Hard News: For Young and Old ...
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It is rather curious that feminism still largely blames men for everything, and yet womens magazines (surely an Orwellian plot to confuse, intellectually retard and give eating dissorders, the women of the west) are all edited by dumdum__dah!!!__ the fairer sex!
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What a patronising assertion : that feminism blames men for everything.
Not the feminism I know.
Women are quite capable of making bad decisions that hurt other women, and the feminists I know would be calling them on it - and in the case of destructive magazines and the sexualisation of young girls, they certainly have been.
It's been a very loud and long debate. I'm astonished you missed it. How about lending a hand?
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feminism still largely blames men for everything
I thought, and I could be corrected, that actual feminism, unlike your straw-feminism, blames a thing called "patriarchy", and it's perfectly possible, not to mention depressingly common, for women to be agents of the patriarchy almost as much as men are.
I'm sure that if I had a huge business exploiting class of person X, I could find a few members of class X willing to front for the business in return for money and privileges. (And then I'd hold those front X-es up as examples of how free from exploitation class X was).
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Someone hasn't been paying attention in Feminism 101. Feminists blame the patriarchy, not men themselves. The patriarchy as I understand it is a system that tends to hand power to men but isn't fussy about who it uses to do it. Women are rewarded in a patriarchal society for supporting patriarchal values, and plenty sign up to it - there's money to be made to look like a decoration and not rock the boat too much. There's power to be gained in sidling up to those in charge. It's harder to change the rules than use them to your advantage.
Conversely, men can be anti-patriarchal - see Idiot/Savant's piece on Choice under Threat today, for which I applaud him.
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And I bet you ten to one that many of those editors would consider themselves as coming from a feminist perogative.
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Exactly, Stephen, and if you were really good at it, your front-Xes would start to believe that they were more deserving of those privileges, and criticise the others for not pulling their socks up.
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All right, admittedly I am being deliberately obtuse, but neither can you say that Feminism is a philisophical and ideological consensus
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Good lord, you're linking to an article about opposition to feminism to illustrate that feminism isn't an ideological consensus?
I don't think anyone here would argue that calling yourself a feminist means that you are one. Or that it's a uniform movement, for that matter. Neither of which makes the "women are the authors of their own misfortune" argument any more valid.
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What really shocked me was the level of comment from your panellists.
I hate the way sex education is gendered, so that it always ends up being 'girls are pressured innocent flowers, but boys are little horndogs'. It's insulting to both sides.
True, but what's the alternative? Telling boys that girls are just as horny as they are? I think the reality of the gender issue is that it is typically the boys
and yet womens magazines ... are all edited by dumdumdah!!! the fairer sex!
Yes, but they are controlled by a Board of Directors who are usually all male/misogynists.
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I don't think anyone here would argue that calling yourself a feminist means that you are one. Or that it's a uniform movement, for that matter. Neither of which makes the "women are the authors of their own misfortune" argument any more valid.
That's a super paragraph.
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I could have expanded on that better. It's a term that's not always used honestly. See "I'm not a feminist but I believe in equal rights" and bikini empowerment. And, for that matter, Jo Cotton's immortal shout-out to her foremothers: "thank you, you bunch of hairy legged freaks."
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d'oh!
What really shocked me was the level of comment from your panellists.
I was shocked by Pebbles' comment that the models need to be 14-16 y.o. because by 17-18 your bum gets big and it all over. (Pebbles is 18 herself?)
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I have never never said that "women are the authors of their own misfortune" - I was noting the irony that some women who consider themselves to be acting from a feminist position (ie. the editors of a wide range of womens magazines) are in fact supporting a system that functions in a particularly contrary way.
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Andrew - The feminist angle didn't come through in your original post - you referred simply to the "Fairer Sex", a phrase which in my experience is usually used rather ironically.
I think more evidence of feminist intentions of magazine editors would need to be presented to support the reframed version.
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Andrew - as you've already realised from comments here I am sure-
feminists are *not* against men (but most are against patriarchal
insititutions.) Some of my best feminist friends are men...especially in my own family!Which brings me to menarche (sorry.) I menstruated at 11, one of my sisters was earlier, 2 later; we have Maori ancestry as well Pakeha, and from the odd discussion over the years, as well as reading, Polynesian females do menstruate earlier than some other human groups.
The problem, always, is that of fecundity: an 11yrold is simply *not* able to be a good parent ( and 2 of my sisters birthed babies from 11yrolds - yep, both children were of Polynesian ancestry.) The *huge* pressure to conform to tween/teenage "norms" - aforesaid "norms" invented and pushed by money-seeking adults-can wreck young lives (and not only those of the females, babies - but also of -in some instances- of extremely young fathers-
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There was also the advice on deceiving your parents and putting yourself in a risky position with some guy you hardly (go off the the beach where there's no one around!), and just a general lack of good sense, I thought.
I remember at 13 it being advantageous to keep certain (girl discovering )things from my mum and dad,who were basically hippies/artist types.As liberal as they were it was good for the guy to remain intact. I had heard what dad would do if I was hurt. I know I would have told them if something bad had happened.At the same time I did learn along the way, keep your shit together, be aware .Soo in the long run,my exposure,knowledge and parental openess about sex helped me alot.I think some viewers last night may have been shocked with the explicit content of Girlfriend. I think Pebbles showed by her facial expressions just how blase it all is to the younger generation, and how actually she at a young age knew it was a mag all about consumerism. I thought the best comment from the panel came from her. A fashion mag promoting fashion had a model with no clothes on! I know her parents(quite outside the square) must have done a good job with raising Pebbles and I am glad to say she ain't plastered in the mags on drugs or pregnant or a range of things kids can do today. Although I do suspect that Sarah Henry would jump if she did go topless as she did mention tits were not a big deal to her.So I think Pebbles was a good example of understanding the headspace of younger people and there has been comparable mags from the past, its just that we are old and" you don't want to do it like that" or "Back when I was a lad" are things we used to cringe about that our parents used to say..It 's an everchanging cycle, literally
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OK, poor choice of words on my part, mea culpa.
And I don't think one should ever try to read anything into what a teenager says or how they act as being indicative of what they think. Teenagers habitually lie to keep their secrets or to appear cooler to their friends - paricularly teens from large urban centres who model themselves on Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton (shudder).
Pebbles not plastered on the mags? hello? She's got her own column with her mother in Canvas where she dispenses particularly vapid and bitchy "advice". Categorically Fashion is for people with no style. She's had plenty of mag covers I can assure you. Admittedly, she seems to be a bit more functional than superbrat Millie Holmes.
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<quote.>Pebbles not plastered on the mags? hello? She's got her own column with her mother in Canvas where she dispenses particularly vapid and bitchy "advice".</quote> So I see you read it. I don't think it particularly anything actually but it is advice from different generations showing exactly the different views they have.I think she showed ,the girlfriend mag didn't phase her.
<She's had plenty of mag covers I can assure you. Admittedly, she seems to be a bit more functional than superbrat Millie Holmes.
don't read mags much so I take your word on that. My point was she seems aware. She has an opinion and I think she will go on to survive the trials and tribulations of youth.And hopefully Millie will too.
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Bugger should preview,... so little time!
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I thought the best comment from the panel came from her. A fashion mag promoting fashion had a model with no clothes on!
I would think they would be very proud of her. And as for the stella editor
And wow, it's amazing how a few years in the fashion industry can apparently obliterate the philosophies one learns in women's studies.
indeed. She said that 13 yr olds don't think of midriff tops as being in any way sexual. What world does she live in? There are plenty of little girls out there of that age who are quite aware of the effect they have by wearing skimpy clothing. Some 13 year olds today are very far removed from what we were like at that age, 30 years ago. It makes me very, very glad I never had children.
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Yes Jackie. I often appreciate my decision also. And I was well aware of what I wore(at 13) and what effect it had on others,(wasn't slutty in my view) but also I suspect kids today being inundated with imagery of all sorts by all forms of nedia(thanks Steve) are not completely aware of a physical effect it may have on the opposite sex.So it would be nice to see an ideal educational mag/programme but noones putting their hand up or RB would have found it, surely.
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It looks like it's the difference between entering puberty and starting periods that is the confusion.
Cheers, Aquila. It had indeed been a long time since I read it, and it switches between talking about puberty, periods, and the beginning and end of menarche. Hence the confusion.
I hate the way sex education is gendered, so that it always ends up being 'girls are pressured innocent flowers, but boys are little horndogs'. It's insulting to both sides.
True, but what's the alternative?
How about 'not lying'? How about describing girls in some way where girls who DO experience sexual desire in their early teens can recognise themselves? Yes, of course boys should know girls can be horndogs. I suspect they actually do. But mostly, how about 'hey, you know what, everybody's different, and it's okay if you want to, and it's okay if you don't'?
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And I don't think one should ever try to read anything into what a teenager says or how they act as being indicative of what they think. Teenagers habitually lie to keep their secrets or to appear cooler to their friends
I agree with Emma and believe that honesty is a great policy . I have no problem with teenagers (15-17r olds) asking me about all sorts of issues.and I often realise how they are the same things I went through.If you are straight up (not authoritarian) you may just get a straight up answer.
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Not according to the latest Roy Morgan, taken before the budget. It’s to close to call between LGPM and NUA.
More to the point, do you think sexual predators will ask "Is that 'Future Porn Star' T-shirt for real, or an ironic post-feminist statement of sexual empowerment through Rophynol?'
Yes, of course boys should know girls can be horndogs. I suspect they actually do. But mostly, how about 'hey, you know what, everybody's different, and it's okay if you want to, and it's okay if you don't'?
Coming from a slightly different angle, I'm all for in your face shock and awe. If Girlfriend wants to do us all a favour, how about putting up some graphic photographic evidence of exactly how un- or mis-diagnosed STDS are different for girls. And while you might not think so now, girls, you might actually want to have a healthy child, or not go through the physical and psychological trauma of an ectopic pregnancy, one day.
And if anyone reading Girlfriend thinks HIV/AIDS is something that only happens to fags, junkies and foreigners, these folks might be available for a reality check.
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Exactly Craig. And I think all young girls should have somebody sing a song to them like this . All young women deserve someone who sings love songs to them. I don't know if you get too much of that these days.
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