Women's Views on News |
- Chocolate, peanuts and patriarchy
- Say Yes to Success in women’s sports
- Nuts magazine can rest in peace
| Chocolate, peanuts and patriarchy Posted: 07 Apr 2014 06:30 AM PDT
Snickers Australia recently uploaded a video featuring a group of builders shouting what the YouTube clip title describes as 'loud empowering statements' at women walking in the street below. The builders shout: 'I'd like to show you the respect you deserve', and: 'you know what I'd like to see? A society where the objectification of women makes way for gender neutral interactions free from assumptions and expectations'. The video has had mixed reactions, with some social media users slamming Snickers for being patronising, reinforcing sexist expectations of male behaviour, and for closing the clip with the ambiguous phrase 'you’re not you when you’re hungry'. Snickers is produced by Mars, Incorporated. Keen to cash in on the conversation, the British multinational confectionery company Cadbury have now replied to Snickers by saying 'We at #Boostnuts believe that men with real nuts proudly respect women whether they're hungry or not.'  |
| Say Yes to Success in women’s sports Posted: 07 Apr 2014 03:47 AM PDT
Acknowledging that for women's sport, 'the Olympics and Paralympics are almost everything,' the Women's Sports and Fitness Foundation's (WSFF) latest report has presented three essential, ambitious goals for lifting women's sports out of its current status as men's sports' 'poor relation'. ‘Women's Sport: Say Yes to Success’ is the WSFF's third report examining the levels of commercial investment in women's sport in the UK. It is the first report that combines the analysis of commercial investment with the results of a media audit of the type and quantity of coverage of women's sports. Despite women's sports now enjoying their highest levels of overall popularity and visibility, these numbers are dismal when compared to men's sports. Women's sport accounts for only 0.4 per cent of all commercial investment into all sports. Only seven per cent of all sports media coverage is of women's events. The conundrum of trying to improve commercial investment in sporting competitions that are never, or rarely, highly publicised is well known. Now, however, the WSFF is creating an Action Group to break the cyclical chicken-and-egg question of how to make women's sports more financially successful as well as better publicised and more popular. The report's first recommendation is to develop a regular calendar of high quality events and competitions. Sports fans, six out of ten of whom want to see more live coverage of women's sport on TV, have a well-established, year-round calendar of major sporting competitions, most of which are almost exclusively male. WSFF has pledged to work with different sports, broadcasters and sponsors to 'understand what can be done to develop existing competitions and create new ones where the opportunities exist'. There have been some positive developments, such as the Tour de France's decision to run a women's race called La Course on the last day of this year's men's event, and, through sponsor Newton Investment Management's encouragement, the decision has been made to hold the men's and women's Oxford and Cambridge boat races on the same day and on the same course from 2015. The report's second recommendation is for the new Action Group to identify and share 'the key elements of successful commercial and media partnerships in sport'. With 53 per cent of sports fans believing women's sport to be as exciting to watch as men's, potential sponsors need to consider the potential of any partnership. Newton Investment Management's CEO, Helena Morrissey, told WSFF that 'Decisions about whether to invest cannot be made on existing viewing figures. 'Instead, companies must consider what viewing figures could be if there was investment and meaningful partnerships between all concerned.' Thirdly, the report recommends that women's events and competitions must be developed in a way that encourages fans to engage and connect with them. Media outlets are assisting in this, with the BBC's Editorial Lead for Women's Sports taking up the post in January 2013, Sky Sports launching the Sportswomen show late in 2013 and BT Sport featuring women's sports in its launch campaign. It will be interesting, and hopefully exciting, to see how women's sports develop commercially and in visibility as the WSFF pushes this latest plan forward. Particularly because WSFF's research found that sportswomen are considered to be inspirational and excellent role models, with almost two-thirds of young people believing sportswomen to be better role models than other female celebrities. You can contribute by signing the campaign's pledge and sharing #SayYes on Twitter.  |
| Nuts magazine can rest in peace Posted: 07 Apr 2014 01:09 AM PDT
Famous for its dedication to promoting semi-naked women, football and 'banter', Nuts magazine has been in circulation for 10 years. It was announced recently that the magazine's publisher IPC has entered into 30 days of discussions with its staff about the prospect of closing, after sales declined from 300,000 copies a week at its peak to just 53,000 copies an issue in the last half of 2013. In a press release, UK Feminista and Object claimed the demise of Nuts as due to their Lose the Lads Mags campaign. The Lose the Lads Mags campaign was launched in May 2013 after lawyers revealed that shops selling so-called 'lads' mags' could be sued by staff and customers under sex discrimination legislation. The Co-operative pulled the magazines from its shelves and Tesco started to age-restrict their sale. Sophie Bennett, acting director of UK Feminista, said: 'Nuts has spent ten years lining supermarket shelves with images portraying women as dehumanised sex objects. ‘Yet we know that sexist, pornographic lads' mags promote attitudes underpinning violence against women. ‘They normalise the deeply harmful idea that it's acceptable to treat women as a sum of body parts. ‘But women have had enough of being dehumanised and objectifed [sic]. ‘It was people-power that led to the Co-op ditching lads' mags from its stores. The message is clear: sexist lads' mags are well past their sell-by date.' The announcement of Nuts' closure is clearly welcomed by those who have fought hard to remove from public display imagery that degrades and objectifies women . Eleanor Mills, editorial director at the Sunday Times, rightly calls it "a sign of progress" in terms of representation of women in the media. However, Doug McCabe, media analyst at Enders Analysis, blames the fall in readership more on the "migration of the readership online". While McCabe's description of what Nuts offers as "cheeky, slightly smutty" pictures and comedy is downright misleading, it cannot be denied that he is right about one thing: the rise of the internet unfortunately probably is the main driver behind the decline of what IPC’s managing director Paul Williams euphemistically calls "the young men's lifestyle sector". Eleanor Mills hit the nail on the head when she said: “Unfortunately the reason why Nuts and those lad [sic] mags are not doing well is because of the absolute onslaught, tsunami of internet porn out there.” The 'lifestyles' of young men (and women) today involve near constant access to the internet through mobiles, tablets and laptops, and that brings with it pervasive imagery of women, ranging from the simply objectifying to the categorically misogynist. Around half of 15 to 17 year-olds have accessed pornography on a smartphone or tablet, according to a survey by mental health charity Young Minds. The poll of 2,000 people aged 11 to 25 also suggests that a third of 11 to 14 year-olds had watched porn on a mobile device. Young people growing up today have direct access to sexualised, degrading and objectifying imagery all the time, whether they want it or not. Even totally innocuous internet use is accompanied by pop-ups and advertising which degrades women. Increasing internet use has also been accompanied by a rise in trends such as 'revenge porn', where images or video of an ex (usually female) are circulated on social media, allowing imagery of women and girls to be hijacked to publicly humiliate them. Any optimism about the death of the much-vilified 'lads' mag', therefore, is an illusion. The degrading porn it peddled is not gone: it is everywhere, and it is getting worse. On 1 April, the BBC featured a tongue-in-cheek story about Nuts in its obituary section of 'cultural icons' titled 'R.I.P. Nuts magazine'. Unfortunately, Nuts magazine and its comrades can rest in peace, knowing they have passed on the baton of wallpapering the lives of young people with hyper-sexualised, degrading and objectifying imagery to a much more powerful and dangerous successor.  |
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