A Rant About Misogyny because I saw a Flo Rida video last night)

In a nightclub at my hostel last night, I noticed this video on the screens. And all I could see was ass. Ass, booty, the junk in this girls trunk.

What really shocked me was not that there were beautiful scantily-clad woman dancing in an RnB song. It was the complete disassociation of these butts from the women that own them. In the first three seconds, we see a reflection of a bottom in Flo Rida's shades. You can just about see that this bottom is attached to body. But then Flo Rida is standing astride a long line of oversized arses. Seriously. They are just everywhere.

At 20 seconds, the creepiest thing I think I have seen on a screen in a long time appears.

I'm not sure I should show you, but in the interest of research.this blog. I print screened it for you.

Why, in 2013, are female bodies still the main fucking attraction? (Damn I try hard not to swear on this blog but I'm a little bit angry right now).

These women, where are their faces? At 0:30 we get a fleeting glance of two women sitting n the front of Flo Rida's speedboat. It's so quick, and they are not even doing anything. Just sitting there, looking pretty. 

Oh wait, more faces! at 0:46, there's are two women whose faces we see as they...sit...there...looking pretty... (as mermaids?! Do mermaids even have asses???)

OOH! At 0:49 we get a face, as she does an awesome hair flick towards the camera. And then at 0:58 we see her face as she returns from bending over. 

My favourite bit (wait, can you tell that was sarcasm? It's hard to know sometimes when you're reading something so just to let you know, that was sarcasm) is at 1:01 Flo Rida is holding a booty-cone. Oh yes, this girl's booty is positioned like some fine piece of ice cream that Flo's just gonna get his tongue around. But wait! The booty-cone girl is holding a booty-cone of another girl, who is also holding a booty-cone and oh my I'm a bit dizzy.

(Also, it's just after this bit I started asking myself "what do crocodiles have to do with ass?" And I'm still not sure.)

Mermaid girls are back for a second's glance at 1:30. 

And at 1:46, did Pitbull just call women "monkeys"? Or just women's asses? Or just the asses of women of colour (this latter possibility is sort of nullified by the fact that Flo Rida just "can't believe it" that a white woman has a booty, and thus giving us the whole [terrible] premise for the song.) Maybe I misunderstood him. Maybe he just wanted to get a Michael Jackson reference in there. 

Wait! 5 seconds later I think I have made the connection! The chorus is "bubbleyumbum" or something like that. And Jacko's monkey was called Bubbles right? So it was just the reference he was going for then. Right?

I seriously hope so.

2:04. More creepy mirror images. At 2:12 you get a tiny glance a the girl with purple hair's face. It's so quick I thought it was Jessie J pre-head shave for a moment.

2:40 - :44. Mirror. Images. 

And then yeah. Last minute is just the same as everything before. Asses, booty, junk in their trunk. And you barely see the women attached to them.

Now, you could argue artistic whatsit. You could even use that age old argument that the women in the video have made a choice to be in the video. And you could say some women might enjoy Pitbull and Flo Rida drumming on their asses like fucking bongo drums.

But actually it's the bongo drumming hand gestures that really seal the deal for me. "Look at that ass! I want to drum it. Like a bongo drum. Like an actual fucking object. Because this isn't a woman, a human being with feelings, thoughts, ambitions, brains or brawn. It's a wonderland created to help me improve my drumming skills."

And the misogyny and sexism in popular culture doesn't just stay in popular culture. For a start, it's created by those that continue perpetuating misogynistic and sexist views. And it doesn't stay isolated, but not matter how much you say popular culture doesn't affect you, it does. Like the excellent "She Didn't Buy It" strips for Page 3, you don't have to buy into something to be affected by it. The people on the bus in Stirling didn't buy into the misogynistic lads culture of the hockey team. But they were on the same bus and had to be subjected to their pathetic chants. You don't have to like the song Blurred Lines, or you can see it as harmless fun, but juxtapose the lyrics against rapist's actual words, and maybe you'll think a little differently. 

Blurred Lines, and whatever this Flo Rida song is called, are just two in what seems like a bazillion gillion songs in mainstream music that makes objectifying women, telling women what they want, dominating women, etc etc, totally normal. Totally normal. 

But I am more than a piece of ass, or a great rack. But this is just so freaking normal now. The hostel I'm staying in, at the nightclub attached, had a pole dancing competition last night. Ladies only, of course. On Ladies Night, after the topless champagne waiters had packed away. And at the end, all the women lined up for 60 seconds more dancing and the MC kept saying stuff like "get naked, get dirty, get your lesbian on". 

And I'm not going judge the girls on the stage for what they did, as long as they didn't feel pressured into it and they enjoyed themselves, but what the MC was saying was pressure, and it was just typical misogyny - women, get your bits out for our enjoyment. And I felt guilty that I was watching it all. A passive bystander. But what could I have done, jumped on stage and tried to pull the plug? Am I going to stand by when there is jelly wrestling, wet t-shirt contests, and Gladiator fights where the female contestants are nicknamed "Love Black Cock"?

I'm not going to watch, or participate. But that doesn't mean I won't be affected.

And my room mate just came back from a bar where one guy harassed her, trying to get her to have a drink (she's not drinking tonight as she's diving tomorrow) and when she refused him politely he grabbed her arm. 

I am raging. And it's exhausting. Which is why this rant is probably incoherent and rambling. 

A Quick Note On How Someone You Don't Know Could Just Cheer You Up Completely

*Trigger warning* rape threats in the linked articles

 ----

Looking at the comments on the article about The Co-op threatening lads mags with removal if they don't cover up their front pages was disheartening to say the least.

There was the usual feminist bashing, and outcry over censorship. And the strange "why not cover up the men on Men's Health magazines as well??" and "Women are always half naked in bikinis in women's fashion mags" comments.

I was despairing of the general population. You're missing the POINT, PEOPLE.

The point is that lads mags OBJECTIFY women.
Men's Health does not OBJECTIFY men. In fact, it portrays them in an idealistic light, creating possibly impossible goals for men to try to live up to.
Women's magazines do not OBJECTIFY women in the same way as lads mags do either. Again, they are creating an idealistic portrayal of the female form, one that it knows it's readership does not conform to because only a small proportion of women actually look like that and those that do are already models, duh, and despite this the magazine can direct it's readership to the newest diet on page 85 and the exercise moves that the celebs know how to use on page 102.

Lads mags portray women as objects to be looked at. So does Page 3. Looking at women as objects makes men less likely to see women as people, as equals.


All this after the weekend of abuse I'd seen thrown at feminists on Twitter, such as Caroline Criado-Perez, and also the MP Stella Creasy. An MP?! Thank you moronic misogynists, because you made your behaviour front page news and now even more people are aware of the hate you spew.

I was despairing, and then I saw this:

If you think your prejudice and your anger is working here, or frightening us, or forcing us into retreat, then please be assured that it works only to deepen our resolve and strengthen our voices. Every threat we get makes us stronger, and brings us - as a feminist community - closer together. It also strengthens our cause tremendously as you help us demonstrate the misogynistic attitudes still in play. You are the reason that the public sees our work as increasingly important.

And I felt my resolve, my strength, flood back. 

No More Page 3 and Lose the Lads Mags are not about censorship. They are about respect and equality. They are about education and changing attitudes. They are about protecting children, and protecting men and women from ridiculously outdated views. 

I stand with Criado-Perez, and with Creasy, and with Laura Bates of EverydaySexism and Lucy Holmes of No More Page 3.

And any sane person interested in equality should stand with them too.

Overwhelming & Heartbreaking

Once, when I was younger, we went on a family holiday to France where there were chickens and a VHS player.

(I think it was VHS, I believe it was still too early for DVD)

One night, we watched Mississippi Burning. I don't think it was the first time I'd seen it, I think I might have watched it in History.

But this night, I didn't sleep for hours.  Long after my mum had sent me to bed, I just cried and wrote in my diary about the state of the world and how much there was wrong with it and the people in it, and how will it ever be right?

That was also the first time I heard my sister talk in her sleep. She said the word hotel. Everything else was unintelligible.

The realisation that the cruelty of the world wasn't just limited to pets dying and being made to eat food I didn't like was overwhelming, and heartbreaking. When I dwell on that knowledge, that no matter what I do in life, there will still be so much hatred, so much injustice, it makes me so miserable and genuinely question what the god damn point of life is.

I want to do more with my life, to make a change for women, men, children, animals, Earth.

It troubled me: how could this kind of thing be allowed to happen? How can people just let it go on?

But there are many people that don't want it to go on. They don't like the status quo, because the status quo is shitty and racist or sexist or homophobic or discriminatory to those with a disability. The status quo means persecution by the military or religious fanatics or someone's own family. So they campaign, raising awareness and/or money. They protest and demonstrate. They petition for parliamentary bills, and some are able to get those bills through.

There's so many things to be changed, it's hard to think the people and time needed can be found.

I'm more of a donator, not a doer. I will spend in the charity shops and throw money in a tin. I buy the Big Issue as often as I can. I'm not saying this to make myself look good, because in actual fact I am a scaredy-cat. I donate my money because I don't donate my time. I've been on one protest march. I've "slept rough" once. Debating marathons the other day I said I wouldn't do one because I don't want to compete, I have never liked competitive sports. I was forgetting the fundraising aspect, the idea of doing something challenging to benefit those less well off.

I'm keen to look up volunteering projects in Oz, especially whilst I'm searching for TV work. I want it to be in addition to working. At the moment I find it hard enough to fit in living. 

I just don't know how people find the time to fit saving the world in, when it takes so much effort and time just living. How does Lucy Holmes find time to run No More Page 3? How did Laura Bates find the time to set up The Everyday Sexism Project? How much time does it take to monitor and update? And how do they cope with seeing so much sexism everyday? How does it not crush their soul and make them give up hope?!

On Malala Yousafzai's 16th birthday - a day many weren't sure she was going to live to see when she was shot - she delivered a speech to the UN. I can't imagine doing that at 16, I was so busy wishing I was popular and hating my body. She shows an incredible maturity. My cynical father said it sounded like her speech had been politicised - i.e a speechwriter had given her some help. And I said, why does that matter? She has a voice, she has a purpose, why does it matter if someone has helped her shape her words in a way we are accustomed to hearing from important speakers. Good for her if she's on her way to being a speaker that all the politicians and world leaders can listen to. Because we need them to listen. We need everyone to listen.

And we need more people to speak up. To create campaigns like No More Page 3. To highlight misogyny (and misandry) with The Everyday Sexism Project. To work on activism through UK Feminista.

My life would be unimaginable without feminism. But a world with equal women's rights is almost as unimaginable when you consider just how far away we are.

It irks me that I spend so much time worrying about my body and not worrying about women's reproductive rights. I actually covered this briefly in a blog back in September 2012:

"I have gotten to a point where spending time worrying about my skin or my thighs etc is pointless. It's futile. Why am I sitting here worrying about my weight, when I am probably 4 times heavier than an African child who has only eaten once this week and has no fresh water?
Why am I fussed whether my thighs are too thick for skinny jeans when there are people being trafficked?"

And my sister posted on my wall the other day part of a Vagenda article that helped reaffirm this disquiet I've been feeling:

'So here’s my resolution. I will be bigger and louder in 2013 than ever before. I will be braver. I will seize the day. I will make a difference to the shape of the world, not the size of my pants. I will focus my energies on helping to make things better for people, not eating less pastry. I will protest when people say society is fine the way it is, not when they say I’m fine the way I am. Because I am, and it’s not.'

Whether it's girls education, or female genital mutilation, or body image and sexist newspapers, there are so many things to overcome. If you stop too long to think about it, it could be overwhelming and heartbreaking. But use that, because that means something is wrong, and it is in your power to help change it.

There are so many of us in the world, but it only takes one person to make a difference. And no matter how small that difference may seem, it is a difference nonetheless.