38 things you might not know about the Moon

(Unless, of course, you are extremely keen on the Moon, in which case you probably do. Anyway . . .)

1) Our Moon is the largest moon relative to the size of its planet in our Solar System. Some moons are larger - Titan and Ganymede, for instance - but are hundreds of times smaller relative to Jupiter and Saturn. This of course leaves out Pluto and Charon, which besides no longer belonging to the "planet" class are more of a several-body system. On that topic, our Moon is more than five times the mass of Pluto!

2) It's as bright as a sunspot and as dark as coal. A sunspot is a darker point on the Sun's surface. If you could isolate it, it would shine as bright as a full Moon - which looks extremely bright in the sky, especially when full. But its rocks are about the colour of coal. Its apparent whiteness is because it's nearby, and we see it contrasted against a darker space. Its albedo is roughly 0.1, which means it only reflects 10% of the light that hits it. (Ice is about 0.9, meaning it reflects 90% of the light, and charcoal about 0.04, meaning it reflects about 4%.) The Earth's albedo is about 0.3, though of course it varies from place to place. Mercury's is similar to the Moon's.

3) In pictures, the Moon is almost always drawn much bigger than it really is - because it is so bright and captures our imaginations. Its angular size in the sky is between 29.43 to 33.5 arcminutes, which is actually very small. The Andromeda galaxy appears six times larger than the Moon from Earth - but then, of course, we can't usually see that.

4) The size of the Moon appears to vary because of its elliptical orbit - and not because of where it is relative to the horizon. The famous "Moon illusion", the fact that the Moon appears huge when it's on the horizon, has been documented at least since Aristotle. Various theories have been put forward to explain it: one from Ancient Greece was that the Earth's own atmosphere had a magnifying effect. In fact, it doesn't - and you can check this for yourself by holding an object of fixed size next to the moon, at a fixed distance from your eyes. The cause is probably from the way we see the sky: we imagine it as fairly flat, or at most, a gently curving dome, making objects near the horizon seem further away than objects immediately overhead. There are also more landscape features like trees and buildings to compare the moon to on the horizon.

5) Actually, it's not quite simple. The Earth's atmosphere does have a lensing effect on the Moon which can turn it into funny shapes - but you need to be lucky to see it! It can be due to layers of air with different temperatures, such as here:

From the International Space Station, astronauts have seen a "squishy" Moon as a result of the Earth's atmosphere diffracting sunlight!

7) The Moon is 1/81th of the mass of the Earth, but its gravity is 1/6th. Why? Because of Newton's laws of gravity. (To be pedantic, the inverse square law specifically, which was not Newton's alone.) Gravity gets stronger the closer you are to the centre of something. If you have two bodies of exactly the same mass, but one is smaller than the other, the smaller one will have a greater gravity, though over a smaller area. This is why, in a binary star system where one star has died, the white dwarf, neutron star or black hole will often start accumulating matter from the star. As the Moon has a much smaller radius than the Earth, an astronaut standing on the Moon is much closer to the centre of the Moon than she would be to the Earth's standing on the surface of the Earth. Surprisingly, this effect is more significant than the mass of the body - double the mass and you double the gravity, but halve the radius and you multiply the gravity by four.

8) There is no atmosphere or liquid water on the Moon, meaning there is no weather. The escape velocity of the Moon is 2.38 kilometres per second (so it's much easier to fire rockets off the Moon than off the Earth). At Earthly and Moonly temperatures, this is easily low enough for all gases to escape immediately. (At a very, very cold temperature, such as Pluto and Charon, gases move far slower, so it's easier to hold onto them.) This has many implications . . .

9) . . . for example: Moon dust is dangerous to astronauts and their spacesuits! It's extremely abrasive - because no water has rubbed it and rounded it, the way rivers make pebbles smooth on Earth. It's very hard, because meteorite impacts give it a melted, glassy coating. This hardness and abrasiveness means it pierces spacesuits easily. It's very fine, and having no air or water to drive this fine dust around or turn it into soil, it stays there - static and clingy, getting into the Apollo craft and into the astronauts' lungs. The static comes from UV light which knocks electrons off the atoms and molecules. All this will need to be taken into account if we want to live on the Moon.

10) It has often been thought that there is water on the Moon - the Tintin characters, going there in the 1950s, see stalactites and stalagmites - and that hypothesis was correct: there is. It's ice, of course, and trapped within the rock - no rivers or lakes exist, and any water that seeped to the surface would immediately boil or be rapidly photodissociated. But absorption spectra by NASA's Moon Minerology Mapper show the presence of a tiny amount of water within the rock. This has wannabe lunar colonisers very excited indeed. Recently, researchers at the University of Michigan did a study on moon rocks which suggested that the water seems to have been there from the time the Moon formed. This is odd, because the Moon is thought to have been very hot when it formed, which would have boiled off any water. (The same, I suppose, goes for the Earth. Our water may have been brought via comets from the Late Heavy Bombardment.)

11) A "blue moon" is actually not a blue coloured moon at all, but simply the second full moon of any given month. Since the Moon's orbit is 27 days 7 hours 43 minutes, and your average month is 30 days and 10 hours, this doesn't happen often - every two or three years. Occasionally some Facebook page will tell you that a blue moon means something incredibly significant and spiritual. It doesn't: it's simply an inevitable lining up of human generated unequal series of numbers. Calendar months are entirely human choices. Sorry!

12) The Moon is red during a lunar eclipse because the light that reaches it is filtered through sunrises and sunsets. To visualise what is happening, look at this beautiful picture of Saturn:

Saturn's air itself is carrying the Sun's light around the planet (as the air does on a cloudy day on Earth). Earth's atmosphere does the same thing: the atmosphere around the edge of the planet carries the light on and diffuses it into Earth's own shadow. It's red light, for the same reason as sunsets are red: blue light is scattered and all goes off at an angle, leaving red light's path comparatively clear. There are also plenty of particles in the Earth's atmosphere, and particles tend to turn light redder. Light filtering through a sunrise and sunset has the most atmosphere to travel though. That's why people say there's "no protection" when you get sunburnt at noon: the Sun's light goes straight through the thinnest layer of air.

I made a silly little diagram to illustrate this for my March Galactic Orchids talk:

and incidentally, exactly the same thing happens when looking at spiral galaxies face-on versus edge-on:

(This lovely pair are NGC 4126 and NGC 3814. From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope.)

13) We see perfect solar eclipses because of a wonderful cosmic coincidence: the Sun and the Moon appear exactly the same size. The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, but also 400 times further away. Actually, this varies - if the Moon is near apogee (furthest point away) due to its elliptical orbit during a solar eclipse, it won't quite block out the Sun, and we get the "ring of fire".

The shadow of the Moon on the Earth is actually surprisingly small. From the Planetary Habitability Laboratory:

(Eclipses are very emotional events. If you want to cheer yourself up, I strongly recommend watching this Sky at Night episode about Chris Lintott's trip to Turkey to see one!)

There is almost certainly no other planet on the Solar System where we could see such perfect solar eclipses - and this is in time, too, as well as space, because . . .

14) . . . the Moon used to be closer to Earth than it is now - and is moving away from us at the rate of 3.8 cm per year. We check this constantly by firing laser beams at retroreflectors placed on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts. As we know the speed of light, we can time how long the reflection takes to get back to us and get the Moon's distance to an accuracy of millimetres. In my lifetime, so far, it's moved away about 1.16 metres.

On average, that is. Its elliptical orbit varies by a huge amount more than that. But there's a slow progression. And the unavoidable conclusion is that the Moon used to be a lot closer to Earth than it is now. Tides would have been more dramatic; the Earth's own crust would have been under more strain, as would the Moon's. The friction this caused is why the Moon's face is always pointed towards us - and why we are heading the same way . . .

15) Earth's own orbit is slowing down, so one day we will always be showing the same face to the Moon, too. Our faraway descendants will never see a moonrise . . . But that will not be for a very long time.  At the moment, we only need to add a "leap second" less than once a year.

As Phil Plait put it: "I hope you liked 2008. Because you're going to get an extra 0.0000031689% of it today." (2008 was possibly the worst year of my life so I was not pleased, but the extra 0.0000031689% passed quickly!) As he explains, the Moon isn't the only influence - there's also the Sun, the fact that the Earth's structure is part solid and part liquid and generally uneven, earthquakes and tsunamis, and even the weather. So it's slow. But it seems that one day, a lunar orbit and an Earth day will be the same length - 47 of our present Earth days.

We know from fossil records and even rocks that the Earth's day was once 21 hours when life was very young, and 23 hours in the time of the dinosaurs. Coral is particularly good at showing this - they grow leaving marks like tree rings, marking days and years (or rather, periods of light and dark, and seasons, respectively). The older the records, the more days there seem to be in a year - indicating that days were shorter.

16) The Moon is speeding up! This is why it is receding from us, and how it will eventually only see one side of the Earth, as we do it. Essentially, it's taking energy from the Earth's rotation around its axis and putting it into its own orbit - like grabbing the hand of a spinning ice-skater. However, even though the Moon speeds up, it takes longer to complete its orbit, since it's further out.

17) The Moon may be responsible for the seasons. Some planets are very tilted (some ridiculously so, like Uranus); some are very sensibly aligned, with their equators on the same plane as the Solar System. Earth's is pretty tilted, and it keeps the tilt consistent as it goes round the Sun - hence, of course, the seasons. If the Moon was created in a giant impact (see later), this would have knocked us over; Uranus is thought to be tilted for the same reason. However, Earth also has a "wobble" (a very steady one; it's not going to fall over like a spinning top) which is shown in Milankovitch cycles. However, all these are steady and fairly minor, unlike Mars, which wobbles all over the place as its two titchy moons fail to exert any stability against the massive objects such as Jupiter pushing it around in the Solar System. The Moon has been shown to have a stabilising effect on the Earth's orbit - though this, much like the eclipses, will cease as it gets further away from us.

18) It may seem obvious, but art does not always capture it: the appearance of the Moon indicates where the Sun is, like an arrow. You will never see a crescent Moon looking like an open parachute: if the crescent is on its side, the "horns" will point upwards, indicating that the Sun is"below" the Earth's horizon. A full Moon indicates that the Sun is "behind" the Earth. My favourite ever scientist, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, wrote in a 1954 astronomy textbook, agreed at the time to be the best in the world: "It is an amusing pastime to note the 'impossible moons' portrayed by some artists: a new moon high in the northern sky, for instance; a full moon near sunset in the west; or a crescent with horns pointed downward." (That is probably the American version of this book - I wonder if I have bought the only 1954 copy on the market?)

19) The Moon has a molten core and magnetic field. Both are very small - but it's enough to perturb the solar wind from the Sun. The molten core was found with the help of seismometers left by the Apollo astronauts. This is pretty interesting, since not all planets have a molten core or magnetic field - Mars's, for instance, has pretty much shrivelled up, and Martians have no protection from the solar wind.

20) Tides are caused by gravity. Nothing else. Contrary to what you may have heard, the Moon does not preferentially pull on water. It does not affect us "because we are mostly water". True, the Moon does have some cultural effects, hence the werewolf, the word "lunatic", and the Sussex police claiming that there's a rise in crime around the full moon. I've heard people tell me in all seriousness that they "feel different when it's a full moon", that they "felt really angry when the Moon was red during an eclipse", but the Moon isn't picking some of the molecules in your body and dragging them around whilst ignoring the others. I'm not going to pretend I know why these mood alterations seem to happen, but I suspect a lot of it's simply that we expect them. Moonlight is a wonderful, shivery thing, after all - I will never forget taking a walk in a moonlit wooded area around the lake on my university campus. The water was black and silver and the moonlight reflected astonishingly off the silver birch trees. The thrill was slightly marred by the fact that it was so muddy that one of my companions had wrapped his shoes in plastic bags . . .

The Moon's gravity - not to mention the Sun's - pulls on everything, including the Earth's crust. CERN had to take this into account building the Large Hadron Collider, if I recall correctly what was said on my visit there.  There are tides because water moves around easily. As for the Sussex police, I also recall Chris Lintott's comment on a podcast called "Living Space": "Anything to do with the Moon in Sussex has got to be Patrick's fault."

21) The much-missed Sir Patrick Moore wrote his first paper about the Moon when he was only 14. He was invited by a local astronomer, W.S. Franks, to come and use the Brockhurst Observatory which was very near where the young Patrick lived. Mr Franks was suddenly killed by a car knocking him on his bicycle, and Patrick was asked to take over the observatory. He presented a paper to the British Astronomical Association named "Small Craters in the Mare Crisium". You'll find the Mare Crisium on the far right here. "I sent it in, and was notified by the Association's Council that it had been accepted, but I felt bound to explain that I was not exactly elderly. I still have the reply, signed by the then secretary, F.J. Sellers: 'I note that you are only fourteen. I don't see that this is relevant'." (This, by the way, is exactly what you should be saying to young people interested in science.) You can read more in Sir Patrick's autobiography. (You can also leave a tribute for him here - and yes, he did play the xylophone.)

22) The darker areas of the Moon, "the man in the Moon", are called maria, meaning seas. Tell that to someone you know named Maria, if she'd be interested? The maria are of course not seas - they are in fact old lava flows, quite possibly made as the result of impact craters that filled with lava. There still seems to be debate whether the impacts caused an upwelling of lava or whether it was volcanism. They are dark because they are more iron-rich than the rest of the Moon's surface, indicating that they come from closer to the core. (Just like the Earth, the Moon has more iron towards its centre, because iron is heaviest, and it started off molten so heavy things sank to the bottom.) In this picture by Alan Friedman you can see a large lava basin which then received a later impact:

23) There isn't a "dark side of the Moon". There is a "far side" of the Moon that never points our way. But, as you can see for yourself, every side of the Moon experiences day and night with its rotation just as the Earth does. We can see the far side of the Moon, however, using spacecraft such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:

24) The Moon does not, strictly speaking, orbit the Earth. Rather, the Earth and the Moon orbit a common centre of mass. This centre of mass, or barycentre, is just under 2000km below the surface of the Earth. That means that Earth goes round in a little circle, and the Moon goes round in a big one. (If they were the same size and mass, the centre of mass would be exactly halfway between them.)

The Earth and Moon feel equal and opposite forces: gravity balances a "centrifugal force" (I say that in inverted commas, because there's actually no such thing as centrifugal force, and the idle use of the term drives some physicists crazy. It's actually the law of inertia: the urge of the body to keep going in a straight line. If either body started going in a straight line, it would be going away from the other one. It doesn't, of course, because of gravity. When you whizz lettuce in a salad whizzer, it is flung against the wall of the bowl because it "wants" to go in a straight line, but the container prevents it from doing so). That's why we have two tides, not one. Water nearer the Moon feels the Moon's gravity more, and wells towards it. Water on the far side of the Moon feels the "centrifugal force" more, and moves towards outer space.

25) There are more maria and larger craters on the "near" side of the Moon that points our way, and the core is about 2km closer to Earth than the actual centre. It is tempting to conclude that all this is because the Earth's gravity pulled the heavy parts of the Moon towards us. But the Moon feels exactly the same effect as in the item above this: it has an equal and opposite "centrifugal force" pulling it away from the Earth as towards. It could be due to a massive impact (or several) coming from roughly Earth's direction; but we don't know. Perhaps one day we'll find out?

(It is not shameful, by the way, to answer a scientific question with "we do not yet know". It doesn't mean "scientists are stupid or lazy", but that the Universe is too big for us to have explored the whole thing yet. Otherwise we wouldn't need any scientists! Indeed, it's often when we think we're close to tidying up and claiming to understand the Universe that the greatest surprises of all occur - relativity and quantum theory, for example, or the accelerating expansion of the Universe. OK, rant over.)

26) The Moon is the second densest moon in the Solar System. The densest is Jupiter's volcanic moon Io.

27) Because of the Moon's elliptical orbit, we do get to see occasional corners of "the far side". This is called libration. Here, have a pic and get nice and dizzy.

There are other reasons for the libration: the moon's own axis is not quite at right angles to the plane of its orbit, so we see a "nodding" movement; and the fact that we're over 6000km from the Earth's centre, so we ourselves see the Moon from a very slightly different angle at the beginning and end of a night.

28) Phil Plait has a huge list of debunkations for conspiracy theorists who claim that the Moon landings were faked. You can read it here. I'll just go through one: the idea that upon launching, the Moon's dust "should have been blown around more".

Do an experiment. Next time you get out of the shower and the bathroom's full of steam, watch that steam for a while. Then blow on some steam quite far away. Or a balloon, if you desire; or a boiling pot of water or the kettle or a candle half a room away - whatever takes your fancy. You will notice that there is a pause, and then it will start swirling about. What did that?

Air, of course. The air from your lungs? Well, partly. But also all the air that's in between you and the steam. The air from your lungs knocked into air molecules, which knocked into more air molecules, which knocked into . . . well, on the Moon, this doesn't happen. Blown air, or blown anything, meets a vaccuum. Only that which is right next to the blowing gets touched. On the Moon, air will quickly dissipate into space.

For more lighthearted stuff, the Clangers are always willing to help.

29) For Moon observers, the best time to look at details is not at full moon, but when it's a crescent so there are lots of shadows. (This is only something I've been told. I'm a rubbish observer; I've used my telescope twice and then broken it!) Shadows show detail. Thank you Graham Bowes for this amazing image:

30) We've known for many centuries that there can't be air on the Moon, because its edges are sharp. Look at the Earth's own horizon, and it'll be misty, blue, and blurred. That's air getting in the way. You don't see that on the Moon. William Herschel, however, speculated that there might just be air in the craters - at the lowest points on the Moon's surface - and that aliens might live in these. He pointed out that at craters are on average 50% lit and may be lit from any angle, so alien buildings capturing the warmth of the Sun would probably be circular. Incidentally, Herschel has craters named after him on our Moon and on Saturn's moon Mimas.

31) Very occasionally, we see abrupt changes on the Moon, such as a spot turning brighter or darker or changing colour. These are transient lunar phenomena, thought to be caused by impacts, outgassing etc. You can hear a lot about the first ever recorded instance, in 1178, in Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". Some monks at a monastery in Canterbury saw "a splitting" of the very new crescent moon, and reported fire, smoke, darkening, and that the Moon "writhed" and "throbbed", "like a wounded snake". This was probably a large impact, and has been suggested to be the formation of the Giordano Bruno crater. Other odd phenomena include that static, UV-light-blasted moon dust, from number 9: the Apollo astronauts saw "twilight rays" towards the horizon, which was probably dust in a continually rising-and-falling state from the surface.

32) Going to the Moon made us much more aware of our own Earth. If you've ever spent a long time in a country other than your own, you'll know that you learn a huge amount about your own country, too. The first ever complete photograph of the Earth from space, "The Blue Marble", taken from Apollo 17 in 1972, and "Earthrise", taken by Bill Anders as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon in 1968, had a great effect on people's environmental awareness.

33) We're now pretty sure the Moon was formed by a giant impact on Earth, probably by an object the size of Mars. We can tell this from the fact that the Moon is made of fairly similar materials to the crust of the Earth, but not the core (it's less dense). Other theories of formation, historically, have included that it was captured, that the Earth and Moon formed together, or that the Earth was spinning so fast a piece of it bulged out and broke off!

It would take extreme luck to capture a passing body that was going at precisely the right speed to start orbiting the Earth, rather than colliding or simply escaping. If they had formed together, the Moon's iron core would probably be larger. This is also the case with the spinning theory. The giant impact hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Moon's composition is fairly similar to the Earth's crust. A more recent hypothesis is that there was a three-body collision, out of which the Earth and Moon formed together.

34) The temperature variation on the Moon is huge. At "night" - and a night lasts 2 weeks, since the Moon rotates at the same rate as it orbits the Earth - the temperature falls to -173 ºC, while by daytime at the equator, it rises to 127ºC.

35) There is a place near the Moon's south pole which is the coldest known place in the Solar System! There are very deep craters where sunlight never reaches the bottom. These have been measured to be -240ºC, 33ºC above "absolute zero" and 10ºC colder than Pluto. Of course, there might be similar permanently shadowed and even colder places in the Solar System just waiting for us to find them . . .

36) The Apollo astronauts brought back 2,415 separate samples of lunar rock, weighing a total of 380kg. You can go and see a piece of it at the Science Museum in London.

37) Nobody owns any land on the Moon. This has been decided in a treaty which specifically prohibits any country's sovereignity or its use for military purposes. So if someone tries to sell you a plot of land on the Moon (or to name a star after your loved one, or what have you), they are defrauding you - no matter how fancy the certificate you receive.

38) You can help explore the far side of the Moon and classify its craters with citizen science. Go to www.moonzoo.org.uk.

Thank you Graham Bowes for this ghostly galleon too.

International Women's Day 2013

On International Women's Day, there are numerous events, and there are continuities. Many people wish each other a happy International Women's Day, while others whine that there is no International Men's Day (here it is) or claim that in today's "honour", they have "put the washing machine on".

It's important to remember - as many women point out when we begin posts about feminism - just how far we've come in not very many years. Rape and violence including within marriage are no longer acceptable in many societies. Women can now be politicians, when a century ago we didn't even have the vote. In theory, at least, we're supposed to have equal pay, though this certainly doesn't happen in practice (two recent figures are 9.6% and 14%). And - by the way, this often makes me incredibly happy - most men I know are all for equality. Most treat me with as much respect as they treat men. Some, who are initially dismissive of feminism, change their minds when they learn more. Many comment on how the patriarchy damages men too - Puffles, for instance. And I hope most understand that when I mention sexism, I am not bashing men in general, or any specific man unless I say so - just a sheer cultural force of habit.

Recently some of the most moving pieces I've read involve horrific behaviour going unchallenged and the permanent fear in which this leaves women (note: this last site has posts for over-18s only - not including that one). Yesterday there was a hilarious NewsBiscuit take on how differently males and females were represented in the media, which prompted the #thingspeopledontsayaboutmen hashtag ("He's a bit hormonal today"; "Can career men have it all?"; etc.). It may sound trivial to those who have not experienced such things, but this entry on Everyday Sexism pretty much sums it up (click to enlarge):

In other words, just the fact that we are openly talking about sexism is a major stepping stone to victory. Projects such as Everyday Sexism are vital to this sort of thing. The method of a bully is to make the victim feel powerless and alone. This bully might be a schoolkid who tells their victim nobody likes them, a (male or female) domestic abuser, or a dictatorship that makes all its citizens terrified their neighbours will report them, or anyone big or small - and as any woman who's called out sexist remarks can probably attest, she will be accused of overreacting, being a bitch, ugly, frigid, paranoid, a man-hater, etc etc, which has just this isolating effect. But it's a lot harder to say this when 20,000 people tell similar stories!

So, what am I doing for International Women's Day, other than ranting? Probably not much, as I'm unwell - though I hope to go along and see the Daughters of Eve stall here. I should probably write my presentation for Wednesday: it'll be the March Galactic Orchids talk, "Many Mysterious Moons".

Our own Moon has some decidedly odd characteristics. Some of them are intrinsically odd; some are perfectly unremarkable but make you stop and think. For instance, its gravity is only one-sixth of Earth's. But its mass is 1/80th. How can that be? That is because, when we stand on the Moon, we are comparatively nearer its centre, so more strongly affected - you need Newton's laws for that. And then there's the fact that our Moon is much, much bigger than every other planet's moon in comparison to the size of its planet. And then there are other moons: some destined to crash into their home planet one day, some that make gaps in the planet's rings, others that actually create the rings, a few that are hopeful candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life . . . I'll write more about these when I've done my talk. I hope you'll be able to come! 7pm this Wednesday, Newington Green Unitarian Church, 39A Newington Green, Stoke Newington, London N16 9PR - a talk followed by questions and answers, then tea, coffee, biscuits and quite possibly cake. The nearest train stations are Dalston Kingsland and Canonbury on the Overground line.

Galactic Orchids hasn't exactly been my life's smashing success: 13 has been my largest audience so far. I advertise on Twitter and Facebook, contact local news outlets etc - though the latter seems to draw nobody in. (Oddly, when I lived in Wales and travelled to give talks at other places, I'd often have audiences of 50 or more. Now I'm in London, it's very rare for people to come to my talks. Perhaps everything's just higher quality here? Or perhaps I'm really just not very good at advertising.) Recently, suffering from depression and low confidence, I've ended up rushing my presentations a little - and then of course feeling disheartened that they're just not as good as I wanted them to be.

On the other hand, people tell me earnestly that they learn a lot and enjoy the evenings, and I have a small but lovely "hard core" who keep coming back, which is the best possible sign. A couple of especially wonderful people can be relied on to help with the setting up and then clearing up after we've drunk our tea, and some have brought space-themed food! We've had some great chatty evenings as a result. We've been able to donate over £100 each to Daughters of Eve and the Orchid Project, plus some minor expenses for me and a donation to New Unity, which gives me their venue for free. A friend kindly lent me a projector, then said I could keep it! One of my aims with Galactic Orchids is not so much to make people experts in female genital mutilation - the more I learn about that, as with astronomy, the less I feel I know; even campaigners don't agree on everything - but simply to make it, like sexism, more acceptable to talk about. I mean, it's not exactly easy to trample into the subject of private parts permanently injured in a cultural practice believed (incorrectly) to be required by religion, is it?

The resulting ignorance about female genital mutilation is heartbreaking. Take this story of an 11-year-old two years ago, whose 12-year-old sister was cut in Africa without even her parents' knowledge. They only found out when she cried watching a television program about it back in the UK. The 11-year-old was terrified that the same would happen to her when they next visited extended family, and sought help from a teacher. The teacher did not know to contact police, or even a specialised charity.

Things are progressing, though. A journalist recently took on the subject in Liberia which broke a major taboo - putting herself and a lady she interviewed in danger, but both say it was worth it. After Nimko Ali from Daughters of Eve got into the Evening Standard (for which she received death threats, accusations of "hating being a Somali" and so on), £35 million was pledged to battle the problem! It's not going to be an easy task, but at least it's now an open, acknowledged problem. And it's a problem that is part of a wider culture of violence and subjugation of women, which affects us all, men and women, of every country. My tiny part to play is raising a small amount of money and what little awareness I can for people who can help much better than I can alone, I guess. There are events and there are tiny, inching steps.

Incidentally, there's a long but fascinating podcast about female genital mutilation here.

And, Therefore . . . Part II: Proofs that women shouldn't mention sexism!

A couple of years ago, after the Ten23 overdose, I read more comments on newspaper and social networking sites than usual and became rather overly well versed in pro-homeopathy logic. The result was startling - it ended up on various Spanish websites, a German one, and even as part of a university course.

Since my rant about sexual harassment, the wonderful website EverydaySexism launched, and one or two instances of misogyny coming up among the (depressingly fragmented this year) skeptical movement*, the same has started to happen with feminism. The more I read of feminist issues, the more people I see trying to cover them up, and the more annoyed I'm getting!

To be clear, most men I know are nice, fair, un-sexist, and upset when they see sexism occurring. And I have come across some who have genuinely been astonished and distressed to discover a behaviour they thought normal (groping, for example) is damaging and horrible, and changed their perception. So this probably rather unpleasant rant is only directed at** a small - but vocal - minority, which is highly offended at sexism's ever being pointed out or discussed. In the spirit of my homeopathy proofs, I thought it was time to make a note of their logic . . .

*For "movement", if you wish, please read "community" or "unherded cats" or whatever takes your fancy. That is seriously not something I can be bothered to have an argument about.

** For "directed at", please read "actually, not directed at them at all. Rather, directed at those who have attempted to engage with them, and need a laugh as an alternative to banging their head against a brick wall!"

THE AESTHETICS ARGUMENT
1) Feminists are always ugly.
2) Aren't they?
3) Look around. Yeah, everyone's laughing in agreement with me. So that's all right then! Shut your face, you frigid bitch, and go and iron my shirt.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM CALMNESS
1) You're overreacting.
2) You're also doing women who are real victims of sexism a disservice by getting so hysterical. They won't get taken seriously next time they're assaulted, all because of you whining so much that nobody believes women any more.
3) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE PERSONAL PREFERENCE OF WORDS ARGUMENT
1) Somebody used the word "misogyny" incorrectly.
2) A LOT of people do that; that is proof that their understanding is incorrect.
3) Obviously my own interpretation of the word is correct. There is no argument about that.
4) Therefore, nobody should use that word in any context other than that which has my signed approval.
5) Therefore, that covers the entire issue.
6) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE REVERSE SEXISM ARGUMENT
1) But women can be sexist towards men too!
2) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE REVERSE SEXISM ARGUMENT (2)
1) Why are you only talking about sexism towards women in this particular instance? That's really sexist of you! You're the ones at fault here!
2) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE NO TRUE (SCOTS)MAN ARGUMENT
1) I've never catcalled a woman in the street.
2) Therefore, why are you moaning where I can see it? That's not fair on me.
3) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE HUMOROUS ARGUMENT
1) We didn't mean it seriously about how this woman needs a good rape and that one should be in the kitchen making sandwiches. We're really confused about why you should criticise such comments.
2) Therefore, you're too serious.
3) And also too emotional to have a rational discussion with.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM SMALL HOLES
1) You made a statement which I consider to be incorrect or misrepresentative, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the subject in question.
2) Therefore, the rest of your argument is also invalid.
3) Also, you're doing a great disservice to the people you misrepresented.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE CAUSATION ARGUMENT
1) I am not blaming women. I am just trying to analyse the causes of sexism.
2) That you have not covered every single one of my ideas and excuses in your blogpost or article is evidence that you do not care about the causes, you only want to blame men.
3) Like all feminists.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM MY POINT
1) This feminist has missed my point.
2) They always do that.
3) Yes, my point is much more important than all the opinions and experiences of all women in the world put together.
4) No, there is definitely no chance that she did understand your point, but disagreed with it.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE COMPLI(E?)MENTARY ARGUMENT
1) But isn't it a compliment to be catcalled or groped?
2) You should be grateful men notice you. Fat or old or ugly women don't get this attention.
3) Yes, of course you live entirely to gain men's attention. Come on, you're a woman!
4) But it's not anyone's intention to scare, disgust, threaten, corner, embarrass or belittle you.
5) My interpretation is also valid while yours is not.
6) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE COUNTER ARGUMENT
1) It is also possible for men to be sexually assaulted by women.
2) This by definition negates the entire issue of sexual assault of women by men.
3) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE RAPE = THEFT ARGUMENT
1) Of course it's not right to say that a woman should dress modestly in order to avoid rape, there is no excuse for rape.
2) However, would you leave your house door unlocked?
3) That rape is violent assault on a living, moving being, whilst theft is of inanimate objects for a totally different purpose, is utterly irrelevant here.
4) Therefore, women should dress modestly in order to avoid rape. This is only common sense.
5) And it's illogical to complain about it.
6) And it is not insulting to men, because if it was, that would mean everyone thinks I'm a thief.
7) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism (or victim blaming, or rape).

ARGUMENT FROM BIOLOGY
1) We poor men just can't help it.
2) God/evolution/whatever made our eyes to be receptive to visual signals.
3) Therefore, it's your job to be modest.
4) We're only trying to help you here.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
1) I'm not racist.
2) Therefore, I can't be sexist either.
3) Therefore, I shouldn't have to put up with this being discussed around me.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE LACK OF OFFENCE ARGUMENT
1) What's your problem? I'm not offended by what s/he did/said.
2) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT
1) You young things these days don't know how lucky you are!
2) When I was young, my mother was expected to do all the cooking and ironing. She didn't complain!
3) You young girls need to stop messing about on the career ladder and find yourselves a nice man!
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM THE VICTIM CARD
1) She's just playing the victim card.
2) Therefore, she can't be being honest.
3) Therefore, we don't welcome her opinion of sexism.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM THE VICTIM CARD (2)
1) But this woman was really horrible to me once.
2) Therefore, all women are horrible.
3) Therefore, any accusations of sexism are just part of their dishonesty and nastiness.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM THE VICTIM CARD (3)
1) Men only catcall and harass women to impress other men.
2) They are insecure. They need to look big in front of their mates.
3) Therefore, their perpetuation of a toxic culture and the effect it has on the victims and bystanders is irrelevant.
4) Also, you should be blaming society for feeding men sexist images like Page 3.
5) NB the above is valid whether you have suggested a cause or not. If you mention sexism, you're attacking men and avoiding analysis.
6) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM THE VICTIM CARD (4)
1) A woman once mentioned me in her blogpost about sexism.
2) That was horrible of her and you are stupid to agree with anything else she's ever said.
3) Therefore, everything you and she say is wrong.
4) And this is all about me.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE SOPHISTICATED ARGUMENT
1) Will you stop pretending things are as black and white as that!
2) It's not as simple as you make out!
3) For example, what if a man has already started shagging a woman by the time she says no? Is it rape then?
4) Therefore, everything is complicated.
5) Therefore, it is better not discussed.
6) Also, you're dumb.
7) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM INTERNETTIQUETTE
1) Don't feed the trolls.
2) If you mention sexism, you're only going to be feeding the trolls.
3) That is unpleasant for other people.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM LANGUAGE
1) It's not misogyny to use misogynistic language in an ad hominem attack on a woman.
2) It's merely that I disagree with her views.
3) The fact that I attacked her in this manner, rather than state why I disagree with those views, is evidence of your obsession and paranoia.
4) Therefore, you can't tell the difference between misogyny and the good argument I made.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS ARGUMENT
1) Well I was brought up to be a gentleman, me.
2) I was taught to offer my seat to ladies and to hold doors open for other people.
3) These young girls go around wearing less* clothes than I go to bed wearing!
4) And then they blame other people when they notice that!
5) What do they expect? No sense of responsibility, these young things today.
6) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.
*The appropriate word here is "fewer". Yes, I am a pain in the arse.

ARGUMENT FROM A WELL-KNOWN CONCERN TROLL
1) She looks like junk.
2) Therefore, she can't be telling the truth about being sexually harassed.
3) Also, I agree with my friend that most people's views on this kind of thing are highly suspect.
4) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.
(Can't provide the source, sorry - I've blocked her, so no longer have access!)

ARGUMENT FROM THE ECHO CHAMBER
1) You have been caught speaking to other feminists.
2) Therefore, you are just shouting to an echo chamber.
3) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM DISTRACTION
1) But other nasty things happen too.
2) Therefore, you should be writing about those instead.
3) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.
(Source)

THE DAWKINS ARGUMENT
1) Women are better off in Britain/America/wherever the woman is than in some other countries, where oppression is worse.
2) It is not possible that sexism has varying degrees, and that a "mild" incidence of sexism could possibly be compared to a less mild one.
3) Also, mentioning one issue means, by default, that all other issues in the world must be being ignored.
4) Therefore, it is exceedingly damaging to women who are being oppressed worse if a woman mentions sexism.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE ELEVATORGATE ARGUMENT
1) Elevatorgate.
2) Well, you know.
3) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM GETTING ANNOYED WITH SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET
1) But this woman who was talking about this the other day really annoyed me.
2) She treats women like poor little flowers, all this "trigger warning" business.
3) She was only insulted, stalked, had her address published and threatened with rape because she was so annoying.
4) That's nothing to do with sexism.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

THE PROVOCATIVE ARGUMENT
1) If you're sexually harassed, it's your own fault for what you were wearing.
2) What has the fact that you weren't wearing anything provocative to do with my argument?
3) It's all evidence-based.
4) It's your own fault, you're just whinging and avoiding responsibility for your behaviour.
5) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

ARGUMENT FROM CONFUSION
1) Sexism is treating the opposite sex badly.
2) Assault is assault.
3) No, the two can never possibly be related.
4) This article "seeks to blur the lines between the two."
5) Therefore, this article is wrong.
6) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism (in relation to sexual assault).
(Source: some of the comments. I don't recommend a read!)

THE APATHY ARGUMENT
1) I don't see what the big deal is.
2) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.

Feel free to add your own.

Update, April 2013:
THE I DON'T LIKE LAURA BATES ARGUMENT
1) I never noticed this was a problem until Laura Bates pointed it out.
2) Therefore, it wasn't a problem before.
3) But now it is a problem.
4) That makes life worse for women.
5) That means Laura Bates is creating problems.
6) Or maybe I just don't like Everyday Sexism having a newspaper column.
7) Therefore, it shouldn't.
8) Everything would go so much better if you just stopped talking about these things!
9) Therefore, women shouldn't mention sexism.
(Has anyone else noticed this argument in the comments of a lot of Everyday Sexism columns? I have, and it's driving me nuts!)

Astronomy talks for the Orchid Project

I'm in the process of setting up a new project, which hopefully should have its own website soon, though I'm still looking for a name. I will soon be giving a series of astronomy talks, aimed at the general public, to fundraise for the Orchid Project which works with communities to bring an end to female genital mutilation.

I love giving astronomy talks, and have several left over from Tea with the Stars, plus ideas for many more. Hopefully, this autumn, I'll be starting talks at the Newington Green Unitarian Church, who with amazing kindness have offered me their building for free! (The talks will have absolutely no religious affiliation; they're open to anyone who likes astronomy.) You can find the place here; it's incredibly friendly. It looks like we'll be able to have tea, coffee, biscuits etc. too.

The talks look as if they are going to be once a month, probably on a Wednesday evening. A lot remains to be decided, such as the exact price and length. A few expenses will be involved, such as steward fees, but the rest will go to the Orchid Project. (I will of course provide spreadsheets of all the money that comes in and where it went, though I know nothing about accountancy.) There are so many human rights violations I want to help stop, and it's impossible to "pick one", but I choose to concentrate, for now, on female genital mutilation.

Female genital mutilation is the cutting off - often with scissors and unsterelized equipment, with no anaesthetic - a girl's external genitals. It is a very painful and dangerous practice. The Orchid Project explains in graphic language here. It may be part or all of her clitoris, clitoral hood or labia. At worst, the wounds left are sewn very tight shut, leaving only a tiny hole for menstrual blood and urine. She will then have to be cut open again for sexual intercourse and for labour, and may even be sewn up again - so she will have to be re-cut later - after birth.

This is not something unique to a few isolated African tribes, or insert stereotype of choice here. It happens in 28 countries across the world. And one of them is the United Kingdom. 

This was recently highlighted by programs such as Newsnight, and there was a spate of articles in the press. It was the beginning of summer - when girls as young as five may be taken to their parents' or grandparents' countries to be cut, or even to have it done right here in a British town. 

The Orchid Project have a success rate of over 70% of encouraging communities in Africa to give up FGM - and to publicly announce that they are doing so. In 2011, two thousand communities rejected the practice. This means not just passing laws, but informing all local people that you are doing so - to raise awareness of why, to point out that the practice is not required by any holy book, and to let your neighbours know that any girls they marry from your town will not be cut and why. 

Why, then, does it still happen in the UK? Orchid Project point out that when populations emigrate - become "diaspora" - they may try to retain their cultural identity even after their original countries have moved on. At the beginning of the 20th century, most women in China still had their feet bound. Within twenty years, the practice abruptly dried up. It was clung to for longer, however, in populations in California.

The other reason it happens in the UK is worry about intruding on other cultures. I have to tackle with my own private voice - "Who are you, an unaffected white girl, to tell people you don't know how to bring up their children?" The best answer I can give is that I believe religious rights end when human rights are violated. France and the UK made the same laws at the same time, but France enforces them while we do not. Despite an estimated over 20,000 girls being mutilated, here or abroad, the Crown Prosecution Service has not prosecuted a single person. People in France - and, most significantly, ladies from the ethnic minorities in question - ask why.

Makumi McCrum, a policy advisor to the Scottish government, remarks that FGM is "a violation so intrusive and personal that many people adopt a culture of silence as it is humiliating and embarrassing to talk about." More worryingly, Nick Cohen writes: "Anti-colonialism is no longer an opposition to foreign occupation but opposition to the ‘inappropriate’ imposition of ‘western’ values on the formerly colonised. Fear plays its part in the silence. I know doctors who worry they will be accused of racism if they protest about the mistreatment of girls. They suspect that their employers will not report protesting parents to the police but punish them instead."

A woman named Muna, who left Somalia and now lives in Glasgow, told the BBC: "They are so terrified and they are using cultural sensitivity as a barrier to stop them from really doing anything. What would you do if the girl had blue eyes and blonde hair? Would FGM still be carrying on in the UK?"

On a similar note, Iram Ramzan tells us, "It is not politically correct to continue to ignore the plight of ethnic minority women." As with "honour killings" (which rather than simply being called "murder", which it is, have their own special sensitive name), this is violence, and should be treated as such. This is not some delicate or essential religious practice. It is about the control and subjugation of women. There are no benefits, and there are terrible physical and psychological consequences. (If of course an adult woman wants it done, that's a different matter altogether.)

There's a place for cultural sensitivity, and that is not allowing children to be wounded and women to be put in agony and danger.

So what am I doing about it? At the moment, I'm not directly getting involved. I don't know how and I don't feel I know enough yet. Instead I'm doing something I love doing, and that can bring people a bit more knowledge and enjoyment. Hopefully, that will not only help Orchid Project and women in danger, but also raise awareness among people in London.

I expect the talks will aim to last 40 minutes or so, and be followed with question and answer sessions. Subjects will probably include: Galaxy Zoo; the Cassini mission; relativity and black holes; the life of a star; astrochemistry; spectra; various aspects of astronomical history and women in science. And probably more as I think them up. What I can't do is practical astronomy. The only thing I can do with telescopes is break them. Of course, if anyone wants to bring a telescope along . . . Hopefully someone from the Orchid Project will come along to at least one of them, too. And if any other charities or organisations fighting FGM would also like to come and spread the word, or even just post me along some leaflets to hand out, please do.

You can also sign the petition to allocate more funds to enforce the law banning FGM. (Not make more laws. We already have them.)

Nothing's finalised yet. But I've been in enough communication with the Orchid Project and with NGUC that it's time to announce what I'm up to! If you have any ideas, or would like to come along, please let me know. And most importantly . . . 

I need a name for this project. It's likely to run for a few months and I want it to be special. I want it to include something to do with women, stars and/or astronomy, and perhaps even orchids. But I'm open to other suggestions! Please do leave a comment or tweet me with yours. 

A galaxy we call "The Rose" at Galaxy Zoo; from SDSS.

Maybe I'll see you there.

Leave us alone: a P.S.

It's five weeks since I wrote that ranty post about being sexually harassed in public. That post generated a lot of excellent comments, a great many tweets, conversations, recommendations, e-mails, and someone I didn't think I even knew coming to sit next to me at a science event to tell me what a good post it was. It also drew the disapproval of a man who tweeted "Another day, another feminist who is missing my point", and the scorn of a woman who tweeted a friend of hers that the post was "very suspect" because I "look like junk". But something else I didn't expect has happened.

In those five weeks, I have not been sexually harassed once.

I haven't been shouted at, leered at, called anything, spoken to inappropriately . . . absolutely nothing. When I used to get it at least a couple of times a week.

There could be many reasons for this. The entire male population of Ilford and South Wales could have read it and mended their ways, for example. Or someone powerful, maybe even a God, might have forbidden them. Or they're too busy with the hot weather. Or I get harassed more when I'm covered up from the rain than when I'm in sleeveless tops or dresses. Or it's all just complete coincidence.

I think the likeliest thing is that the relief of setting it all out in public, and of the absolutely enormous and overwhelming support I got, privately and publicly, must have given me a new confidence that shows. Perhaps I stand taller. Perhaps I give off a different air. I don't consciously feel anything - other than a new-found enjoyment of my local area, a new feeling of freedom to wander through it as I please, rather than to get the hell home as soon as I can. And a new liking for my fellow folks of Ilford, many of whom are very nice, just like everywhere else.

Perhaps it's worth us girls doing an experiment - that anyone who has a blog, or is in the mood to start one, should write a similar rant! I'm not sure that would be very scientific (it would be a lot of fun, though).

Actually, there's something like that already going on at London IHollaback. (Note there's a national one and local ones.) There's a nice section about what you can do if you are a victim or a bystander. Remind me to write to them and share this story, please.

Men sometimes ask, "So what can we say, then?" I answered as best I could here (feel free to comment and disagree). But let's be honest, a gender neutral discussion is by far the most civilised in most cases. Have a read of this great imaginary conversation by Lauren Bravo.

And don't treat it as not a serious problem - the little woman being hysterical, etc. "Schrodinger's Rapist" explains why not. Yes, it is unfair on most well-intentioned men. Martin Robbins remarks in this great discussion with Laurie Penny about how to talk to men about sexism: "It’s not pleasant knowing that women feel vulnerable because of the behaviour of a – substantial – minority of my gender . . . I’m six foot two, big build, I will literally change my route to avoid, for example, following a woman up an alley."

Finally, if you need some cheering up, here are some great street harassment comebacks!

Thank you all so very much for being my readers and for making this happen. I hope it happens for all men and women - let me know where I can be of help!


Update: But, but - I didn't think anyone would seriously do the experiment . . .
Julie Gould: Leave Us Alone - the experiment
I recommend a read, she explores a slightly different side; a very moving post. Thank you so much Julie!

Leave us alone!

It is probably not good form to resurrect this blog after 4 months' silence whilst in a towering rage. Me in a towering rage is not a pretty sight. It's a good way to get writing, though. And both men and women need to read about this.

I love London. It's my home. I hope to spend much of my life here. But there's one thing I hate, that I've never had to deal with so much of before, and that's the repeated street harrassment. Nearly every time I leave the house to go to the shops, or get on the bus or train, you can guarantee that some man is going to yell something across the street at me, or come right up close to me and behave as if I owe it to him to be intimate. It's a matter of celebration when I can leave the house and come back without this happening.

It's not just London, of course. Trains in Wales are particularly irksome. On my way back here, a couple of guys sitting near me started asking me perfectly friendly questions - about how long it was to various stations,  what book I was reading, what I thought about the Big Bang etc. - all of which was fine; great, in fact. Then one of them sprang up, sat next to me, snatched my book, and started reading it out in a twelve-year-old school bully sort of voice. It promptly descended to the pair of them chanting at me and generally behaving like schoolchildren who know they're going to get away with poking and hitting me all the way through Assembly, because I can't move and nobody's going to stop them. I ended up carrying all my stuff to a different seat and telling the conductor, who just said "they're getting off at the next stop" and went away. I felt so mortified and self-conscious - there was another big chatty group of people nearby, who I think knew what was going on and certainly stared at me when I moved and spoke to the conductor - but hadn't a word to say. I wanted so desperately to hide. It was me who got stared at, me who had to take the action, me on whom all the responsibility fell.

That wasn't the worst incident, though. On another journey a few years ago to see my then boyfriend, a huge crowd of drunken rugby fans got on, and one man sat next to me. He kept asking me where I was going, did I have a boyfriend etc. I told him yes I did and kept my answers monosyllabic, because his manner made me uncomfortable. My looking out of the window, reading a book, etc., did nothing to deter his questions and reinforced his demanding, hurt tone. Finally I pretended to go to sleep. When I opened my eyes a few minutes later I jumped out of my skin to find he had angled his body so his mouth was right in front of mine ready to kiss me. (My face was pointed downwards before you ask.) There was nothing I could do. My voice had gone. No conductor could get through the crowds. If I yelled, his rugby mates would be the first witnesses. I just sprang to my feet (and had to climb over him) and got off the train as soon as I could.

In London, what usually happens is that two guys walking in the street, or standing on a doorstep, will call "hello darling" or "come here, girlie" or "Oi! Blondie!" at me. This is annoying, but I can ignore them and hope they don't follow me. Sometimes it'll be someone alone. One frightening incident was where another large man ran up to me while I was walking up the street, fell into step with me, told me off for walking too fast for him, boasted to me for a while about how he earned £50,000 a year, and then asked me out for a drink with him. When I said thank you very much, but no thanks, he followed me into the train station (which I hadn't been planning to go to) and asked me why not in the most expectant manner. Panicking, I lied that I had a boyfriend, and dashed through the ticket barriers and went a couple of stops away. It wasn't his words that bothered me, but his taking for granted that I simply had to say yes. I thought he'd drag me along and do what he liked to me. The other day, I was walking home, carrying a couple of shopping bags, looking at the ground and having a bit of a happy giggle to myself about an earlier conversation that day (do you ever notice people doing that? I love it when someone in the street spontaneously smiles or giggles, and I know they're thinking about something nice). Suddenly someone's face appeared about three inches in front of mine and he hissed "HELLO SWEETHEART!". As with all the other incidents, I was just startled into complete silence. I had no answer ready. The happiness was knocked out of me. I went home angry and frightened, feeling like I was at school again where I had no right to be safe from the bullies, keeping my head low but wondering if anyone knew where I lived or was following me home.

Fair enough, none of these incidences led to me actually being assaulted. They're nothing compared to what some of my friends have gone through. I used to get worse in horrible school discos where being groped and boys getting angry not to be kissed was part of the package. But they're a crap way to live your life. They make me wary and angry. They make me feel that because I'm female, I'm collective property and automatically available. The way a lot of them look at me - as if I do them wrong - suggests that they hold me personally responsible for their feelings, and that I owe them something. I just never know what they might do. They seem to think they have the automatic right to say what they like to me - what else do they think they have the right to do?

It gave me a sudden memory of when my sister and I were very small, too young to understand about these things, and our mum explaining such an incident to us. All we saw was that she suddenly stopped to talk to someone in the street, as boring grown-ups do. When we walked on, she calmly told us: "He tried to cuddle up to me, so I made him tell me where [something, I forget what] was, and then I made him leave me alone." Her voice, echoing in my brain, sounded sad and resigned. She had had to talk to him, she had had to be touched by him with two toddlers in tow, and she was putting a brave face on it.

The worst part is that I can't think of anything to do to improve the situation. I could yell at them, but that takes more guts than I've got and would just draw more attention to me and doubtless get me blamed - I doubt any members of the public would leap to my rescue. I can keep my head down and run away, which is what I generally do, but that indicates to them that they can get away with it and will keep doing it. There's no teacher on playground duty in the adult world.

But that's the thing. I am female and as such I am, by many, held responsible. (Check this if you don't believe this happens.)It's supposedly up to me to find some way to deal with this stuff. Never mind that it's nothing to do with being in the wrong place at the wrong time - that all these incidents occurred in public in broad daylight, not down some dark alley where respectable girls don't go. Never mind that they all occurred when I was thoroughly covered in jeans and coat and scruffy flat shoes - one time in the pouring rain with my hood up covering my hair and most of my face. Never mind that I don't wear make-up, or that the one time I did walk through London in a short dress, I was terrified the whole time and wished I hadn't worn it, but apart from a random tourist striking up an annoyingly long chat, I was left alone. Never mind that it also happens to a lady I know who is over fifty and exceedingly modest - even while she's riding her bicycle. There are many perceptions that it's down to how a woman looks or dresses, that it must be her fault.

I've written about blaming the victim before. It's a problem. It's a similar problem in cases of domestic violence, where it's very common to find bizarre ways to blame the woman or to somehow absolve the man (usually, though certainly not always, the perpetrator) of responsibility - "he just needs to feel better about himself", for example, when in fact his problem is that he does not see his partner as having the same rights as he does. (I strongly recommend my friend Natalie's posts about this issue. She's on Twitter as @God_Loves_Women. I'm not remotely religious but I really admire her and recommend you follow her!) It's all part of thinking that because someone's female, you can treat her how you like - and this gets woven into law, and her rights seen as incompatible with other people's, where such attitudes prevail.

All this is so sad for men as well as women. Most men I know are angry and upset to hear of me and other women being catcalled or otherwise harrassed. They worry about this happening to their female relatives and friends. They know it's not civilised and they would never do such a thing. (In fact, one man said he finds men who do such things intimidating, too.) Nobody's said so directly, but I suspect some men may worry about asking out a woman they like, for fear of being thought of one of the catcallers. They feel guilty on behalf of their own sex, which is awful. (Incidentally, both Rhys and Lee are currently fundraising for charities that work to improve things for women!) It's similar to the men who came along to the She is an Astronomer conference and are only too keen for more women to rise high in science. I hope nobody reading this thinks this blog is to criticise men!

I have a bad habit, by the way. I quite often explode on Twitter. Actually, Twitter's an excellent place to explode, because it moves so fast, the subject can move on when you've calmed down. And far more often than not people will check in and see if you're OK rather than put you down about it, and it's relatively anonymous. When I exploded recently about the man who hissed straight into my face, I got I think it must have been dozens of supportive messages. But when I came back home yesterday and tweeted "Something LOVELY happened today. I went into town and was not catcalled once!!! :-)" the point was, shall we say, not well understood.

One guy asked me: "What? Are you a supermodel?" and a couple more replied to the effect that this must mean I'm beautiful. I thanked them, I hope graciously and modestly, but assured them that I am not and that this was nothing to do with it. Being catcalled is nothing to do with appearance, and it is not a compliment. Unfortunately, I was not believed by all . . .

These are the nicer exchanges that took place. (Update: I had some screenshots here, with name, avatar and Twitter handle blanked out, but on reflection decided that was cruel. This person doesn't seem angry with me despite earning some furious replies from my followers. Please don't look for him. It took a long time to convince him that what was going on was not flattering or harmless, but it turned out to be genuine ignorance on his part. He deleted a lot of his tweets which were to the effect that it doesn't happen to ugly girls, so it should be seen as a "morale booster". These made me so angry - I am not Samantha Brick, I do not feel better if some random man thinks of me as better quality prey than another woman - that I unkindly retweeted him, and he got a LOT of stick. If you're reading this, Anon, I felt I should apologise for you getting all that stick, but I was stubborn and didn't want to go back on my point. And by the way, I'm sure you're not ugly.)

When asked if it was a good thing that I wasn't catcalled, and I said that it usually happens is bad and that it didn't happen today is good, his reaction was that "as an ugly bloke" he'd love to have such an obvious indicator that he was attractive, and that it was surely a good thing to happen to you. He felt that he couldn't relate to it since no women have pounced on him this way, and that not being a roadworker or builder, he wasn't a catcaller, and couldn't speak for them. (This was only a small part of the exchange.) The perception was that catcalling is something that a burly, practical, rather stupid class of males do, and that it constitutes shouting "you're beautiful" to beautiful girls, who prink and preen gleefully, and probably just continue on their way, feeling superior to other women and thus happy.

To give him his due, he admitted he had had no idea what it's really like and had learnt something new! And it definitely isn't like that. We get called intimate things by strangers, and are spoken to as if we are their property and should follow their orders. They violate our privacy and our space and our feeling of being able to leave the house safely. We look hysterical if we get upset, and everything we do makes it worse, and then it's our own fault for how we look or dress or just for being there among the world of men. We feel angry, helpless, humiliated, and alone.

Stellar, who was honked at six times within one minute when venturing into town last week (and has also had to put up with such things as men following her, and a bus driver saying "nice tits" when she was just a young teenager), joined the conversation, pointing out at the right time that it's not what a woman wears that causes the harrassment . . .

Then this person came along, who a) has had their account suspended, and b) whose anonymity I will make absolutely no effort to preserve:

 She replied calmly, as did NathanielBB. He wasn't having any . . .

I lost it.

I had actually tweeted this guy a few examples of very modestly dressed women who'd been harrassed, so as you can see, his attitude was "My mind's made up, don't confuse me with facts".

He may have just been a troll, but sadly what he says is hideously representative of what needs explaining. Again and again and again. Happily, it was cause for much celebration from several people when his account was suspended (it turned out it wasn't just me he was arguing with!).

I had the good fortune to be sent some excellent links by fellow Twitterers. "ihollaback", a site all about street harrassment in London, was tweeted to me by Becky (whose work I hope to write about in a later blogpost). Mike sent me this post he wrote about what "consent" means and is often taken to mean, which attracted some bizarre comments. Speaking of consent, this "Driver's Ed" on sexual consent, at Scarleteen, is excellent! Sent by Lee.) And Esther reminded me of @mencanstoprape, found at "Men Can Stop Rape", which is not the same thing I know (part of the same attitude, though, just a lot worse), which contains this delightful picture with which I shall leave you . . .

To fellow women this happens to, I support you. To fellow women free of it, it should always be this way. To men who disapprove and support us, and equally to men who did not know it was a problem but are open to finding out it is, thank you - you are not the problem but the solution, you shouldn't feel bad, and we need you all.