More on the left

Antonia has written a really good critique (a nice critique) of my rather "heat of the moment" post on feminism and the left below. See her post On the Left. I've had a go at replying to her queries, so go read and have a look at her excellent blog while you're over there. I think it's great that we're debating these issues because I'd love to see socialist feminism infused with new life. And I fully admit that I need to do some more reading myself in this area. As I've said in the comments below, I'm slightly terrified by the amount of attention this post has received, but I guess this is something a lot of us have been thinking about for a while.

Stop Press: Andrea over at Vociferate has her own (as always) strong opinions on this subject. I love this blog. It's just so Grrrr! Check out her "Thong hate" rant. It's about time somebody said it.

Protection from porn?

It flickered briefly in the news yesterday before sinking away into the BBC archives. The UK is backing plans to make possession of ‘extreme’ pornography illegal, it’s a shame that nobody seems very interested. The distribution of gonzo porn is already illegal in the UK but at present that does not prevent people down loading it from sites outside of the UK. This legislation effectively means that having this type of material on your computer will be reason enough to have you arrested and given a possible three year sentence. The psychology behind the use of gonzo porn is quite simple, and for people who may have ‘sexually deviant tendencies’ will highly increase the likely hood of them assaulting a woman, or a man for that matter. Basically, sexually violent men will use porn to get aroused, the more and more they use it, the more extreme it needs to be to satisfy their urges until eventually, the porn just doesn’t get the job done anymore and they need to turn to actual violent acts against women, and sometimes men and children.

So does this herald a new dawn in actually trying to protect women from domestic violence? I’m not so sure, the problem is that this legislation seems to be tackling only very extreme pornography, the type that “go far beyond what we allow to be shown in films or even sold in licensed sex shops in the UK.” For anyone who hasn’t been into a licensed sex shop recently, you can get your hands on some pretty nasty stuff just over the counter, or straight of the shelves. This legislation marks only a small drop in a big ocean, and whilst it may be of some comfort to the parents of Jane Longhurst, it doesn’t go so far as to ban the majority of pornography that features violence against women in some form or another. Whilst violence and sex are still represented as going hand and hand, that is what will continue to happen in the real world, as well as on the grubby silver screen.

Breaking up is Hard to Do: Feminism and the Revolutionary Left

I'm really glad to see UK feminists discussing problems in the relationship between socialist feminism and male-dominated left wing politics, especially with regard to the so-called "revolutionary left." Gendergeek have a really good post How Feminist is the Left?, written in response to an article by Louise Whittle on the F Word entitled Left Behind. I've been aware of tensions for some time and also aware of my own, slightly guilty, desire to stay well away from the left-wing activist environment, but I didn't feel I knew enough about socialism to articulate the issues properly. Whittle argues:

"The revolutionary left as a whole pays lip-service to women’s oppression and treats feminism with contempt. My criticisms are with all the revolutionary groups which either ‘pretend’ to take oppression seriously or who are downright opportunistic because at the end of the day for them it seems to be all about how many people you can recruit - quantity as opposed to quality!"

When feminists try and talk about the fact that oppression is gendered, they are often answered with lectures on class struggle, and Whittle points out that unequal gendered power relations are as pervasive in left-wing groups as they are everywhere else. Yup, but try telling them that!
In my own experience, I have found left-wing groups dominated by straight white men with extremely pushy, sometimes agressive, personalities. You know the type, you get them everywhere: equipped with megaphone and trestle table, enormous chip on his shoulder, thinks he's Che Gueuvara. For good examples see the comments section on Volsunga, especially her recent post on Playboy and pornography. Ms. B writes excellent socialist feminist posts, and gets a lot of unnecessarily rude, dismissive, "clever clever," comments from apparently left-wing men. Of course, the problem is not socialism; the problem is some of the people who "do" socialism. Here in Cardiff, for instance, the lefty activist community is dominated by a loose coalition of groups: Cardiff Stop the War, SWP, Socialist Party, Respect, Cardiff Anarchists (sort of on the edges), and Cardiff Social Forum. There are probably more by now. I am very wary of linking Mind the Gap into this particular nexus, because I think we'll get pushed around and sidelined. The other day, an anarchist friend of mine was telling me about her attempts at a meeting to make a revolutionary man understand why she thinks it's important to include feminist and queer politics in the discussion. She tried to explain why the slogan the "personal is political" is still important, only to be shouted down with the usual arrogant dismissive epithets. I shared my unwillingness to subject myself to this kind of treatment from men. She said I should "stand up to them." Fair point. But, you know what? I really can't be bothered. I'm not sure I have time to waste being shouted at about Marx. As a feminist, I don't think I should willingly put myself in a situation where I'm going to be marginalised and patronised by men, without a very good reason for doing so. Moreover, think of all the things I could be doing with my time instead: I could be reading about feminism, working for my feminist group. Hell, I could even be learning more about socialism.

Feminists on the left are understandably wary of critiquing the movement because they probably feel to do so is some kind of betrayal, but I think it's feminism that's really getting betrayed. We need to demand that these men show more solidarity with women, not the other way around. Poverty does wear a female face. Gender oppression is one of the most fundamental, if not the most fundamental form of oppression. Feminism is a revolutionary movement in its own right and feminists are not dumb enough to think that, if we managed to do away with capitalism, we would automatically do away with the oppression of women. I want to show solidarity but I, personally, am not prepared to devote myself to any movement at the expense of my feminism. And If they won't listen? Well, I think there's probably life in socialist feminism yet. Perhaps we need to resuscitate it and ask men to join us. In fact, I'm going to schedule in a discussion on socialism and socialist feminism for the Mind the Gap group as soon as I get a chance.

The blogsphere this week

Not much fun to be had this week. Everything I've read seems to based on annoying or upsetting stories.

Let's start with annoying: British eugenicist scientist Richard Lynn has come out with the old "Oh look, I've proved that men are smarter than women" type crap. See the F Word for more details and links. Apparently, men score better in IQ tests than women. Yawn. For a start I really don't think we should be giving a man who wants to prove that lighter skinned black people are smarter than darker skinned black people too much publicity, but the current fad for any "men and women are different, look we've proved it" stories gets this kind of thing into the headlines, no matter how dodgy the research or researcher. Any attempt to prove that one group of people is in any way inferior to another group of people is dangerous. I'd like to know who's funding this chap's research. While I'm on the subject, a brief aside: I really do think we should resist the regulative and elitist agenda underlying the concept of IQ tests. Sure, they measure something, but such tests are not politically neutral; no doubt they are designed by those in power in society who, as always, get to decide precisely what counts as intelligence and which skills should be most highly valued. I strongly suspect anything that works to set up categories, pin down or hierarchise people, intellectually or otherwise.

The very serious question of women's rights in Iraq has been featuring in many blogs. Alas have a good post and it's all pretty depressing. While they argue about Islam and the constitution, women are being terrorised on the streets.

I am always fascinated and horrified by the influence of the Christian right in America. See Pam's House Blend for scary stuff about Christian fundamentalist attitudes to gay rights. What I find amazing is that these people are so powerful and get so much air time. I mean, I'm sure we have the same wankers here in the UK, but there's no way they'd get this much attention, thank goodness. I think we should all be grateful for the rather lukewarm and private British attitude to religion.

My sister just phoned to say she's actually gone and watched that Michael Buerk programme. She's a braver woman than me! She was so angry she could hardly speak, but watch this space.

I went out for a drink last night with one of my best male friends and asked him what he thought about Michael Buerk's recent outbursts. I am of a tactful and sweet nature, so I didn't inform him of his sperm bank status in the world or tell him that, since women now set the agenda for everything, from now on I will be making all the decisions with regard to our friendship and resistance is futile etc. But seriously, as a historian of race and gender he did have some interesting things to say on the rise of male "victim" politics. As far as he's concerned, throughout history, whenever a group in ascendancy has had its ascendancy challenged, they begin to cast themselves in the role of the victims, the ones who are really being oppressed. Every time.

Another Stinker From Pat.

Not content with simply trying to control the lives of the women around him, Pat Robertson has come out with annother stinker, this time calling for the assasination of the president of venesuala. Clearly this not a man who is sound of mind, and I wasn't aware that good old fashioned Christian Values extended to calling for the murder of people you don't agree with, clearly this man is an awful role model for any one. This time though, he may have gone too far as under new US terrorism laws he could be tried under an "inter-American anti-terrorism accord" including "provisions against inciting others to kill". Sometimes I think this man must have been put on the planet for the entertainment of the rest of us because the things ha says are so ignorant, they are almost funny. Hopefully this time he's hanged himself with his own ropy arguments. If there is justice in the universe, this man will reap waht he he had sown, and be put back on earth as a snail next time round to teach him some humility.

More responses to the invasion of the bunnies

Volsunga has an absolutely excellent post on this subject. Ms. B takes a socialist feminist perspective on the creation of the market for Playboy goods, reminding us that markets do not simply appear from nowhere. She puts it a lot better than I could so I'll quote:

“It is also naive to make the argument that the porn industry is simply targetting a market that is already there. Billions of pounds are spent each year creating markets for all sorts of products we don’t need through advertising, something bourgeois feminism has no problem realising when it comes to companies that promote the beauty myth to exploit female consumers. When it comes to porn, however, apologists for the industry claim that it is simply a mirror of male sexuality (as if there is one simple condensed version of this) rather than a carefully created and targetted product.”


“But were porn simply a reflection of a market demand, surely the huge rise in extreme “gonzo” porn would be a symptom of something drastic having changed in men’s appetites in the last ten years? I don’t buy it; I think that kind of porn is being bought because it is there, men are watching it because they can, not because they conceived of it in the first place. Whilst we demand nothing from the industry, never protesting the sexism inherent in porn, we cannot expect to change anything. I wholeheartedly disagree with those feminists who suggest brutal porn is a male malaise; it is a capitalist malaise, and the fault lies with those who produce it, and a system that allows anything to be sold, even women’s bodies, dignity and pared-down palatable versions of our sexualities.”

Damn straight!

Her article has made me think a bit about my own approach. I agree that we need to include an analysis of free market capitalism in our protest. Ms. B refers to the hypocrisy of people who want companies such as WHSmith to display some morals while refusing to critique the role of capitalism. I certainly don't expect companies to have morals, but like many feminists involved with pressure groups such as Object, I often argue that they should show more social responsibility. We try and push them to behave better, to remove the offensive product, to put the Lads' mag porn up on the top shelf etc. I'm not sure what else we can do really, but I'm aware that it's treating the symptom not the real problem. With regard to porn, companies are clearly combating this approach by trying to normalise the material by convincing people that lads' mags and Playboy toys for kids are harmless and just a bit of fun. "No need to make a fuss people, it's natural for men to want porn. And Playboy bunnies on kids stationary? They're just a fashion statement, they don't mean anything, honestly, you crazy feminists are always reading too much into everything!"

Not everyone is buying it. The Guardian online have published a selection from the "barrage" of emails they've received in response to Rachel Bell's article. I don't agree with all the perspectives but it's pretty heartening stuff.

You said it

‘Through the pursuit of an ever-changing, homogenizing, elusive ideal of femininity – a pursuit without a terminus, requiring that women constantly attend to minute and often whimsical changes in fashion – female bodies become docile bodies – bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection, transformation, “improvement.” Through the exacting and normalizing disciplines of diet, makeup, and dress – central organizing principles of time and space in the day of many women- we are rendered less socially orientated and more centripetally focussed on self-modification. Through these disciplines, we continue to memorize on our bodies the feel and conviction of lack, of insufficiency, of never being good enough. At the farthest extremes, the practices of femininity may lead us to utter demoralization, debilitation, and death,’

- Susan Bordo, From Unbearable Weight, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, p. 2363.

In praise of Mo

The Guardian have some good tributes . See also the BBC .

Now I'm not a fan of "New" Labour, but as Emma at Gendergeek suggested earlier, this is the kind of powerful woman we should be encouraging girls to emulate : intelligent, charismatic, strong, brave and principled.

More on Playboy

Some of other blogs are taking up the Playboy stationary issue. See the piece on Gendergeek written partly in response to a couple of posts on Harry's Place. The debate following Harry's post is interesting because a lot of the comments are from men.

I will write about something else soon!

It's not Porn. Oh yes it bloody well is

"The cute bunny, surely one of the most ingenious ideas in the history of morally loathsome marketing, is embedded as respectable, normal. It's so subliminal - and all the more pernicious for it. " Rachel Bell.

An update on my personal Playboy-WHSmith vendetta. Since Smith's started selling Playboy bunny stationary aimed at school age girls, I'm glad to see that the Guardian online has taken up the story. Please read the excellent piece by Rachel Bell It's Porn, Innit? . If you're interested you can read my own previous bunny hating rants here and here, but do read Bell.

My Mum recently wrote to Smiths to object to the stationary and received a polite letter in reply. They were very sorry that she was "offended." "I'm not offended" she retorted, "I'm concerned." The letter reassures her that it's just popular fashion stationary. They make no attempt to deny that it's being marketed to school age kids. What really disturbs me is the letter's claim that kids don't associate the bunny with pornography. Bell's article describes similar attempts to defend the product by refusing to acknowledge that it represents pornography. WHSmith's ability to de-link the Playboy bunny symbol from pornographic meaning takes my breath away. It's just so audacious. It's also bollocks. Not only does the bunny represent Playboy magazine, it can almost be said to stand in metonymic relation to the world of pornography, so established is its meaning in this respect, so widespread its fame. All over the world people know exactly what the bunny means. WHSmith argue, "We offer customers choice. We're not here to act as a moral censor." Oh come on! In that case why not sell stationary marked with the Marlboro cigarette logo or what about the fashionable Jack Daniels logo? I'm sure that would be a popular "choice" with the kids. You could tell parents that it doesn't mean cigarettes or booze; it's just a bit of fun. Children want all kinds of things which we, as adults, decide they shouldn't have. This situation is no different. Take some responsiblity.

"By placing the bunny logo on school equipment, underage children are seduced into buying into the pornographic brand - an adult, top-shelf brand that sells women as sexual commodities. But WHSmith denies that Playboy means porn." Rachel Bell.

Selling young girls products marked with the Playboy image is exploitation. It exploits the girls who channel their pocket money into a porn empire and don't fully understand what they're buying into; it also exploits parents who find themselves confronted with having to explain why the kid shouldn't have the cute pink glittery bunny pencil case. I'm sure the people at Playboy think it's pretty funny. WHSmith should show some fucking social conscience and responsiblity.

More Buerk Bashing

Casual misogyny brings out the best in some people. See for example this response to Michael Buerk's fears from Zoe Williams in the Guardian online. Hilarious. I love Zoe Williams so much I think I'd like to marry her. That means a lot because I generally disapprove of marriage. Then there's this reassuring piece from Tim Dowling. Don't worry men, according to Tim you'll still have a few uses beyond sperm donation in the new age of mass female supremacy.

Berk!

Stolid 9 o'clock news presenter Michael Buerk has gone a bit berzerk. In an interview with the radio times, he decries the fact that "Life is lived in accordance with women's rules" and men are now merely "sperm donors". Apparently the "shift in the balance of power between the sexes" has (yes you guessed it) gone "too far" and "The result is men are becoming more like women." They keep on saying this and what the fuck is it supposed mean? He continues: "Most women aren't going to want an unemployable sperm donor loafing around and making the house look untidy." Speak for yourself mate. None of the men in my life fall into the "unemployable sperm donor" category thank you very much and I'm way beyond worrying about house tidiness issues. Change the record Michael, it's old and scratched and caught in a backlash loop. Yes, I know he's probably just trying to be provocative and I probably should ignore it, but it pisses me off whenever somone comes out with this kind of crap yet again: "Oh, please won't you think of the men! Women are emasculating them, stealing their jobs, snatching their bodies, turning them into frogs"... or whatever else it is we're supposed to be doing to them in our insane and bloodthirsty quest for equality of opportunity. It never ceases to amaze me that they expect us women to give a shit. Talk about male privilege! Am I supposed to get worried because a few exceptionally privileged and well-paid middle-class men are sitting around feeling a bit sad because they've got a female boss? Is it feminism's fault that the mines and factories have closed? I'm perfectly prepared to listen to and get concerned about serious problems confronting men, but I am not going to be swayed by this kind of patriarchal whingeing. When we encounter the "things have gone too far" narrative, we should never forget that 150 years ago society would have cheerfully imprisoned us in whalebone and brickwork, barred us from higher education and the professions and sentenced us to bear children until our wombs fell out with never a care for our pain. Now they want us to worry about their feelings. Women have had to fight for every inch of ground and it's particularly sad because we never wanted to fight with men. When people say things have gone "too far" what do they really want? Shall we send less of our daughters to university? Michael is personally afronted because where he's worked in the past he finds that "Almost all the big jobs in broadcasting were held by women - the controllers of BBC One television and Radio 4 for example. These are the people who decide what we see and hear." Oh no, how terrible...because men haven't been deciding what we see and hear about for the last several thousand years have they? Even if what he says is true, and women are taking over broadcasting (which I seriously doubt) I would generally feel inclined to cheer them on. But before I start cheering, here's some sobering information from the Fawcett Society :

Just two per cent of executive directors of our top 100 companies are women.
Only around 15 per cent of UK national newspapers have a woman editor.
Of the 12 judges in the House of Lords – the highest court in the land – there is only one woman

So it's not quite time to panic yet boys.

Moreover, before I shed any tears for the predicament of male broadcasters, I have a few more pressing concerns. I'll give your problems a thought after you've declared a moral panic about the epidemic of violence against women. I want headlines. Hell, I want sirens. 1 in 4 Eupropean women will experience domestic violence. 190,000 odd cases of serious sexual assault and rape in the UK per year. And on a world scale...well, lets not get started on that here, but we all know it's the stuff of nightmares. In their campaign to stop violence against women Amnesty want it declared the "greatest human rights scandel of our time."

Broadcast that, Berk.

Best of the blogosphere.

Sorry to have lapsed for the last few days, myself and Winters are really busy at the moment, but here is a round up of a few things that tickled me this week. First, found on Brutal women, how a peaceful protest can go a wee bit wrong. Again on Brutal women, the incredible shrinking woman on a diet of McDonalds only. As pointed out by Kemeron, at no point do the articles mention health indicators other than dropping pounds so we don’t have a clue what’s going on with this ladies blood lipids, etc. To be quite honest, who would want to eat at mcdonalds every day? Where’s the imagination in that.

Great stuff over at I blame patriarchy, as always, including this really scary story about a cash for sterilization program in the us that is targeting, you guessed it, predominantly black female drug addicts with bill boards with slogans that amount to “on drugs, need $200.” Great.

Feministing have an amusing article about Maxim magazine, another on the hit list as a soft porn wolf in mens-mag sheep’s clothing. Also great stuff on Pam’s House Blend. She takes another look at the devisions forming in the black church over homophobia and cites the story of a female pastor who has been victimised for speaking out against homophobic preaching.

That’s all for now, hope to get back up to speed with the posts later in the week.

rx

Zoo Magazine: "Tit Op Comp"

Ok. This is the most revolting and creepy thing I've seen for a while. Zoo men's magazine are running a competition:

Win your bird a boob job

In order to "make your lady a more rounded individual" just send in a picture, and a panel of experts will choose the winner on "merit" (!?). She gets a £4000 tit operation and you get £1000 pocket money.

In the words of our sisters in the US, this is absolutely "Fucktarded."

Object are on the job.

More on the rape education debate.

Following on from the great commentary on a few blogs recently including gender geek , Brutal women and Birds Eye view I saw this article on the BBC and wanted to explore the other side of the rape debate, i.e. what are the police supposed to advise if not ‘stay at home, don’t go out, get a big strong man to protect you’? To bring people up to speed there seems to be a gang of South African men have been abducting and raping women in the late hours of the night in Nottingham. 3 rapes and two abductions have been reported in the last three days and the police have asked women not to leave their houses alone after dark.

The reason I wanted to pick up this story is that this clearly represents the cases that the media are more accustomed to reporting, violent abductions, head injuries and unknown perpetrators. The advice given by the police, stay at home, don’t go anywhere alone after dark, is the kind of advice often criticised by some feminists as encouraging a victim mentality and as being unpractical. Why I agree with both of these arguments, it does beg the question; what the police are supposed to say or do in situations like this when there clearly is a specific danger? While I am uncomfortable with any form of action that encourages victimisation, I have to also conclude, that in this situation, the police are provided with very few options and in this case i think that the advice given is clearly warranted.

However, most situations are very unlike this one. I was talking to Winter yesterday and we were considering that, whilst it is easy enough to criticise the actions of the authorities, the media and the beauty industry, quite often we fall short in offering any real alternatives. What advice would be better for the police to give in those times when there is not a specific threat but rather a more of a ubiquitous ‘rapists are out there in the world somewhere’ type of threat? While I’m obviously not a member of the police force and so can’t speak for policies made by them, I thought this would be a good place to list some of the alternative strategies that feminists have contributed to the debate in the last few months.

1) Give all girls self defence classes at school, early on
2) Education programs with boys and girls in school as to what rape actually is in all its subtle forms
3) Guidelines for women that aren’t limited to ‘stay inside, pull the covers over your head and don’t go anywhere without a chaperone ever’. For example, walk confidently, with your head high so as not to look like a victim, carry some kind of aerosol deodorant and a rape alarm.
4) Education projects with older men about rape and what they can do to stop it.
5) Sensible, non hysterical awareness raising campaigns like this one from the truth about rape.
5) Bring in more men’s groups on the rape debate because the majority of rapists are men, so addressing men may be a good place to start.

Ok, I’d quite like this to be an on going list so everybody please feel free to contribute and tear me down as you see appropriate.

Rx

Urgent Action: Protect Women's Rights in the New Iraq Constitution

I received this via the ukfeministaction mailing list. I posted the whole thing yesterday, but as it's very long and a bit complex, I rather doubt people are going to bother to read the entire call for action here, so please do read it on the excellent Women Living Under Muslim Laws website where, put in context, it makes more sense than it did dumped here. While you're there have a look around; it's really enlightening.

Calling all feminist stand up comedians.

I'm quite a fan of stand up comedy, and I'm pretty generous in what I'll let pass as funny. Last night I went to a local comedy night (Poncho's, Shot in the Dark if anyones interested) and was I'm affraid to say, dissapointed at the comedy and to be frank, at the audience. What was sad was that the biggest laughs went to some bloke talking about wanking. Annother big laugh came for the same guy when he said that he thought that scientists on TV who said that people who were attracted to people who looked like themselves were wrong because, I quote "if I saw a chick coming towards me who looked like me, I wouldn't hang around long enough to set the bitch on fire" NICE. as usual willy jokes won the evening's most laughed at prize.

To be frank I can't rember any names, if I could I would be Naming and Shaming the only female comedian there. If you are a female lesbian comedian, DO NOT take the piss out of women or lesbians. They are tired old jokes that belong to the 1970's. Here's the drift, after which i stopped listening. "I think mobile phones must be female, because they quite often get in a mood for no reason, stop working and won't tell you what's wrong. Must be PMT" Great. Get with the f**king program, playing up to the audience by selling out your own isn't funny.

Where are you intelligent feminist Comedians, I miss you.

It's a Man Thing: No 1

Feminists are often accused of sexism towards men and when we started this blog we decided we would try and acknowledge men's issues and problems. Whenever my students are confronted with an essay question about gender they immediately assume that means "write about women" and give me odd looks when I suggest they might like to try writing about men and/or masculinity. Their preference is rather sexist. Men have gender too, I tell them. Anyway, there have been some interesting articles about masculinity in the Guardian online gender special reports recently. Lucy Ward warns us that overambitious young men are becoming increasingly prone to early life crises. The right wing press has long been banging on about career women wanting to "have it all" and, apparently, men are now going the same way. Chill out men! It looks to me like these men are spending far too much time trying to make money at the expense of the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, Dave Hill addresses the problem of the single weirdo. This piece doesn't really seem to go anywhere, but does make the point that less derision and suspicion might be good for the mental health of single men in a society that reads male singledom as indicative of perversion. Fair enough. Then there's Steve Cochrane's amusing saint dad story. According to the Equal Opportunities Commission, 4 out of 5 fathers claim they would be happy to give up work and look after the kids at home. (These chaps can't be the same men as the overambitious ones killing themseslves in Lucy Ward's article). However, Steve warns that the job comes with a burdernsome "halo." Everywhere he goes he finds himself admired and swooned over for doing the work women take for granted. It's all very embarrassing and needs to stop if men are to be encouraged to try their hands at full time parenting.

Naiadies recommended I read Hugo Schwyzer blog. He's a christian, pro-life, pro-feminist, gender studies professor. I was dubious, but I love a man with contradictions and gave it a go. His blog is extremely intelligent, well-written and worth reading.

I also love this piece on masculinity and performance by Holly Coombes on the FWord. Now I just want to do a drag king workshop and discover my masculine side.

Hiroshima

Must not forget that it's 60 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki this weekend. I can't even attempt to write anything about these events myself. The guardian has some thoughtful articles.

Ew!

Over at Feministing they've been running a very funny and icky most disturbing product poll, which has inspired me to nominate a couple of items here.

How about these "sexy" talking dartboards? Apparently they make great gifts for Valentine's Day. Hmmm.

The sexy woman says the following when you hit her "targets"

"Ooh, that hit the spot
Bullseye
Ouch, that hurt
Did'nt feel a thing big boy
Try the other one"

The tagline on the box reads "Hit the target & I squeal with delight"


Object : the campaign against the use of sexist images in advertising and the media, have already mounted a challenge to retailers selling this product, successfully getting their complaint upheld by Advertising and Trading Standards. They argue that it is at best insensitive and, at worst, irresponsible to sell this "toy" in a society with such widespread and deadly domestic violence.

But, equally nasty and, I would argue, sexist, is the "talking man" dartboard.

"Hit the right spot!

Talking Dartboard-hit the target & I moan with delight!
Easy tiger! I might need them!
Ouch! that hurt!

Ladies! Why don't you get your own back? Take out your frustrations by hitting him right where it hurts!!! "


Ugh! I particularly don't like the intimation that women should "hit" men in order to relieve their "frustrations."

Of course, lots of people would tell me that these crude products are just a bit of fun or that they are "ironic." The question I would ask is, why does "irony" now seem to so frequently manifest itself in relation to sexist images and products? In my view, these nasty items are pustulous scabs symptomatic of all that's bad in the way we think about relations between the sexes in our society. Don't buy something like this for your partner on Valentine's Day! Get them something nice for goodness sake.

Oh, and don't think these dartboards are relegated to dodgy online stores, they have been stocked by "reputable" retailers such as Burtons, River Island and The Gadget Shop.

Body Image Hell

I came across a report in yesterday's Independent giving more details about the recent "body image" survey in Top Sante magazine. I haven't read the original article so I can only deal with the information second hand but it makes for very depressing, if predictable, reading. 2000 women were questioned for the article. I don't know for sure, but I'm gathering they were for the most part university educated, middle-class types.

Apparently 51% of the women thought good looks were key to a successful career. This may not be the case in reality, for as a commentator at GenderGeek said the other day, a pretty face and feminine appearance are quite as likely to consign you to the "secretarial pool." I've worked in a few offices in my time and I have to say most of the women in upper management were not exactly "girly." This is not a good thing of course - no one should suffer discrimination for their appearance, but I suspect the women questioned may be overestimating the amount of respect sexist men have for feminine "good looks." That said, it's probably true to say that having the "right" kind of look is more likely to at least get you noticed by the aforementioned sexist men. With hindsight, I now realise I got my own first job thanks to my (then rather more "nubile" and feminine) appearance. One of the men on my interview panel turned out to be a revolting old troll who appointed young women in the hope of shagging them. I know it does go on, but whether it would have got me promotion is another matter. I generally found my appearance led to sexual harassment rather than career advancement. A friend of mine was very proud to get her first job. Sometime later a man in the office told her that when she'd been appointed someone had come in and announced "It's a blonde and it wears short skirts." Nice. Personal anecdotes aside, it's the women's perception that their looks count that matter here and we all know where that comes from. They obviously believe it to be case. But this is actually one of the less horrific findings in the survey.

83 % of the women felt celebrity culture had made men's expectations of women's bodies too high. I have no idea if this is true or if it's yet more internalised sexism. Quite a lot of individual men I've met seem to find women's extreme self-loathing rather baffling. 78% said that women were more critical of their bodies than men. My own experience does sort of bear this out, I found that women were in charge of the general female body surveillance in the offices where I've worked, especially diet and weight surveillance.

This survey implies that frankly terrifying levels of female misery are being caused by the "beauty myth." We all know the situation is dire, but it's still not fun to read: 95% of the women said they felt unhappy about their bodies every day. 71% felt their body image was preventing them from living the life they wanted to live, and 41% would definitely consider plastic surgery. 64% thought their while lives would be better if they had a better body and 92% wished they were slimmer. As is to be expected, they were also terrified of "getting old," with most thinking it was all downhill from age 31. If they're going to live to be 80 or 90 years old, that's 50 or 60 years of added misery and self-hatred due to their horror of ageing. Now that's one hell of a long psychic prison sentence. If this survey accurately reflects the self-image of your average career woman it's extremely worrying. These presumably intelligent and probably educated women are living in a nightmarish state of passive self-enslavement to a beauty industry which seeks only to exploit their insecurities to get to their purses. I can only hope it doesn't tell the whole story and, for some reason, the group of women questioned was weighted towards women with particularly terrible body image.

But, as I have said elsewhere, things are getting worse, the beauty myth is becoming more deeply ingrained and more dangerous all the time and we, as feminists, need to think seriously about how we're going to address the problem.

More bad news and about women and their bodies

I found this on Yahoo this morning - all very BAD news about the way women regard their bodies. I will comment in more detail when I've got time. Seems like Dove may be right after all.

The Dove Phenomena – what’s normal anyway?

This is a bit of a follow on to the great post Winter Woods wrote to days ago, I’ve had a bit of a surf to see what’s going on at other blog sites Re: this issue. Over at gender geek the discussion turns to make up, while over at I blame patriarchy the debate rages about what is normal and what is fat. While I am of the view that the Dove campaign is a pretty cynical advertising ploy to get women to buy more cosmetics, and at the same time examine each inch of their bodes with the aim of identifying the bits they don’t like, it is good to see some ‘normal size’ women on billboards, I just wish they could have some clothes on. All of this has prompted me to ask the question, well what is normal for women in 2005?



Emma at gender geek seems to have a pretty sensible attitude towards makeup. She doesn’t seem to allow it to worry her but rather uses it as a tool to get her in the right frame of mind for the working day ahead. We all have our routines and rituals and what we include in them is, to my mind, a matter of personal preference. What worries me, is not that women wear a makeup, but that they feel ugly without it. As readers of this blog will know, neither winter wood nor myself are regular make up junkies and so I feel a little out of my depth when it comes to commenting on what other women do to their face, and certainly in no place to judge or criticise. However, I do find it depressing that dove has run an “inspirational article” entitled “a day without makeup.” It does make me wonder just how out of touch I am with the experience of what seems like many other women if where I find this article patronising, other women my truly find it helpful and empowering. Is the experience of many women truly one of fear at the thought of not wearing makeup for a day, of wearing clothes that don’t match or of (gasp!!) being seen in the swimming pool with hairy legs, crotch and armpits? If this is so then the beauty myth really grips society stronger than ever.

The other issue that intrigued me was the Fat issue. As people may or may not know I am not a member of the fat is good lobby. Lots of fat in it self is not good for the body. Heart disease, infertility, diabetes and joint damage are all end result of carrying around too much fat, and as I have said before, I don’t believe it is empowering to sit there and stuff donuts, even if the donut binging is in the name of sticking it to patriarchy and the beauty myth (although obviously there is nothing wrong with treating yourself to one or two no and then!). But before you all think I’m a total fascist, I want to qualify that with saying that all people have a natural healthy weight, and for some it is smaller, for some it is larger. I don’t believe any of the women in the dove advert could be said to be fat, and it is quite disturbing that someone on I blame patriarchy though the dove averts were appealing to “Fat America”

"Dove is attempting to relate to the new, fat American. I feel like the crime, here, is that we're becoming more and more willing to accept our fattitude as a given."

Whoever you are you need your eyes tested. What this does illustrate is that we have lost sight of what is normal, like I said above, healthy weight, or ‘normal’ comes in all different shapes and sizes in the real world, the media view of normal does not. Over at Big Fat Blog they promote a healthy at any weight philosophy which I really agree with. Promoting healthy life styles for all people, irrespective of size, rather than putting pressure on women just to be thin, thin, thin at any cost is a far better way to approach this issue.

Maybe it’s time we junked the term normal, as normal infers that there must also be abnormal. Women come in so many shapes and sizes that the idea of trying to fit them into categories of normal and abnormal seems plainly absurd to me. What we should really doing is promoting the radical idea that women can be happy this their bodies and faces, that they don’t need to search each inch of flesh for blemishes and cellulite, and that it’s not a crime to feel comfortable in your own skin. I guess that wouldn’t sell cosmetics though would it?

Women in Iraq

I found this excellent but disturbing article about the attacks on women's rights in Iraq on the also excellent women living under islamic law website.