Goodbye for now...

So June draws to a close and we have had a great response to the campaign - thanks to all who have joined in!

Please watch this space for more news of what happens next!

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Sexism through the back door (A guest blog courtesy of Paula Donovan - thankyou Paula!)

 

We have tried to teach our children tolerance and respect for themselves and others. We have looked to schools and our community to reinforce this but as they get older I realise how much they really need positive female role models and good messages about women. When I read Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman I thought it should be compulsory GCSE reading. A spot-on, saying it as it is, reason why anyway you want it feminism needs to be talked about, loud and proud, because sexism is still with us and it’s very much alive and kicking. When you don’t actively challenge negative language or images, respect melts away. There are the overt images of sexism we are all aware of, jumping off the shelves and screens into our everyday lives, but when it’s underlying it’s more dangerous; it’s sexism getting away with it and people will get away only with as much as you allow them to.

We have to be strident about the messages we give girls because insidious and pervasive sexism hasn’t gone away, it’s just become better at sneaking in to undermine. Sexism in grandma’s clothing and a charming smile with ‘it’s just a bit of fun’ ‘can’t you take a joke, ‘you’re so sensitive’, to silence us when we object. We’ve forgotten why rights were fought for in the first place and started to laugh along in case we are accused of being a killjoy feminist.

Last summer I heard a snippet of objection seep through the radio, a strident voice making it clear she was having none of it. The President of the Girls Schools Association Dr Helen Wright daring to voice the unsexy, the observation that sexism is now so pervasive the time has come when we have to make a stand, when we all have to say: Enough is enough.  

When I listened to Dr Wright it struck me how rare it is these days to hear sexism being openly questioned or discussed; a lack of dissenting voices, not in academic circles or women’s groups perhaps, but in mainstream media, as though we’ve all grown up now, it’s not the 80’s, it doesn’t need to be talked about anymore. Like sexism no longer matters.

                                      

I read Dr Wright’s piece about Kim Kardashian’s magazine cover ‘as summing up everything that’s wrong with western society’ making the point that we’ve become complacent with what we let the media tell us to value. Then I read a criticism of Dr Wright for doing this, deflecting from her point by querying why Independent School Heads were given press coverage for their opinions rather than mainstream educationists. Referring to the press fascination with Dr Wright when she returned to work hours after having a baby. A strange criticism, managing to ignore the serious point being made and simultaneously back-stabbing a woman for being able to make the most of great work childcare whilst sneering at her for making her voice heard.

The reason Dr Wright has been able to arrange work to suit her needs (taking her children to school and breast feeding while teaching) was because she has made opportunities for herself. It’s hard work that brought her this choice, not how pleasing her backside looks. The reason she got press coverage was because she was prepared to stand up and say she’s not having it. It took a year to hear another objection, the recent ‘Chime for Change’ concert with Madonna advocating girls’ rights to education and introducing Malala Yousufzai, the teenager shot by the Taliban for standing up for those rights, with a rousing ‘I do not accept this and neither should you’. Damn right I don’t.

But getting an education will be meaningless if the society our daughters grow into then blocks their potential to be who they want to be and work how they need to work. The overt messages I want for my daughters are: define society to suit you, don’t let others do it for you, keep control of your choices, shape the world to your needs too and don’t leave it to someone else because what rights you have will be quietly taken away from you to suit the needs of others.

I write this because I can see that young girls, as able as my son (who isn’t bombarded with messages about appearance, free to get on with working hard, likely to have lots of life opportunities) are being pulled in different directions by messages set to trip them at the first hurdle, if education isn’t taken seriously. Regardless of limited job availability generally, education and training is still the jigsaw piece that helps mould opportunities. While girls remain under such pressure to dumb down and fit in with social groups that define themselves through appearance it is harder for them to reach their potential given the invisible barriers that boys don’t have to deal with.  

It's not just the sustained bombardment that image is more important than education and hard work. We now have to deal with current legislation pushing women back into the home. The shrinking public sector is a major employer of women and the corresponding loss of services means women are increasingly being expected to take on the care roles state provision can’t or won’t (depending on your politics) provide, as policy makers now target those least able to defend their corner for looking after their children, parents and the sick. Encouraging our daughters to have aspirations when life chances are being hit from all directions is something we have to vigilant about. Winning rights wasn’t easy and keeping them is even harder but if we don’t make a noise about it then we’re stuck with girls’ expectations being set for them by the media and women’s choices being restricted by legislation. In America they’re talking about a ‘War on Women’ while here we seem to have forgotten to keep an eye open.

Now here’s the curious thing; here’s how sexism put on grandma’s coat and glasses. You can’t discriminate against women in general but apparently you can if they are mothers. Most women, irrespective of their careers, will at some point take on motherhood and it is at this point, when they are vulnerable, that their rights are at most risk of being undermined. In the UK, women remain the primary carer and yet motherhood is now so undervalued (March - Cameron’s cack-handed tax reform plans for working families widely seen as a ‘slur’ on stay at home mothers) that if we’re not careful, by the time our daughters grow up all value associated with it will have been stripped away entirely. Apparently only those who contribute directly to the GDP want to ‘work hard and get on.’  

When a mother with a dyspraxic child was informed by the expert sitting next to her on breakfast TV that it was probably caused by her not picking up the child enough when he was a baby, and this statement was left unchallenged by the other experts who knew perfectly well dyspraxia is not caused by a lack of attachment, it reflects a deep lack of respect for women that plays out daily. It doesn't get noticed because we assume laws preventing discrimination will keep us safe and we overlook the bad-mouthing and blaming that is now quietly being directed at mothers, too immersed in the task of child rearing to challenge. The huge increase in child protection concerns following Baby P has also seen focus on a new issue: emotional neglect and an alarming preoccupation with the mental health of mothers, but rarely fathers.

Women are being psychologically undermined by a rising blame culture that has found a loophole in the discrimination laws. Take those who peddle in stereotypes, who aim to tap into the murky depths of misogynist fears about women, suggesting that mothers turn children against fathers when in fact domestic abuse against mothers and children is cited as the major reason the small number of separated couples can’t agree to contact arrangements after separation. The Children & Families Bill is currently working its way though parliament and I watch as some MPs fall foul of bullying lobbying pressure, or perhaps just indulge their own anti-women prejudices, while we’re left wondering who’s making policy here, government or men in batman suits?  

Whilst the media is selling celeb culture over substance, and some politicians morph into the mouthpiece of who ever is badgering them loudest, if we aren't vigilant then aspirations that provide real opportunities for independence and laws that protect will be eroded inch by inch to someone else's agenda. When right wing Think Tanks preaching traditional family values publish reports that stigmatise single parents; when mothers start being tagged or put in prison for refusing to send children to abusive ex-partners because it wasn’t in the children’s best interest and we wonder how it happened then the wolf will have got away with it because we weren’t paying enough attention and it’ll be too late to complain later.  

The over sexualisation of young girls is marching on because the objectification of women has been tolerated. Rights were fought for to prevent discrimination, but instead women’s choices and opportunities are still being eroded if we allow them to be taken out of our hands. If we want our daughters to have equal life chances and for our girls to be respected as women then we have to recognise sexism for what it is and bolster the position of girls and women - particularly mothers – if we want to keep control of our choices.

I’ll do my best to support my daughters to build a strong sense of self. My youngest, trying to use words bigger than she is, told her father she was feeling discombobulated, to cheer her she requested a blow torch for her birthday and by the way when she grows up she’s going to be a feminist. Apart from being slightly frightened of her, I’m proud we’ve given her the message that she can be whatever she wants to be. ‘The world is your oyster’ my mother told us, and I want schools to be saying this loud and proudly because we’ve become complacent.

I recently had a photo taken at No 10 with me stridently knocking the door. My children found it entertaining but they got the punch line: if you want something to change you have to bang doors with an attitude of ‘either I’ll find a way or make one’.

I want choices for girls everywhere and my daughters’ future to be one they control and there is no place for sexism in that.  

Positive Regard

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Sunshine, bikinis and why we're all in this together!

We'd like to thank everyone who has contributed, shared and commented so far! Over halfway through June already and summer seems to finally have arrived!

As the sun comes out, many newspapers and magazines predictably pull out their annual 'how to look good in a bikini' features or feel obliged to show us how fantastic / dreadful other women are looking in theirs - PLEASE STOP!

Women are more than their faces and bodies. Women are more than what they wear. Women are more than the narrowly defined, limiting feminine stereotypes presented all too often by the media.

For anyone in need of a good dose of positive, healthy role modelling, have a look at this great blog which campaigns to remind women and girls that they are capable of much more than being looked at:

http://www.beautyredefined.net/

Of course, it is not just women affected by harmful and constricting media stereotypes.
Sexism in the media and in our culture affects us all negatively. Prescribing what men or women should do, be or look like means that we cannot be truly free to choose for ourselves. Anyone who speaks out or makes choices which do not fit neatly into these boxes risks being criticised, undermined or worse.

This is our city and we are all in this together.

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Get Involved...

So June is finally upon us and already today we've encountered plenty of examples of sexism!

From 'kitsch' nude ladies on a Brighton café wall to 'Wags' in bikinis in The Sun, the sad truth is that we do live in a culture where 'casual sexism' is rife and widely accepted as the norm.

Let's Spot The Sexism this month and add our voices to the growing number of people saying 'NO'!

Here's how:

• Share your examples of sexism in the media and advertising by commenting on this blog.
• Follow us and share on Twitter @SpotTheSexism or using the hashtag #sexistpress
• Like us on Facebook and get involved in the conversations there.

Happy June, Brighton and Hove! It's going to be fun!

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It's time for this to stop

• Women aren’t worth listening to.
• Women are less able.
• Women are objects.
• Women are less likely to achieve great things.
• Women are to be judged on how they look before anything else.

These messages are put across loud and clear in the media. They’re in the way women are pictured and described. They’re in the predominance of men as commentators and authoritative voices. They’re behind the zapping and the pricking and the smearing of women’s faces to make them “camera-ready”.

The issues behind this are of course complex. For example, many of us women have internalised those messages ourselves, having been exposed to them all our lives.

However, one thing is simple.
These messages are sexist.
They put women down for being just that – women.

It’s time for this to stop.

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