Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?

My first years are doing a module, Communicating Sex and Gender, in which they look at the way gender and sexuality are portrayed in different aspects of the media and culture, from sports journalism to genre films, from online environments to ‘real world’ environments. Today we were looking at pop music and one of the things I got them to do was discuss magazine covers and compare how men and women were portrayed on them, and what that said about who the audience might be.

Q Magazine was very interesting indeed. Of the recent covers shown, female musicians such as Lily Allen, Britney Spears, Cheryl Cole, Kylie Minogue and Lady GaGa have all been depicted dressed provocatively (or topless) whilst male musicians such as Noel Gallagher, Brendan Flowers, Kasabian and Paul Weller are much more revered and allowed to keep their clothes on. There’s been some discussion of Lady GaGa’s cover, where she’s topless, but with a dildo down her trousers. The interview in the mag itself is quite interesting in terms of the contradictory messages about gender that GaGa, the magazine and the interviewer display.

The back catalogue of Q covers tells a sorry story. Male rock stars punching, posing with guitars or, erm, just being Michael Jackson mostly adorn the cover. When a woman does appear she’s provocatively dressed, and often pop, rather than rock/indie/dance. Considering the amount of strong female pop stars that have dominated the charts recently, where are the likes of La Roux and Florence? (Or, for that matter, black artists – male or female?) Bjork and Duffy get to look vaguely normal on their covers in 2007/8, but only when stood next to male rockstars. In the parade of covers from 2006 to celebrate 20 years of the magazine, the majority are ugly male rockers, with only Kate Bush, Madonna and Dido looking relatively normal (and none are exactly ugly), and Beyonce and Britney looking rather provocative. You have to go back to 2002 to find a ‘normal’ issue of Q with women on the cover who aren’t purely being pushed for their sexuality, and even then it’s debatable.

I wouldn’t mind so much if Q was open about being a mag for white boys who like indierock and perving over women – whatever you might think of Nuts and Zoo, at leas they’re honest about their intentions – but Q is supposed to be the serious music mag, for music lovers of both genders, yet as a woman and a music fan who likes many of the acts featured within the mag, it’s old boys’ club schtick, which to be fair, has always been there, is getting worse as the years go on (and don’t get me started on Top of The Pops magazine).

Yes, it’s f***ing political

I’ve been thinking a lot about the BNP and UKIP the last couple of weeks, and wondering why so many people feel aggrieved enough to support them. I don’t mean the MPs’ expenses rows: after all, a protest vote could just as easily go to the Greens, an independent or any number of minority parties. I mean the rise in these two parties’ popularity in the last few years.

In our new political landscape, the terms left and right mean nothing any more. The Conservatives have become more left, Labour more right (i.e. both are more-or-less centrist these days) and the Lib Dems seem to sway with the breeze at the moment (once the tax the rich party, they’re now making tax cuts pledges. Odd.). The old ‘left’ working-class supporter base is being courted by the far-‘right’. So there’s really no point in bandying left and right about as terms any longer.

I can understand the need for a party to be the second choice for disgruntled voters of the main parties: the Greens for disgruntled Lib Dems, UKIP for disgruntled Tories, but instead of the socialist parties, the BNP are hoovering up disgruntled Labour supporters. I don’t know how they’ve managed to fund such extensive campaigns – clearly the socialist parties haven’t had the same funds at their disposal – although I’m sure some people will have uncovered the benefactors. They’ve tapped into some feeling amongst working-class white men that they are ‘hard done by’. I’ve seen various forums where there have been moans that white working class men are the only group that people are still prejudiced against. Many people really believe this lie – and I’d love to know where it comes from.

I’m not naive – I know all about the things Thatcherism did to this group – the closure of industry, which has continued under Major, Blair and Brown, has no doubt had devastating effects and caused an identity crisis, and anger at the establishment. I get this. What I don’t get is why the vitriol has turned towards women, the gay community, ethnic minorities and, worst of all, immigrants.

Some (e.g. The Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Sun) would blame it on the lie of ‘political correctness gone mad’, this false presumption that women, gay people, ethnic minorities, the disabled etc are more likely to be provided for. They cite things such as positive discrimination as reasons for this, but of course they neglect to mention the reasons why positive discrimination and suchlike exist. If these groups had been given a level playing field, then there wouldn’t be these things. These groups are still less likely than white men to be in positions of influence and power. So it’s not these people the white working class male should be aggrieved about – though they probably have a good case against middle-class mostly-white mostly-male ‘fat cats’.

There are a few cases where racial tensions are real, where immigration has caused problems – but the majority of BNP/UKIP (the difference with UKIP is they’ve tended to court more middle-class voters, but they’re clearly adopting a lot of BNP tactics this time around – they used to be just about anti-Europe, now they’re pretty darn racist too – but trying to be the ‘acceptable’ face of racism vs the BNP’s unacceptable one. And how the hell can they get away with Churchill in their posters – also being used on the BNP website, by the way?) potential voters haven’t experienced these issues. Oh, and let’s not forget the irony of the anti-immigration people like The Daily Mail campaigning for the Gurkhas. If our government didn’t have immigration controls as certain parties and papers allege, then there wouldn’t have been a problem with the Gurkhas settling here, would there?

I know people I went to school with who are pretty racist (many of whom have probably never even met an immigrant or non-white person, living in Grimsby – yes I do know about the Lindsey Oil Refinery stuff but people have been like this way before that happened) – and there are a LOT of racists on the Sheffield forum – I just wish I knew why. Who fed them the lies about immigrants – and why did they swallow them? Maybe I’ll research it one day – or suggest it to one of my documentary making contacts. I think it’s not only interesting, but important that we get to the bottom of these things.

In the meantime, a few political blogs and links of note:

Liberal Conspiracy – multi-authored liberal perspective blogging

Tory Totty – Tory blog, tends to be a bit sensationalist but has some interesting anti-BNP stuff.

The Real BNP and Nothing British about the BNP – uncovering some more of the nastiness behind Nick Griffin’s toerags.

UKIPWatch – as above, but for UKIP.

Want to be scared? Visit the Nazi BNP Youth website. Warning, contains hate, brainwashing and terrible spelling. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, they have a fascist puppet with his own YouTube channel. Eeep. I feel dirty linking to it (and haven’t dared click any of the videos as I don’t want to up their hit count) but know thy enemy and all that. You will want to wash your brain out with bleach after this.

LOLFatCats – a bit of humour at the expense of hapless MPs and bankers, and laughing is probably needed when things politically are so rubbish we could all cry.

Why is everybody always picking on me?

http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2009/05/feminism-vs-fascism-vote-out-stupid.html

Interesting post revealing the BNP’s wonderful attitude towards women to go with their wonderful attitude towards everyone else who isn’t a working-class white male.

I’ve got more to blog on these things but I’ve been down and out wth a virus and still recovering, so it’ll come in time…

The masses against the classes

I haven’t blogged for ages because of being busy, so this is all going to seem like so much rambling, I’m sorry, but there’s lots in my head and it’s probably going to seem more stream of consciousness than clear articulation…

The module I’m teaching on at the moment is looking at different theories of culture and how people have conceived culture, the ‘masses’, ideology and various other concepts we cultural studies types love to think about. It’s been both interesting and depressing thus far.

For example, one of the things we’ve been looking at is class and the way that the working class have often been marginalised or derided by those in power and with influence. Whilst in the Edwardian age it was Virginia Woolf describing people as fat, white slugs and DH Lawrence fantasising about creating gas chambers to put us all to sleep (they were such a lovely bunch, Edwardian writers and artists), today it’s still prevalent. It’s not just in the depictions of ‘chavs’ and ‘pramfaces’ and ‘hoodies’, which we might recognise as derogatory but sometimes in more sinister ways.

Perhaps the most notable and prevalent example at the moment is Jade Goody. There has been a lot of discussion about whether dying in public is ‘acceptable’, whether making money for her sons to receive an education and a ‘better life than she had’ is noble or exploitative and so on. Some people have argued that it seemed OK for people like John Diamond and Terry Pratchett to write or make programmes about their illnesses, because they were more culturally acceptable people, whereas a working class young woman doing the same through her media of magazines, tabloids and reality telly is less valuable. It’s not as clear cut as that, as Dame Victoria Coren points out – Diamond was also castigated at the time for discussing his death in public, although now he’s seen as more ‘noble’. However, there is still clearly a class prejudice going on. The internet, of course, can’t be seen as neccessarily representing all public opinion, it generally brings out the nuttiest of folk, but the level of vitriol on the likes of the Guardian website about her is actually quite shocking. How dare this common woman get ideas above her station and become famous? How dare she make money? How dare she talk about such vulgar things as life and death? And her sending her boys away to school also raises a lot of questions – why is it that there are still public schools (for the Americans, this means private. I know.) and suchlike, and why is it that they are still seen as prestigious?

Class hasn’t gone away. Nobody is sure these days what exactly middle class and working class are (and I’ve blogged on this before) and whether there is an ‘underclass’, but let’s be clear, we still perceive others and ourselves roughly in these terms. I know that I live in a city with two main groups of people. To stereotype grossly, and probably somewhat unfairly: those who are more working class/”under”class, who shop on a tight budget, for whom the environment, healthy living and so on may not be as significant; and those who are artsy, Guardian-reading types who love the idea of locally sourced, organic, fair trade, whatever. Clearly many people straddle bits of both, but there does seem to be, in general terms, two camps. I know I am in the second one, too. I may have come more from the first one and may have known lots of people in it, but I can’t claim to be part of it now. I don’t mean that one thing is better than the other, and nor do I believe the lie that those in the first group can’t ‘afford’ to care about the concerns about the second. There are elements of truth in that statement but only elements. Things are more complicated than that, and a lot of it is culturally ingrained and reinforced in all kinds of ways – the shops we get in our communities, the things we see in our papers and magazines, the way our families and friends have ‘always’ done things – hegemony.

Same with gender, of course. We were discussing gender in terms of hegemony today, and it’s just so depressing. It’s good that the students can start to ask questions, but bad there’s so much that needs questioning. When we were discussing gender roles and how little things have changed, one of the boys said ‘well, that’s just… how it is, isn’t it?’ – exactly how hegemony operates. And it’s so utterly depressing. They, and I, can recognise the stupidity of diet adverts and products all being aimed at women when more men in the country are overweight than women. Every woman I know struggles with her weight, yet every man I know is also overweight, perhaps more so, and I only know one who has articulated those struggles. They, and I, recognise the craziness of the beauty industry, and yet we buy into it, but men don’t. Many of the girls said they cook and clean for their boyfriends because the men ‘won’t’ or ‘can’t’ do it, even though they totally know this is bollocks. They can see how women in their knickers on a magazine isn’t that empowering, yet they are struggling with the contradictions of a culture that also says it is (because then it makes it OK for men to look at women in their pants after all).

I don’t know who these people are that fed people with the messages that ‘feminism had gone too far’ or that somehow ‘white British working class people are being neglected’ or ‘a man isn’t a man’ anymore or any of these other ideologies that seemed to begin surfacing in the 90s and have seeped into the country. Obviously the Daily Mail, but beyond that? Do committees of white middle class middle aged men sit around and decide how the world should run as cultural studies theories would imply? Probably not, but I find it perplexing nonetheless. People I went to school with, come from the same background as, join Facebook groups telling immigrants to fuck off home, slagging off people who are ‘bad parents’ and should rot in hell (even if most of them don’t believe in hell), telling the government off for banning St George’s Day – a memo I seem to have missed – and so on. Where do these sentiments come from?

The students also find the ideas of right/left (politically) confusing. No wonder. The ‘far right’ of the BNP are encroaching on old Labour territory by targetting working class white people and telling them that somehow they are oppressed and their country is under ‘threat’ and feeding them insecurities. In the meantime, UKIP and the like try to court the Conservative, more middle class market, with similar ideologies to the BNP but expressed in a more anti-Europe than anti-black/asian/gay stance. The territory of tolerance and equality, the left/liberal stance then becomes the preserve of mostly middle-class, mostly educated people. And I sit typing all this, knowing that in academia, particularly in cultural studies, you pretty much have to be left/liberal. I’ve never met a right-wing person in my field. I can’t conceive of it. Which probably makes me also pretty intolerant and blinkered in other ways.

Ultimately, all these issues: gender, race, class etc all seem to be about territorialism. We want to protect our ground, we want everyone else to be like us, we are frightened of what we are not, what we do not understand. It seems such a base human instinct – but why? And why haven’t we evolved out of it yet?

A little bit of everything, all rolled into one

QUIZLET
Please can you all take a minute to fill in my Family Fortunes survey thing for my Christmas party. It won’t take long at all. Thankyooo.

ACTING
The play went well, although there have been a few ructions between people. I think it’s the whole pioneer vs settler/developer thing, which could be a bit tricky over the coming months…

TELLYBOX
I can’t be the only one utterly loving BBC Four right now, can I? Alongside its always excellent documentaries and ‘seasons’, we also have repeats of Damages, and a brand new series of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe beginning tonight, as well as the fabulous Only Connect. It really is one of the best channels on the box. BBC Three, on the other hand, has cancelled Pulling, one of its best and best-rated shows, for the likes of the excerable Coming of Age. It’s telling that the only things worth watching on the children’s channel these days are Heroes and Family Guy (imports) and repeats of series 3 Doctor Who (love Freema and David. And Catherine and David. Series 3 and 4 = so much greater than series 1 and 2. And for the record: Bille and David = rubbish although Billie and Chris = great).

LITERATURE
Am nearly done with the Booker shortlist (and have also read several of the longlist). I’m about halfway through the doorstop that is The Northern Clemency. I thought I’d enjoy the Sheffield setting, but in a lot of ways, it’s annoying me because some of the references seem so gratuitous. Unsurprisingly, as with most years, the winning book (The White Tiger) was my least favourite. I enjoyed A Fraction of the Whole, but whilst it’s funny, it’s rather bleak, and it could easily be half the length without losing much. The Clothes on Their Backs was alright, but not amazing. I really liked The Secret Scripture, and although it took a while to get into, I liked Sea of Poppies, too, and anticipate its sequels.

On the longlist, Child 44 was grim and predictable, A Case of Exploding Mangoes was pretty good, and the other one I’ve read so far was so memorable that I can’t even recall which it was.

Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, on a different note, was very interesting and quite scary, althuogh her point has been exaggerated for effect. Probably one that capitalists will sniff at, whilst the rest of us mutter vive la revolution and sit on our arses.

Which leads me to…

ALL A BIT POLITICAL
I’m finding myself increasingly interested in politics and current affairs. I think it’s a combination of my age and my job. I seem to be having lots of long conversations into the night about these things too. There’s so much I’d like to blog if I had time, but the main things I have been thinking about are identity politics.

I am convinced if Hillary Clinton was a man and hadn’t been married to a previous president, that she would be in the White House. This is to take nothing away from Barack Obama, who seems great, but to suggest that sexism is still ridiculously rife in politics. Also interesting: Hollywood has given us loads of quality black presidents in film and TV over the past twenty years. The only woman fictional president I can recall is Geena Davis in Commander in Chief. Whilst media effects and influence are debatable, I do think the positive images of black presidents over the years can’t have hurt Obama’s cause, and I wonder why there have been so few fictional depictions of women presidents. In the UK, we have had very few fictional black/Asian PMs, although we’ve had a couple of quality women ones: Harriet Jones, Mrs Pritchard. But then we’ve had a female PM. However, I do wonder if despite this, we’d be more likely to elect a black or Asian PM than another woman one.

I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination that we are in a post-racist world. I was speaking to Robert Beckford about some of this the other day and he said that there is a lot of dissilusionment in the black community about doing things like going into academia (including going to uni for a first degree) and that black people in the media are mostly still sports people, musicians/dancers or people looking after the children, which all harks back to stuff Stuart Hall was saying in the 70s. Good old Stuart Hall, you begin to resent him a bit at 18 when you study cultural studies stuff because it seems everything you read is by him, but he’s a quality bloke who knows his stuff.

Anyway, any fule kno that the media and thus wider society still segregates and stereotypes people according to race, amongst many other things (although for an interesting debate on class, John Prescott’s recent series was rather enlightening, if not for him, than for the rest of us), and the cultures of institutional racism have been so embedded, even if they are being dismantled (e.g. in the police) that black people have been turned off particular careers and opportunities, and it will take a lot of strong role models to turn that around (something Beckford is trying to do, something Obama will probably aid in. On a side note, I don’t totally get the Obama being black over him being mixed race thing. I understand it’s helpful for people from ethnic minorities who’ve been oppressed, and I definitely understand it is better for a powerful mixed race person to emphasise their blackness over their whiteness for the same reason, but doesn’t it deny and slightly put down his white family and act like they don’t matter? I’m not saying HE is doing that, because as far as I can tell, he isn’t, but wouldn’t it be good for mixed race people to see that dual heritage is something to celebrate? I don’t know. Answers on a postcard?).

However, because being seen as racist is completely socially unacceptable (I emphasise being seen as, rather than being), I honestly believe a man from a black, asian (although not a muslim, clearly, with all the Islamophobic discourses around at present) or mixed race background has a better chance of being President or PM than a woman, because being sexist is more socially acceptable now than it has been at pretty much any point in my life.

I am not a Thatcherite in any way, I don’t agree with her politics, nor do I think she was particularly that amazing in terms of women’s lib. However, she was a woman who was determined and did what she needed to do, and was a charismatic leader. Where are the women in politics doing that now? (Also, where are the people from ethnic minorities doing the same, and to an extent, where are the gay people doing likewise? I know lots of these people are doing their thing on the fringes, perhaps because the mainstream is so exclusionary, or at least has been.) In business, this is (slowly) beginning to change, but in politics we’ve regresssed. And prominent women (whether politicians, sports people, TV presenters etc) are still portrayed in relation to ‘traditional’ female roles (usually motherhood), when a man in the same position wouldn’t be.

Look at adverts as well – that Nintendo DS thing with the pink console and the games about puppies and kittens and dress making (my friend Carrie alerted me to this), the still repeated stuff about ‘mums going to Iceland’ and so on. Did feminism never occur? I know I’ve been vocal about this a lot, but, oooh, it makes me mad.

Anyway, it’s all got me thinking about what I can do, and although I can do a lot in my teaching, helping students to challenge the white male capitalist hegemony (and how did they become so conservative and traditional anyway? They seem so different to us when we were their age, and it’s only ten years between us – they are post-Thatcher babies. Does that make a difference? They were born post-miners’ strike, post-female PM, post-many-unions, post-privatisation), I wonder if I should enter politics in some way. I believe the mainstream is where change needs to happen, the fringes can highlight and challenge issues but cannot overturn things.

I don’t mean I just want to stop women, ethnic minorities, gay people etc being oppressed, there are so many areas I care about. But I don’t know if I could handle the lifestyle of an MP. Nor would I neccessarily want to give up academia for it. Maybe I could be a councillor or something? But that would all mean choosing a political party, and they all suck at the moment. I don’t agree with any of them on everything, and there are some things I so strongly disagree with it would put me off being in that party. I’m also not sure whether I would be Labour or Lib Dem. Will the Lib Dems ever be seen as significant enough to cause change? Could I sell out enough to join Labour?

Someone like Jamie Oliver is inspirational (despite his failings) for instigating social action projects, discipleship etc and challenging the political system, whilst deliberately standing outside of it, but he’s a proper celebrity with a talent and all. I’m just an academic type person who thinks and talks a lot who lives in the North, so I can’t really be like him. All of this is of course theoretical until 2011 when I finish the doctorate, but it’s just stuff I’m mulling over…

We’re all the losers now

For those of you overseas, you may not have realised that British MPs have just voted against lowering the abortion limit to 20 weeks (it’s currently 24). Several feminist groups are claiming this as a victory for women and for choice.

As has been well documented here, I am a feminist. I also believe in choice. I don’t think abortion is a desirable thing to have, but I don’t think it is an easy thing to go through, and I wouldn’t say I am anti-abortion. Were I in the position of having an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy, it is no doubt something I would have to consider.

But I think the people claiming a victory for women are simply wrong. Some are demonising their MPs for voting to lower the limit, especially the woman MPs. Why? Are MPs not allowed to vote according to their conscience and their judgement of the evidence supplied?

24 weeks is a very long time. Surely by that stage, you would know if you wanted a child or not. I don’t see why extending the ‘deadline’ benefits women in any way, and certainly not children – by 24 weeks they aren’t foetuses any more, they are babies. A friend of mine and his wife recently had a baby at 24 weeks. It is still touch and go over her health, especially as they are in Australia, which hass less provision for prem babies, but so far she is proving a fighter. I know of other children born at this stage who are now healthy and happy.

Is a victory for the parent(s) over the child really a victory for feminism?

There may be exceptional circumstances when a 24 week abortion is appropriate, and in that case, I wouldn’t want the parents denied that choice, but the law could, and should, surely make provision for a different limit under certain circumstances anyway, as it currently does with the 28-week limit.

I don’t blame MPs who voted either way, and the law remains. Perhaps it is right that it does so – I am no medic or expert on these things.

But regardless, I don’t see how this decision is a victory for women, and if that makes me a bad feminist, then fine.

Little Baby Nothing

I went to FEM 08 on Saturday, a free one-day national feminist conference held at SheffUni. The big draw was Germaine Greer, who gave a speech in the afternoon, but there were also speakers from The Guardian, The F-Word, Oxfam and several other organisations.

It was an interesting day. Despite being billed as ‘a conference for women and men’, the attendees were about 98% female. I guess this is no suprise. However, I don’t know if this is a good thing. There were several people, including Greer, who said we as women need to mobilise ourselves, get active etc and whilst I think that is a good thing, I also think the fight for equality needs to be fought by men as well as women. I know lots of men who believe in many of the principles people at these conferences were fighting for, but very few who are likely to get involved: partly due to apathy, partly because things under the banner of feminist are seen as women’s issues.

The key issues of the day were things that I found immensely challenging in part and depressing in part. These things included gender inequality in the workplace, particularly for parents (and see Fiona’s blog for how depressing that whole area is), medical treatment of women, women’s rights in the developing world, prostitution, pornography, lap dancing clubs and rape convictions.

Points were made that although the feminists of earlier decades had won several battles, there were so many left to win and in some places retrograde steps (e.g. the increasing pinkness of merchandise aimed at young girls). Greer suggested that maybe this was partly because as women, we just take so much, we are sacrificial people and we don’t fight or get angry enough.

There are so many things that need adjusting (obviously the same can be said for rights for other people groups too) that it can feel so dispiriting and underwhelming to know where to start. I also learned some shocking facts: I knew the rape conviction rate was low, but I didn’t realise how low. It’s almost impossible for a man to be convicted of raping a woman because such a ridiculous amount of evidence is needed (and of course, if he gets set free, the mysoginists at the Daily Mail and their ilk can then launch a very sexist, vicious attack on the woman). It is easier to be convicted of raping a man, because the requirements for evidence are so much less. How is that fair?

I also learned that lapdancing clubs only require the same kind of licensing as pubs and coffee shops. A former lapdancer shared her experiences: it wasn’t empowering or high-paid, it was very low-paid, they were often in debt to the clubs, who make them buy shoes and outfits, there are lots of them competing for tips, so those who go further, get closer and so on may get more money. Object are campaigning to have these places relicensed with similar classification to sex shops so that councils can have more say. You can read more about their campaign here.

Oh, and then there’s the whole issue of women and objectification – the way that it is still deemed fine for magazines like Nuts and Zoo to parade half naked women all over the shelves of normal magazine shops, and for young men to feel the objectification of woman is OK. And, of course, there is the whole issue of Playboy making stationery, bedding and whatnot for young girls – do we really want them to grow up loving a brand that treats women as nothing at all?

And that’s before we get onto the Hooters scandal. If you’ve had your head in the sand for the last couple of months, Hooters is an American chain of fast-food restaurants and ‘sports bars’ that places its waitresses in skimpy outfits, makes them sign contracts that agree to them being objectified and potentially sexually harrassed and its name and slogans reference the waitresses, erm, assets. Hooters are coming to the UK. They have a branch in Nottingham, they are planning to open up to fifty more in the next four or five years, including one in Sheffield, possibly in Leopold Square, of all places. There are lots of people campaigning against this, including a Facebook group for people in Sheffield, one for people in the UK, and a bunch of iPetitions. Lots of naysayers have sprung up saying ‘it’s just a sports bar’ and that the campaigners should get over themselves. But how can we just say that it’s OK and a bit of ‘harmless fun’ to support a chain that promotes itself on women’s figures, that makes them agree to clauses saying they are objects – particularly when children are encouraged to dine there. If you want to launch a chain of US restaurants, fine. But why do you need to exploit women for it? There is no need for women to be sex objects to anyone but their partners, particularly in a so-called restaurant/bar. End of.

The conference had that feeling I used to get at Christian conferences – the ‘I want to make a change’ feeling. I swear, Delirious? History Maker song would fit just as well in that environment as in the Christian one – it’s exactly the same feeling. I don’t know what I can do to make the differences I feel are needed: not just in terms of gender equality, in terms of racial, religious, sexual orientation, disability equality. The world is so bloody depressing at times. I think about these things all the time, being a Cultural Studies lecturer, and being a sort-of Christian. I’m not totally sure what I can do, how much change any of us as individuals can make (although together we can do a LOT), but I don’t want to get sucked in to apathy.

Right now, I guess the best I can do is challenge my students on their own views and attitudes, challenge them to look at the world more closely, and do the odd other little bit where I can, to write my doctorate and hope in some way it will contribute to discourses around religion, culture and society. But when I get that doctorate in the next decade, then I maybe need to think a little harder about where my research, writing and energies can be directed to support, serve and challenge others.

It sort of brings me back to the things I had in mind when I started working for the church. I guess passion and vocation go beyond circumstances…

Oh, the F-word’s here and the F-word’s bad

There are lots of depressing things about being an academic (there are also lots of amazing ones, too). One of the most depressing is obviously people’s disregard for the English language. But another thing that has been depressing me recently is students’ attitudes to feminism, gender etc.

Now, I have been a feminist since a very young age. It wasn’t something drummed into me at home, or through the media, or school. It was just something I knew for myself to be right, and important. In Middle School, I was constantly campaigning for the rights of girls. I got nowhere in my anti-skirts protests, and my ‘allowing girls to lay football’ one only got as far as two girls at a time being allowed to join in. Hardly in the league of Ms Pankhurst, but at least I felt I was trying to make the world a betterplace. Even if 1980s Grimsby wasn’t up for political revolutionaries.

Although I wasn’t around when women didn’t have a vote, and the battles of the 60s and early 70s were also fought before I arrived in the world, I am old enough to remember a time when the norm was still for men to work and women to stay at home with the kids; for certain pursuits to be male and others female. Old enough to remember women campaigning for rights in certain issues. Old enough to appreciate the victories that have been won and to recognise there is still far to go before men and women have equal rights, not just in law, but in people’s mindsets and behaviours (and that doesn’t just mean oppression of women – a lot of men need rights, too, particularly in terms of childcare etc).

I don’t think that we are yet in a position of total equality, but lots of things HAVE been achieved. I know very few households that follow the ‘man work, woman home’ model, especially those without pre-school children – and even in those with pre-school children, I know just as many where both parents share work and childcare, where the dad stays at home, or where both parents work as I do those that follow the ‘old’ model.

There may still be nowhere near enough women in positions of corporate and governmental power as there should be, but very few would deny that women have the right to hold such positions. Similarly, no-one would deny the rights of men and women to do any job they wanted, although prejudice still remains towards those who choose to go against old-fashioned nonsensical convention.

Most of the students I teach have been brought up in homes that don’t follow the old fashioned model. Most of them wouldn’t dream of going into that kind of set-up themselves. Most of them would completely agree that people should have equal rights regardless of gender. Most of them would want to say they are free to wear what they like and work where they like.

So why is it that when I asked a group of third year students what they associate with ‘masculinity’, ‘femininity’, ‘gay men’ and ‘lesbians’, and when I deliberately stressed that list could include anything at all they think of, it didn’t just have to be stereotypes, every single answer in all those categories was a stereotype. They wouldn’t describe themselves in those terms, I’m sure, yet they still came immediately to their minds. Oh, and no prizes for guessing which category was the only one that the word ‘feminist’ came up in…

A week later and they were looking at some feminist critiques of films. I was shocked to hear their conversations ‘well, I don’t think any of us would say we were feminists’, ‘I don’t think I’m THAT kind of feminist’ etc. Oh, and of course, there was a grand assumption that only women could be feminists. Challenge them on their values and most would espouse several feminist values of equality. They would also rally against notions of homophobia. None of them conform totally to old values of what it means to be masculine or feminine. Yet, apparently, feminism is not for them. There was also an assumption that we are past a place where feminist issues matter – that those debates and arguments are all in the past.

One of the pieces talked about the Playboy bunny cult and its rise in recent years. When pressed, most admitted they weren’t totally comfortable with the Playboy ethos and with teenagers wearing Playboy logos, but they fell back on the failsafe ‘it’s a brand, innit? The brand isn’t the same thing as the magazine’. Others raised the issue of ’empowerment’ to be a sexual object, and of course, the fact that men can be objects as well. So the fact that we can all be objects now is a victory for feminism is it? I also received one essay last term from a male student who went off on one about how feminists need to shut up about mens’ magazines objectifying women, because men like it. Err, OK. The assignment wasn’t even about that, which makes it all the more funny/sad.

I think the criticism that some branches of early feminism were unhelpful in that they did promote an anti-man agenda is valid. But those were radical wings of feminism, they didn’t espouse the whole agenda. However, it seems to be that that style of feminist is what the whole term comes to mean now.

There is a suspicion of feminism, a backlash (which the mid-late 90s so didn’t help), a mixed dialogue of people both wanting to acknowledge there are some differences between men and women (which I think is fine, as long as we recognise that some of what we perceive as differences are merely cultural constructs rather than natural ones) coupled with a taken-for-grantedness that we are all OK, we are all equal.

But I think these debates are still relevant. The fact that the world’s press seems so reluctant to support a female president and the ongoing struggle for women to gain recognition and status in certain areas (not least the church, politics and big business) show that there is still something to discuss. Not to mention the prevalence of lap dancing clubs, women being featured in so many lads’ mags and all that Playboy merchandise.

Even when I was in the church i noticed sexism creeping back in, even to more ‘progressive’ places like St Tom’s – all that ‘Wild at Heart’ tyope stuff seemed to me to be moving from a positive celebration of some aspects of masculinity to a proscriptive ‘this is what men should be like’ kind of vibe that potentially could be very damaging to all the men who are JUST NOT LIKE THAT. And vice versa for the women’s stuff. I’m not saying there is no place in culture for things that are more the preserve of women or men, what I am saying is that sometimes things that are naturally feminine or masucline get mixed up with culturally proscribed things and that can lead to messed up people who aren’t allowed to be themselves, and a return to the bad old days.

As much as I am sad to see my students distance themselves from it, maybe the term ‘feminism’ has had its day. Like ‘spastic’, ‘evangelical’ (and possibly ‘gay’ considering every 16-18 year old I know uses that term to mean rubbish, even though many of them would say they are not homophobic) it perhaps needs to be consigned to the heap of words that now mean something completely other than what they once did.

Maybe we just need, collectively, to stand up for each other, to recognise oppression and to challenge what we see around us. And that doesn’t just mean women (I never bought into that whole sisterhood thing) – these are issues for all of us.

I guess what I am mainly thinking is that I just wish students were less apathetic and would wake up, realise the battles that have already been won for them, acknowledge the problems that still exist (not just in terms of gender-related issues) and question the world a bit more.

And you know what? I really hope Hillary gets to be President.