Another Nobody

The science of porn – mansplained

Chloë — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:11:01 +0000

Cross posted from the Angry Women of Liverpool blog

‘The Science of Porn’ – Mansplained

Earlier this month myself and a few other feminist types decided to pop along to a presentation hosted by the Merseyside Skeptics Society entitled ‘The Science of Porn’ presented by Stuart J Ritchie of Edinburgh university psychology department. Admittedly we did not expect it to be a feminist friendly space but the scope for debate and the various ways in which I felt silenced pretty much for being a woman and the pleasure of having things ‘mansplained’ to me were disappointing. Mainsplaining is very well described by Karen Healy as:

“Mansplaining: when dudes explain to women subjects that the women in question know more about, but assume that they know better by virtue of being the man in the conversation. Bonus points if the man is explaining to you, little lady, how something you think is sexist is not really sexist.”

Here comes the science bit; concentrate!

The presentation entitled ‘The Science of Porn’ seemed to contain little science (or indeed porn). The title did not reflect the narrow focus which was based on studies proving porn does not turn people into violent sex offenders; which is a teeny tiny little peep into the issue and not at all what the majority of feminist anti porn campaigners highlight as the dangers of porn, despite the obligatory scary feminist out of context quotes from Dworkin used to reinforce the stereo type of ‘crazy feminists overreacting’. It seemed geared towards easing the consciences of a room containing a sizeable proportion of self confessed porn users (including a counsellor for Wallassey who was happily making jokes about porn and violence against women in public, lovely). Bafflingly the discussion of what exactly constitutes ‘porn’ was avoided for being ‘boring’, leaving the problem of how on earth one can convincingly argue in either direction without being sure of exactly what it is you’re supposed to be arguing about.

Bra Burners and Moralists

One particular sore spot was the way Gail Dines’s research on such subjects was brushed aside as ‘moral’ and ‘un-academic’. One of my companions has read Dines, a lot of Dines, in fact pretty much everything she has ever written and was wincing pretty soon after her work was mentioned. Stuart had only read ’Pornland’ (Dine’s non-academic polemic on the subject) and a few Guardian articles. Crucially, he had not read her academic work and failed to acknowledge this fact in his presentation and only admitted it rather sheepishly afterwards when challenged. To my mind this greatly undermines the credibility of his interpretation. To accuse Dines of being ‘un-academic’ based on a small selection of her work for a non academic audience reveals there may be a slight bias which is not acknowledged and at the very least it’s bad research, which can’t quite be adequately countered with “but she didn’t reference all her other work in the book!” (which is as verbatim as my memory allows).

Another issue that really got my nanny-goat was the absence of women from the studies (which is not Ritchie’s fault, although the selection of what studies to include is another issue). All the studies he referenced focused on male users of porn; hardly anything was mentioned about female users of porn (except how they were omitted from one study) or how women feel about porn in general and certainly no studies on how women and porn were quoted. They do exist; a quick search of google scholar tells me that there is at least one qualitative research study on women and pornography (Ciclitira, 2004).

Some sexism is bigger than others

Ritchie then admitted research had shown ‘benevolent sexism’ increased after viewing porn but this was effectively brushed of and not seen as problematic. In fact the answer to my question as to why he brushed it off was “I didn’t think I brushed it off” and nothing more was said on the issue. Ritchie states “There was, however, an association with positive (or ‘benevolent’) sexism (e.g. ‘women need to be protected’) and porn use. This type of sexism can, of course, be very damaging (imagine failing to get a job because the interviewer thinks you aren’t up to it as you’re a woman), but it’s not the same kind of hatred that activists like Dines predict porn would engender.”

This seems to me like a classic belittling of the every day sexism faced by women that feminists come across ad nauseum; the typical quotes along the lines of “yeh but women in the UK don’t have it as bad as in other countries so what are you complaining about?”, which only serve to derail and diminish genuine concerns as not ‘worthy’ enough for discussion, and this ‘worthiness’ for discussion is usually seen through a primarily male prism. One could summise that porn may increase sexist behaviour but as it’s not the apocalyptic violence Dines (allegedly) says will result form porn it’s OK. I was going to say how this might be that because porn and sexually objectifying imagery encourages men to view women ‘possessively’ and objectifies women that so called ‘benevolent sexism’ arises as a result of men feeling some sort of ownership or need to ‘protect’ women which has little, or no, bearing on what women themselves want. These issues expose a lack of knowledge on both feminism in general and academic feminist discourse; particularly on how benevolent sexism and what he terms ‘negative sexism’ (i.e. violence against women and other ‘obviosuly’ harmful behaviour) come from the same root. They both presume women to be ‘other’ and less than human, that we need the ‘protection’ (which often spills into ‘ownership’ and/or ‘control’) of a man and cannot function adequately as an independent human beings in our own right. As a feminist I would suggest a man who displays such ‘benevolent’ sexism shows as little respect for women as a man who displays ‘negative sexism’. Yes the end result may be subtle and not outwardly violent; but it is still sexism and it is still harmful to women and a failure to see this as important set all my feminist bells ablaze. Not to mention that this attitude of male ‘protection’ and ownership can be found in the ideologies behind such wonderful feminist ideas such as requiring women to have a male escort to go outside the home and, if we are being brutally honest here, such extreme acts of misogyny as honour killings, FGM and rape. It is exactly those sorts of attitudes; that a woman ‘owes it’ to her spouse or partner for ‘protecting’ her or ‘providing’ for her that lead to attitudes that men are ‘entitled’ to sex or that ‘he knows best’ what is good for her. Holding a door open for a woman or paying for her on dates purely because she is a woman may not be ‘the same’ as sexual violence but they all stem from the same attitudes and ideas. In fact the whole ‘positive’ vs. ‘negative’ sexism debate reminds me of the whole ‘well it’s not RAPE rape’ bullshit. At the end of the day, it’s all sexism.

It is stated that ‘moral’ objections to porn (including presumably the lived experience of being a female in a ‘pornified’ culture ) cannot possibly be considered in a debate such as this as ” there will always be those who are too disgusted (and it’s very clear from recent psychology experiments that disgust influences morals) by the whole idea of pornography to have a science-based argument about it.” No mention that there are people who like using porn and so are less receptive, and possibly even hostile, to any suggestion that it may be harmful and the likely bias this viewpoint may have on thier opinions and research on the subject.

Additionally referring to people such as Dines as ‘activists’ could be seen as a deliberate attempt to single out and highlight the anti porn brigade as ‘reactionary’ and politically motivated; whereas the other academics whose research is quoted are never given such a label and the motivations behind their research are not examined.

This has proved to me that to talk about porn and it’s effects on society (or male users as they seem to be the only ones who are worth talking about or studying) falls down when feminist analysis is not included or is brushed aside. It is an issue that affects women in their every day lives whether they use porn or not and to analyse a medium based so much on gender stereotypes without reference to feminism or gender studies can only ever address a small section of the problem. To address this purely though the supposedly unbiased lens of science and to discount other avenues of exploration is, to my mind, short-sighted, especially when the science is , as Ritchie imself admits, under-researched and the presentation has biases of it’s own. The assumption that science (still a predominantly male field it should be noted) should be privileged as ‘neutral’ whereas women’s experiences and feelings on the issue as well as academic feminist discourse on the subject in areas such as sociology and gender studies, are apparenlty inherently biased or ‘soft’ comapred to ‘hard’ subjects such as ‘science’.

An ignorance of your own bias on the subject and how that may affect your interpretation, which is what this study is. It is NOT hard, unbiased, objective fact; it is interpretation of other’s research with all the bias that can entail. Discrediting the work of others whose research you have not actually read for being ‘moral’ , politically motivated and not scientifically rigourous enough is not good science.

Quotes are taken from Ritchie’s blog post on the presentation.

Post Hiatus ranting: speaking for others

Chloë — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:04:39 +0000

It seems I cannot give up my space for political ranting, so after a prolonged hiatus I am back.

There is one topic this week, conveniently illustrated by two supreme douches (I use this word in the feminist way, as in a douche is harmful, pointless and bad for vaginas ).

Words are powerful and that power can hurt people. Free speech is indeed precious but free speech has a responsibility, there are some things you shouldn’t say because they are offensive, abusive , downright bloody stupid and mark you out as a colossal WANKER. This is particularly fraught when dealing with groups of society who have been marginalised and abused throughout history. When you are not part of that group, when you are speaking from a place of privilege, when the words you are using ‘in jest’ have never been used to dehumanise you; you have no RIGHT to reclaim a word or suggest that it is no longer offensive.

YES RICKY GERVAIS THIS APPLIES TO YOU.

So called ‘comedian’ Ricky Gervais has been using the word ‘mong’ on twitter. Accompanied by pictures of him pulling faces, you know the kind of faces that school-kids use to indicate someone ‘stupid’, by which they often mean someone with a learning disability or similar. School-kids are wrong to do this but they’re kids, they may not know the meaning behind what they do; a grown man DOES.

A white, rich, abled bodied man who has never had a word used to describe him or his disability; what on earth gives him the right to assert it is not offensive to those people who have had it used against them , to bully them, to insult them, to have their humanity questioned? as that is what singling out someone for their disability, race, gender etc. does it singles out a characteristic such as skin colour, disability etc. and uses it to mark you out as ‘different’ and ‘lesser’ and somehow deserving of mockery because of what you are; if that is not an attempt to dehumanise someone I don’t know what is. Perhaps Gervais should educate himself on the very recent history of disabled children being taken away from their families and locked away in institutions for example: 50,000 children with communication and physical impairments, and more than 500,000 adults were incarcerated in institutions in the first half of the 20th century (many were released in the 1980s). Children with significant learning difficulties were deemed in-educable and those with less significant learning difficulty went to educationally sub-normal schools until 1973(source:http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/teaching/disability/thinking/#early).

See this tweet I saw this week: @vivizaraz My 12 yr old autistic son is called a ‘mong’ & ‘retard’ by local kids. Try telling him it’s funny #Gervais

Which I assume is not an isolated one off. a 12 year old kid, by other kids, it is obvious that ‘mong’ is still used to insult disabled people BECAUSE THEY ARE DISABLED. When someone like Gervais asserts language like this OK and is acceptable and paints those who call him out on his fuckwittery as ‘ignorant’ and ‘overreacting’ and other such mind fartery he just perpetuates the negative imagery such words have, and quite frankly as an abled bodied guy swimming privilege HE HAS NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE DISABLED AND HAVE SUCH WORDS USED AGAINST HIM.

Second douche of the week, Steven Greenstreet is a bloke who has been filming ‘the hot women of occupy wall street’ and posting videos of ‘the hotties’ online and actively inviting men to wank over them. This is apparently part of his support for ‘the cause’ to draw in more protesters.

Again ‘humour’ is used in his defence, because as a GUY it’s totally o.k for him to decide what is sexist and objectifying towards women and if any women happen to disagree we’re all feminazi bitches. As a guy you might think it’s funny, but as women we put up with this shit ALMOST EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES so naturally we have less tolerance towards creepy perverts reducing us to our sexuality and ignoring our voices.

It also implies that the cause of making the world a better place for ‘the 99%’ does not include women, as our feelings don’t seem to matter. Which really shoots the whole thing in the foot.

So two amazing examples of the privilege denying dude gone viral in the real world and inspiring acts of supreme wankery.

I shall also add another episode of extreme fuckwittery regarding a shitty John Lennon song used to justify racist slogans to prove that women can be just as idiotic and arrogant enough to assume that they, in the privileged group, should feel free to assert whether those who are directly affected by the said slur, should not be offended!

FFS the able bodied have no right to assert people with disabilities shouldn’t be offended by disablist terms and white people have no right to assert people of colour should not be offended by racist terms and men have no right to tell women what is misogynistic, it’s quite simple so why are so many people so fucking stupid?

Sometimes I despair of the world, I really do.

New blog

Chloë — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 23:54:01 +0000

I’ve started a new blog to wokr through my feelings about depression, the reason this blog has been silent for too long (depression often subdues my mental faculties to the level of a flea, or it feels like it anyway).

http://ahotbath.wordpress.com/

I hope I can continue to blog here when the urge strikes me and don’t wish to clutter this space up with self indulgent whining.

The Problems With Strikes

Chloë — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:34:03 +0000

I have been in conversations where people have insisted marching and kicking up a fuss online is useless and we need to strike as this is the only thing that will ‘make them take notice’, this has struck me as, and I am rather loathe to say this, a bit old fashioned.

I am a great supporter of unions and the right to strike and I hope people strike like hell as a result of these spending cuts, but I’d like to mention one problem with it all.

I can’t strike.

Like many people who will be hit hardest by the ConDem cuts, I don’t work. I have no union. I cannot take this course of action. Hence I can’t help feeling that these slightly 80s sounding calls to mass strike action are not perhaps the best course of action when the majority of those who will be hit hardest are those who cannot take such action. The world has changed since the miners; yet it seems the mindset of many on the left has not. More people rely on low security jobs with no union representation, many people have no job (the wonder of the private sector having failed to provide jobs that were lost when the mines, docks and factories were decimated) . We have no community like the miners or dockers, we are a disparate bunch of those in crummy jobs on temporary contracts, people who can be replaced in a millisecond, people who have no job to strike from and whose entitlement to what paltry benefits we can gain is being eroded more every day and we are being forced through ever more ridiculous hoops. If we stop, if we down our invisible tools, who do we have behind us? Who do we have to offer us support? We have no Bob Crow to go on Have I Got News For You for us.

So while I support strike action I cannot help but wonder, what about those of us who can’t strike? Those of us who have no community of a union or fellow workers to support us, what do we do? We are likely to be hit harder by these cuts and we have fewer options for protest and direct action (something which is, I am sure, a deliberate and sickening targeting of those least able to fight back).

So I implore those calling for strikes to think about those of us who can’t strike, what can you do to help? Don’t chide us for protesting, shouting, taking over twitter and blogging as ineffectual and industrial action as the only way for people to sit up and take notice. The option of industrial action is a privilege that many do not have, we have to wave banners, to shout, to tweet, to do every tiny last thing we possibly can so someone will pay us some attention. I hate to say it but: your privilege is showing.

We are the invisible casualties of this war on cuts, we have no mass job losses, no high profile industrial disputes. We have no unions to speak up for us, we cannot call a strike, we cannot walk out, we have no support network, we have no easy access to a media that will listen to us. So while I support industrial action I wish to reieterate that those who are going to be affected most by these cuts are likely to be those who cannot strike.

We are the disabled, the ill, the unemployed, people on low wages in insecure jobs, the elderly, children, asylum seekers and many more.

Just two links which highlight this problem of ‘the voiceless’ being targeted, in this case the disabled , those with long term illnesses and refugee women:

One Month Before Heartbreak – highlighting the reforms on disability benefits and how they will ruin many peoples lives all whilst saving about 2 pence.

Funding Cuts Threaten English lessons – How funding cuts will isolate many and ironically make them less able to work.

Education, why I marched and why I won’t shut up.

Chloë — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:20:36 +0000

A few years ago we had this thing called the ‘comprehensive system’ it meant all kids regardless of their ability or social status could get an education without being divided at the age of 11 into ‘successes’ and ‘failures’. We also let those kids from council estates and little terraces and flats who didn’t have trust funds go on to university without having to pay for it with money they didn’t have. Those kids became teaches, doctors, academics, writers, scientists, hell some of them even became politicians. No matter what they did with their degrees they had the opportunity to learn, to challenge themselves and to think. The kind of experience any civilised society (or at least one with the pretence of civilisation) should aim for. They also paid taxes their entire lives and now have to pay for their kids to go university, often money they can’t afford or simply don’t have. Not to mentions the millions who didn’t go to university but think maybe their kids would like to and maybe they’ve been saving a bit but then they’ve had to pay a huge mortgage or stupidly high rent because people encouraged an unrealistic housing market with stupidly high prices only the few could afford without getting into debts the size of the Himalayas.

These cuts and fees are not necessary (how many degrees could the security fees for the royal wedding pay for? just one wee example) they are ideological. They are borne from a mindset that does not value education, that places more value on its citizens as worker bees than human beings. That does not deem it fit for those who have so much (often gained at the expense of so many) pay their way.

Education cannot and should not be valued as a way to make money. The opportunity to study something you are passionate about, to gain knowledge, confidence and many skills than can’t be defined in some bullshit ‘skills for life as a slave to the markets’ checklist, should not be the preserve of those lucky enough to be born with a trust fund or have won the lottery or other such one in a million occurrences of pure LUCK that determine your financial status.

There are more consequences too, I cannot speak for all academic subjects but I know within archaeology and history a lot of the information we have is governed largely by the interpretations of those who study it. These interpretations reflect the inequalities in our society and over the last 30 years or so real progress has been made to make sure the voices of minorities have been heard in these subjects, and others too. We have started to glean insights into the history and cultures of the majority of the world who aren’t rich white men. We have started to appreciate and discover art and literature written by people who aren’t rich white men, we have studied ideas and inventions of people who aren’t rich white men. I will use a small example form my dissertation, I was collection references to the En priestess of Sumer and one I came across had been translated as ‘SON of so and so’. This is an interpretation that was based purely on bias, the original Sumerian read ‘child of’ (the sumerians had no word for son/daughter but one word for child/offspring). It took about 40 or 50 years for feminism and women’s liberation to filter through into academia before people even THOUGHT to research the lives of women in the past as we (and by ‘we’ I mean rich white guys) assumed women in the past had a status reflecting women of their society, i.e. subservient and not really worth bothering about. The sheer eurocentricity of the general view of world history and ‘civilisation’ is only now beginning to be challenged in a wider arena. Another example, the fabulous Ife heads of west africa, some of the most stunning sculpture you will ever see, have been studied and interpreted for years by mostly white guys. It was first assumed they must date to after the Portuguese conquest as Africans couldn’t possibly have invented such complex techniques themselves. Later it was found out they did and they dated to hundreds of years before white people ever set foot there and are part of a long tradition of a complex society. These are just small examples of how having everyone’s history interpreted by the few we do everyone a disservice. Things in archaeology and history are beginning to change yet I fear that if we persist in seeing education as a privilege (especially a humanities education and not a degree in making more money for corporations) to be undertaken only by the few who can afford it we risk creating a real bias in research and what is seen as ‘worth studying’, not only in these subjects but all subjects. Michael colossal tit Gove’s education reforms for schools worry me greatly in much the same way. In the words of the wonderful Mrs Lintott in the History Boys by the wonderful Alan Bennett (who if he was to go to university today, erm probably wouldn’t what with him being northern and not from an especially rich background, he’d probably work in Tesco fishing out cream crackers from under the shelves.)

“History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. “ and to women we can add ‘anyone who’s not a rich, white, abled bodied, heterosexual male’. Which is actually most of us.

No one is free of bias, all research is affected by our biases that emerge from our background, these biases should be challenged by any good academic but we cannot un live our lives and emerge a blank slate, we need the opinions and experiences of a wide range of people to ensure that academic research (which despite popular misconception does affect the lives of those outside academia however subtly) reflects these issues. To deny this is to pretty much ensure academia becomes even more of an ivory tower with no relation to the outside world and focused upon the needs and interests of the few. The best way to combat this is to ensure everyone has access to education, to recognise the importance of education as something any civilised society should support. We all benefit from education is it so abhorrent that our taxes be used to pay for something that is of benefit to our society than to burden those who will pay taxes throughout their lives anyway, (often for things they don’t personally benefit from, but hey that’s what living in a society is about!) with more debt?

To shut down access to education like this not only affects those who stay on at college or university but us all. This is not just about individual students, this is about society, something I think we need to rediscover (in a real way not Cameron’s ‘big society’ which exists only in his head and possibly involves talking bunny rabbits on clouds or something). Rampant individualism has to die, we do not live in vacuums and we owe it to ourselves and to everyone else we share our houses, streets, cities, countries and planet with. Like or not we do live in ‘communities’ even if it’s a bit too scary to some contemplate a word that sounds like ‘communism’. We do bear a responsibility to other people and so many in power have been shirking it for so long but the shit is starting to hit the fan now and this is only the beginning, there are millions like me and we won’t shut up and co-operate quietly while we see our lives and our future lives ruined by people living cloud cuckoo land (a.k.a ‘the big society’) using ‘the deficit’ as an excuse to bring in ideological reforms akin to workhouses and sending kids up chimneys.

Benefits and scrounging.

Chloë — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:41:38 +0000

With all the spending review bullshit I am feeling really nervous. I claim incapacity benefit. I know that by many people I will be seen as ‘fit to work’ (not that there are any jobs or that anyone would take me with the huge gaps in my CV and qualifications because I was too ill to attend most of high school) and I should get off my lazy arse and get a job. I’d like to have a rant about disability.

An awful lot of disabled people don’t look ‘disabled’. We may look perfectly fine, you may see us out walking or riding a bike and think ‘why can’t they work?’ but you don’t see us the rest of the time. Sure I can go for a pretty long bike ride some days but really even an hour or two on the bike is not the equivalent of a full days work. Though other days I can barely leave the house or seriously contemplate throwing myself under a passing bus when I do ‘go for a walk’ or whatever. Yet I ‘Look Fine’, ergo I must be perfectly fit and healthy.

I do some volunteer work, though after a full day (and by full day I mean 10-4 ) I can barely function and I certainly could not cope doing it all week. Also this being volunteer work I am able to email in and say I can’t manage it that day, something I doubt many employers would be so keen on. The trouble is my conditions (depression and CFS) vary immensely and give little or no warning as to when I’m going to collapse. I’ve been looking for a part time job but there are very few and the ones I have applied for I’ve been rejected, not enough ‘experience’. Would it better or worse to either leave a huge gap in C.V or explain ‘well I was ill and possibly a bit mental at the time…’ ? Plus stress makes things worse, I was worryingly close to the edge when I was in the last stages of dissertation writing and that was something I could do a lot of at home in my pajamas. So while I could be phsyically fit for a job, I could very easily have a bit of an episode, which is not something I’d like to risk having only just about recovered from the dissertation/uni/final exams stress depression loopiness fall out.

I’m sick of feeling I am being judged for being ill or not being ill enough or as I have heard many times (the loveliest being from Wandsworth council who decided I was ‘too ill’ at the time to be statemented for support which meant they’d have to support me in education after 16, so after I did the few GCSEs I could manage with their abysmal support I was basically on my own).

Articles and the general ignorance and hatred of politicians, tabloids and those who assume rabid ranting as ‘fact’ really annoy me and, yes they can be hurtful. It’s not the end of the world when people say mean things; but when you’ve had to struggle for every last scrap of often pathetic ‘help’ in your life it is rather offensive when some idiot who got an opinion out of a hatred filled wank rag assumes you’re not only a ‘scrounger’ but that half the time the illnesses that have made your life really quite fucking miserable at times don’t exist and can be cured by ‘pulling yourself together’, yeh it upsets me. But then I am officially ‘mental’.

I also don’t have a widescreen T.V or jacuzzi or any other such state funded ‘luxuries’ us benefit claimants are supposed to have and the meagre savings I do have are sitting there hoping to be put towards my education.

So how about you stop picking on disabled people, people with long term illnesses and those claiming benefits as they need to feed their kids and there aren’t any jobs they can do anyway and claim some money back from millionaires who routinely avoid tax? Money they made charging the British public inflated prices for slave made clothes that fall to bits in the wash…

‘We’re all in this Together’, indeed and I would like to take the opportunity to announce that I am actually the reincarnation of Rudolph Valentino and I ride around on a winged porcine.

I’d suggest reading this as a very good article, with some excellent comments amongts the right wing bigotry, barely disguised disabalism and people who seem to be plumbing the depths of mental instability themselves (or at least suffering the horrific impairment of taking the daily mail seriously).

Also this is another fabulous article.

Here we go again, boob month.

Chloë — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:58:02 +0000

Another breast cancer awareness month another dumb facebook meme. This one has annoyed me more than last years, the gist of it , and I don’t care if I’m spoiling the ‘surprise’ or whatever, you post where you put your handbag with ‘I like it on…’. Apparently random sexual inneundo with no seeming relevance to the subject is the new best way to create awareness about cancer. I await the ‘I did it in the library’ campaign to get everyone to post where they last texted to raise awarness for the floods in Pakistan or ‘random sexual inneundo to protest against coalition spending cuts day!’ or ‘get your tits out for holocaust memorial’. Maybe the last one is a bit offensive, but that’s kinda the point. I do not believ that anything that raises awareness is good, yes awareness is good but when it perpetuates harmful ideas about a whole section of society? Not so good. You can raise awareness without buying into sexism.

This is in addition to the disembodied boobs and cleavage shots I saw in the Metro yesterday (a hideous free newspaper in the UK left on trains and busses) embedded in an article seemingly about breast cancer ‘awareness’ but which ended with a plug for a new ‘boob job effect’ bra which I gathered is being sold to raise moeny for breast cancer, deadly diseases are big marketing coups apparently, bust friming creams and the like. Nothing on how the way we bombard our bodies with chemicals may be part of the cause of cancer and little awareness or sensitivity that features on the cosmetic and sexual appeal of breasts and how to get perfect tits , including having a boob job, may be a bit callous with regards to breast cancer survivors who no longer have breasts. But hey any excuse to show some boobs and if it’s for a ‘good cause’ people can’t call us out on it right?

Call me a cynical, humourless feminist but I fail to see how yet another drop in the ocean of sexualising women’s bodies for marketing purposes, which is essentially what this is, just with the added bitter irony that the marketing purpose in our own health, is something to be praised and something which benefits me. I doubt an idea that plays into the idea that women have to use thier sexuality to get ahead is really for the benefit of women. I fail to see how playing up to a culture that makes us ashamed of our bodies, that makes us feel as if we are always on permanent sexual display, that our bodies are public property to be oogled and commented on is really for the benefit of women’s health. In fact it is the opposite, it’s to our detirment, playing into this culture just reinforces the messages that leave women unhappy with thier bodies, perpetuates un healthy diets and eating disorders and invites depression.

To many this is just a bit of fun but to me it’s just another symtpom of the fucked up society we live in where women are valued primarily as sexual objects and our bodies used as marketing tools, a culture that makes us even more distant from our bodies and what is healthy and ‘normal’ as we are ecouraged to be ashamed of them and undergo even more extreme means to ‘measure up. Even cancer isn’t spared the endless tide of pornification and sexual objectification.

To tack a concern for our health on to it, to be doing it for our benefit, is just even more insulting.

Yes this may have everyone talking and awareness is a good thing, but why, if this awareness is for the benefit of women, are we the butt of its ‘joke’?

Some interesting links on the issue, both the facebook meme age and general sexualisation of breast cancer:

http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-facebook-your-bra-color-something-about-breast-cancer-awareness-im-conf/

http://anniegirl1138.com/2010/09/30/take-two-on-the-facebook-bra-status-meme/

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/09/02/i_love_boobies/index.html

I’m moving

Chloë — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:28:28 +0000

Not that I’ve posted here in aeons, I’ve been busy trying to finish a degree. But now I have (almost) finnished and I should get back into blogging/expressing myself. But this place is redolent of the past and with an immenent graduation and a ;new start’ I feel I need a new home (plus I keep getting spambots here).

so if you aren’t a spam-bot http://chloemiriam.tumblr.com/

Mostly photography atm, I seem to have lost any brain power to write with any passion since being on a higher dosage of anti d’s.

‘Mankind’ sexist or not?

Chloë — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:54:12 +0000

There’s been a lot of argument on Comment is Free on how ‘mankind’ is not sexist because ’man’ was originally for all people, not just men.

This has irked me, mostly because however true that may be in theory, in practice it ignores what man means currently and, crucially, seems to be an argument purported by men with little or no regard for how women feel at being airbrushed out like this.

Like almost everyone in the English speaking world today who hasn’t gone into etymological depth, I hear ‘man’ and I think ‘mlae’. When I hear phrases like ‘the history of mankind’ or ” evolution of man’ , I feel left out. This world does not define me as a man, and lets face it history itself is one big male bias. So you have the ‘history of mankind’ quite literally being the history of men, with maybe one paragraph on how women got the vote .

So yes, to my mind ‘mankind’ is sexist. And don’t get me started on people who just use ‘man’, which is still disturbingly common.

I am a woman and when people use ‘mankind’ , to my mind it describes how male is seen as the default, how women have been othered and relegated to a niche interest and subsection. After all women have ‘women’s history and men have well history. As a woman I do feel annoyed and angry when people use mankind and other sexist phrases, regardless of whether the etymology is inherently exist or not and surely the feelings of half the human race, sorry ‘mankind’ should be taken into account just a little?

It is not ‘derailing’ to suggest that the language used to describe humanity as a whole, actually reflects humanity as a whole. Seeing as it affects our everyday lives it’s not ‘hysterical’ or ‘overly emotional’ to suggest that women’s feelings on the matter should be listened to either.

My mum made a point re: sexist language in church, she said it makes her feel alien and not a part of the whole thing when all the hymns etc are going on about us all being ‘brothers’ in Christ and ‘goodwill to all men’. I think this point stands in general, so before you go off on a etymological tangent that has little bearing on current language usage and perception you might want to consider the 50% or so of people who might be offended by your choice of ‘non sexist’ language. Language does after all evolve and meanings and perhaps more importantly , perceptions of meaning, change.

Bodies

Chloë — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:50:08 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about bodies lately. I’ve just finnished Susie oprbach’s book of the same name.

I’ve also spent the last few weeks doing feildwork. Using my body as a body, digging, getting dirty, not caring bout how I look or how I am presented to others. It felt good. Liberating even to have a body that’s just that a body that belonged to me, that wasn’t being judged by what it was wearing, how fat or thin it was, how ‘appealing’ it was to others. It was such a relif to get up, put on muddy clothes, and set off without bothering how I look or what my make up is like or if I look fat, or if I look fashionable or whatever.

I have a body that works, it does what I want it to with minimal complaint and I am so amazingly lucky to have that. Yet why do I never feel at home in my body? Or when I do I’m reminded that I shouldn’t be getting complacent, I could loose some weight, I could buy new lotions and potions to do whatever pseudo sceince is in at the moment. Pep up my petitdes or whatever.

I honeslty think that these last few weeks where I’ve been digging all day and too tired to do much else has been the first time in a long, long time I can remember being at home in my body, feeling like it was MY body and that I didn’t have to worry about what other people thought about it. All those things we spend so long wprrying about and trying to erradicate, sweat, dirt, just didn’t matter.