
![]() When we talk about why we are feminists - or why we are not feminists - we usually throw out buzzwords and terms such as 'equality' or 'birth control' or 'equal pay' or 'bodily autonomy', 'access to education' and 'safety'. But what are we really fighting for - or kicking against? Well according to Tom Junod in the August addition of Esquire magazine feminism's main contribution to women (nay, humanity) is to achieve the unachievable. Sisters, we made 42 attractive: "Conservatives still attack feminism with the absurd notion that it makes its adherents less attractive to men; in truth, it is feminism that has made forty-two-year-old women so desirable." At first glance this might seem unimportant and frivolous, but is it actually quite an important part reaching equality?
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![]() We all need friends. People who give us a shoulder to cry on, laugh at our jokes, sympathise with our problems. What sort of support can you expect from a good friend? Maybe buying you lunch when you're broke; helping you to move house; driving out to pick you up from where you've stranded yourself when your car breaks down. Or how about making headlines nationally by criticising a wide-ranging investigation into sexual abuse in the name of defending your honour? Because if you happen to be a friend of Stephen Fry, actor, gadget fan and self-appointed fact master, then that's the level of support you can expect. ![]() It has been announced that the UK's biggest selling gadget magazine Stuff will no longer feature covers that show a girl in a bikini. This is because often gadgets tend to run a bit hot and if you're in a bikini it increases your risk of laptop thigh burn. Another reason cited by Stuff is that its readership demographic has shifted and is now 40% of their readers are women. The magazine ran sales tests on the April, May and June issues with 20% of the print run featuring 'non-girl' covers in four regions in the UK. These covers proved to be far more popular than the girl covers. But what will Stuff magazine feature on their covers now to draw in the masses? What do men AND women like looking at if not women in bikinis? We have had a think and come up with these suggestions... ![]() To be honest I think we're all kind of bored of the pubes debate. We are passed all the flustered magazine articles asking if you have seen thatSex and the City scene (I've never seen Sex and the City) in which Carrie gets a Brazilian wax. Hollywood starlets have overcome that peculiar phase of teaming breezy short skirts with a pantless state, which was of course the best way to show that they had a Brazilian betwixt their legs - as it were. The debates over whether or not porn is the main influence for receding pubic hair are ebbing away and the questions over hygiene have been answered, it makes little difference. We don't live in some kind of nether region utopia in which your pubic grooming regime is deemed 'your business' but I'd venture to say we've relaxed a little bit over whether or not a landing strip is the exception or the rule. So it's surprising to learn that an art work by Leena McCall has been removed from the Mall Gallery in London having been deemed: "too pornographic and disgusting". ![]() The results are in, resident mature student Sue is disappointed with her exam marks but there's always the risk of an oozing hip to distract her, shin gouging or a big clear out on the down low... My mum's hernia surgery was scheduled for 1st July but was cancelled at the eleventh hour because of the discovery of a potential liver problem she has. Naturally we are all glad of the intervention but wish we could have been alerted sooner than 12 hrs before surgery was due to take place. My sister had flown over from Spain, and I had endured a 5 hour sit in on the M25 only to be diverted off onto the M11, the A406 which is the lovely lovely North Circular Road, and then onto the A13. Rather selfishly my first concern was not for the poor souls involved in the awful pile up, but for my weak bladder and the thought of having to pop a squat on the hard shoulder. ![]() Music fans, art lovers and injured animal carers were recently horrified to learn they had been listening to and watching a sexual predator. The disgraced TV presenter and entertainer Rolf Harris has been sentenced to five years, nine months in prison for 12 indecent assaults against four girls - one aged between seven or eight. Since judgement has been passed on Harris, Vanessa Feltz has announced that she was assaulted by Harris live on air, only to receive a barrage of abuse online. As Vanessa said when commenting on the hostile reaction she has received: "You think if people react like that, you can see why people don't come forward...I'm 52 and I can handle myself so imagine if I was a seven-year-old child, or 12 or 17...I'm not saying just if it's someone famous, but imagine if it was your dad, uncle or teacher...The kind of reaction I have had, I found so upsetting. I was upset by the outpouring of misogyny and hatred". ![]() Did you see the disgusted articles recoiling at the boys caught on camera who all allowed a girl to perform a sex act on them, one after the other? Did you read about the venue and party organisation Carnage Magaluf that encouraged boys to line up and allow a girl to perform sex acts on them? Those dirty, dirty boys. No, of course you didn't. It wasn't presented like that. The boys and the venue who took part in the incident (that I don't think is by any means isolated - I've seenSun, Sea and Suspicious Parents) hardly featured in the reports. Instead the focus is on the girl. Which is nice, usually any female in a news story featuring men doesn't get precedence but in this one she does! Why? Because she performed a sex act - as part of a game to win a prize in Magaluf. ![]() What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice. Obviously. That's why they dissolve in water and never ever cause any trouble. Or maybe they're made of flailing, uncoordinated limbs and muscles barely strong enough to hold them together. That seems to be the strange idea we're embodying when we say that somebody "throws [or runs/hits/kicks] 'like a girl'". Always have picked up on this in their new ad, which went viral at the beginning of the week. Adults and boys who are asked to do things 'like a girl' embody the stereotype, but the girls themselves haven't got the message - they go all-out, as hard as they can. We can't quite silence any cynicism - after all what Always really want is for you to buy their sanitary products [don't. Just get a mooncup. And stop calling them sanitary products, there's nothing unsanitary about periods]. But there's no denying it's a good film, and it got us musing on what it means to do something like a girl... ![]() Remember various primary school reading matter that was aimed at embracing difference? I recall a book called But Martin! in which a green alien comes to school for the day. No questions asked. He just enrolled and hung out. The children didn't discuss how they didn't 'see colour' even though they were somehow aware their new class mate was green. Nor did they gang up on Martin or fear him because he was different. Instead in the book I believe Martin is really good at maths and helps them out and then the book notes the children, Lee, Lloyd, Billy and Angela's various different physical features and the activities they like to take part in and are good at. They all enjoy each others company and learn from each other. Low level celebration of differences. No biggie. Meanwhile in the adult world... ![]() To be a woman in this day and age it seems is to be constantly poked and prodded. Or torequest to be poked and prodded and denied. Even though few women look forward to their smear test, so you'd think a request for a smear would either be welcomed (welcome to the prodding and poking era of your life!) or raise suspicion that something must seem very wrong. Either way, when it comes to the vulva invasive prodding and poking is apparently regularly required. However the Annals of Internal Medicine (you shh, this is SCIENCE) has reported that in gynaecologists in America, where those with a vulva are informed they should have an annual pelvic examination, are perhaps getting a little too rigorous and that an annual check up is not necessary. |
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