Thursday 26 April 2012

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.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

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.