Agency. It seems that women are continually infantalized. It's not just the constant marketing barrage for anti-ageing products, the popularity of Hello Kitty and baby pink with grown women nor the raging desire to talk about how many sleeps it is until Christmas. There's nothing wrong in any of that - provided you really like Hello Kitty, it's nothing to do with me. No, it is the constant demand that women second guess themselves. Oh you came to that conclusion yourself? Maybe have another think about it then. Not even a patronising 'well done you', well nuts to you patriarchy (see what I did there? Nuts! No?). Women who demonstrate agency seem to be required to constantly explain and defend themselves.
Which is why we have zillionaire, uber-successful Oprah explaining why she has no children to The Hollywood Reporter which is called The Hollywood Reporter rather than Womb Watch because it reports on Hollywood, not fecundity. It is why Tom Newton Dunn, The Sun's political editor thought it so smart to tweet a remark about Labour MP Stella Creasy's apparel because evidently the journalist believes it has the power to change the meaning of Creasy's belief regarding Page 3. It is, perhaps, why a jury of 8 women and 4 men concluded that Steven Brawn was not guilty of rape, having filmed himself having sex with a sleeping woman, who only found out what had happened when he uploaded the video in which she can clearly be identified, on to a social networking site.
| Brawn commented that: "This case should never have gone to court if the police had done their job properly....They should have looked at this woman's other mobile phone which would have shown we had been swapping intimate pictures of each other." | Is Creasy not aware there is a uniform, perhaps sack cloth and ashes, that one must wear if one is to credibly criticise Page 3 or lad mags? |
Agency.
Somehow that woman relinquished all agency once she sent a provocative text. Oprah is required to reason over her 'failure' to marry or reproduce, pointing to personal fault rather than whether or not it is our business: "If I had kids, my kids would hate me...They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would've probably been them."
Oprah isn't alone in having to explain childlessness, as Jody Day wrote in the Guardian it is a state that people find hard to comprehend on women and usually they search for a reason why if not a solution: "It's been five years since I accepted that I would never be a mother, after 15 years of hoping, planning, trying, dreaming. When I was on the hopeful path to motherhood, I had an acceptable identity in society - but once I became unequivocally childless I felt like an outcast. Nobody wanted to hear how I felt - they just wanted to share a miracle baby story with me, or to reassure me with, "Well, you can always adopt"."
During a Prime Minister's Questions Stella Creasy asked David Cameron about his lack of support for the No More Page 3 campaign and if it was informed by Tory MP Richard Drax, who recently responded to a constituents query over his views on Page 3 with the comment: "Thank you for your email of today regarding Page 3 girls in the Sun. While I understand that some people are offended at seeing naked breasts, this particular page is something of a national institution, providing the girls with a job and Sun readers with some light and harmless entertainment."
While David Cameron failed to provide much of an answer Tom Newton Dunn went on to Twitter to note, not Cameron's response but Creasy's skirt. Is Creasy not aware there is a uniform, perhaps sack cloth and ashes, that one must wear if one is to credibly criticise Page 3 or lad mags?
The end result is a clear impression held by both men and women that women don't know what they are talking about. Creasy's message is of course not made inconsistent by a skirt. Any more than a woman sending sexy photos and discussing fantasies gives automatic or constant consent. Any more than Oprah needs to excuse her empty uterus. Any more than women need to explain any personal choice.
Squeamish Kate
Somehow that woman relinquished all agency once she sent a provocative text. Oprah is required to reason over her 'failure' to marry or reproduce, pointing to personal fault rather than whether or not it is our business: "If I had kids, my kids would hate me...They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would've probably been them."
Oprah isn't alone in having to explain childlessness, as Jody Day wrote in the Guardian it is a state that people find hard to comprehend on women and usually they search for a reason why if not a solution: "It's been five years since I accepted that I would never be a mother, after 15 years of hoping, planning, trying, dreaming. When I was on the hopeful path to motherhood, I had an acceptable identity in society - but once I became unequivocally childless I felt like an outcast. Nobody wanted to hear how I felt - they just wanted to share a miracle baby story with me, or to reassure me with, "Well, you can always adopt"."
During a Prime Minister's Questions Stella Creasy asked David Cameron about his lack of support for the No More Page 3 campaign and if it was informed by Tory MP Richard Drax, who recently responded to a constituents query over his views on Page 3 with the comment: "Thank you for your email of today regarding Page 3 girls in the Sun. While I understand that some people are offended at seeing naked breasts, this particular page is something of a national institution, providing the girls with a job and Sun readers with some light and harmless entertainment."
While David Cameron failed to provide much of an answer Tom Newton Dunn went on to Twitter to note, not Cameron's response but Creasy's skirt. Is Creasy not aware there is a uniform, perhaps sack cloth and ashes, that one must wear if one is to credibly criticise Page 3 or lad mags?
The end result is a clear impression held by both men and women that women don't know what they are talking about. Creasy's message is of course not made inconsistent by a skirt. Any more than a woman sending sexy photos and discussing fantasies gives automatic or constant consent. Any more than Oprah needs to excuse her empty uterus. Any more than women need to explain any personal choice.
Squeamish Kate
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