Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 17 Dec 2014 03:47 AM PST
The Archives of Sexual Behaviour have this week confirmed what many of us already know; women are helpless in high-heeled shoes. We can now be assured by research that men find women in heels more attractive and are significantly more likely to stop to help a woman if she's wearing heels. Want the numbers in full? A team of French researchers found that the way a researcher dressed influenced significantly the number of men who stopped to do her research: 82 per cent agreed to do the survey when she wore 3.5 inch heals as opposed to the 42 per cent who agreed when she wore flat shoes. But not only are women in heels more interesting to talk to, they are also more likely to receive help… This was discovered after 180 men and 180 women were observed responding to situational test where a young woman dropped a glove. 93 per cent of men chased after the women wearing high heels to return her glove, compared to only 63 per cent of men who made efforts to return the glove when the women were wearing flat shoes. Part of me does wonder if there is a practical consideration here – women in heels are proven to be slower – the Telegraph would say ‘have a ladylike gait’ – than women in flat shoes, so was it just that women in heels were worth chasing because they are more catchable? Oh and lest there be any doubt that male behaviour is influenced by her shoes, women in a bar wearing heels were approached within seven minutes while it took men – a significantly longer – thirteen minutes to approach a pretty young woman in flat shoes. I never thought my partner noticds what shoes I'm wearing… clearly one of us is wrong.  |
| BBC’s vocabulary letting women down Posted: 17 Dec 2014 01:09 AM PST
The media affects the way we view the world around us, making it crucial that journalists report issues responsibly. Particularly journalists at the BBC, given that it is paid for by us – the licence-fee payer. Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is endemic on our society, and so it is really important that the BBC – and other media – report on issues relating to violence against women and girls in a way that draws attention to the seriousness of the issue and makes clear who is the perpetrator and who is the victim/survivor. But in October, for example, the BBC published a news story with the headline ‘…Care girl had sex with member of staff’. This put the responsibility on a 16 year-old girl being looked after by the state, rather than on the adult who abused their position of authority. And it was abuse, not 'sex'. The next day, one headline was ‘Man dies after woman stabbed to death…‘. A woman was violently murdered but framed in the headline as an afterthought. After all, a man had died. A man who, police believed, had murdered the woman in question. So language matters. It is such an important issue that the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) saw fit to issue its own guidelines relating to reporting violence against women and girls, which include points such as: Name violence against women as violence against women (e.g. domestic violence is not a “volatile relationship”); Do not use the word ‘sex’ when you mean ‘rape’; “Honour” crime should appear in quotes or with “so-called” before it. “Crime of passion” is not an appropriate way to describe murder; Take care not to imply that a survivor of gender-based violence might be somehow, even partially, to blame for the violence she has experienced, nor assume or imply that any of her behaviour might have triggered the abuse or that “she asked for it”; and Avoid treating homicides resulting from domestic violence as inexplicable or unpredictable tragedies simply because the factors which led to the homicide are unknown. Despite these very clear guidelines, the BBC continues to publish news headlines and articles which go against these core messages and contribute to victim-blaming attitudes and the erasure of women’s experiences. Melanie Jeffs has set up a petition calling on the BBC to properly adhere to the NUJ's guidelines and to properly engage with organisations such as Ending Victimisation and Blame to develop a better understanding of these issues. You can sign the petition by clicking here. For everyday sexism you can complain to the BBC. If that fails, try Ofcom.  |
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