An article for Columbia News Service, part of The New York Times news wire service.
Women-only bike repair classes are serving a growing number of women who want to get into the saddle and take control of their bike, empowering them and their friends through learning new skills and dismantling traditional bike shop culture.
Out at Glasgow Pride on Saturday, I was struck firstly by the high political presence, and secondly by the advertising.
From political party representatives, to the Coalition for Equal Marriage campaign, politics was out in force at the parade and the after-party. I saw men in tutus waving ‘Never Trust a Tory’ placards, as though their anti-Conservatism was a declaration of their pride. The confusion and overlap between self-expression, and political expression, was pronounced. Thankfully, the parade wasn’t high-jacked by these groups, but it was slightly disconcerting the ways in which some obviously sought to use Pride not as a way to celebrate being an individual and equal rights for all sexualities and genders, but as a party political showcase.
Pride parade filing down St Vincent Street, own photo.
AXM promo poster, courtesy of AXM Glasgow
Pride will always attract those with strong political feelings, and it will also attract a large amount of companies and advertisers seeking to jump on the bandwagon and get themselves out there with the help of a bejewelled 6 ft 5′ drag queen. However, it wasn’t the adverts for Smirnoff Ice that put my off: it was Glasgow Pride’s advertisements themselves. (A link to Pride Glasgow’s promo leaflet can be found here). All of the posters and promotional flyers were geared heavily towards gay men. Now, I am not saying that two men with no shirts getting a smooch on isn’t going to “sell” going to Pride for me (it totally is). But the lesbian population of Glasgow is strong, vocal, and highly visible. The only female representation was a glamour model in a silver bikini, pictured in a normative and hetero-centric pose with, oh yes, two MEN kissing above her head. If they weren’t going to cater to a female demographic that doesn’t really fall into the heterosexual male stereotype, then they could at least have rustled up a couple more glamour girls to kiss for the photo. Staring at this poster, I felt I was looking at something belonging in Nuts magazine, rather than Pride.
There is an association made between gay men and camp. Gay men are up for the party, dancing, glitter bombs, and acting lairy with the girls. Or so the story goes, anyway. Gay women, however, are commonly associated with bovver boots and a shaved head, or heterosexual porn. Glasgow Pride and its promotional staff need to get with the times: the largest group of people I saw on Saturday was lesbian women, all of whom were having a fabulous time. Enhance the experience, and make Pride truly for all genders and all sexualities. The movement needs to recapture not just the message of equality, but the spirit of the law as well.
AXM banners from George Square, courtesy of Pride Glasgow
Sonam Kapoor delightfully proves my point. Thanks to Jezebel.com.
This link leads to a BBC From Our Own Correspondent article just posted about the prevalence of skin whitening creams in India. It appears inspired by the same genital whitenining wash as my own blog post from several weeks back, which was in turn inspired by Jezebel.com posting the video advertisement on their website.
One up on the BBC? Oh, yes.
On a more constructive note: the apparently growing awareness of the whitening trend could force more people in India and eslewhere to question the ramifications of creating a beauty standard based on an altered and unnatural skin tone. Whether using tanning or whitening products, women are often taught that to appear desirable they need to appear as something they are not. When brands such as Dove, a supposed champion of “real” beauty, are perfectly happy to sell products designed to lighten/darken skin, it becomes ever more acceptable to feel inadequate if not conforming to this artificial norm. All notions of “beauty” are to an extent artificial and socially constructed, but when it comes to skin tone, particularly when race and ethnicity becomes involved (tv shows looking “too white” when lacking non-white cast members, or an Indian actress being told she is “too black” to play a lead role), the dynamic does change and become something inherently negative. Perhaps with more awareness, more women will question the sense in altering their skin tone to suit an ever-changing fashion. This, however, is a big ask: we would have to cease caring about how society perceives us, and thus create a new standard to conform to. Either way, what we choose to look like to fit in will always be constructed, not by us ourselves, but by social discourse and context. However, one thing we can question and work towards separating is the idea of “healthy” cosmetics such as moisturiser, and “make up” cosmetics, such as foundation. When the concept of “healthy skin” becomes confused with “made up skin”, people’s idea of “healthy bodies” begin to exclude those of different or non-conformist skin tones. And when that alarming confluence occurs, what then for an internationally developed and cohesive anti-racist society?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/23/why-rage-over-ivf
IVF IN ACTION. Image from hfea.gov.uk
Working within the NHS, I meet many people who are seeking, and who may be denied, varying kinds of treatment. For example, a morbidly obese man will be denied a liver transplant on the basis that he is too fat for the operation. Perhaps the NHS trust in which a person lives does not offer the treatment: in England eye injections for a wet macular degeneration are unavailable on the NHS, but in Scotland they are.
Why should one person have free and easy access to a treatment, and another does not? A doctor cannot accurately predict the improvement to a person’s quality of life, so why privilege one and not the other? The unfortunate answer is money. How each NHS board economizes is entirely dependent on their specific priorities and healthcare goals, and resources. The barriers preventing one patient from accessing the same service as another, if the treatment is not considered emergency or fundamental to life, are an unfortunate consequence of a resource-strapped NHS.
Personally, I welcome the changes to NICE guidelines regarding IVF treatment for women up to the age of 42. The medical advancements made in the last decade has dramatically improved the chances for a healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy in women over forty, and with people living and working longer, the issues of being too old to support a child have changed. As discussed in the article above, this is a positive and constructive development that accurately reflects the work done by medical professionals and researchers to enable successful IVF treatment in more women. It also reflects a changing attitude to older women in terms of their health, and more significantly, their sexual health and status.
The naysayers who denounce the guidelines as merely a way to ensure more selfish people can drain yet more money and resources from the poor NHS. However, they forget that although the guidelines make more women eligible for treatment, the availability of treatment remains the same. Right of access doesn’t necessarily translate into having the right itself to access.
It is an unfortunate reality that as more and more people become eligible for treatment on the NHS, so a greater number will slip through the net of availabilities and waiting times. We all know that the NHS is struggling to cope with the huge demand on its limited resources, and with cuts to primary care and a large restructuring effort soon to begin taking force, this situation could get far worse. Blaming older women for wanting to have access to IVF will not help solve the great black hole that is the NHS’s finances. Service access is entirely dependent on economics and resources, not on who can get what treatment where and for how long. A harsh reality, yes, but one that has nothing to do with gender.
Those who seek to criticise NICE’s actions should rest assured: soon these selfish women who are “too old” to have babies will be joining their critics at the back of the hospital queue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/us/catholic-groups-file-suits-on-contraceptive-coverage.html?hp
From bilgrimage.blogspot
Today Catholic groups, including the Archdioceses of New York and Washington D.C amongst others, filed suits with state courts to sue the Dept of Health for providing free contraception for women via employee health insurance cover. The reform to provide the contraception was one of the more controversial and lauded aspects of ObamaCare, ensuring female employees have free and easy access to contraception services without forcing employers to pay or actively provide it. Only the insurance brokers have any onus on them to provide the contraception, absenting all “responsibility” from the employer.
Complaining that the crisis of conscience is still plaguing the minds of good Catholic employers across the US, these groups have decided to test the law in traditionally conservative courts. The Obama administration has tried hard to placate the fears, pointing out that all the reforms ensure is that the decision to give free contraception to women is not dictated by employers, and is instead entirely accessible, as it is for all other women in the US.
Why a place of work, and employer, should have any right to dictate what and what is not right for an employee’s health and well being is beyond ken. The coverage of the problems of contraception versus religion privileges the ‘Crazy Christian’, ensuring that these groups will gain all the media coverage they need to further entrench the idea of free access to contraception as a “difficult” or “controversial” (anti)social agenda. Also, with Christianity as an ingrained feature of the American middle class consciousness, it further establishes these views as not a minority, but a majority view point. Although we might scoff at the idea of a Rastafarian pressure group suing the federal government for allowing employees of Rastafarian-run organizations being able to get a blood transfusion through their insurance policy, the absurdity of one situation is no different to the other. Just as so many more men appear on television/media proclaiming their views on women’s reproductive capabilities/sexual health choices, so too do many more Christian pressure groups gain greater coverage on the same polemic issues. These biases need to be recognized, and through comparison laughed out the dock for their nonsensical nature. Would the media create about Muslim employers seeking to ban all employees from having the right to consume bacon on any work premises/during working hours? No? Then why do we allow Christian employer groups to publicize their desires to control a body? Because it is a female body? Quite probably. More so because it is a female sexual body.
The other issue is, of course, is that the pill and other forms of birth control can have other medicinal purposes aside from contraception. Some forms of the pill are used in treating skin conditions, heavy menstrual bleeding, pain and depression, even in preventing some kinds of long term illnesses. Many teenagers are started on the pill in order to primarily help their acne, with contraception as an added advantage.What happens to those who take the pill not out of desire to be protected from getting pregnant, but who take it in order to treat something entirely unrelated to the whole babies issue?
I will be interested to see how many state courts decide to pick the case up and go directly against the will of Congress and the government to entertain these suits. Taking into account the US Constitution, technically any employee who has bought into an insurance policy, via an employer or no, has free access to the full range of care provided. The full range of care provided is that which is legally available in the US as a whole. Unless states manage to ban contraception medication, then the access to that medication has to be via whatever healthcare plan the individual has opted for, or else it contravenes individual rights to full access of private property (the bought health insurance).
The action by these Catholic pressure groups adds an extra layer to the developing anti-female reproductive health choice movements in the US. Will the Crazy Christians (TM) finally win their case through the US enshrined employer-benefit laws? A new direction, and one that could prove fruitful. But at the end of the day, who has more power? The supposedly secular administration? Or religious corporations?
Like many in the media and its fringe followers, I have been following the Leveson Inquiry’s latest developments with undisguised 
glee. Every day, a new morsel of scandalous truth and accusation is teased out about all the figures we love to hate. Once reticent politicos and businessmen are suddenly queuing up to get their voice heard as they try in vain to ensure that whatever they might be accused of, someone else will face the music first. There are some exceptions: Andy Coulson’s evidence this week may as well have been a Beatle’s mixtape for all the information that was gleaned from the ‘cross examination’… But on the whole, this entire debacle has come back to haunt those that called for it most, and provide the once cowering media with more than enough fuel for the fire.
Yesterday saw Rebekah Brooks take the stand once more to give evidence on her relationship with the Murdochs and their various international corporations, and with politicians, most notably with the Prime Minister. Although I was slightly aghast at the sheer concept of David Cameron signing off texts with “Lots Of Love” (no one wants to hear that!), the most troubling thing about her evidence was the way in which she was questioned. The language used, the questions asked, and the reportage of it was prejudiced at best, purposefully aggressive at worst. And I am not referring to her role as pantomime Evil Queen of Fleet Street. Rebekah Brooks was treated uniquely by the Leveson Inquiry and those reporting on it. Why? Because she is female.
I know, just another feminist ‘woo Brooksy mon yourself’ rant, right? Except this isn’t a rant, and I feel nothing for Brooks, and don’t much enjoy her work. From the scathing comments on her ‘feisty red curls’ and ‘demure, Puritanical dress’ that said ‘innocence and lack of sophistry’ (a real statement!), to the endless questions about whether or not Rupert Murdoch sent her a pretty frock to wear in jail because she is his favourite minion. Cameron’s text messages signed ‘LOL’, pony or no pony, swimming pools, tea with the Murdochs, where did you get the frock from Ms Brooks, blah blah blah. I was glad that at least the QC managed to collect himself enough to actually ask what the content of those texts, meetings and emails happened to be once he had moved past such important details as whether or not they had two kisses or three. Brooks herself managed to face up to these questions with admirable patience, even calling QC Robert Jay out on his line of questioning, complaining that if she was a “Grumpy old man of Fleet Street” she would not have been treated in such a way. This is undoubtedly true, but then Rupert Murdoch probably also wouldn’t have bought said grumpy old geezer a horse. Leveson responded to Brooks by saying she wasn’t there to complain, but to answer the questions. Also correct, but the unnamed sources providing the basis of much of the questions, the language used to put them to her, and the way that they were delivered and received were inappropriate.
Yes, there is a vast amount of gossip involving Brooks, the Prime Minister, and Murdoch that undoubtedly could use a bit more light shed on it. Jay was right to bring these things to the Inquiry’s attention, and to seek clarification from one of the key players. But I don’t recall hearing such questions being asked of Rupert Murdoch during his last performance to the panel. Perhaps they had more important things to ask him, and didn’t find the time to slip in a quick question about whether the aforementioned jail house frock came with matching accessories. There are ways of asking a question that are gendered, and ways that are not, and the delivery of some of Jay’s questions yesterday were positively gendered, needlessly detracting from the strength of the evidence and information Brooks had to offer.
Now that all the bad-mouthing of her ‘flaming locks’ and ‘Peter pan collar’ has slightly abated, attention is being turned full beam on to emails purportedly from the besmirched culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, that appear to confirm his private interest in the ill-fated News Corps BSkyB bid. Harriet Harman has renewed calls for his resignation, and certainly following Leveson’s swift rebuke of Cameron’s attempt to pass responsibility for all investigation into Hunt’s conduct onto the Inquiry, the pressure is on the Prime Minister to call an internal investigation to prove him right (much as happened with poor old Liam Fox, who had the PM’s full support and who would probably have remained in his position if not for such an inquiry…). The PM is in a difficult situation: continue to support a culture secretary that people are losing faith in every day without any backing or evidence to demonstrate he acted fairly, or call an investigation and possibly lose yet another member of cabinet to the excesses of outside interests (and, more annoyingly, to Murdoch). Further, what could such an inquiry bring to light about other members of the Tory party cabinet members? We will need to wait and see, but at the pace the Leveson Inquiry is going, I don’t think we will need to hold out much longer before the next scandal breaks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/04/why-british-public-life-dominated-men
This is a very interesting and well written article on the disparities between male and female representation within the media and politics, with a particular focus on political and current affairs programming. I particularly liked the fact that this author has managed to include the all to often ignored piece of information that while women as a group are grossly under-represented, non-white women are often entirely excluded. Well worth the read.
kitchentablenewsroom 