This clip from CNN news is absolutely baffling. It reports on a 16 year old boy and a 17 year old boy being found guilty of raping and unleashing naked photographs of a 16 year old girl. Not once in this video of the victim mentioned, as the report centers around the tragedy that such an event has brought to the two boys lives, due to them both being promising football players. One reporter actually states that being labeled 'registered sex offenders' "will haunt them for the rest of their lives."

Toilet Troubles...

Recently, I've been discussing with a friend the problems in trying to create gender neutralisation and one of the issues that we started thinking about is that of public restrooms. This is one of the public spaces that is unarguably still segregated (with minor exceptions) and to many people the separation of these places is necessary but obviously for Transgender or gender confused individuals this is not the case.

This link has collaborated a list of photographs of toilet signs and is really interesting for several reasons.
The first being that it brings to light the manner in which male and female forms are portrayed in the public, in ways that we are supposed to conclusively recognise as one gender or the other. Many of these toilet signs use highly simplified figures to assist us towards the 'correct' room.

Signs such as these identify the male figure as the universal and the female as the variation.

There are signs that simplify gender differences due to women possessing breasts and men not:

There are obscure gender identity signs using animals or insects to portray gender, the female is a butterfly because she is pretty. The male is a bug, because he is not:

Then there are signs that simply identify sex:

The issue of uni-sex toilets (which first entered public consciousness within American 1990 sitcom Ally McBeal) has been a hot topic of late, as many places have been testing the waters.
Council employees in Rochdale complained about the uni-sex toilets in their brand new 50 million pound offices, causing them to have to be changed back to segregated washrooms.

Gendered positioning within promotional posters.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/24/gendered-positioning-in-promotional-posters/

This link is really interesting because it highlights the different positioning of men and women in cast line up promotional posters. The body language of the male characters is straight on, confident and self assured, looking the viewer directly in the eye. Whereas the women featured are sideways, often drawing the attention with their head positioning or eye line back to the main male.

What's wrong with you girls? You're supposed to start crying when we hit you...

'The Powerpuff Girls' is an American animated TV series that ran between 1998 and 2005. It features three young girls, Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles, who are superheroes running around fighting crime. This might seem like an excellent show for young children regarding their understanding of gender roles, but actually it's pretty shocking. The attitude laced through the show is that the girls being strong and powerful is completely abnormal.
One character, Ms Sara Bellum, the mayors secretary, is never shown with a face and is merely a body, specifically legs, waist and chest.

This is interesting particularly considering she is named after the Cerebrum and we led to assume she is 'the brains of the mayoral operation' yet she is entirely dehumanised and objectified by only ever appearing as a body.
One particular episode entitled 'The Rowdruff Boys' shows three super hero boys being created by villain Mojo Jojo, in order to defeat the girls.
During the show we are told that the girls are created with "sugar and spice and everything nice" to which Mojo Jojo says "that's too girlish. I need something tougher, harder, more manly. What are little boys made of?" it turns out "snips and snails and puppy dog tails.
The boys are stronger and more powerful than the girls and they loose the fight. That is until the headless woman steps in to explain;
"you haven't lost, you've just been attacking the problem from the wrong angle. What do little boys fear most in the world? You have what boys fear most, instead of fighting try being nice."
During this speech the shot is of the girls confused faces but when Ms Bellum says the words "you know, nice" the shot swaps to her moving her hands away from her chest as though presenting it to explain her point.

We then understand that she is telling them to kiss the boys and Blossom says "Come on girls, lets go get them" with a wink.

After this piece of clearly excellent advice the girls are depicted with longer eyelashes than before, presumably representing makeup, which they flutter as they approach the boys. 

They each then kiss their male counterparts causing them to explode.

I think that it's very sad that this cartoon, which promises so much due to its heroes and most intelligent characters being all female, seems to fall so hard at the last hurdle because they are forced to use their beauty, instead of intelligence and strength, to be successful. 

Genderism.

Recently, I was discussing my work with my Mum and I was talking about how I feel that our society isn't gender neutral and I feel like the main contributor to that is the fact that women who wish to have a child have to be pregnant for 9 months, taking maternity leave and having their bodies completely taken over. Then I said "I bet in a couple hundred years there will be companies that you provide with your sperm and egg and you pay them to grow your baby for you."
This was the birth of the 'BabyGrow' project.

I realised that I can create such a fantasy company, offering couples the oppertunity to have their baby grown for them in an external pod meaning that the pregnancy process becomes gender-neutralised.
The female partner would be enabled to continue with her everyday life and career just as her male counterpart does without constantly having to worry about what she eats or drinks, as well as obviously not having to endure the physical pains of labour and pregnancy.

The 'BabyGrow' company is not exclusively beneficial to females though, as the mother during traditional pregnancies gets most of the attention and supposedly emotional connection that the father misses out on.
Both future parents are equally able to visit their growing child as frequently as possible to check on its development, talk to it and generally spend quality time.

This is a really interesting video showing two men being given electric stimulation that simulates the pains of labour:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/watch-this-hilarious-video-of-men-experiencing-childbirth/

Funeral Totty...

Today was the funeral of Lady Thatcher, which has sparked much debate all over the country, whether or not the state funeral was appropriate and if protestors should be turned away or given right to free speech.
Regardless, what I found upsetting and bad-form today was the instant twitter attention that Margaret Thatchers granddaughter recieved. 19 year old Amanda Thatcher was dubbed 'top funeral totty.'

The Guardian wrote;
"But drowning out the dissent even more effectively than the lacklustre clapping on the Strand this morning were the sounds of newsroom gentlemen salivating over the image of Thatcher's 19-year-old granddaughter Amanda, close-ups of whom made it on to the Daily Mail's website at breakneck speed."

Clearly, a young woman cannot even attend her Grandmothers funeral without being given so much as one days grace from being subjected to perverted comments objectifying her. This is sad enough as it is but when you consider that this particular woman is the flesh and blood of Margaret Thatcher, our countries first and only female prime minister it is evident that we still hold antiquated views on the physicality of women. No matter how old she is, no matter who she is related to, no matter what she is doing, her attractiveness is important and acceptable to comment on.

"None Of Us Can Move Forward If Half Of Us Are Held Back"...

Chime for Change is a campaign founded by Gucci promoting Education, Health and Justice for women and girls all over the world. It boasts many famous female ambassadors including Blake Lively, Halle Berry and Zoe Saldana as well as the three co-founders Beyonce Knowles-Carter, Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini.

"When I've Got My Helmet On You Can't Tell If I'm Male or Female"...

Last year, 35 years since the last female took part in Formula One, Susie Wolff was named as Williams F1 Team Development Driver.
83 year old, 16 times Grand Prix winner Sir Stirling Moss, has made some comments that have proven to be rather provocative stating;"I don’t know if women have the mental aptitude to race hard wheel to wheel. I just feel, as one would expect in a fight, I don’t think women are equipped to come in and fight with men.”
Her responce was very dignified, saying that Sir Stirling is entitled to his opinion, but ultimately she knows that the only opinion that matters is that of the stopwatch.
I don't believe that, biologically, there is any reason why women cannot drive as well as men, infact 18 year old Le Man hopeful Zoe Wenham believes that women drivers have a smoothness that males do not. "It's really good to be in the helmet and the car. You're all equal at that point – there's no long hair or big blue eyes coming into play," she says. "There's always going to be these comments, 'Oh, you were beaten by that girl,' but there are more women in motor racing than ever. So hopefully someone can prove Sir Stirling wrong."
I hope that in the next couple of years we will see Susie on the grid proving just that.

Light Entertainment in Which the Obvious Bullshit Adds to the Charm..

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2012/10/sinister-campaign-against-page-

The "No More Page Three" campaign is still going strong, recently adding Girl Guides to the ever growing list of supporters.
However, this article offers a differing opinion, suggesting that the nudity on page three is not the issue.

"The most disturbing thing about Page 3 isn’t the fact that there are naked breasts on it; it’s that every pair of naked breasts looks the same, expresses the same opinions, and exists in a context where the owners of naked breasts are casually belittled and dehumanised."

I think that the point, generally, is a good one. We as a society shouldn't become too bogged down with the idea of nudity, we don't want future generations to grow up prudish with the view that the body is something to be ashamed of and sexuality should be condemned. But, on the other hand, there is an appropriate time and place for these things to be portrayed and I don't believe that the UKs top selling 'Family Newspaper' is one of them. The reason that Page Three is offensive to me is that nudity is used, not to highlight the beauty of the human form, or celebrate the differences therein, but in order to portray Women casually as sexual consumable objects in everyday life. It is this casual use of these images, in a place which they should be so foreign that makes Page Three so dangerous.
In a society where on the one hand women are 'Slut Shamed' for showing any signs of sexuality, (How many celebrities have their reputations tarnished after getting caught in sex tape scandals) yet on the other hand reading the morning news we are unwillingly and abruptly subjected to oversexualised imagery, that should be found exclusively within the porn industry.

Is there really any wonder why many young men find it acceptable to cat-call and defame strangers in the street when their attitudes to women have been formed through such a confusing cocktail of images and articles from a supposedly trustworthy 'family' source?

Lego recently joined the cause and abolished their partnership with 'The Sun', hopefully Page Three won't be far behind.