Waiting outside the District Judge’s room I sit there quietly and stare; prowling legal alpha males, strutting around with one hand in their pocket and the other protecting their briefs (barristers, that is) while their young, female clerks are running around after them in mild panic that they are missing an order being thrown at them.

I sit and laugh to myself at the sight of the young male lawyer, standing upright, brand new garish tie and pinstripe suit (to fit in) who in turn, are looking down their noses at the clerks, male or female.

All alpha male dominance being played out in the waiting area is soon dismissed as a look of stalked baby deer fall on their faces as they are called in to see the king of the legal jungle, the Judge.

I’m next to be called up and opposite me in the court room is the local swaggering legal eagle, partner of a local firm, slightly overweight, slightly shiny faced and overtly flirtatious in his behaviour towards the female lawyer. 

Wondering if he will actually talk to my face and not my chest this time, I am pleased to get the appointment over with and head off back to my office and away from the claustrophobic confines of the small court room.  Typically, shiny face loiters, opens the door for me and practically pushing me out shuts the door behind him with a “oh Judge, are you going to the cricket……” leaving me stood alone in the corridor, looking at the closed door and the muffled jovial laughter erupting from behind it.  I realise the Old Boys Club is open for business…..

A man has recently said to me that as he has watched pornography he cannot really say anything about Page 3 but I would dispute this; the two are completely different.  I have never watched pornography (by choice) but I have seen Page 3 (not by choice).  The latter is easier accessible for a few pence on a public newstand or a left over torn and dirty newspaper on a train.  Young boys seeing their fathers leering at Page 3 over their Sugar Puffs before school must go to school with a different view of their fellow female classmates.   These boys must have a different image of their mums.  Young girls must have a different view of their own worth, their own bodies and their own place in the family and in society. 

Anybody who reads The Sun are not after any intellectual commentary on news or politics of course; when I was going to write for a well known newspaper I was told to aim my writing so a 12 year old could understand it, or an average man in the local pub.  Nothing too highbrow.  Still, The Sun still appears to be a much read paper (I hesitate to call it a newspaper) but Murdoch’s silly little tweet this week hinting at removing Page 3 was a wonderful hint at a brave new world where women’s naked breasts may not be consumed over the cornflakes.  Alas, that is not the case given today’s horrendous sexualisation of a murder victim. 

The middle aged male lawyer predictably asks me to go to the bar; the bait is set and now it’s my job to wriggle off the line.  Many times, I can hear the young, blonde office junior giggle with frenzy in the dominant male lawyer’s office but then as she walks passed her fellow juniors raises her eyes and sticks her finger jokingly down her throat.  The male lawyers of a certain age are sussed straight away even by the younger members.   The alpha male flirts with the juniors so that they get their work done before the older females in the office (me) and so that they can have their mandatory coffee placed on their desk in time for when they come into the office.  Us ‘lesser’ staff members have to put the kettle on ourselves; a strong coffee being the main diet in the office. 

Once the bait is cast, the male lawyer swaggers from my office and quietly shuts the door behind him, leaving me to quietly laugh to myself at how predictable men are; it would be terrible if they weren’t so predictable but then I stop laughing when I realise I have actually said “yes” to the drink and at any point after work this week I will actually have to go….

Middle aged male lawyers, I have found, seem to have only two set channels when dealing with their female colleagues of any age…..the channel of utter contempt for you should you hold a position higher, lower or equal to them (so basically all working women) or the office sleaze; either channels I wanted to turn off and unplug as quickly as I could, but whichever way they were programmed was akin to the Discovery channel and a day in the law office became the survival of the fittest!

Whether the male fee earner does this to subdue the female is a mystery, but it was a case of fight or flight for me; usually it the first course of action.

Usually the male fee earner marks his territory quickly in the law office, walking and pacing around whilst talking loudly on the telephone, or dictating his letters onto the Dictaphone in full auditory view of everyone in the office; such action perhaps to stamp their authority and seniority over the females. Next was to show their colours by wearing the gaudiest ties they could find, or at least their wives could find them.

Moving on from their predatory prowl and colourful ensemble would be them gliding into my office, shutting the door quietly behind them, sat opposite me astride a chair. Not knowing where to look for the best I was usually forced to make eye with them, which would be to my favour, dismissing their forced masculinities in a second.

Two words hit me; shame and glory. I was interested to see how the writer of this piece was going to reconcile the two. He didn’t succeed in this, if indeed the reconciliation was his objective. p&gt On further reading it is clear the writer is of a religious background and that is when the light bulb appeared above my head and the clanging sound of a large penny dropping.  Reconciliation of the two most emotive words in the title was never going to happen. My anger was abated and I continued to read with less angst and defensiveness, if not only to humour the writer.  My intrigue in the article was that this guy presided over the memorial service for a famous and “glamorous” suicide victim, Alexander McQueen.

Fraser seems to think that the famous who suffer depression are making suicide glamorous; was Alexander McQueen glamorous for suffering intolerable depression after his mum died?

To say that there is no shame in suicide but no glory either leaves me with more questions than the article answers; I am very sure that the desperate person who feels they have no more life to give or that they are in the throes of such loneliness, isolation and pain that death is the only answer are not putting the tablets down their throat or a homemade noose around their neck for ‘glory’ or because they feel so glamorous in that moment.  Fraser casually cites reasons for suicide as in such a way that proves he is so far removed from the realities and reasons; “depression, or schizophrenia, or debt, or homelessness, or alcoholism, or drug addiction, or a combination of these things” then he goes on to speak continuously of the “glamour” of suicide; this is banal and far removed from the reality of the situation which for most of us who have not been to such dark depths, will never know or even be able to comprehend let alone write about in such a disassociated way, however well-meaning.

So what is the point of Fraser’s article? You will see from the last paragraph that it seems this piece is no less than a veritable “pull yourself together and stop being so silly” literary kick in the teeth for those suffering with the physical manifestations of sociological and psychological problems, physical illnesses, exhaustion and in some cases, hormonal or chemical imbalances. This is not an exhaustive list.

I have a dear friend who I have known for 30 years who after a combination of severe food intolerance, financial problems and a marriage breakup has led her to seek Prozac and to feel such despair and isolation that thoughts of opting out of life is the only relief she has. Whether this is a temporary state of mind or a permanent is yet to be seen. Maybe I should email her Fraser’s last paragraph; “if suicide is on your mind, forget the existentialists and the poets. Phone the Samaritans. Go and see your GP. Talk to friends. Stop drinking. Misery is survivable. And hold fast to the belief that a brighter day will dawn.” I am sure this will be of much help to her!

Perhaps if Fraser had spoken with Alexander McQueen he would have been convinced enough to not to have committed suicide that day!

As SNSs obtain their revenue through advertising it is not surprising they have found technologically innovative ways to facilitate this and ISPs are now linking the flow of information from their subscribers to advertising providers maximising their earnings.  Thankfully, Courts and judicially led public inquiries do continue to view individual privacy as important and the financial implications for breaches are large.  Newspapers are always balancing Article 8 right to privacy with Article 10 freedom of expression and what should be in the public interest.  The Mosley case was a landmark for privacy; Eady J held that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy even if an act in private is unconventional to society.  The Applicant, not happy with his limited success in domestic courts took his case to                                                                                                                                                                                      to the European Court of Human Rights which held that if newspapers believe that their story is in the public interest then they could opt out of a conceived duty of pre-notification, a duty that Mosley believed a newspaper should have to balance privacy with freedom of expression and what is in the publics’ interest.  This case also highlighted the ‘trial by Twitter’ phenomena; superinjunctions came into the news in a huge way with celebrities seeking to gag the media who had revelations that they wished to remain private.  The courts still allow superinjunctions but the logistics of seeking remedies for revelations on SNSs still proves difficult.  The case law in this area is ever expanding and highlights that it is the courts’ interpretation of privacy rather than Parliamentary provision that makes the law.  Eady J in another case commented that Parliament may wish to make specific legislation or a change in the law but in the meantime, the Courts are obliged to apply the law.

To weigh up the economic benefit with any financial penalties may be part of an economically strategic business model.  Online advertising is a model which is built on the integration of the site user as an individual in society and also as being a digitalised cyber presence.   This model can be seen by the implementation of Cookies which allowed for unsolicited marketing and monitoring of the users behaviour.  However, new regulations are now in force with regards to limiting this technology to preserve privacy.  Most people welcome advertising as a way of facilitating competition and so it is unlikely that they would wish to have cookies allowing targeted online advertising abolished absolutely and it has been acknowledged that there are different types of cookies; but to allow a carte blanche approach to profiling and tracking by surveillance and direct profiling will impede privacy. 

Whilst individual privacy is generally considered a human right and fundamental to our liberty, it is clear that its use as a commodity is growing rapidly.  Westin claims that privacy creates a social distance to others by way of restricting access to information but there is a tendency for others to be as curious as to the privacy of others that they can invade that by way of surveillance.  A test of proportionality should be looked at when surveillance is deployed.  

These two articles do not discuss biology as being important to being a woman; but they speak about single-mothers and society, about politics, about history, about female solidarity and about how women are perceived by men, society and now bullies and transgendered!  For that they have been further bullied, vilified and even haranged from using Twitter, surely that is disproportionate and wrong?

Is it that the trans gender community want to be drama queens? or am I  saying something wrong there?  Yes, a man wearing a wig and womens clothes do not a woman make!  This is something that has irked me for a while and many women feel the same, not just me.

Whilst  Birchill’s article is angry at the treatment of Moore and, as I say, uses terminology not entirely befitting (“bed wetters in bad wigs” is probably ever so slightly provocative) but I would admire its passion and intention which can never be wrong!

Am I wrong in thinking that the United Nations Human Rights Council made a landmark decision and declared free expression on the internet a basic human right?   Everybody has the right to voice their opinions and any response is also free speech; but there is a big difference between free speech and bullying and these two articles and the hateful tweets following them are examples of this.