Dove: Real Beauty or Just Real Troublesome?

Feminists in the western world are always harping on about what Naomi Woolf calls the “beauty myth,” the oppressive weight of cultural expectation that women should spend their lives endlessly and vainly struggling to meet an always-unachievable ideal of female beauty. Women, like me, complain a lot about the unrealistic and unnatural representations of women in the media and the bombardment with images of anorexic and/or surgically and/or digitally enhanced female bodies to which we are constantly being subjected. Nor do we like the sexist exploitation and objectification of women in advertising and the media generally, and we have a lot of concerns about the effect all this is having on the self-esteem of girls and women. No, we are not at all happy.

Then came along the Dove Love your body campaign for "real beauty." Suddenly we are encountering posters and advertisements featuring a wide range of real-looking women in lots of different shapes, sizes, ages and appearances, as part of a campaign that promotes female physical confidence and self esteem. So, are we happy now?

Well, unsurprisingly, the campaign has caused a lot of debate, not least in the feminist blogsphere. You can find links to a good range of views on the FWord blog. Scroll down to the Dove entry to read views on London Third Wave and MsMusings.

Yes, some feminists are pleased. A commentator at MsMusings writes, “the images are kind of refreshing. Not only do they reject the supermodel ethos of the advertising industry but they show ordinary women who are confident and happy with themselves.” Another says “I think they’re fantastic…I find it very exhilarating to see a woman with proper curves zoom past me in the street [but, she continues] That I feel like that shows how far there is to go.” Indeed. Others have offered more cautious support, pleased to see small steps being made in the right direction, but ambivalent about the fact that the campaign is all about selling… ahem yes… beauty products. Most of the women I have spoken to about the campaign go for the cautiously ambivalent supporting position and that’s how I felt too, at least initially. Then there’s the old feminist vanguard refusing to compromise, rejecting consumer culture as a whole and pointing out that this campaign still exploits women: "Dove products are mass produced full of chemicals and mineral oil that only clog your skin, adding toxins to already intoxicated bodies…they are using us once more." MsMusings also recounts the alarmingly sexist attitude of some guy called Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sunday Times who objected “chunky women in their underwear have surrounded my house,” expressed his preference for fantasy thin women and told women who object to his shallowness to "lighten up." This provoked one respondent to suggest we should "get a crowd of bulemics to "surround his house" and vomit their last binge, so he can learn all about the glamour of thin women. Then lock him in a women's locker room with a bunch of laxative junkies. Turn off the ventilation fan.... Make him stay on the phone for six hours with a woman on diet pills. In 24 hours, he'd be praying for a chunky woman whose life doesn't revolve around food.”


There are some things I do like about the campaign, insofar as I can “like” anything about the use of feminist rhetoric to market beauty products. I do appreciate the representation of different women and I’m very pleased to see Dove are supporting self-esteem building programs for girls in schools. I’ve read a few arguments claiming the pictures of women in their underwear are the “same” as all other sexist adverts. Rubbish! I don’t think we should get into the paranoid state of seeing every image of female flesh as sexist oppression. There is nothing inherently wrong or sexist or bad about female nudity or underwear. Everything depends upon the context. The women in the Dove adverts are healthy looking and relatively confidant in their bodies and I do not have problems with their near-nakedness at all.

But at the risk of sounding like a humourless, spoil sport, never satisfied feminist I’m now going to come out and say “I’m not happy.” What’s not to like? Well I don’t like the fact that the empowerment is very little, very late, and I don’t like the questions about my own feminist thinking which this campaign raises. What really bothers me is not the fact that the Dove campaign is not radical, it is the frightening probability that, in the context of our current culture, this campaign is extremely radical. As feminists, this is what we should be worried about.

Despite the basically feminist marketing strategy, a quick read of the website makes it clear that these products are not marketed to feminist customers. Rather, the campaign seems to be directed at women with serious self-esteem problems and takes it as given that women have big issues in this area. In the section entitled Inspirational Articles there is one called "A day without make up". Follow the writer as she takes her first trembling steps into the scary world of facial liberation (N.B she does NOT forget to moisturise). It’s all rather traumatic for her, but when she meets her husband at lunchtime he tells her that she “looks pretty.” Awww. Later, she goes out with her female friends and almost crumbles:

"Surrounded by dozens of expertly (many overly) made-up women,
I feel naked. I start to panic, like some sort of strung-out makeup
junkie, desperate for her fix of mascara. I find myself fussing with
my hair and feeling—and undoubtedly looking—uncomfortable.
Then I remember my husband's look at lunch, and hear his words
again: "You look pretty." I stand a little straighter and toss my hair
back. I look at my friends, smiling and laughing, all gorgeous in
their own way. It occurs to me that their allure has nothing to do
with foundation or lip gloss or eyeliner. They are beautiful because
they are confident, happy and real. Just like me."

Ok. It bothers me a bit that I can't relate to this article. I wear make-up sometimes, for the purposes of self-expression or fun, but the thought of wasting my time putting it on every day is as abhorrent to me as not wearing it was for the writer of this article. I would certainly never need affirmation from my partner! This worries me because companies like Dove do an awful lot of research before they start an expensive advertising campaign. Is it true then, that so many women are still terrified to go out without putting some slap on? Have we not progressed any further than this? And, am I, as a feminist, now so divorced and distanced from the lives of most non-feminist women that I can’t appreciate their concerns? It gets worse. I found another article called "Tips for handling tricky situations", including what to do if your hair falls flat, if you get a run in your stockings or if you have “racoon eyes” from running mascara. My hair is never flat because it's usually curling and sticking up a bit, I have not worn “stockings” for years (nylon is not good for your woman parts) and, if I’ve ever had racoon eyes, I’ve never noticed, an omission caused by not looking in the mirror enough and not wearing enough mascara. Call me vain, but I think I look pretty damn good most of the time, with or without make-up. I seem to have little common ground with the average Dove customer who, if the material is accurately judged, is indeed in dire need of the mild feminism to be found on the website. Perhaps Dove have got it right? I gave up in despair when I came across the ‘7 pick me ups’ which include an excuse to "play hoky from housework." Did the Dove researchers take a timeship back to 1954 or are things worse than we realise? I don’t know what to make of it, but it freaks me out. Are Dove’s customers actually the Stepford wives? Feminism should have come further than this by now.

Tell you what else I don’t like, those adverts which ask you to judge whether a woman looks good or not, whether she is ‘oversized or outstanding’ or ‘grey or gorgeous’? Yes, it's attention grabbing and perhaps it makes some people rethink their attitudes, but it’s still rooted in the assumption that people have the right to pass judgement of a woman’s appearance. This I strongly resist. And another thing, I notice they’ve started selling “firming lotion.” Oh, so it’s ok to be any shape as long as you are “firm”? We all know that firming lotion is a load of old nasty chemical cobblers anyway.

Finally, Dominic Milton has pointed out in the Telegraph (see F word blog for link), that Dove is owned by Lever Farberge, who also happen to own Lynx: "Could you imagine a Dove woman in a Lynx ad? Hypocrisy might be too strong a word, but despite what Lever Faberge might have you believe, market pragmatism, not principle, is the driving force here."

The Dove campaign? It may not be all about real beauty, but it does present lots of real questions for us as feminists to think about seriously.

Yours in grumpy, never satisfied, feminist thinking, Winter.

Anyone in Cardiff this weekend.

Subject: Cardiff Mosque Attacked - Solidarity RallyPLEASE CIRCULATE.

This arrived on our ecoomunity group today. anyone in cardiff over the weekend, think about making it to the centre for this.

UNITED AGAINST RACISM Don't let fascists divide our community Solidarity Rally & Demonstration Outside City Hall at 2 pmSaturday 30 July.

People will be aware of the horrible and dispicable attack against the Shah Jalal Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre in Crwys Road, Cardiff.The mosque received a letter covered with swastikas containing threats to burn down mosques and commit violence against Muslims. The mosque itself was broken into and animal parts left on the premises.

We are asking everyone to gather together to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Muslim sisters and brothers to show that this community is totally united against racism: We will not stand by and let fascists divide our communities or intimidate anyone - an attack on any part of our community is an attack on all of us.

Supporters of this rally include:Unite Against Fascism, Racial Harrasment Monitoring Association Wales (Rahma), All Wales Ethnic Minority Association, Cardiff TUC, PlaidCymru - Party of Wales, Respect - The Unity Coalition, Muslim Society of Wales, Muslim Councillors in Wales, Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, Kevin Brennan MP, Jenny Willott MP, Jenny Randerson AM and many others. The organisers have also received a message of solidarity from RabbiWollenberg on behalf of the Orthodox Jewish Community who is unable to attend as the rally is on the day of the Jewish Sabbath

Rx

Best of the blogosphere.

Like WinterWoods, I'm new to surfing the blogosphere and I'm sure I have stumbled on only a few of the jewels and treasures to be found there. These are a few of the good ones that have ticked and inspired me this week.

Some excellent discussions going on on I Blame the Patriachy and on Hugo Schwyzer's blog, well worth checking out. I especially enjoyed the discussion about Oprah and Hugos discussions of capital punsihment and young girls with old men.

Some good stuff going on over at the Brutal Women site with posts on loads of differnt topics including an interesting post further down the blog on instilling women with the victim mentality through emails with helpful tips on avoiding rape by the police department. Lots of good stuff here worth reading.

on Alas, a blog, a great post on the dangers of the hellish sounding “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians. More good stuff over at Blogsisters, Gender geek and DED space.

Happy reading people.

Rx

Famine in Niger

I saw, on the news last night, amid the excitement of bombings and shootings, a short piece about the people of Niger, in Africa who are suffering terrible drought and famine. It was only a few weeks ago that millions of people across the globe supported the spectacle that was live 8, in support of raising awareness of the poverty and politics of Africa. It just goes to show that we are a pretty fickle nation, with the death of millions of Africans not making the headline only a few weeks later. Plagues, locusts, drought and famine are ravishing this country and its neighbours, with approximately 2.5 million people likely to be affected by ‘food shortages.’ In the south of Niger, the UN estimates that it can feed 1.2m people by September, just a third of those in need. I'd really like to be able to say something intelligent and witty about the state of the world and it's inequalities, but the truth is, nothing I have to say really captures even an inch of the problem, so I ask this instead: Please have a look at a few of the links scattered within this post to the agencies trying to get food to where it’s needed most.

Whoops!

Debate rages on here in the UK after the execution of an innocent man suspected of being a terrorist. Our police attempt to console us by saying they might have to do it again. I think I have the solution. In order to avoid this problem, any male of an asian, middle-eastern, mediterranean, african... or just any appearance slightly darker than your average pasty looking white bloke... should walk around London in his underpants with his hands on his head at all times. The police will then be able to see that they don't have bombs and they should be ok. Whatever they do, they must not wear coats, rucksacks, or live in a house with suspicious muslims.

Honestly, after the appalling events of two weeks ago, Tony came out rattling on about how this wouldn't "change" our way of life. As soon as the police start shooting people down in the street, I think we can come to the conclusion that our British way of life has changed forever.

Apparently some wags are already making "Don't shoot me I'm not Brazillian" T-shirts.

Trust the British to rely on our sick sense of humour at a time like this.

Know Your Enemies, No 2: Hugh Hefner

Since we've had a lot of Playboy bunny talk on the blog recently, I thought I'd get "Hef" out of my system. The founder of the Playboy empire can be charming, witty and, on occasion, even shows some signs of self-awareness and self-depreciation. But I really don't like this guy. I could never forgive him for the spectacle of the "bunny girl" that's for sure. However, I don't actually think Playboy is as dangerous as other forms of pornography which openly promote rape or violence against women. Yes, yes, I know it's all on a continuum, but that's a whole other post, so I'll get back to Hugh. I especially despise the way this shameless self-promoter likes to present himself as a bastion of sexual liberation for all men and women. Like most poeple who want to "liberate" us sexually, he holds the arrogant belief that B.P (before Playboy), we were all so terribly repressed and no one knew very much about sex. And in Hugh's eyes, sexual liberation looks like a Playboy centrefold while we, as women, are now delightfully free to be photographed naked without the stigma of the past. Yay!

Here are some choice quotes:

"Picasso had his blue period and his pink period. I am in my blonde period right now".

Hugh, you are NOT Picasso. Picasso was an artist and a genius. You are neither; you are a clever man, a sly charmer with excellent business sense who happened to be in the right place at the right time and hit on the right product.

"Playboy isn't like the downscale, male bonding, beer swilling phenomena that is being promoted now by (some men's magazines). My whole notion was the romantic connection between male and female".

Awwwww. See what I mean about sly! He's clever to distance Playboy from the trashy world of men's magazines. Playboy readers are so much more sophisticated!


"They're [his girfriends Sandy and Mandy]closer together than ever before".

Blurgh! Perhaps I'll take back that comment about "witty".


Hugh, the reason feminists don't like you is that you are not a very nice man. We don't need you to liberate us thank you very much, we can do it ourselves and, personally, I feel freer, and somewhat less silly, without bunny ears and a bobtail.

Biological Determinism: A Rant

ideology: refers to a system of ideas held by a particular group within a culture and which represents their interests, and the practices whereby such groups attempts to naturalise their ideas, meanings and values, or pass them off as universal and as commonsense.
- Geoff Danaher, Tony Schirato and Jen Webb.

This issue just makes me so mad! When I try and articulate my feelings…well…if you didn’t know me, you might think I’d turned into the kind of crimson-eyed, slavering feminist fiend usually found only in the fantasies of the UK Men’s Movement.

I’ll try and keep this short – actually, I have little choice in that because I don’t know enough about biology to write at length. I have no head for science. I probably shouldn't even attempt to have a go, being as I spit blood every time I come across another piece of biological determinism masquerading as scientific fact.

Here we go again and again and again and again… ad infinitum. They’ve been trotting out the old “men and women are different” story for thousands of years, in order to justify the “men and women are unequal” situation. In the nineteenth century, in the West, this rhetoric was illustrated in the doctrine of "separate spheres." Basically, this supported the rising bourgeosie middle-class's desire get women to stay in the home and look after their men and children. They brought out the argument that women were not worse than men, in fact they were morally rather superior, but men and women just had naturally different roles in the world. Whereas men should be active outside the home, women were told that they just wanted to stay in there and create a haven for the men when they got home from the hurly burly of working life. This story was immortalised in Coventry Patmore's vision of 'The Angel in the House' which inspired Virginia Woolf to say that before we could move on we had to "kill" the angel.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries science was appropriated to support this nasty cultural narrative. Now it's genes, hormones, the size of your brain, whatever the latest fad happens to be, it gets used yet again to support the view that women can’t read maps or park cars. And men? Well, they’re just lying, cheating swindlers by nature. Great! To this day, people still go to great lengths to hang onto the mythology, not least because it lets them off the hook in all sort of ways. If men are naturally more violent than women, well, then maybe they can't help it? Maybe they can't stop? I really hate to see science used to support such obviously ideological, and potentially sinister, social agendas. It’s one of those cultural discourses which is repeated endlessly, over and over again, until people accept it; until, it begins to create the effect (of gender difference) that it claims simply to describe. Say it often enough and people will, not only believe it, but believe that it's incredibly important.

The latest incarnation to cross my path is BBC One's 3 part series, Secrets of the Sexes, which proves that, YES, you guessed it, men and women are “different”. Did you see that one coming! I’m afraid I couldn’t watch it because it would probably give me an aneurism, but there’s a good article written by Fiona Mckie about it in The Guardian Online (apologies but I cannot get this link to work!).

In this piece, Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London, refuting the programmes's findings, argues that we should really be interested in the ‘extraordinary influence of cultural factors’:

'However, this is being ignored while we concentrate on dressing up vague differences between the mental wiring of men and women so that they seem real, significant and important.’

This is not about diversity, as in “Men and women are different, so hooray lets celebrate difference.” This is all about fixing people, pinning them down to their biology and their bodies, closing down prospects and shutting off possibilities. It’s a highly regulative discourse, and we all know that lurking behind the old “men and women are different” is the old “men and women are not equal” narrative. No doubt the programme will claim just to be pointing out some biological facts, not promoting any inqualities. But, I'm sure that if I, as a white woman, told you that I thought black people were "different" to white people and said things like "Isn't it just so great that they can all run faster than white people and can you see how well they dance?" you would correctly suspect me of being a racist. Lots of people still say this sort of thing about different ethnic groups, just like they say it about gay people and women, and in all cases it's masked prejudice.


My dad commented this morning, in relation to the suggestion that men’s brains being bigger than women's, “But as we only used a tiny percentage of our brain, if men’s brains are bigger, does that mean they use a smaller percentage than the women?”

It was a joke, but on that note, it is no less despicable when feminists make use of biological determinism to try and prove the innate natural superiority of women over men. This rhetoric always smacks of fascism, no matter whose interests it is being deployed in. Inverting the discourse is not the solution to our problems. I came across this rather terrifying 1978 essay by Andrea Dworkin the other day called Biological Superiority: The World's most dangerous and deadly idea. I quote:

“It is shamefully easy for us to enjoy our own fantasies of biological omnipotence while despising men for enjoying the reality of theirs. And it is dangerous--because genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. We, who have been devastated by the concrete consequences of this idea, still want to put our faith in it. Nothing offers more proof--sad, irrefutable proof--that we are more like men than either they or we care to believe.”


More recently, feminists have been accused by people, such as the Pope, of trying to erase the differences between men and women. This is pretty hillarious! As if feminists had the power to do such a thing. Gender is so deeply ingrained - whether socially, or biologically, or both - that we can’t just get rid of it. Besides, the fact of having a gender identity is NOT the problem, being oppressed, or forced into a certain role simply because you happen to have a particular set of genitals, that’s the problem. Feminists are not objecting to gender in itself - they are objecting to gender oppression and inequality. Some people are more “gendery,” more feminine or masculine, than others, true, but no one should be oppressed or constrained because of their sex or gender. Moreover, although we cannot necessarily change our sense of our gender, we probably can alter behaviours associated with gender.

I haven’t read much on the subject, but the books of Ann Fausto-Sterling have been recommended to me. Sterling is a feminist biologist working at Brown University. Apparently her books Myths of Gender and Sexing the Body do a good job of debunking the whole junk science apparatus.

According to Sterling:

"One of the major claims I make in this book ... is that labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender--not science--can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place."

Who knows what forms and expressions our genders could take in a non-patriarchal world? It might be fun to find out.

Yes, of course we are all different. I am biologically different to every other person on the planet. I am more feminine than some women and men, and less feminine than some other women and men. Some people have a very strong sense of their sex and their gender, of being a "woman" or being "feminine." Other do not ascribe much importance to this factor in their lives. People are different to one another. That’s ok. It’s how it’s supposed to be and there is no essential need to attach any great significance to it.

In the words of some immortal feminist graffiti:

MEN ARE FROM EARTH

WOMEN ARE FROM EARTH

GET OVER IT!

Oh, and intersex people? They’re from earth too, and a brave bunch if this site of anything to go by.

Truth about rape post cards.

Just a last minute post as Winter Woods has just attracted my attention to the excelent Truth About Rape website.

I particularly like these post cards that combine the humerous and serious in a very clever and though provoking way.

Sex on the brain?

I was walking home yesterday from university when I was confronted with a huge picture of a woman in a yellow bikini, from the waist up. The huge slogan tastefully plastered across her chest was ‘NEED A SQUEESE?’ oh, and she was all wet because it’s summer I suppose and that’s what women do, walk around in wet bikinis and drink low calorie soft drinks. I know your thinking, so what’s so uncommon about that? Unfortunately that’s the basis of my point, it’s really common. It’s so common that it wasn’t until I reached my home ten minutes later that I considered there to be anything wrong with it at all.

Through my recent research I’ve became aware with how alarmingly little control we actually have over what we do as humans in the world, many of our actions and responses are automatic, i.e. not within our conscious control. What is perhaps worrying then is that many of these automatic responses are highly influenced be our environment. So what’s my point? The media, and advertising especially is saturated with highly sexualised images of everyone. It’s becoming so common that there are very few products that haven’t, in some tenuous way been linked to sex or sexuality. Implicitly, it seems the message is that if you’re not gagging to nip round the corner, slip of your knickers and have a quick rut in your ally of choice, there is something wrong with you.

All this is pretty difficult for adults to deal with as I don’t know anyone who has the energy to consciously consider, engage with and challenge every single advert that they see. All the while these adverts effectively reinforce women's role and self concept as a sex object, not a person in the minds of men and women alike. But what is more worrying is that a large majority of these pictures are quite available to teenagers and children. Adolescence can be pretty tough as it is in terms of getting comfortable with your own sexuality with out their unconscious screaming at them to jump into the sack with who ever, as soon as the opportunity comes along, because if you believed the media, everybody’s doing it. What I’m trying to say is that even women who are well informed and can spot visual sexism from a mile of are probably still influenced by it.

I’m very anti censorship, and I’m not in anyway advocating the wholesale removal of any advert showing a bare ankle but living in a society that values free speech and civil liberties comes with responsibilities, as well as rights. Two days ago Winter Woods raised the issue of playboy stationary aimed at young girls and it highlighted to me the importance of actually doing something if you see something that offends you. I think we really need to start challenging the excessive use of highly sexualised images in advertising, which means being more alert to the content of advertising. These fabulous websites have made a start on this issue already, take a look and see what you think.

Threat to women's rights in Iraq

I picked up this story from DEDSpace. The draft of the new constitution threatens women's rights in Iraq. If it goes through it could put Shiite women under Islamic Shariah law, which has been interpreted in pretty oppressive ways in some middle eastern countries. This could be a serious backward step for women in Iraq who have long enjoyed relatively good rights. It seems darkly ironic when Blair and Bush made such a big deal about freeing the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban. Of course things aren't getting much better for them there either.

Annother bright idea from the cabinet.

Great, our conservative wolf in socailist sheep clothing of a governemnt has come up with annother bright idea to tackle troublesome teens who get expelled from school. Make the parents stay at home and look after them, thus forcing them out of work. Having only heard about this on the radio this morning and thus only knowing about the basic premis of the plan, I can see several major down falls. Most worryingly, this is really annother plan which will penalise working class, low income families, and single parent families, especially the women in those families. As bad behaviour is linked to class, poverty, poor resources, nutrition and schooling it is likely that those children, and their families will be from low income groups who can't afford to move to nice areas with good schools, and who can't afford to take time off work to look after unruly children. As always nice middle class families who can afford organic meat and vegetables, housing in areas with good schools or private education and nannys are much less likely to be affected by thes plans.

How many employers are going to be sympathetic to parents who have to take extended periods of time off work to look after children who should be inschool, or provided for by the eduaction authority. What is more, it is likely to be women who are forced to stay at home, further damaging their employment records and career prospects. Surely the goverment would be better off thinking up some creative strategies to improve school disciplin and nutrition, lifting low income families out of the poverty trap and engaging problem children in pograms that would spark their interest and desire to improve their prospects rather than producing a policy that effectively disadvantages low income families who are already struggling to keep afloat.


More to follow when I have time to do a bit of research.

Swimming Rage.

Nothing like an early morning rant to kick start the day. OK I don't know how many readers swim regularly but this is something that is really beginning to irritate. I used to swim competitively as a kid, and although i was never going to be the next best thing, I can still hold my own in a swimming pool. I try and swim at least twice a week now but I'm beginning to think that it doesn't exactly bring out the best in me. The reason is that everytime I swim there is some guy, and it is normally a guy, who doesn't like the idea of swimming slower than a girl and insists on swimming infront, cutting me off at the turn or waiting just until i'm about to go and pushing off infront. For those of you who don't swim it's like being stuck behind a sunday driver who insists on going 50 in a 60 zone. I'm sorry to report that these approaches to swimming etiquete don't bring out my most polite or soothing side, and I have found myself swiming straight into a few such swimmers, and cutting up a few others. Although they do seem to give me my space now, surely it would have been more pleasent on all sides if they could just take the time to judge the speed of all the other swimmers (I am not the only woman to fall foul of this phenomena) in the lane and find a spot that suits their speed rather than their ego.

Ok, it's annoying but what does it have to do with feminsim? Well directly, not a huge amount, but indirectly it's annother one of those huge areas where implicitly, women just arn't expected to be strong or skilled on an everyday basis. The number of times I've seen guys get all het up, racing up and down the pool in attempt to beat one of the other girls that swims at the same time as me, only to have to rest for a few minutes at the end of each length is laughable. What is it achieving? Not a lot as in the end this girl swims twice as far as anyone else in the pool. What it comes down to is that boys are taught from a very young age that the have to be faster, stronger, fitter or face the consequences of being called a girl. Maybe if we were taught from a young age that girls can be just as agile and athletic as boys, and that the word 'girl' was not derrogative we would all be able to have a better time in the swimming pool. What's more women's sports may given the same media attention and rewards as the same sports played by men currently are. Even if women do pursue sport now, they have to be appologetic about being good, and surprised by any success that comes their way, and preferably pretty and slim, not muscular and skilled and passionate and robust. Young girls should be encouraged, as young boys are to think of sport as a possible career, not just something you do to keep your body thin. Maybe then more women would feel it was their perogative to pursue sports with the same ambition and drive and passion as men are currently encouraged to do.

Know Your Enemies: Number 1, Bernie Ecclestone

The first big Mind the Gap feminist boo hiss goes out to Formula One racing overlord Bernie Ecclestone.

When asked for his response to the success of Danica Patrick a 23 year old Indy car driver who came fourth in the Indy car 500, Bernie conceded that she did well, and then mused "Women should wear white like all the other kitchen appliances".

In 79 years only 7 women have driven in formula racing, which isn't surprising considering the deeply embedded misogyny in the industry. I notice that Danica's own website mentions the fact that she's an "attractive" and small woman on the front page. That's ok then, if it means she can probably drive too.

Bernie's crass comments wouldn't matter, of course, if he didn't have access to millions of male viewers around the world.

Death to the Bunny - Update

"I don't care if a baby holds up a Playboy bunny rattle," Hugh (Hef) Hefner.

Well, at least he's honest. I think I'd be more offended if he pretended to care. At least you know where you stand with the guy.

Right, I can't find anywhere to directly complain on the WHSmiths website, and I can't get the link to work anyway. I have found an email address: customer.relations@whsmith.co.uk If you want to complain, I'd recommend calm, polite letters, explaining why you think it's wrong and telling them you won't be shopping there again until the merchandise is removed.

Object, the campaign against sexist images in the media and advertising are also going to take this up. I don't think it's on the main site yet, but you can get in touch with them about it. According to Object, TESCO have agreed to remove "Lads mags" to the top shelf. While I'm actually against censorship as such, I think this is a positive move. The images on many of the covers are really no different to the images adorning Playboy and other "girlie" mags.

If you need any encouragement check out the Playboy website. Read all about how to get your girl to pose for Playboy, and listen to Hef's advice about how to approach a beautiful woman. I bet you can't wait.

This is bizarrely interesting. Here's a site run by some ex Playboy bunnies. Enter the site and go into History of the Playboy Bunny. Here you can find an original recruitment brochure. Scroll down and click on "next" to find out whether you could have made it as a bunny. Apparently there were no standard height and weight requirements, but bunnies had to be "properly proportioned". This is a well set up site, actually, and good if you want to find out about the other side of the story from the bunnies themselves. Make up your own mind as to whether they were liberated women, or self-deluding women with a bad case of internalised sexism. They had to do 8 hour shifts...in those shoes!!! Ouch!

But if that's quite enough cottontales for you, cheer yourself up with Bunnies on Strike, a fun feminist riot grrrl site. Nice bit of feminist re-appropriation this.

Kill the Bunny! Notes on Porno Culture

A few months ago, I underwent something of a rite of passage, my very first “Mary Whitehouse moment.” Watching television at my sister’s house, around 11.00am on a Saturday morning, I suddenly found myself being subjected to Christina Aguilera’s video for her aptly named song “Dirty.” Well! I can’t remember the exact phrase which crossed my mind, but I have to confess it was something along the lines of “Won’t you think of the children!” This was immediately followed by moderate panic about my entrance into a state of prudery. I was just about the throw it all in, run off to join Christian Voice and begin campaigning against the Jerry Springer Opera, when I paused for thought and decided that I didn’t have to be Mary Whitehouse to feel uncomfortable with Christina’s gyrating pseudo-orgiastic music video. The fact of the matter is that I don’t want to live in a world in which children are brainwashed with soft-core pornographic imagery; actually, I don’t like being constantly subjected to such imagery myself, and I don’t have to feel apologetic for my discomfort. The kind of stuff currently being churned out under the banner of sexual liberation and girl power is neither liberating nor empowering.

Let me make it clear, I do not think exposure to sexual material per see damages children. I am not talking about any old piece of erotic art here. Actually, I think we need more erotic art created by women and for women. We need open, honest sex education for girls, female-centered education that teaches them to own, respect, enjoy and celebrate their bodies and their desires, but on their own terms. What I am objecting to is the ever-increasing saturation of popular culture with imagery and material drawn directly from pornography made specifically for adult heterosexual men. Although few female pop artists, actresses, or T.V presenters, allow us to see them actually engaged in real-time sex, (some do), they often use, ape, and mime postures and images pulled from such pornography. It’s easy to recognize. We encounter them draped across the covers of FHM or Loaded, hair flicked everywhere, pumped up breasts, coy facial expression, wet-lipped mouth pursed in the promise of a blow job, legs akimbo. I saw Charlotte Church on one this morning, resplendent in a basque and suspenders. They just love getting these ex-child stars in and sexing them up. It is no surprise to me that artists such as Aguilera and Britney Spears are marketed predominantly to two groups; namely, men and young girls. There is a sinister link, for in pandering to male fantasies, such artists also do plenty of work teaching young girls about what is expected of them as women.

I do not have a problem with girls exploring their sexuality, but of course this has nothing to do with their sexuality, that’s the whole point. This kind of material dictates a male-centered sexuality to women. As far as I can tell, the current trend tells us that we’re supposed to take up a spice girl-like posture of feisty independence, but only insofar as it appeals to men. Popular culture seems to be working to perpetuate a certain kind of female sexuality, which is both demanding and pandering at the same time, hyper-feminine and hyper-manipulative, but at the end of the day, accepting of sex from men on the terms on which is it offered and liking it, no, loving it, wanting more. Dirty, indeed. We’re all supposed to want to be these dirty girls making it into FHM’s top 100 sexist women.

Today, I had another Mary Whitehouse moment. This time it was in WHSmith, where they are currently stocking exclusive Playboy merchandise in the “Fashion Stationary” section. It’s beautifully produced in pink, silver and black, and there are pens, pencil cases, files, books, notepads and diaries - all of it very obviously marketed towards school age girls. How many will understand or appreciate the connotations of the bunny symbol? Surely few young girls read Playboy, and I wouldn’t recommend that they do, but if they don’t know, you can guarantee adult men will recognize it. I hate to think about the reactions in the mind of some Playboy reader when he sees a 12-year-old girl in a little T-shirt adorned with our bunny friend. I wonder what I should do about the stuff in Smiths. Should I write an angry feminist type letter? “I am DISGUSTED etc etc”. Or, shall I get some friends and protest outside the shop, bearing a banner reading “Careful now” or “Down with this sort of thing,” a la Father Ted and Dougal? Or would that just give the shop some free advertising?

That bloody Playboy bunny, he seems to go from strength to strength, evading and mocking every feminist attempt to shoot him down. Playboy has even made use of feminist rhetoric: I came upon an ex-bunny girl website, where members claim to have been on the frontline of women’s liberation. That’s right, they were feminist waitresses in bunny costumes. Now you might be excused for thinking I’m one of those feminists with no sense of humour and, on this occasion, you’d be right, I’m not laughing. Dressing a woman up in a corset, stilettos, bunny ears and cute little bobtail, and getting her to serve men drinks is unredeemably demeaning. Then, to go on and claim this farce as evidence of female empowerment is a dirty joke at feminism’s expense. Of course, this kind of rhetoric has more recently been renamed “Girl Power” and we've heard a lot about it over the last few years. I’m sure Britney and Christina would tell me they’re just celebrating their sexuality because they have a right to be sexual, or something. Yeah, sure, you have a right to be sexual only so long as you’re sexual in the ‘right’ way. Girl power indeed! The last thing girls are in this culture is empowered, sexually or otherwise. I find it particularly depressing to see feminism appropriated and misused to support an age-old status quo in which women are forced to use their sexuality and their bodies to manipulate and work the system, fucking their way to the top, stepping on anyone, male or female, who gets in the way. This isn’t anything new, my girl power friends, this situation is as ancient as it gets.

I think that what really bothers me about the Payboy stationary is the insiduous, nasty psychological trick underlying the Playboy/WHSmith marketing strategy. The other day, I received an email from a teacher saying she didn't know what to do when she found some 11 year olds in her class with the stationary. This difficulty is precisely what the company is depending on. When a child demands, or buys, this stuff, how many parents or teachers will feel able to explain why they disapprove of the item? The child, in the way of all children, will demand to know why she is being denied and this puts the adult in the position of having to explain what Playboy magazine is - which of course means answering questions about soft-core pornography. If I were a parent I hope I would try and be open and explain it, but it's not always that easy. I think it likely that most adults will look the other way in the hope that their children will not find out about what the bunny really means, (even though there's a good chance they will), and will just hope that it's a temporary fashion. Meanwhile, WHSmith and a soft-porn empire make a lot of money out of young girls. What if this is only the beginning? What if we're confronted next with Playboy t-shirts for little girls, or how about underwear...even baby grows? I don't want to get overly melodramatic, but where do we draw the line and say "this exploitation is not acceptable"?

Having thought about it, I now believe the Playboy stationary is appropriate to the current sexual culture. It makes sense to mark little girls with the bunny symbol early. After all, if they’re all expected to grow up to be frisky playmates for men, they might as well get used to it. We are all of us already marked psychologically by porno culture anyway. We are all regarded as potential sex objects. Now we live in a world in which many norms and conventions that used to be pretty much exclusively relegated to pornography – from breast implants, to all over body waxing, to thong knickers - are becoming commonplace, even expected of all women. Playboy is just more honest and upfront about it than a lot of people. As far as they’re concerned pornography is the way forward, so we should wear our bunny symbols with pleasure.

As far as I’m concerned, heterosexual, male-centered pornography doesn’t create misogyny; it’s symptomatic of an already misogynistic culture. Pornography endlessly reflects and replays the banal performance of male domination and female submission, over and over again. That’s why it’s repetitive, ritualized, empty and boring.

In my worst feminist nightmares, thousands of empty-eyed, slack mouthed young girls in little pink bunny t-shirts, gyrate and wriggle, soullessly, and without passion, to the sound of “Hit me baby one more time”.

Come on comrades, we’ve got to try and kill the bunny and everything it stands for.

Fat

Two posts in one day after a drought of a week. Sorry, I didn't have much to say last week and I'll be away for the rest of this one.

This post has a feeling of inevitability surrounding it for me and that is because my relationship with food, fat, and my mother (all three in combination, I get on really well with mum the rest of the time) has always been a difficult and strained one. So why now? Why tackle the Fat issue today? Well several event over the last week or so have lead up to the production of this post. The first occured last week when after outright bullying (thankyou!!) from a few close friends I finally went to the doctor about my increadibly irreglaur periods. Having been scolded by the doctor for missing a smear I ended up seeing the practice nurse who is fabulous. She beleives that the root of my problems may well be that I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

Having scouted around a few websites it appears that PCOS is linked to insulin resistance, higher risk of diabetes, infertility and heart disease. Great. It also appears that the symptoms of PCOS can be quite well managed by, you've guessed it, a strictish diet excluding carbohydrates that are not complex, which basically excludes anything that looks like cake, chocolate, white bread, white pasta, white rice and biscuts. Great again.

Event two, last night whilst at the REM consert mentioned in the below post, I sat transfixed as I watched an obese woman eat, in the space of two hours, 4 packets of crisps, 2 cornish pasties, a paket of biscuits and a pint of beer. I really do find it amazing quite how much some people eat.

Event three. As I left the swimming pool this morning after one of my bi-weekly swims i was shamed to hear a group of elderly ladies discussing their exersise schedule for the week which included swimming, arobics and a short spell at the gym amounting to some form of exersise ever single day. All power to these active ladies.

So where is all this leading to? Before I continue I want to stress that I am not talking about the desire to be media thin, in other words skeletal. I am talking about being a healthy normal wieght in the rest of this post. The cultural pressure to be thin or underwieght is a very real one and at some point I would like to devote a post to that issue but that is not the issue I am addressing here.

What I want to talk about is fat. 22% of adults in the uk are clinically obese putting pressure on practically every internal organ, as well as damaging joints and resulting in a general lethergy and tiredness that is difficult to overcome. In addition to that being overwight can exacerbate the symptoms of many diseases and conditions including PCOS which is thought to affect somewhere between 6 and 10% of women. In britain the situation is getting worse as people are suffering poor health and decreased quality of life due to carrying excess weight. Many feminists have talked about fat and feminsim, many have concentrated on eating disoreders such as buimia and anorexia, on the cultural pressure to be skinny. Resisting these pressures is hard and many women have devloped erratic relationships with food and with their bodies, and include myself in this group. However the flip side of this is that women are also getting fatter, and suffering poor health as a result.

I think it's time we examined this issue a little more closely. I think we need to learn respect for our bodies and respect for their limitations. It isn't empowering to load up on donuts and chocolate, only to deprive ourselved of the rich nutrients available in really tasty fresh fruit and vegetables. We may want to eat everything that we feel like and damn the consequences, but at the end of the day, our bodies can't take it. Your body may not be a temple, but maybe it should be thought of as your home. Not many people I know would abuse their living sapce in the same way that some people abuse their bodies. Women are feeling increasingly distant from their own biology and out of touch with what their own body needs and desires. We need to start thinking differntly, eating foods that are good for us with exersise in balance with foods that are not good for us and nights in lounging on the sofa. At least that's what I need to start thinking about doing any way.

Earning your hero-worship.

In this media driven celebrity crazy age it is rare that you come accross a public figure who really earns their hero-worship. Micheal Stipe, the front man of the fantastic REM is one of those people. For the final Date of their UK tour, REM were in Cardiff, and I was one of the people lucky to be there. (REM have actually got one more data to play having postponed their london gig after the terrible events og thursday morning until next week) It is not that the music is fantastic, the stage presence of the band electric and whole show suberbly put together. All of this is true, but that is not why I believe that REM have earned our respect.

Last week REM played a protest concert to highlight the plight of the burmese people, who's democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest after 10 years of a military occupation(appologies forhuge oversimplification of the political situation in burma). Last night REM played a tribute the the people of London affected by the bomobings and a protest song against the actions of the american government in Iraq, also dedicating a song to 'anyone who has ever felt like an outsider' and playing a requsest from the fan club. Micheal Stipe also spent a lengthy time thanking his band, his musicains and every member of his crew. At the close of the concert Amnesty international and Oxfam were both thanked, as REM had asked both organisations to come with them on tour. The audince were asked to pick up a leaflet or join one of the organisations. If already aware of the work these organisations do, we were asked to take some information anyway and pass it on to some one who didn't.

REM are a huge band who command a massive audience. Instead of swimming around in a pool of self loving glory they recognise this privilaged position and use it to communicate about issues that are dear to their heart. They Champion the rights of humanity as a whole and challenge the privilages of the powerful few. They continually challenge accepted norms about gender and question the way that we all treat each other, trying to get the message out there that 'we're all in this togther so isn't it time that we started looking out for each other'. They do not passively stand by and watch things happen that they do not agree with. and they do all this with energy and passion and dignity. This is a band that has earned it's hero-worship.

REM I salute you.

Tales of the expected: lesson 1, Bag your self a man.

This is a really quick post, more really intended to help me work through my feelings about an incident that happened yesterday than anything else really, although all comments are welcome. It was my sister’s 21st Birthday yesterday and so I went, with the rest of my family to have dinner with my sister in Cardiff. The evening went well, wine and laughter was to be seen and heard all round. Given the positive, if slightly strained relationship I have with my mother, what happened next has left me in much more distress than is really warranted and that’s why I’m writing this post.

I wear a ring on my wedding finger, it’s a silver band with red enamel and silver flowers that encircle it almost in its entirety. On the way home, as we were saying goodbye to my aunt and uncle, my mother commented on the ring saying that she thought it was pretty. I replied that it was, and that my boyfriend had bought it for me last year. Then without thinking I quipped he’ll probably buy me a real one soon. With retrospect this is possibly the worst thing I could have said and IS NOT AN ISSUE TO JOKE ABOUT. My mother, not being one known for containing her emotions, immediately burst into tears. Luckily they were in the happy direction as my mum really likes the bf and I rather fancy she would marry him herself if she was 20 years younger and not married to my dad. Still I was mortified on several counts. First, it was my sister’s birthday and it was her night and I didn’t want to take away any attention from that. Second, although the bf and I have talked about it, we aren’t really in the position financially to consider it at the moment. To add to this discomfort my mother immediately asked ‘when did he ask?’ as if it was automatically understood that the only part I would have played in this was the willing recipient of a generous offer, which was not how it works at all in our relationship. Being the pretty groovy progressive thinkers that we are pretty much all decisions are joint Re: ‘us’.

The real reason for my distress, apart form the embarrassment suffered by all those present, was this. I have been through a lot of, fairly significant changes in the last few years, I got into medical school, I left medical school prematurely, have graduated in psychological medicine, and managed to secure funding to study a PhD. All pretty good achievements in my view. Throughout this educational saga my mother has regularly expressed somewhat surprised support as, in her own words, she doesn’t really understand what I’m doing but it sounds good, but never has she expressed the joyful outburst of emotion I witnessed last night. The minute I mention the mere possibility shacking up with a man she approves of she practically and literally falls over herself to tell me how pleased she is for me. And yet the tough stuff I’ve really had to work for, and am really proud of she normally talks to me about whilst displaying the attention span of an eight year old who has eaten too many sweets.

This disturbs me even more because she is an intelligent woman and talented artist. She went to university in the 70’s, she burned her bra and is very politically aware, and yet it still seems that the most important thing is that I bag myself a ‘good man.’ I know she would be mortified if she realised how obviously easy it was to fit her emotional responses to my achievments into neat categories, but the sad thing is that I can. If my liberal and talented mum who has always worked really hard and has achieved a lot in her own right still considers marriage as a the big thing, then what does that say about the expectations on young girls in the rest of the population. Feminism has, in the west come a long way in terms of winning us rights, allowing us into education, to own our own property and earn our own wage. There is still a long way to go on this front, but, if implicitly the old conservative expectations of women as wife and mother are still the high points, and careers and individual achievement are still taking a back seat, then I fear that feminism has much further to go than I had previously anticipated.