NS August 27th, 2008

Here it is, folks! Your daily dose of sexism, servitude and violence against women. Try not to wretch all over your keyboard.

Jeremy Paxman explains why middle-class white men in television have it so tough. Boo hoo!

“Do I think it’s a man’s world in television? That is the most ridiculous question I have been asked all week,” Mr Paxman said in a prerecorded interview. “The worst thing you can be in this industry is a middle-class white male. If any middle-class white male I come across says he wants to enter television I say ‘give up all hope’. They’ve no chance.”

The Cambridge graduate listed Jana Bennett, the director of BBC television, and Jay Hunt, the controller of BBC One, as examples of women who had reached the top in television. Other senior female executives include Dawn Airey, the chief executive designate of Five, and Lorraine Heggessey who runs the production company that makes Britain’s Got Talent and The Bill.

However, his observation left others unimpressed. The broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, who was once told by a producer on Stephen Fry’s show QI that there were so few women on the programme because “there just aren’t any intelligent women out there”, was quick to criticise. She said: “He lists women because he couldn’t possibly name all the men in positions of power in TV because he would be there all bloody day.”

Too right, Mariella. Me thinks Jeremy has a new lady boss that he doesn’t like too much. Perhaps the vagina jokes at production meetings have had to stop and he’s pouting. Run for your life, fellas, the scary successful wimmins are taking over your televisions! OhNoooZ!

Blame it on the victims! A Dutch couple beaten and raped in Italy are told they were ‘unwise’ to camp where they did. What idiots, expecting to be able to camp without being sexually violated and physically assaulted. Pffft.

Eight-year-old Saudi girl files for divorce

A court in Saudi Arabia is reported to be preparing to hear a plea for divorce from an eight-year-old girl who has been married off to a man in his 50s.

The Saudi newspaper al-Watan said the girl had been married off to the man by her father without her knowledge.

…child-protection groups say children are often given away in return for hefty dowries, or as a result of old customs in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.

And we all thought Britney was kind of young to be divorced twice.

Priest holding beauty pageant for nuns: because everyone knows God only lets the hot chicks in habits in.

The contestants must be aged between 18 and 40, and can be either full members of an order or novices. Father Rungi said that he expected many who applied to be young, attractive — and non-Italian. He said: “Do you really think nuns are all wizened, funereal old ladies? Today it’s not like that any more, thanks to an injection of youth and vitality brought to our country by foreign girls.” He said there were nuns from Africa and Latin America who were “really very, very pretty. The Brazilian girls above all.”

…Father Rungi said: “Nuns are women above all else, and beauty is a gift from God.”

Um, no asshole, nuns are people above all else. God doesn’t see gender, male priests and church officials do.

• Feminist Fury , In The News
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NS August 20th, 2008

I did three things today that I swore I would never do:

1) I took TNC to the mall to watch those supremely annoying automated bears that dance and sing that they put out to entertain the kids in the summer and during Christmas time

2) I then took her to McDonald’s for lunch where she had chicken nuggets for the first time. At least they’re real chicken meat now, unlike when I was a kid and they were made of lord-knows-what

3) I bought something off of a guy selling stuff on the street

What can I say? It must be a combination of the crappy weather, the final month of pregnancy and boredom. It was totally worth it though, on all counts. Well, except for the bears. I might be having nightmares about them tonight.

• Banal Breakdown
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NS August 18th, 2008

I’m done.

I’m done being pregnant and sick at the same time, which seems to keep happening with frightening regularity. Less than two weeks ago it was gastroenteritis and just when I’d recovered from that (like, the next day) I came down with stonking chest cold. An evil, hard ball of angry phlegm is sitting in my chest, much like the Grinch’s heart, tearing up my throat and making my insides burn when I hack and cough with such ferocity that the cat runs away and TNC cries and I wouldn’t be surprised if my neighbours thought we had an 80-year-old 40-a-day smoker living with us.

Just now I coughed so hard that I threw up my breakfast into TNC’s training potty, which thankfully happened to be near my feet. I never realised how difficult and painful it is to cough with such force when your stomach muscles are stretched on both sides to somewhere near your elbows, leaving little to support your heaving abdomen. Pleasant imagery, no? I do hope I haven’t made you lose your breakfast.

• Health and Fitness , The Noble Fetus
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NS August 13th, 2008

(image by Miken_in_Kboro)

(image by dichohecho)

Sigh.

I long for just one week, one measly week, without rain or clouds and with a temperature reaching something above 72 Fahrenheit. I’d like to be able to walk out of the door in bloody AUGUST without an umbrella, a jacket or a blanket for TNC’s lap in the pushchair. I have summer dresses and skirts that have only been worn once or twice because it just hasn’t been warm enough. It’s enough to make me say screw national health care, I want a decent summer!

• Britishisms , I Bitch Therefore I Am
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NS August 12th, 2008

This is truly despicable. No wonder the rape conviction rate is still so abysmally low in this country.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was raped five years ago on a night out in the West End of London.

The woman, whose attacker has never been caught, complained to the Metropolitan Police about the way her case was investigated.

As a result of her complaint, she received an official apology and two officers were disciplined.

But when she applied for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA), which covers England, Scotland and Wales, she was told the standard compensation would be cut in her case to £8,250 [the standard amount is £11,000].

The authority told her the reason for the reduction was that “the evidence shows that your excessive consumption of alcohol was a contributing factor in the incident”.

Thank goodness someone saw sense and overturned these reductions. But can you imagine a murder victim’s family being told that they would be receiving reduced compensation because their beloved had been drinking before he was killed? Nope, didn’t think so. This sickening culture of blaming the victim in rape cases has got to stop. Going out drinking is not a crime. Wearing a skirt and low-cut top is not a crime. Walking home late at night is not a crime. No woman who does any or all of these things is ‘asking for it’ nor does she have any responsibility for or control over her rapist’s actions. Rape is the crime and a rapist is a criminal. Stop blaming the victims and trying to figure out their ‘role’ in the attack. Just like with murder, it doesn’t matter what the victim said or did beforehand, the attacker chose to react with violence and commit a crime and should be punished as such.

I cannot imagine the degradation and anger I would feel if I was raped after going out for a few glasses of wine with my friends and then told I somehow deserved what I got. It makes me sick to my stomach that so many men in so many positions of power defend these scumbags and hold so little regard for women that they could even fathom questioning her actions as a way to deflect responsibility from the rapist. It makes a woman feel that men are in one giant pat-each-other-on-the-penis club and that when it comes to matters of sex and power, women will always have to be on the defensive, from the stranger lurking in the alley to the friendly guy at the bar to the judge in the courtroom. And men wonder why women lump them all together…is it really that hard to see why?

• Activism , Feminist Fury , In The News
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