the fact I am supposedly crazy enough to post on mumsnet boards posing as a feminist) was that certain people on the board quoting Lilith and associated gems was on the board when Object were forced to remove Lilith from their resources (well played Sausage) so they surely knew what they were saying had no basis in fact but they just couldn't manage to hold back. So the fact that Leeds has such a dramatic change since the club closed it does raise a question why? I will be going back over my 2011 figures and comparing them to clubs that have closed elsewhere and see if the issue is consistent or does it take a large City for this sort of thing to happen?

Finally I know those who accept there isn't a direct link between clubs and sexual violence are already looking for ways to still blame clubs but now the club is a breeding ground of misogyny that will be brought out of the clubs and will affect women everywhere. Interesting that any time one argument fails there seems to be a rush to find another excuse to back the belief system that clubs are evil and need to be eradicated. I am amazed that the belief system refuses to die amongst those who want to close clubs and that claims still rattle out regularly because to actually realise the claims are based on nothing other than a belief and that clubs are not the evil they imagined.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com) for flying penises everywhere!