NS November 10th, 2009

My interest was piqued by this post I read today, by Sandy at Baby Baby, about ‘shag bands’ and the sexualisation of young girls. As reported by the Times, apparently ‘shag bands’ are these plastic, colour-coded bracelets being worn by children as young as 8 (but mainly by teens), with each colour representing something sexual they’ve done or are expected to do if a member of the opposite sex (usually a boy, since mainly girls wear them) manages to ‘snap’ or break it.

Sandy expressed her dismay at the existence of these bands and used it as an opportunity to discuss the sexualisation of young girls. Though I wasn’t thrilled to hear of these bands and always welcome discourse on how our society sexualises girls and women, I was a bit doubtful that these ‘shag bands’ were the insidious items that they were made out to be in the media so I did a little digging.  A quick Internet search and I found this excellent article on Snopes about the ‘sex bracelets’ and rumours of other playground ‘sex coupons’ that have been around for decades, including the soda or beer can tab and the beer bottle label as items to be traded for carnal knowledge. You can read more about the legends here but the summary of the article is that we’re likely assigning too much significance to playground devices such as these, which are mostly rumour. Even where there is some truth in the meanings attached to the items, it’s more indicative of teenage explorations of desire and the appeal of abdicating responsibility for the sexual decisions they face, not of a sinister plot to actually trade or force sexual favours for trinkets.

So even though I don’t think the bracelets are actually being used in the way they’ve been portrayed,  I agree with Sandy when she says:

Advertising, magazines and television (particularly MTV) are taking away our children’s innocence. Girls are bombarded by airbrushed size zero models with fake breasts. This is not how most women look. This is not healthy.

The cult of celebrity is also damaging how youngsters view the world. There seem to be many children that believe just being on television is a worthy ambition. They want to be famous – no talent required. Even worse, they want to be married to someone famous. Being a footballer’s wife should not be an acceptable career choice.

I too look at how women are portrayed in the media and in advertising and find myself filled with despair. I too worry for the kids aspiring to be famous  for nothing in particular and without any kind of plan for an education or career. But then, at the very end, she says: “On days like this I’m glad I have sons and not daughters.”

Even though I know that Sandy meant no harm when she said it and was  just trying to express her frustration at the situation, I disagree strongly with the sentiment behind this statement. I hear a lot of parents of boys use this line whenever we talk about serious, scary issues that young girls are facing, be it negative body image, sexual objectification and exploitation, the pay gap, gender stereotyping,  rape, domestic violence or discrimination in the workplace. They feel, perhaps understandably, relieved that they won’t have to tackle these issues in the same way that they would as parents of  boys. The thing is, they should be every bit as worried about how to deal with all of the aforementioned problems as the parents of girls. Though framed in a different way perhaps, all of these issues need to be discussed with boys. In fact, I’d say it’s just as important for parents of boys to help them understand and combat these messages as it is for girls.

You see, the bombardment of “airbrushed, size-zero models with fake breasts” in the pages of magazines, on billboards and on tv isn’t aimed solely at girls, nor are they the only ones to see these things and internalise the messages within. Boys see those MTV videos, those beer ads, the covers of all those magazines with the celebrities and the models and their “perfect” proportions and they are getting a message too. It might not be screaming out to them “Lose weight! You’re not pretty enough! You need to be sexy to attract a man!” but something is being projected to them just the same, believe me. They are hearing things like “This is what the ideal woman looks like! Women are nice to look at but they’re a pain in the arse! You’re not a Real Man (TM) unless you notch up as many sexual conquests as possible!  No doesn’t always mean No, especially if she’s dressed sexy! You’re pathetic if you care too much about her feelings or express your own! You must assert your masculinity at all times or risk being labeled a ‘loser’ or a ‘queer’!” amongst many, many others. This is harmful. It’s harmful to young boys’ emotional and mental development and affects the way they view not only their own place in the world and their own sexuality, but that of the girls and women they know (or will know), too.

So not only should parents of boys (myself included in this group) be worried about these issues just as much as parents of girls, we should be talking about how to tackle these problems with the same urgency and seriousness that it holds for our daughters. The sexualisation of girls hurts boys, too, and it will never end until boys (who will eventually become men) become involved in the discussion. Only then can they become part of the solution. In fact, that may be the solution.

Photo credit: exlow’s Flickr photostream, via a Creative Commons license

• Activism , In The News , Objectification , Parenting 101 , School
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NS October 15th, 2009

I don’t care about fashion. Never have, never will. To be honest, I’ve always found the idea of caring about labels and the latest styles a little alien. I just don’t see the attraction. Spending all that time researching what’s new, spending all of that money obtaining it, only for it to be replaced by some other trend mere months later…it just seems pointless and endless and strange.

The throwaway culture it creates and the part fashion plays in fueling rampant and thoughtless consumerism is only one of my concerns, though. I’m also concerned with not only how the fashion industry portrays models and sets up an impossible beauty standards for ‘regular’ women, but also with the entire idea behind clothing and how we look at it as being a way to express and define ourselves.

Fashion was created by (for the most part) rich, white men who had very specific, rigid ideas of what women should look and act like. Since the first pencil was put to sketch pad to create a drawing for the Autumn/Winter collection, we have been adhering to what a select group of people very preoccupied with aesthetics and symmetry think is beautiful and inspiring and, ergo, fashionable. The women who will wear the clothes are of little concern or consequence. Our needs or desires pale in comparison with these men’s artistic vision. We are but grease marks in shades of charcoal on the drafting board to them. What do we know?

Let’s think about the history of and impetus behind fashion a little more. What do these designers base their ideas on, where do they get their inspiration and what or who told them that they needed to use very thin, boyish bodies for these designs to ‘work’? If it’s mainly men doing the designing, how do they know what will fit and flatter women, and be practical for their varying shapes and stages of life? The short answer is that they don’t. The long answer involves a favourite word ’round these parts, one that begins with a big, fat capital P. Any guesses?

But none of that really matters because what’s done is done. We can’t go back and change how men have viewed and controlled women, felt entitled to their bodies, since the beginning of time. Hell, if we can’t even convince many women that they’re not living in a post-feminist world where they are fully respected and on equal footing with men in the areas that matter, then what hope do we have of changing what the rich, white dudes think?

They have a vested interest in keeping us tightly bound up, corseted to our eyebrows and tottering on the highest of heels, even if it causes us discomfort and ill health. They have a vested interest in keeping us smooth, hairless, perfectly made-up and shiny, even if it wastes much of our time and money. They have a vested interest in keeping us slim and pretty and willing to do anything to make or keep ourselves that way. They have a vested interest in our self-hatred and our self-consciousness because it keeps us busy and our minds off of our 1 in 6 chance of being sexually assaulted, or our 1 in 3 chance of being cut open in childbirth in the U.S. (1 in 4 chance in the UK), or our 83 pence to every man’s pound earned.

Vered at MomGrind wrote a post yesterday in which she expressed disbelief and disgust at Karl Lagerfeld’s comment that women who complain about thin models are “fat mummies” who “sit in front of the television eating crisps.” She encouraged us to not put any stock in what he says and shrug it off as the ridiculous and pitiful statement it is. And she’s right, of course, we shouldn’t give two shits what a wealthy, septuagenarian man thinks of us, or what we wear or say or do. Because who cares, right? I certainly don’t.

But a lot of women do. A lot of women follow fashion like a sport and think shopping is next to godliness and that these designers are the fucking Messiah. So they will indeed care what he says.

Vered also linked to a post I wrote on the Roman Polanski rape debacle and apty tied that into how our society seems so prepared to forgive or dismiss  rich, white men’s eccentricities and even their crimes because we consider their ‘genius’ more valuable than the people they damage. I left this comment on her post:

The fashion world and Hollywood need to be tied together with heavy stones and thrown into the ocean, as far as I’m concerned. I really don’t understand why so many women make themselves slaves to what these industries say we should do. A dress or a magazine or a movie aren’t motivation enough for me to destroy my self-worth.

Fashion is a large part of what I find so vacuous and intellectually bankrupt about our consumerist culture. Who the shit cares if a handbag was made by orphans in Bangladesh, right? So long as it’s got some rich white dude’s name stitched on the front in 24 karat gold, everyone can see that you’ve got money and need someone you’ve never met to tell you what to wear. Apparently this is a sign of status and progress. Ha-hardy-har! The patriarchy has successfully deflected our attention away from all of the violence and discrimination against women with shiny objects and busied us with eating disorders and clawing one another’s eyes out in our quest to epitomize their fantasies. Well done, rich white dudes, I’ve got to hand it to you, you’ve done a stellar job.

I think I’ll go be sick now, but not because I want to fit into that little black dress. Most likely I’ve just eaten too many crisps.

Because you know what, Karl Lagerfeld? I am what you would almost certainly call a ‘fat mummy’ and I eat crisps, happily, whenever the hell I want. I don’t stick my fingers down my throat afterwards so I can fit into whatever the hell bizarro-world clothes creation you’ve come up with lately, and you know that real women with a healthy dose of self-confidence don’t either. We can shrug off what you say with a laugh and a slap of our blubberous thighs and go back to our meaningful lives, ones with relationships to nourish and children to raise and jobs to perform and memories to create. You can’t get to us and it infuriates you, no doubt. We are a segment of the market you haven’t been able to crack, though lord knows you’ve tried. We aren’t many in number, granted. You’ve already gotten to most of our sisters, filled their heads with your ideas of beauty and perfection and cost them the ability to enjoy life and their bodies and the clothes on their backs on their own terms, for their own purposes and for their own bodies.

So it’s not for me, but for them, when I say Fuck you, fashion industry. Fuck you and the clothes horse you rode in on. Fuck your size zero models and use of Photoshop to make women’s hips appear slimmer than their heads. Fuck you for firing models for gaining five pounds and no longer fitting the skeletal mold you have created. But most of all, fuck you for getting inside the heads and hearts of millions of women the world over, infecting them with your “vision.”

I don’t need clothes or hats or shoes to express myself, or give me confidence or define who I am. If someone wants to pigeonhole me based on my attire that is their problem, not mine. All I need to be me, to be a woman, are the courage of my convictions and the words to tell you where to go when you try to stuff me into your pretty little boxes in the name of a deluded form of masochism called Fashion.

I don’t wear pencil skirts, I hold pens. I don’t need the pictures in Vogue, I have words; words sharper than the hipbones jutting out of the girls parading down the catwalk wearing the latest article of clothing from your  self-hatred-breeding machine.

I don’t need fashion, I have a voice. And I’m not afraid to use it.

Image found at nuacco.com

• Activism , Bloggy love , I Bitch Therefore I Am , In The News
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NS September 29th, 2009

I’m still steaming about the whole Roman Polanski fiasco. It’s all I can think about and I keep devouring more and more column inches in my quest to find someone (other than a handful of progressive bloggers) who isn’t defending or in some way minimising the crimes committed by this sad excuse for a man. The defend-a-thon is detailed here and here, and that’s just what’s come out in the last 24-48 hours. If you’re hungover and are in that ‘if only I could get my head down the toilet, stop dry heaving and actually puke, I might feel better’ stage, just go and read the links in both of those posts — they will set your stomach acids churning and you’ll be wretching all over the place in no time.

Everywhere I turn, I am reading and hearing and seeing people who would normally want to lock up a paedophile like Polanski and throw away the key suddenly try to justify why, in this case, professional accomplishments and past personal tragedies somehow make up for the heinous crime of child rape. It’s absolutely disgusting and is so utterly bonkers that I keep thinking that any moment now I’m going to wake up from this horrific dream, or suddenly remember it’s April Fool’s Day.

The saddest thing about all of this is that women and girls who have been raped — who are being raped right now, or will be raped tomorrow (as they are every minute of every day) — are watching. They are watching how the world reacts to Roman Polanski in what should be a long-awaited conclusion of justice but is, once again, just a mockery of it. When they hear people say such exceedingly stupid, pompous and insensitive things like:

“The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn’t enough” (Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times)

what they are taking away from that is: don’t kid yourself, sweetheart, no one is going to believe you. And even if they do, no one is going to care, particularly if your rapist is handsome or popular or successful or ‘important’. Because in the face of the artistic or social potential of a man, rape is just a sad inevitably that we must overlook.

Goldstein is right about one thing…it will never be enough, no. Because being snubbed by your peers (which I don’t think Polanski has been at all — look at the long list of Hollywood A-listers willing to defend him) is not a tragedy. Nowhere else, that is, besides fucking up-its-own-ass, whacked-out, self-important Hollywood. I am absolutely sickened at the level of support being shown to this man and saddened at the total disregard for rape survivors and the due process of the law. If Polanski doesn’t end up serving his sentence I (and countless other girls and women) will have comletely lost any last, teeny-tiny shred of hope that rape would ever be taken seriously in the eyes of the law, and our society.

And that, you privileged prick Goldstein, is a very real tragedy.

• Activism , In The News , Rape
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NS September 28th, 2009

You’ve probably heard that director Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland and will likely be extradited back to the United States to face law enforcement officials who want him for fleeing the country in 1977. What was he fleeing from? Rape charges. Rape charges that he admitted and plead guilty to.  Who did he rape? A 13-year-old girl. How did he rape her? By telling her he wanted to put her in French Vogue, inviting her to a private residence for a “photo shoot”, drugging her with champagne and quaaludes and then performing numerous sex acts on her, to each of which his victim said ‘No.’  Even if she hadn’t said a word or put up any resistance, he would still be guilty of rape seeing as she was a child.

Polanski used his influence to get the girl alone and put her in a position where she was eager to please and be unlikely to question what was going on. What 13-year-old girl wouldn’t be thrilled to be hand-picked by a famous director to appear in a chic and world-famous magazine? The fact that he fed her drugs and alcohol to make her more compliant and maybe also to cover his tracks tells us a lot. Maybe he thought that later, if he was accused of anything indecent, he could just claim they were both high on drugs and booze and testify that she threw herself at him and he didn’t know she was only 13, honest-to-God, Judge; haven’t you seen how much makeup she wears and how developed her body is? C’mon, give a red-blooded guy a break! he’d say.

Think that’s sounds like a pathetic, bullshit excuse that no one would be stupid enough to use? Well, it works all the time for other men so it’s not farfetched in the slightest, actually. And even now, Polanski’s case has people wondering out loud if the ‘sex’ was ‘consentual’ or not, or if it even matters after all this time and because he’s a famous movie director who has had some tough knocks in life.

*Wait, let me get my hankie out*

Boo-fuckin-HOO! I don’t care if you find a way to solve world hunger or discover the cure for AIDS, if you rape a 13-year-old girl you must be punished for that, no matter how long ago it was.

Some bright sparks are bringing up the statute of limitations in California, as if the victim was only just reporting the rape and poor Polanski was being hunted down and tried for something he may not have done. The guy pleaded guilty, was convicted, and then fled the country because (and I quote, in a whiny, self-important voice) “The judge will give me 100 years.” So yeah, you can take your ‘statute of limitations’ crap and mosy on down to Stupid Town, y’all.

And, as usual, Hollywood is coming to the rescue of one of its own, questioning why Polanski is being arrested after all this time and even saying it’s a waste of taxpayer money.

But with so many far more important cases sitting idle because of budget cuts and lack of manpower, it is hard to fathom why the D.A.’s office is suddenly spending time and money trying to re-energize an ancient sex case when there are so many more nasty characters so much closer to home who need to feel the strong arm of the law

If you need more evidence that some people just can’t wrap their heads around ‘sex’ with a child always being rape, just watch this clip from The View, in which the following exchange takes place:

Whoopi Goldberg (after explaining the basic details of the case): …so I’m asking you guys, should he go to prison?

Joy Behar: I believe that no matter how old you are or how long ago the crime was committed, that you should be punished for it. I mean, he’s a great director. The man suffered the Holocaust, he lost his family, he escaped from the Germans, the Nazis. He lost his wife, Sharon Tate, in the horrible Manson murders. People know about that, he had a terrible time. And he’s a wonderful director. But he did rape a 13-year-old child and…

Whoopi: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, you guys. The language that we use here is very important because that is not the allegation. That is not the allegation. I’m talking legal.

Joy: Allegedly, he plied her with a quaalude and alcohol. And he also pleaded guilty.

Whoopi: Yes.

Joy:  So we can assume that he did…

Whoopi: That’s a rape?

Joy: Well, it’s not consentual sex when she’s 13 and he was 40.

Whoopi: Well…

Melissa Gilbert, guest panelist: The grey area is when mama’s in the building [referring to the victim's mother, who apparently is alleged by some to have been around when the rape happened].

Whoopi: Yeah, and mama’s sort of set it up…

Melissa: …taking you to this house…

Sherri Shepherd: Okay, but she’s not being charged, we’re looking at Roman Polanski.

Whoopi: No, but you have to, you can’t, you can’t, if you’re going to look at the suit you have to look at the whole thing.

Melissa: I agree.

Whoopi: This is why some of the legal people say, you know, some of the sentence was a little excessive. Having gotten all the information, some thing should have changed. So I think all Melissa and I are saying is just be aware what he is charged with and what they are doing.

Sherri: I think that as a grown person, take responsibility for the fact that you knew…

Melissa: He did…

Sherri: Take responsibility for the fact that you fled the country as well.

Melissa: I think he’s trying to atone. I think the punishment at this point may be excessive. I don’t know, that’s just my opinion.

Sherri: Why?

Melissa: Well…

Sherri: We tried Nazi war criminals from a long time ago.

Melissa: I think the crime itself is horrible, I just think the circumstances of it are so grey and so mushy and so messed up, and now you have this woman who actually is the victim who, for whatever reason, is saying let’s just back away, walk away from it, he’s…she’s over it.

Sherri: Well, a 45-year-old woman is thinking a lot differently than she was at 13. It doesn’t change the fact that at 13 years old, this woman was drugged and anally penetrated, orally penetrated. So yes, she may have forgiven him and she may have moved on, but still the crime remains. Allegedly…

Whoopi: I am not saying ‘allegedly’…

Star: If it was your daughter, even 10, 12 years later…

Melissa: Does he have daughters?

Sherri: Roman Polanski?

Whoopi: Yes, he does.

Melissa: Well, then, I think he’s going to be very mindful and watchful and I think he should be…

Sherri:  So, what, that should be enough punishment?

Melissa: No, not that he has daughters…

Whoopi: Let’s be realistic here. He went to jail and plead guilty to having sex with this young lady. So it’s not like he ‘allegedly’ had sex, he DID have sex with her. What I’m saying is he did not “rape” her because she was aware and, apparently, the family were aware.

Sherri: Was it consentual? I mean, what is rape? What’s the definition of rape?

Whoopi: I don’t know if it was consentual but he was not…

Joy: Wait a second.

Sherri: When you have to give somebody drugs, I don’t know.

Whoopi: What I’m saying is he was not charged with rape, that’s all I’m trying to say.

Sherri: Even if you’re 13-years-old? And…

Whoopi: Wait. Wait! We have to get it correct. If we’re gonna bitch about what he did we have to get it right about what he did.

Melissa: What he did was despicable and disgusting, when you’re that age and have sex with a 13-year-old.

Joy: When a child is 13 years old, it’s called statutory rape. It’s not called anything BUT rape.

Whoopi: He was NOT charged. He was not charged…I know it wasn’t “rape” rape.

Sherri: Statutory rape?

Melissa: Child molest, maybe? I’m not sure.

Whoopi: Maybe child molest, but I don’t believe it was “Rape” rape.

Ah, that clears it up, then. It wasn’t “Rape” rape because the sex may have been consentual (even though she was only 13 so consent to sex with a 44-year-old man is impossible) and because her family may have known what was going on (which makes it okay, she was theirs to pimp out). Got it, good to know.

Remember folks, it’s only rape if you are grabbed from a moving vehicle or from behind in a dark and secluded area and if you are tied up, drugged, and/or beaten to within an inch of your life while struggling, screaming and scratching every second until your attacker either lets you go or kills you! Any other scenario will be torn down and picked apart by people who are too blind to see that rape is about power, not sex, and that children cannot ever have ‘consentual’ sex with adults.

It doesn’t matter if a girl walks up to a man completely naked with two cans of whipped cream, some bondage chains and a sack full of condoms, she is not consenting. If you believe otherwise you are either delusional, looking for an excuse to abuse her, or she is emotionally damaged and in need of therapy, not a quick fuck. Either way, it is rape, not sex. Yep, “Rape” rape.

There is no other kind.

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NS September 25th, 2009

The front page of the Guardian caught my attention today: “Revealed: the hidden army in UK prisons.” In reading the article, a few passages stood out.

The number of former servicemen in prison or on probation or parole is now more than double the total British deployment in Afghanistan, according to a new survey. An estimated 20,000 veterans are in the criminal justice system, with 8,500 behind bars, almost one in 10 of the prison population.

I hadn’t heard those figures before and was somewhat taken aback by how high they were. I can’t say I was all that shocked, though. People who volunteer for jobs that rely heavily on violence, weapons and control are pretty obviously going to be more likely to have issues with violence, weapons and control, not to mention alcohol and drug abuse, mental illness and depression. The study confirms this.

The snapshot survey of 90 probation case histories of convicted veterans shows a majority with chronic alcohol or drug problems, and nearly half suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression as a result of their wartime experiences on active service.

…The study provides the strongest evidence yet of a direct link between the mental health of those returning from combat zones, chronic alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence.

Now, I could be cynical and surmise that the armed forces simply attract people more prone to violence and mental illness, but even though I think that’s true in a very small percentage of cases, I know that most people entering the service in Britain do so out of a sense of duty to their country or at least because it may offer them a good career path, one they might not have access to otherwise. Essentially (the theory goes), they generally start off innocently, without malicious intent, and are only corrupted by the violence and mayhem they witness over a period of time.

According to military experts, psychologists specialising in post-traumatic stress syndrome and others, if, as a result of their environment and training, soldiers suffer such ills and traumas as to make them criminals and addicts, they should receive help and counseling from the State.

Taking all of this into consideration, I can’t help but draw parallels between this “hidden army,” these deeply wounded soldiers, and the entire, forgotten class of young people, mainly men, being locked away for very similar reasons and offenses. If veterans make up 10% of the prison population, who is making up the other 90%? It isn’t the unscrupulous City traders and high-flying fraudsters, that is certain.

The vast majority of the prison population is made up of poor men and boys who have also suffered under this truism: violence begets violence. An entire ‘underclass’ of people in this country live with, grow up around, see, experience, live and breathe unimaginable violence every single day. From the moment they are born until the steel door slams behind them, be it institution gate or coffin lid, the scourges of society befall them — drink, drugs, poverty, mental illness, separation from family, violence, rape, and being witness to death and destruction.

Make no mistake, they are no less foot soldiers in a war than those lying in a desert bunkhole in Afghanistan right now, military-issued rifles clutched to their chests as they wait out the attack. The only difference between them is that British soldiers are given weapons with which to defend themselves and have the support and concern of the public. Men and boys who grow up experiencing horrific abuse, who are drafted into gangs before they can even read, who are forced to do whatever it takes to survive in their hostile worlds…they were in combat situations, too.

Poverty is a battle for which its unwilling participants are given no armour, and no choice. Those who joined the armed forces at least have an idea of what they might be getting into. That doesn’t mean I have less sympathy for them, but as a pacifist who isn’t easily swayed by patriotism and duty as reasons to fight and who knows that we couldn’t have wars without willing soldiers, no matter how ‘noble’ the cause, it does give me pause for thought.

Poor children at the fringes of society had no such say in the matter. And yet, we look down on them in disgust, cheer when one of them is locked away in a prison cell and shout “Throw away the key!” We’d grind our middle-class heels on their crime-riddled hearts if given half a chance. The baying crowds have always needed witches to round up and burn, after all.

We’ll continue as we are, ignoring the problem and sticking our heads in the sand until The Problem starts breaking into our homes and beating strangers in parks and leaving empty beer cans on our lawn. We’ll beat our chests about it and call Those People every name in the book, wishing they’d just go away or learn to be more like us. And then we’ll slap yellow ribbons on our windows and cars — “Support the troops!” they demand — oblivious to the ex-Marine down the street getting drunk and beating his wife in a terror-induced rage.

All of this just highlights the ridiculousness of using violence and war to end… violence and war. Neither are viable ways to achieve peaceful ends. A culture that encourages both will eventually destroy itself.

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