When the campaign was first launched I was all for it. The idea that straight men are entitled to objectify women as part of their morning routine is not a pleasant one. But I've found my views shifting, thanks in large part to frustration with the campaign and its advocates.
If I woke up tomorrow to find that The Sun newspaper had decided to scrap Page 3, would I be upset? No In fact I'd probably be glad to hear it So do I support the No More Page 3 campaign? Well, that's a slightly tricky question. But I think the answer is no.
When the campaign was first launched I was all for it. The idea that straight men are entitled to objectify women as part of their morning routine is not a pleasant one. But I've found my views shifting, thanks in large part to frustration with the campaign and its advocates.
0 Comments
Last Saturday's Weekend Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4 focused on women in music in anticipation of today's 6 Music Peel Lecture which will be given by Charlotte Church on the theme of women. Presented by Kenickie band member turned presenter Lauren Laverne (who manages to frustrate me and crack me up in equal measure) the programme announced its intention to explore why, while six of the biggest selling albums of the past decade were by women but men still out number women in the singles chart. They also continue to hold the fort on all other aspects of the music industry, producing, DJ-ing, PR-ing etc. Several women from the music industry were invited to discuss this on the programme. Dear Reader, It has come to our attention that the open letter is once again a popular medium through which to communicate slightly personal criticisms that are entirely unsolicited. Because everything is now public, instead of the person at the receiving end usually having to petition the paper or publisher of said open letter to allow for a reply they can now turn to their Twitter feed, bringing new meaning to the saying 'a little bird told me'. We wondered if we had an open letter in us just waiting to be published. And it turned out we did, which was fortunate because it's the theme of this week's Friday 5... Annie Lennox is the latest to leap on to the We Need to Pay More Attention to these Pop Stars (I'm on team Ignore Them and They'll Go Away) bandwagon. After Sinead O' Connor wrote her open letter "in the spirit of motherliness and love" to Miley Cyrus warning her of the music industry's penchant for using nubile women's bodies to sell more stuff. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Lennox said: "I'm all for freedom of expression, but this is clearly one step beyond, and it's clearly into the realm of porn." The subject of pop star's skimpy wardrobe seems to be a favourite theme for the singer currently, on her Facebook page Lennox wrote: "I have to say that I'm disturbed and dismayed by the recent spate of overtly sexualised performances and videos. You know the ones I'm talking about. It seems obvious that certain record companies are peddling highly styled pornography with musical accompaniment. As if the tidal wave of sexualised imagery wasn't already bombarding impressionable young girls enough." Do you think the Sun newspaper might have been feeling a little jealous of the Daily Mail recently? After all, the Mail has been extensively written about in the other papers, debated on Question Time, slagged off by Alistair Campbell on Newsnight... It's unlikely that many people are now unaware of the Mail's decision to brand a dead ex-navy officer a Britain-hater with an "evil legacy" Meanwhile, what's the Sun getting? Yes, the No More Page 3 campaign rumbles on, but it's hardly filling the pages or getting the airtime any more. Perhaps that explains yesterday's front page. The Sun decided to kick off the week that includes World Mental Health Day with an article that stigmatises and stereotypes people with mental health problems. Oh, and totally misrepresents the report the article is supposedly based on. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to for work. Whatever your job is, teacher, PR, hitman (hitperson?) you're made to slightly adjust your own personal beliefs and realine them with what's useful for your job. Be it pretend to enjoy inoffensive but dull office banter, up your tea intake, or attend things you're not sure about but you aren't paying so it's not like the time you had the school chore of buying the Daily Mail every day for the school library because your BFF's mum was the school librarian and for some reason a subscription could not be arranged in Brussels where we attended school. Probably something to do with the EU and straight bananas. Also that situation might be a little...specific to me but you get the terms we are working on here. What's in a name? Or a concept, logo or philosophy. And how can you get people to see things the way you want them to? Obviously, you need to ask the advertising industry. Which is exactly what Elle Magazine has done. Having noticed that not everyone likes 'feminism' they have launched a competition to rebrand it matching up ' prominent feminists' with ad agencies. Interestingly they don't seem to be taking any of the criticisms we hear most often about feminism into consideration - it seems unlikely any of the new concepts will take us away from a white, middle class feminism that often fails to address or even excludes trans women, sex workers, women of colour and those with disabilities. Or maybe we're just hopelessly cynical. Maybe we should embrace the power of advertising and rebranding. So here are 5 things the squeamish team would like to rebrand... We (that's not the royal we, that is Squeamish Nicola and I) just got back from the Science Museum, a place that always puts us in a good mood (also of course we did not just get back, I am using the writerly present tense). The only place in South Kensington that puts me in a gooder mood is The Natural History Museum and that is because of the dinosaurs. Take note flagging museums, add a dinosaur exhibit and you will be beating the tourists off with a novelty giant rubber shaped like a dino-bone. We were invited to the What I See Project launch where a film was screened and a panel of What I See Project ambassadors then answered questions. |
Archives
February 2015
Categories
All
|