Catherine Marcus: No, Zoe Williams - it is not anti-feminist to be concerned about the effects of pornography on young teenagers

Catherine Marcus is a writer.

Growing up is always hard. Growing up today is infinitely more so.

Part of growing up is about learning to deal with the bad stuff. It’s about having chips knocked off you and learning to defend yourself and others when the need arises. There is no way of waving a magic wand, in order to make child’s development as pain-free as possible, and nor should there be, for with pain comes wisdom. Those who are protected from the bumps that come with growing up only postpone learning the lesson that accompanies those scrapes, and the brutal reality is that people are more patient and give young people more leeway, so best get mistakes out of the way then.

I was a teenager, not too long ago. I look back on those years through interlocked fingers, aghast at the litany of misadventures occasioned by a basic lack of common sense, gaucheness and bizarre fashion sense, amplified by faux bravado. I sank gratefully into my twenties, cringing at the humiliations visited by an uncooperative and unfamiliar world, embarrassments keenly through the thinnest of skin, and it is only now, as I approach a birthday that leaves adolescence a faded and distant, if still somewhat awkward, memory, that wisdom and experience accrued over these many years has yielded one of its great and simple truths: it wasn’t just me.

Catherine Marcus: No, Laurie Penny, the head of Hastings Police knows what she’s talking about

Catherine Marcus is a writer.

How astonishing to see Heather Keating, the head of Hastings Police, taken to task by Laurie Penny for writing, “It’s always sad to see young women become victims of sexual offences,” on her Twitter feed, followed by a gender-neutral suggestion not to drink too much on New Year’s Eve, lest anyone regret their actions.

Perhaps it’s Keating’s experience as a senior police officer that allows her to speak with degree of confidence and experience about sexual assault, and the factors which can encourage and exacerbate attacks on young women. One can only imagine how painful it must be to attend such assaults at the frontline of policing, but she will know exactly what that’s like, having done it before, again and again, as a woman, with a particular sensitivity to the violation which has taken place.

I bet she wishes she could prevent such assaults, wave a magic wand, make the world a perfect place where “no” means “no”, and everyone waits to be granted permission to progress to the next stage of a sexual relationship. But, as a police officer, she’ll be aware of the fact that sometimes things just don’t work like that. Sometimes a refusal goes ignored, sometimes things go too far, maybe he’s not such a nice guy and then you find yourself cold and alone, violated, your illusions about a world that is safe and kind shattered like broken glass on the floor.

Catherine Marcus: Remembrance Day must not be eclipsed by the Occupy Everything movement

Catherine Marcus is a civil servant and writer.

It cannot be accidental that the organisers of the latest Occupy event have chosen the eleventh day of the eleventh month for their latest "global" outing - Occupy Everything. It is fascinating that the children, grand-children of the men and women who served, fought and died in the Second World War would choose to overshadow the remembrance of these brave people with their litany of complaints.

Over seventy years ago, those soldiers fought for us, came back maimed and wounded - or didn’t come back at all. And for years after, Britain was a ravaged shell, our fair and pleasant land pockmarked by bombs, our triumph replaced by trauma, as each family, each household, each street, each neighbourhood, each village and each town totted up its losses, and found a deep, gaping void at its heart, one that would not heal in a lifetime.

In the Holy Trinity Church on Micklegate, in York, there is a simple placard which lists the names of four soldiers, the sons of Captain Charles Fitzpatrick, all of whom died within years of each other in the Second World War. You can see from the dates that Captain Charles and his wife outlived their sons by decades. The placard would not be there if it wasn’t for Captain Fitzpatrick’s daughter, who donated some money to the church and had the sign placed there. And if it weren’t for that sign, no one would know of the sacrifice made by one family in North Yorkshire, one made by so many other families, a sacrifice that makes one cry for them, seventy years later, because of the depth of its magnitude. They made a sacrifice unimaginable to us now, and they made it so that we might never have to do so ourselves.

Catherine Marcus: In defence of marriage

Catherine Marcus is a civil servant and writer

I read Siobhan Courtney’s recent blog on the Spectator's Coffee House site with interest, as she condemned the government for failing to support legislation that would accord unmarried, cohabiting couples the same rights as married ones. I noted that she was calling for the protection the law ascribed to married people, without the pesky inconvenience of getting married.

She passionately argued against the restrictive nature of present legislation, as part of one such ‘happily unmarried’ couple, and whilst I found her persuasive, the crux of her argument struck me as disingenuous.

Yes, I realise it’s the 21^stcentury - so how dare I suggest that one family structure is superior to another? And yes, I know that marriage hardly acts as a guarantee of lifelong commitment, given that one in two marital unions ends in divorce.  And of course, happily unmarried couples prove their commitment to one another in a myriad of different ways, big and small, without the need for a marriage certificate to sanctify their union.

Catherine Marcus: Why do so many of Thatcher's children in Britain identify themselves as Left-wing?

Catherine Marcus is a civil servant and writer.

I have listened with interest to the passionate arguments for and against the cuts; statism versus Big Society; what some see as society’s duty to protect the poor and weak as opposed to others' desires to take an axe to a bloated welfare system.

I belong to a demographic – young, middle-class, university graduate, urban, creative – that veers left as reflex. You can just about manage being centre-right, if you’ve got a strong stomach and are prepared to stand your ground when you’re being accused of fascism. But being right-wing is social suicide, like admitting to a penchant for baby-eating and tramp-croquet. The only time I’ve seen it carried off is as an adopted eccentricity, political views as accessory, like a vintage tweed jacket, delivered with a lightness of touch and enough wit to persuade a shocked audience that the person in question wasn’t being entirely serious.

No matter where you stand on Thatcher, no one can deny the divisive and inflammatory nature of her politics, and for many children growing up in the 1980s, memories are tinged with the spectre of angry headlines and the sight of grown men standing in front of picket lines on the evening news, their adult faces twisted with rage and impotent anger as the Prime Minister’s will bore down on them, sweeping them aside to make way for her vision of Britain.

Catherine Marcus: Slutwalk - feminism taken to its most absurd conclusion

Catherine Marcus is a civil servant and writer

“Reclaim your inner slut”, say the organisers of Slutwalk - a movement
 which originated in Toronto in protest at a comment by Mark 
Sanguinelli, a police officer, to a group of students that they should avoid
dressing like sluts, in order to help prevent sexual attacks.  Here in Britain, who knew
 our inner slut had been lost?  The acreage of goose-pimply
 flesh on display, covered by the briefest of belts  - oh sorry, that’s
 a skirt - on most local high streets on a Saturday night would suggest
 that the nation’s inner slut hasn’t gone anywhere.

I think Sanguninelli’s
 words were bracingly honest - a reflection of the world as it is, 
with all the attending risks, as opposed to the utopic sentiment of "this is how the
things should be". It shows more respect to women to ask them to take 
responsibility for themselves than it does to pretend that certain
 dangers do not exist in order to preserve their idealistic view of the
world. It is infantile to dictate how people are meant to 
interpret provocative dress, and it is dangerous to pretend that
 deliberately setting out to excite sexual interest carries no risks
 whatsoever.   It is the mark of a sophisticated, civilised society that it extends 
equal freedoms to all its citizens, and recognises women’s greater
 vulnerability to the threat of sexual violence that has given rise to the
 protection of the law.