But until the fictional crosses over into the real we still have to work out who is winning, or worse, who has the more justified presence and how do we do that? Examine adverts and how they have, or haven't, changed? Look how they have evolved from expecting women to be hard-working housewives thinking only of cleaning products and tonight's tea to expecting women to have to do all the cleaning, grudgingly (so! Modern!) because men are silly.
For a quick pick-me-up you might like to be referred to the EU's drive to get more women and girls involved in science. Now, what do all girls like? SIGH. A group of scientific minded people were so irked by the Science: it's a girl thing video they created Science Grrrl, creating more visibility for women actually working in science.
Perhaps we need to look closer to home. It seems a lot of people believe a quick feel in their pants – and maybe some other women's pants holds the answer to how feminism is doing out there. Today in the Independent writer Louise Saunders wondered, Carrie Bradshaw style (Thundercats, SatC, no recent references here today, no sir), why a generation is “choosing to go bare down there”. | One wave says no waves down there equals succumbing to porn-inspired demands of the patriarchy |
This was in response to The Vagina Monologues, it is compulsory to cite Ensler's collection of monologues when discussing pubic grooming, but The British Medical Journal's recently published research on 'micro trauma' caused by repeated waxing and shaving. The research found that risk of bacterial skin infection increases with shaving of waxing. However on the flip-side Australian researchers think that this change in grooming fashion is endangering pubic lice.
So, hairy swings and slick roundabouts I suppose, that make you think it is not the practice we should worry our feminist heads about but any notion of expectation or obligation.
Look, I know feminism is very much about what is between our legs but can we please refine this to what people are unfairly stopped from doing due to their genitalia than what they do to their hair style wise to their genitalia? Please don't make me use the term 'shave-shame'. If I have to do that, nobody wins.
Squeamish Kate