Ban page three from the Sun, it can be done!

Lucy Holmes’s petition to ban page three from the Sun, which has gathered amazing amounts of media coverage, has passed the 100,000 signatures mark. If you really believe that page three does not paint a fair portrait of women’s roles today, or the talents of women, then please sign the petition. It only takes ten seconds and is such a valuable gesture.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NoMorePage3

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoMorePage3

 

70s second-wave feminist magazine Spare Rib to relaunch

Spare Rib, the ‘second-wave’* feminist magazine is re-launching! Hurrah! This coupled with Grimes’s fantastic blog post about her role as a woman in the music industry makes the recent news of John Lydon’s frankly bizarre sexist tirade on Australian television easier to bear.

Editor and Guardian journalist Charlotte Raven promises “‘Fucking Mary’ cocktails at the launch party, served by George Galloway, Rod Liddle and other costumed penitents, while the men are kept pointlessly occupied; sweeping up, ‘keeping fit’ and worrying about their work/life balance. The star-studded afterparty with renowned DJs will finally scotch the myth that feminists can’t dance.” Sounds like my kind of party.

Let’s just hope that Spare Rib’s mainstream sale on the same shelves at Cosmo and Glamour doesn’t come with the caveat that we have to put up with mindless advertising and Photoshopping to stave off the competition. The website should be live on 27 May (www.spare-rib.co.uk), with a print launch in the autumn.

*(Note: ‘second-wave’ feminism – 1960s-1980s issues such as sexuality, reproductive rights / ‘first-wave’ – suffrage, overturning legal obstacles to gender equality e.g. voting rights).

Think this mannequin is too thin?

 

I had to take a photo of this mannequin in the Stratford Westfield branch of Topshop. Look how alarmingly thin it is! I think it’s sending out a really confusing message to young girls (one accidentally in the background of the photo) about how they should look. I tweeted this to Beat, the eating disorder support charity (@BeatED) and Topshop, I hope it gets a response!

Women: feeling pressure from all sides?

Susan Patton, a Princeton University 1973 alumna, recently wrote a letter to the Daily Princetonian newspaper, addressed to young females on campus looking for a new student beau. She urged young women to ‘find a husband before you graduate’ because they will a) be your intellectual counterpart (you may never find such a large group of similarly educated men on your doorstep) and b) will provide you with the financial security you need.

I’m really pleased that the Guardian has provided women with some breathing space and asked, in response to this and Joanna Moorhead’s comment piece, ‘Young women: are you burnt out over the discussion about your future?‘.

I feel exhausted thinking about my role in a relationship in my twenties and how this fares on my stumble up to 30-hood, never mind the tropes of financial security and having children. There seems to be pressure from all sides, from your parents, media, even your biological clock a-tick-tocking. I can’t count how many times my female friends have told me they’re worried about being 25, 26, 27, 28 ‘without a boyfriend’ and terrified about becoming 30. Wouldn’t it be nicer to just get on with things at your own pace, and not have to be comparing yourself to others all the time?!

(I realised on my walk home that this blog post is probably (definitely) self-therapy for me! Living in a city and working a 9 to 5 job, with all its security, also makes you lose a worldly perspective!)

Even in Moorhead’s comment feature, she prescribes more advice. Moorhead does discuss something important though. Patton’s letter did project the main aim of feminism: we have played our mother roles, now we can strive for domestic emancipation, can work alongside men in elite professions and can also be there with emotional support for friends and family members. We can have everything. Now, Princetonian women – get it on campus while it’s hot!

However, the ability to have everything is incredibly confusing for the female psyche. All this advice when there are too many options, I feel, is just overwhelming. Moorhead’s advice was freewheeling and open – ‘plan your life’. But it’s still all too prescriptive and motherly. Never has freedom seemed so restrictive.

Isn’t feminism all about women being able to attain what they want, like a man is more likely to be able to do, without all these outside pressures?

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas’s #sexistpress campaign

On International Women’s Day 2013, Green MP for Brighton Caroline Lucas launched a campaign on Twitter encouraging people to send in their examples of sexism in the press to #sexistpress.

So if you thought that the below images in the Sun and Daily Mail newspapers of Reeva Steenkamp, or Leah Davies, a woman who was recently killed in a motorbike accident, are in extreme bad taste, do look for other examples and hashtag #sexist press to @CarolineLucas on Twitter.

You can find out more about Caroline’s campaign on her website.

Why the NME Awards are so ridiculous

I know that the NME Awards are targeted at a pre-adolescent age range with a specific interest in UK-centric indie-rock, and the winners are going to cater to what this audience needs. But as these Awards are one of very few national and highly-publicised ceremonies in indie rock that exist (what else is there, apart from the Brit Awards or the Kerrang Awards?), I think they should be trying a bit harder to diversify their range of winners.

The near-yearly changes to winners’ categories and the lack of female rock icons congratulated for their achievements really disturbs me. For example, in 14 years of NME Awards there’s only been one female ‘Godlike Genius’ (Pennie Smith, not a musician) EVER, one ‘Rock and roll woman of the year’ (Brody Dalle) EVER and one female ‘Outstanding contribution to music’ award winner (PJ Harvey) EVER. Considering the amount of amazing female rock/pop musicians that are and have been, that’s pretty weird.

Also, 50% of all female winners EVER have won ‘hottest woman’, ‘sexiest woman’, ‘best dressed’, ‘worst dressed’, ‘worst album’ awards – alongside male winners of ‘best band’ and ‘best single’. This is particularly disturbing for many reasons, including a) this is sending out a very negative message to young boys who might only see a woman in rock/pop as sexy or best dressed, and b) if you look at how much the categories change year-on-year (http://bit.ly/15elc5f), it seems really pointless holding an Awards ceremony based on random picking and choosing of categories based on what’s fashionable at the time (for e.g. Pete Doherty won ‘hero of the year’ in 2008 (eep!).

I know there are fewer women operating in the rock world, but would be great to see some more icons celebrated, which still fit the NME audience – such as Kim and Kelly Deal, the coolest sisters ever who made huge contributions to the face of alternative American pop-rock in the 90s and are still going, Kim Gordon, an amazing lyricist and guitarist with seminal indie band Sonic Youth, Kathleen Hanna, original riot grrrl with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins or Bilinda Butcher in My Bloody Valentine?

‘My body is not public property’

 

I love this image that I found on mackenziebaird’s Pinterest - it’s worth visiting her page to see a wonderful archive of feminist imagery.