So the actress Romali Garai (I’m not sure who she is but
nevertheless) is heading up the campaign to take the “Lads Mags” Zoo and Nuts
off of the shelf in Tesco. Her success will probably mean the end of these two
magazines costing people their jobs and livelihood but fair enough I say. I
don’t read them anyway. According to a few experts out there these magazines
are misogynistic and sexist forms of media. No arguments from me.
Recent research by Dr Nancy Lombard,
for Glasgow Caledonian University, shows that "stereotypical gender roles
are evidently pertinent in young people's understandings of men's violence
against women".
The chief executive of the charity Women's Aid agreed:
"The abuse of women doesn't happen in a vacuum. The constant diet of
images of women as available for men's pleasure in magazines like these creates
a context in which violence against women and girls is more likely to
flourish." Where do I sign? I am completely sold on this plan to remove
them from Tesco.
Garai described media’s inherent sexism, a culture she
believes exacerbates inequality in the way men and women are treated that in
relation to her post pregnancy: "It makes me sad because I struggled to
lose my post-pregnancy weight and I felt under a great deal of pressure to do
so. And the unhappiness I feel about my own body is something I know is not
exclusive to me; it involves almost all the women I know, and it makes me very
sad that women are constantly made to feel that they have to be ashamed or that
there is something wrong with them, that they are inherently broken in some
way. I think we don't really do anything in our society to counteract that
movement at the moment."
I agree, it makes me sad too Gerai (Not the having to lose
baby weight part. I have never had to do that. More in regard to the pressure
she felt of having to do it). I also was a little sad when my female friend
told me I looked a “little cuddlier” then when she last saw me but I am a
bloke, such comments don’t affect us. Or do they?
Yet hang on a minute. This all reminded me of exactly what I
and the guys were reading down the pub a few Sundays ago as we watched the
football with beer like real men. We were flicking through the Daily Mail’s
Femail today with an article about how some female celebrity looked “frumpy”,
even though at the most she must have been a size 6 (UK). The same Femail today
that applauded another celeb for losing her baby weight too with a before and
after shot; when we all thought she looked better as a real mother than a
plastic Barbie doll.
It was similar when I was having coffee with the girls. A
few of them brought along some gossip mags; you know the likes of Heat, Reveal,
Now, Hello and Okay. On this particular day Tess Daley was getting a right
dressing down for something she wore on TV. It was coming to the end of the
summer so they were giving the thumbs up to all of those finely toned celebs on
the beaches wearing bikinis with less clothes than the girls posing in FHM.
Then there were those put in the category of “better try harder next year” or
something like that.
Let’s be honest, all of these magazines and newspapers are
never afraid to highlight a celeb for looking normal. Just remember how they
treated Britney Spears and today they made sure that Kelly Brooke, in her
slacks, was posted for us all to see. This would all be fine if it was not for
the bitchily toned comment that headed the picture. I didn’t even click on it.
As a guy I really did not care but I bet a lot more females out there had a
little look.
This all made me think; what are you young girls more afraid
of? A guy thinking that you do not quite cut the fake, plastic, photo shopped
celeb standard or the bitchy response from your female peers? A lot of the
ladies I know don’t give a damn about what their boyfriend or husband says a
lot of the time; yet tend to get upset if their mother, sister or girl friends say
anything. (Forgive the sweeping generalisation. I am sure a lot of you guys
have had an ear full for saying the wrong thing. I know I have)
There was another article I saw today about how you ladies
are too self-conscious to feel comfortable to not wear make-up around a guy you
are dating for a ridiculously long time. I found this ironic because the last
girl I dated I ended it because all I wanted to do was mess up her hair and
start a food fight with her in the ridiculously posh restaurants she insisted
on eating at. Yet I felt like she would have gone mental if I did that. I felt
as if she was too prim and proper for me.
Don’t get me wrong it was not the only reason. We weren’t
suited. She was never going to be the Wendy to my Peter Pan complex. When it
started raining I would have been delighted if she ran outside and danced
in a puddle yet instead she complained about having no umbrella and that the
rain would ruin her hair; but don’t worry I had 2 t-shirts on and so one was
used to keep her dry.
But it makes me think; who set these standards? Who made
girls think that they have to look as perfect as you do when you walk down the
red carpet at some film premiere on a 7th or 8th date? It
certainly was not me. Was it the male race that I am a part of? Maybe and if so
I think I missed that boat a long time ago, stranded on an island in the ocean
somewhere wondering why no one can hear my screams.
So ban Zoo and Nuts because as Garai says "Zoo
and Nuts are not just pornographic magazines. They
also have a culture that makes it permissible to hate women. They are sort of
fanzines for misogyny. They grew out of a reactionary culture that was growing
out of women being much more public and in the workplace and more empowered in
day-to-day life.”
But why stop there? Keep going Garai. Go after those
magazines that target females to buy them and display some misguided view of
what a women looks like in the celebrity world with personal trainers, stylists
and photoshop because as you say “media in this country is inherently sexist.”
Garai says "I'm a feminist, and saying I am feminist
has only ever helped me and helped my life. And I would encourage anybody to
say they are a feminist because I don't think it should exclude people. All it
ever says is that we want everyone to be treated the same. How can you not sign
up to that?"
Too true Garai, too true, which is why the Guardian felt the
need to put this article in the category titled “Women” secluding the other 49%
of the population known as Men. It kind of proves the point of inherent sexism as
well as failing to treat the interests of their readers as the same. But hey
ho.
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