The Kate Middleton Topless Photos

So far the reaction to the Kate Middleton topless photos has been depressingly predictable. A good 50% (if not more) of the reader comments in the online press and on twitter in some way hold Kate responsible for going topless in the first place.

Even a large number of the supportive comments still have that snarky little “but what was she thinking” tagged in to the end.

There is so much wrong with this attitude. She was on a private holiday, on a private estate with her husband. She has every right to expect to be able to do as she pleases in these circumstances. She was stalked and her privacy grossly invaded. Should women have to accept this level of intrusion just for having breasts? There is nothing wrong with sunbathing topless on private property, this does not equal “asking for it”.

This kind of victim blaming attitude is the start of a very slippery slope and it is worrying that so many people still perpetuate this point of view.

In its rush to condemn French Closer magazine the press also seem to have missed the irony that the news broke while William and Kate were on a visit to a mosque that involved her having to be completely covered and wearing a headscarf to stop men looking at her. A large majority of the western population believe that women covering up in this way is repressive, yet a famous woman can’t take her top off in private without being papped and then blamed for it. Which is it to be?

This obsession with women’s bodies, this need to reduce them to the sum of their body parts regardless of anything else they may achieve, this constant blaming of women for acting normally is
out of control right now.

I hope William and Kate sue and win, and I hope people think twice about buying magazines with pap shots in. The only way this will stop is if the public stop looking at these pictures.....I can dream.

Women of the Olympics

It’s all so predictable I can hardly be bothered to comment on it.

The Olympics is nearly upon us, which means women in sportswear, which means lots of articles and adverts on what their bodies look like and not what they can do.

Already Jessica Ennis is advertising Oil of Olay, because God forbid she should excel at her sport and not have soft skin, and she and the British beach volley ball team have been criticised for being fat (i.e. don’t look like FHM models) and now Victoria Pendleton and Zara Dampney have posed naked for GQ magazine.

Victoria says she has a nice bum and it’s not really any different to competing in a skin suit so why not? Well, in one example she is competing in a sport and wearing appropriate clothing to assist her, and in another she is posing naked in a sexual manner in a mens magazine. Quite a bit different I would say.

Why reduce their hard work and ability to what they look like? I just don’t get it. A recent article about Chris Hoy focussed on his amazing thigh muscles and detailed the diet and exercise regime he follows to get them. A recent one on one British tennis player Laura Robson called her the incredible bulk, musing on her change from “slender” to athletic. No wonder girls drop out of sport at a young age.

The final insult which made me get off my bum and make the effort to comment on this was the fact that Zara Dampney says likes her body but dislikes the grooming regime required to wear the outfits. The volleyball team is actually sponsored by cosmetic surgery group who carry out their hair removal for them. An advert in InStyle magazine featured three of the team in knickers and bra tops, advertising hair removal at the sponsors clinic. The strap line is “successfully treating laser hair removal patients for 15 years.” Patients? Since when does having pubic hair make you a patient in need for treatment? It can’t only be me who thinks it would just be easier to wear slightly bigger pants?

I would love it if these high profile female athletes just said enough is enough, we will either be interviewed about our sport just as the men are, or you can forget your article.    

Welcome to our world

A friend told me about an incident today that happened to her father in law. He was at his gym which is part of a hotel, and while getting showered and changed it became obvious that the only other man in the changing area was watching him quite closely.

The other man started a conversation and asked if fil was staying at the hotel, to which he answered no. Other man asked if he would like to stay, fil was suitably shocked and said no thanks. Other man asked if there was anything he could do to tempt him, cue father in law getting dressed in lightning speed while hurriedly explaining he was meeting his wife.....who he loved............yes wife....did you get that strange man, a wife, with kids!

Anyway, he was understandably quite shaken and shocked by this, he doesn’t come from a generation or background that is comfortable talking about homosexuality let alone being propositioned by a gay man while in a state of undress. It made him feel extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable and such sexual advances from either a male or female is not something he had experienced before.

My friend was suitably understanding and we all agreed no one should be made to feel like that, however, this is the reality for an enormous amount of women. A YouGov survey published in the Guardian reveals that four in ten young women were sexually harassed in public spaces in London last year. This harassment ranges from unwanted comments to physical touching and groping.

This kind of harassment is insidious and so easily and often passed off as just a bit of fun, or even complimentary, that it just blends in to everyday life for a vast majority of women. The only difference I can see is that in the father in laws case the unwanted attention was from a man and he is not homosexual, but being hetro doesn’t mean you are fair game for sexual advances. No woman should have to put up with unwanted attention because she sometimes has consensual sex with a man.

It makes women feel unsafe, it makes us scared, and it reminds us constantly of our vulnerability. The person making the advance knows his intent is merely to compliment/joke/impress/pull/show off/pass the time of day, but we don’t. In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Beckers sums it up really well when he says “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.” That is our reality. (Disclaimer – before anyone says it, yes men too get raped by other men but the numbers are much smaller and this is a feminist blog therefore my concern is with women).

So, I feel for my friends father in law, I really do. It was inappropriate and it made him feel bad. Now imagine living with the risk of that all the time. Imagine that if it does happen no one will really care. Imagine that men can proposition you and call you frigid when you say no, or can touch you and be offended when you tell them to fuck off. Imagine always being physically smaller and weaker than the person coming on to you, and not knowing if they will get nasty if you don’t laugh along or get the compliment.  It’s pretty damn shit.

Policing Femininity in Sport

A very interesting and disturbing article today here about Caster Semenya, the South African runner who was investigated and suspended by athletic officials because her abilities and appearance raised concerns she was a man.

It turns out that this isn’t an isolated case and an undisclosed number of female athletes will be competing in this years Olympics after having to undergo surgery or hormone therapy. These are athletes who are born as women, raised as women and compete as women, but who have a higher than average testosterone level, in some cases higher than most men. Some of these women have subsequently been found to be intersex – something it is possible not to be aware of. In Semenya’s case she had internal undeveloped testes.

It’s not a new phenomenon for strong athletic women to be checked for gender, it’s just that naked parades have been replaced with hormone checks which reveal the presence of such internal organs.          

There are a vast number of factors that occur through nature or nurture which will affect the chances of an athlete being successful. Jon Entine raises the question of race being a factor, and Bruce Kidd comments that “Personal household and national income is far more relevant to performance than hormonal makeup,” he says. The countries with the highest GDP produce the most gold medals. The richer the athlete, the higher the likelihood of a winner” in the original Star article.

I don’t see anyone asking a black athlete to tone down the fast twitch muscles, or checking the social background of competitors before competing,

There are some people who are genetically gifted to exceed at their sport. This list shows the best VO2 max scores achieved by male athletes. Is it unfair that they have a better natural ability to consume oxygen during exercise? What if research showed a certain hormone could be identified that governed this, would this have to be suppressed with drugs or surgery?

Lance Armstrong has some well documented genetic advantages which helped him win the Tour de France 7 times. Why isn’t anybody testing him to pin point the reason for this, and then suppress it with drugs?

Now call me paranoid, but the only reason I can see is that these are female athletes who do not fit the accepted definition of what it means to look like a woman. They don’t look feminine enough and they don’t fit the acceptable ascetics for a female athlete, so they are subjected to testing. To quote Bruce Kiss again “It’s still the old patriarchal fear, or doubt, that women can do outstanding athletic performances. If they do, they can’t be real women. It’s that clear, it’s that prejudicial,”

Are men tested for testosterone? Will men who have the highest levels have to have it suppressed so as not to have an advantage over other men? Where will it end? Maximum height for basketball so short people can play? Of course not. Its only women who are subjected to this kind of invasive bullshit.

This is a naturally occurring hormone, not a “male” hormone that women have no business having. Some people have less, some have more. Not everyone fits in to a nice neat biological definition of male and female. She is not taping her penis up and shaving her beard before competing.

If the playing field is to be fair, group people by the myriad of other performance indicators; their testosterone, height, weight, race, social economic background, funding or any other category you care to think of, but don’t continue to subject women, and only women, to this level of scrutiny and indignity and force them to undergo unnecessary and unwanted surgery just to be able to compete.

Barbie here we come

Some friends brought something to my attention the other day. It was one of those “can you believe this” type emails with a link to a website selling something called a SmoothGroove.

What, I hear you cry, is a SmoothGroove? Well basically it is a piece of plastic that you shove down your knickers to give you a smooth effect, because God forbid should the faintest outline of labia be visible. In other words a camel toe protector.  

We all had a good laugh at this and thanked our lucky stars we were too old to worry about such frippery. What? we cried, people spend £15 on this. £15! If my leggings go up my fanny at the gym I pull them out. I don’t spend £15 on a piece of plastic.....oh hold on a minute, it comes in its own satin pouch for discreet storage. Satin you say? Well in that case I’ll have 3.

Seriously, not only is this a ridiculous waste of money, it is yet another example of shockingly misogynistic marketing to women based on the notion of shaming us about a perfectly normal body part.  Let’s just run it past my favourite misogynist test – do men spend time and money worrying about this issue? That will be a resounding no then. If their genitals show through clothing they must be seriously packing, they don’t need to tuck it all away like Ken.

Every bit of the female body is held up for scrutiny, found to be wanting, and offered ways to be improved on, and the attack on the normality of our vaginas is increasing all the time. We have to contend with fears about cleanliness with a range of washes, wipes and moisturisers all dedicated to our keeping our nether regions smelling, literally, of roses. The vagina is self cleansing, and we have soap and water, it doesn’t need all this shit!

Then there is the waxing and plucking and shaving and moisturising and vagacials and vajazzles and probably much more I am glad I am not aware of.  Labia plastic surgery is the fastest growing form of cosmetic surgery in the UK right now.

Marketing experts have very cleverly taken an amazing and fully functioning normal part of a woman’s anatomy and made money by convincing us it is not good enough.  I’m pretty sure this idealised vision of smooth womanhood is largely fuelled by the normalisation of porn too, but how ironic that porn is built on women flashing their flanges, yet any non porn stars who feel compelled and pressured to achieve a porn look cannot show the merest hint of lips. You have to look like a porn star but only in the bedroom.

So now we reach this point. We can do all of these things to our vulvas in pursuit of pussy perfection and yet if any glimpse or outline of it is seen underneath clothing it is still offensive. The SmoothGroove website tells is we should rejoice in this invention and that it is the answer to the most embarrassing taboo there is for girls. Oh do fuck off. It is only embarrassing if we let it embarrass us. It’s like giving in to school bullies and paying for the privilege of doing so.

No, I don’t want my genitals on display particularly, not least because it’s quite uncomfortable having a front wedgie, but I have 3 foolproof methods of stopping it.

 1. If your clothes ride up there, pull them out 2. Buy a bigger size of trousers/leggings/pants 3. Stop looking at womens fannys through their clothing if you find them offensive. That will be £15 please.

If I want to be walked home I'll ask thanks

I wrote this piece in a fit of rage after a night out over Christmas, to try to make some sense of an argument that I had had with a male friend. It wasn’t initially written with rape myths specifically in mind, but more about how personal choice and freedom can be denied to women “for their own good”.

It also seemed a bit weird at first to think of posting something which defends the right of women to walk home alone after the publicity around the Ched Evans case, I felt almost reckless to be advocating such a thing.  However on rereading it I am surprised by just how clearly the whole incident was one big rape myth played out under the guise of friendly concern. It also showed me just how ingrained this culture of fear is, that because of this high profile case being in the headlines I had suddenly doubted my view that women had every right to be out on the streets after dark. There is a clear underlying message that if you walk home alone you are taking a risk and therefore if anything were to happen to you, some of the responsibility will rest with you. I think it therefore makes a good follow up piece to my last post.

I was on a night out recently with a group of friends. It was a mixed group of about 8 women and 8 men and we all had a lot to drink and ended up at a local late bar. This bar is about 400 yards from my house in a market town with a low crime rate.

At around 12.30 I had hit the wall and it was time for me to leave so I went outside, shoes in hand (classy) see some of the group I was with in the car park, I said goodbye and started to walk home.

I got about 50 yards along the road when one of the men in the group caught up with me and told me he was staging an “intervention” and I couldn’t possibly walk home on my own. He said I had to go back to another friend’s house (which was about the same distance away as my house in the opposite direction) as that was where everyone else was going and I could get in a cab from there.

I protested but he was actually pulling me and I gave in and we all walked back to the house together.  We got to the house and everyone was chatting and I suddenly got really angry. I didn’t want to be there, I was drunk and tired and I could have been home by now, so I said my goodbyes and went to the front door. Honestly, you would have thought I was planning a solo expedition up Everest judging by the reaction to my very simple decision to go home. A bit of a heated debate followed, I left and another male friend was ordered by his wife to walk me home.

As he so kindly accompanied me home I tried to explain I was annoyed and insulted, we argued, I tried to push him away and he still insisted on following me all the way home.  I was so powerless and frustrated (and a little bit drunk) that I was actually crying by the time I opened my front door.

None of the men I spoke to in the days after this got why I was so annoyed. They just saw it as a nice thing to do and a sign that the men in question cared about me and wanted me to be safe. I have given a lot of thought to whether I was unreasonable or not, and I still don’t think I was.

My biggest problem with this whole situation is the way in which male on female crime is perceived. Man rapes woman, woman can’t be out on her own after dark. Man stabs man, man can still walk home alone and much hand wringing and angst follows in the media about the state of society. Why is it so different? How about men stay indoors? Now that’s a sure fire way to reduce the risk of being attacked on the street.

According to Crimestoppers women are more aware of crime, yet men are more than 3 times more likely to get mugged or assaulted. So women are actually safer on the streets than men, but people still hold on to this view that we must be delivered safely to our door by men. Maybe women should start walking men home?

I also totally object to the lack of control I was allowed to exert. During this whole scenario I was physically held on to twice and I was followed home while crying and asking to be left alone. How is that helping me?

 Why take away my freedom in order to offer some kind of perceived protection? Being a woman doesn’t rob me of common sense. I would have no problem asking for company or calling a taxi if I felt I needed to, I wouldn’t walk in an area I felt or knew to be unsafe, if I was passed out on the pavement then yes some help would be appreciated, but I was perfectly able to assess the situation and make a decision for myself - a right denied to me by two men trying to “help” me. I have seen men passed out pissed on the pavement, abandoned by their mates, but God help the perfectly capable woman who wants to go home alone.

Finally, I hate this climate of fear that is exacerbated every time women’s freedom is curtailed with a misguided gesture of protection. I don’t like being made to be fearful when the reality is there is every chance I will get home safely. Women are taught to be scared of the dark, of underground car parks, of alleys, of quiet streets, of men who don’t look “normal”, and in doing so women’s confidence and freedom is slowly chipped away.

I have been truly scared on two occasions when I had the misfortune to cross paths with dangerous men; the memories of both lucky escapes make me feel sick with fear to this day. Both occurred in daylight, I was sober and one was a family friend.  I know what some men can do, I know that fear, I do not need a drunk male friend telling me he doesn’t want me to be scared walking home. That is insulting and patronising. It also totally misses the point that the vast majority of sexual assaults and rapes are carried out by someone known to the woman, so not only patronising but also a nice bit of rape myth thrown in for good measure. It also means we are back to talking about womens behaviour and actions instead of those of the rapist.

Women are not stupid, we don’t want to be hurt and will not deliberately put ourselves in harm’s way, but when 50% of the population is deemed unable to make their way from A to B after the hours of sunlight, is that keeping yourself safe or is that a male imposed curfew which only serves to place the blame for rape onto the woman who declines the offer of a walk home? It seems it’s very easy to tell people how to keep safe when it doesn’t affect your own liberty.

Are there such things as mugging myths?

I know a bloke who got mugged recently. Friend of a friend in the pub stole all his money on the way home, but do you know what I want to know? What was he doing out pissed at midnight?  And why did he get so drunk he couldn’t defend himself? Honestly some people are such idiots.

I’ll tell you what happened.

My friend, I’ll call him Paul, met some mates in our local pub.  He only knew two of them, the other two were friends of friends and he hadn’t met them before. One of them, I’ll call him Steve, ended up being the last in the pub with Paul after everyone else had gone and they decided to go for a kebab. They were getting on really well according to Paul and were talking about going to see the football together the following weekend.

When they got to the kebab shop Steve didn’t have enough money on him so Paul lent him a tenner and they ended up walking back to Paul’s house to eat their kebabs, both totally pissed. At some point on the walk Steve asked Paul to give him some more money and Paul said no.  I think they had a bit of a row about it. I’m not surprised, I mean, Paul had given him money just 10 minutes before so why did he have a problem giving him some more? How was Steve supposed to know it was a one off, especially when he had seen how much cash Paul still had on him, and he was wearing really expensive clothes so obviously well off, God that just asking for trouble. Paul loves it when he can feel like the centre of attention and the drinks are all on him because he earns more than us, but suddenly it was a problem to give Steve some more?

Paul tried to storm off but he was so drunk all he really managed to do was stagger around a bit. I said to him after, why didn’t you just get in a taxi at this point? If he had just used his common sense and not tried to walk home alone Steve would never have been able to catch him up and take his wallet of him. I had to laugh at that, he just walked up to him and took it from him. Didn’t even bother asking if he could, and Paul didn’t even say no.

In fact, the more I think about it, I reckon Paul might have just given Steve some money, and then when he realised what he had done when he sobered up he felt like a twat and made out he was robbed. I mean, he didn’t even try to stop himself getting mugged. He didn’t fight back, he didn’t shout, he didn’t do anything I would do in that situation. He says it was because Steve is bigger than him and he was drunk, it happened too quickly, blah blah.

You just can’t go out flashing the cash and not expect people to want some of it. You know what blokes are like, they can’t control themselves when they see some money. If you get drunk and don’t take responsibility for your own actions I’ve got no sympathy for you, he’s just lucky he didn’t get a good kicking too.

Basically if someone doesn’t use force to take something off you how can you really have been robbed right? Pauls going to get the right piss ripped out of him next time I see him.

Those Beautiful Ukranian Women

An advert being shown on Dutch tv has caused outrage in Holland and Ukraine. The advert is for a type of beer that it makers claim will keep Dutch men at home during Euro 2012 rather than travelling to Ukraine where the tournament is being held.

And the reason why Dutch women might want to keep their men at home? Because apparently the women in the Ukraine are so beautiful and available they are a threat to men and other women. The ad shows how simply typing ukr into an internet search engine will bring up the result “Ukrainian women”. In fact Travelors Digest ranked Ukraine as number one for the presence of beautiful women.

The Ukraine ambassador is “shocked” at the advert and upset at the image it presents of his country.

I am also shocked but I think for very different reasons to that of the ambassador.

Obviously the advert is offensive to men, although I don’t expect most men will see it as so. The message is that men cannot resist a beautiful woman and will cheat on their wives and girlfriends as soon as a sexually available female is within their eyesight. Nice message there, men just can’t help it you know! A hugely damaging stereotype that treats men like idiots makes women insecure and blames the women for being too damn attractive to resist. Maybe the burkha is the way to go??

However, even worse is the fact that this so called harmless cliché of beautiful Ukrainian women luring men is anything but harmless.  

Ukraine has a major sex industry which is unregulated and allowed to flourish due to government corruption. There are estimates that there are some 50,000 women involved in the sex industry and they start young. A quick internet search will bring up many articles and stories about young girls being approached in nightclubs, and thanks to a, quite frankly archaic approach to women rights, once a woman has worked in the sex industry she is considered unredeemable and unrapeable.

Ukraine is also now a major hub for sex trafficking across Europe.  Odessa in particular is infamous for its multibillion dollar international business. These women are tricked or forced in to sexual slavery, with violence and rape used to break them. The major feminist group in the Ukraine Femen proclaim that “feminism does not exist in Ukraine”. Their protests at the lack of womens rights, prostitution, trafficking and violence against women have been met with violence and intimidation from the authorities.

Suddenly making light hearted fun of the sexually available Ukrainian women doesn’t seem to amusing. When clichés are actually terrifying fact it is probably a good time to stop using them to sell beer and actually do something about them.  Why does the idea that women are there for men to have sex with and that men can’t help it have any place on a television advert? What message is this sending?

I am glad the Ukrainian ambassador is shocked and offended, but maybe he should place his outrage at the sharp end where beautiful Ukrainian women are being raped and murdered rather than wring his hands and worry about how his country will be perceived from a tv ad.

LMFAO

So today I am watching a bit of MTV, my sons love a good boy band, so we are happily singing along to some non offensive New Direction and then next up is LMFAO with I’m Sexy and I know It.

The video is basically men in pants. I don’t really have a problem with that, they are obviously taking the piss, anyone sporting budgie smugglers and an afro deserves to be watched. It is quite different underwear action to that usually seen by women in videos, complete with sense of humour, non perfect males and no women in charge of and leering over the semi naked men. Funny that.

Nothing new there then, the thing that made me more surprised was the addition of smiley faces over their pants during the willy waggling bits. Really? Why? Am I just desensitised to this sort of thing after being subjected to my little boys waggling their willies with unbridled joy after bath time? Are men and women the world over choking on their TV dinners while watching the chart show? Or will children be scarred for life at such shameless thrusting?

It seems de rigueur for women in underwear to shake their bits so why not men? The Benny Banassi video with women using power tools was based on that very fact, and there are crotch shots a plenty in loads of videos,  Eric Prydz anyone?

In fact I have just googled sexy videos and after watching David Guetta and the beautifully titled Sexy Bitch, Fedde Le Grand with Put Your Hands up for Detroit and D.O.N.S Pump up the Jam I am even more confused (not to mention slightly disturbed).

OK so it’s pretty obvious I’m not going to like those sort of videos and that’s not really what this is about, it’s just that when a man is in a video that shows a jiggling (great word) penis behind some  material it has to be covered and I’m not sure why.

Is a moving willy more offensive to moving boobs? Offensive to who? If men, women and children will be so disturbed by this unsightly horror why is it they will not be just as shocked and scarred by inflated bouncing boobs, crotch shots where you can practically see what the woman has had for breakfast, and shameless booty bouncing (just realised women of my age should never write the words booty bounce and never ever say them out loud).

My husband often accuses me of generalising and jumping to conclusions about this feminist malarkey, but I really can’t see any other reason than good old fashioned double standards and sexism. Women’s bodies are fair game to whoever wants to take a look at them. We are so desensitised to these kinds of images that they are deemed to have no shock value. Women are there to titillate, amuse and sell stuff with sex.

It’s a small thing (no offence to the LMFAO men intended) in the grand scale of things, but all these small things add up and get right on my non oiled, non bouncy tits.