I’m not sure whether this post is particularly related to being kinky, unless you take into account that I spend quite a lot of time sleeping with men who aren’t my husband*. But this week, as a mostly-feminist, I’ve found press coverage and adverts outrageously sexist. Really really bad. Enough to want to make me gnash my teeth. So I’m going to devote a post to that. Spanking will return soon, I promise**!
First up was coming through Terminal 5 at Heathrow to collect my suitcase. The Lover and I are confronted with a giant BA poster. It features a little girl standing by the arrivals barrier, looking excited. She is holding a sign saying ‘Daddy’. The caption on the advert is ‘Christmas with BA – getting you home for Christmas.’ All very heartwarming. What wound me up about it was the casually sexist assumption that it’s Daddy that’s been abroad on business. Whatever happened to Mummy working away? Or doing an international conference? Or going on a sales jolly?
Next up was the verdict in the Meredith Kercher murder trial in Italy. A very sad business and an appalling case. No argument there. But the way the papers reported it, you’d have thought that only Amanda Knox or should I say ‘Foxy Knoxy’ has been guilty. There were, to my knowledge, two other murderers, both of them male. But neither of them has had anything like the acres of coverage that the female murderer received, the comments on the clothes she chose for the trial, the sanctimonious commentary in the Daily Mail (and I speak here as a person who reads the Daily Mail) about how she was sexually suspicious and obviously guilty because she left a vibrator and condoms in the bathroom. What the hell is wrong with that? Not to mention the assumption that she was a ‘she-devil’ and a ‘wicked Eve’ who’d led the two male murderers to kill for her, such was their desire for her wantonness that they lost all control and stabbed an innocent woman in the neck. This was crowned by the Sunday Times double page spread (which is, for those who are interested, 2000 words long) on Ms Knox and a mere 200 word sidebar for the two male perpetrators. Nobody called her boyfriend ‘Randy Rafaelle’ did they?
Finally, a more British-based furore, which was the fact that Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons had seen fit to give an interview to the press – tied up with the fact that she is desirous of becoming a Labour MP and all publicity is good publicity. In the UK, the Speaker is an important figure who is required to renounce party-politics and be neutral. So I’m sure I can’t be alone in finding the fact that his wife used her position as his wife (and let’s face it, they’d never have interviewed her if she wasn’t his wife) to knock the Conservative party leader to advance her own profile when he relies on her husband to call him to speak in Parliament, extremely distasteful.
What I didn’t find remotely distasteful was that she confessed that in her youth, she’d been a bit of a goer. The charges M’Lud, were as follows:
• That she’d drunk a lot at university and in her twenties.
• That she’d smoked like a chimney.
• That she’d had some one night stands.
• That she’d taken unlicensed minicabs and occasionally missed her stop on the tube after going to sleep late at night.
Shock horror! From the way the Daily Mail reacted, you’d have thought she was confessing to Satanic Orgies*** and drinking the blood of newborn babies. If I have a single reader who in her time (and who is not still) drinking a lot and occasionally shagging a random, please leave me a comment and I’ll send you a present. I mean really! What year are we in, 1809 or bloody 2009? Women have casual sex! Get over it! So do men! Why is it ok for men and not for women? Why are women slags and men just one of the boys?
I thought it was a contrast, especially as the week before, Tiger Woods got an awful lot of ‘ooo, you naughty boy’ coverage of the ‘wink wink, doesn’t really matter’ variety for shagging around on his wife repeatedly. At least Sally Bercow (to my knowledge), became a pillar of the community once she got hitched and became a mother. Although from the look of her husband, I’d lay money on the fact that he likes a good spanking.
Now for the record, I’d slit my wrists before I voted for Sally Bercow, but for God’s sake, she does not deserve a load of mealy-mouthed old harridans (the kind who used to sit in the front row knitting whilst watching heads roll from the guillotine) saying how awful she is. Because she really isn’t. Not in this day and age.
(Pause to get breath and put out fire on keyboard from irate typing.)
I have always assumed that the kind of people who get vicarious pleasure from tutting and disapproving are the kind of people who have either never had an orgasm (or possibly sex) and are just jealous that possibly other people are having more fun than them. But sometimes, I just despair. For all that women are equal, when it comes to the bedroom – we are back in the dark ages. But the worst thing of all is that the vicious scribes dipping their pens in poison tend to be female. Hell hath no fury and all that…..
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*And shock horror, Daily Mail readers, he doesn’t mind!
**When I next get some.
***GASP!
Cue big indrawn breath… “SATANIC OORRGGGIIEES”????? Squeal and faint.
Random strange quote aside, you are totally right. There is still the expectation that women have to, for some reason, follow the “example” of The Virgin Mary in every way: well behaved, compliant, standing by their husbands, and, oh, if you could have children without ever actually having sex or being seen to be someone with a sexuality that would be great.
This doesn’t always apply in day to day life, but certainly in the media women are often still held to some sort of ridiculous standard of morality and goodness that men are never held to. And it’s wrong. Why is a woman killing fundamentally more evil than a man doing so? It’s not, iboth are crimes of equal horror, but women are expected to be the “fairer, gentler” sex, even now.
Anyway, incoherent morning rant over.
Hear, hear!
Along similar lines, there was a ridiculous little article by Libby Purves in The Times the other day, condemning anyone whose sex life is not restricted to one partner. (She didn’t quite insist that the woman wore a nightdress at all times, and that the sex was in the missionary position, but you could see where her argument would lead). It does so annoy me to see journalists seeking to impose their own lifestyle on others who may be safe, responsible and happy adopting very different approaches.
BTW I think BA are being even ruder with their ad. See, mummy is a woman of ill morals, and has no idea who the father is. She has sent her child to Heathrow in the hope that the girl will spot her daddy from amongst the thousands of men coming through the airport this Christmas…
I’ve never shagged a random.
For my present – I demand a rerun of my formative years where this time round I get to have sex with anyone, random or not.
Jessica, I admire your spirit, and abhor the double standard.
But really The Daily Mail!!
It is not entirely the reporters or writers fault as they need to please the editor and the editor the publisher.
But then again I gave up on the MSM a long time ago, it’s 95% lies and the rest is biased.
I agree murder is murder, whatever sex commits it, but then bad women are always worse then men, from Lilith through Delila to Lucrezia Borgia to whoever is the current Wicked Woman.
Until advertisers, polititians and publishers get it through their thick skulls that men and women are equal though different, this situation will not change.
Like Maidie I’ve never shagged a random either.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
When I was at university I pulled a guy who will forever be known as ‘Superman’ as he was wearing a superman t-shirt. He was a rugby player and visiting his brother and kept calling me for week wanting to meet up – and even left his expensive watch as an excuse to see me. I left it with the porters for him to collect. I’m sure he had a real name, he was bloody good in bed but I prefer to remember him just as ‘Superman’…sigh
I’m working in the middle east somewhere – due to the nature of my blog I won’t say where – but I would like to tell you about a radio advert that I find horrendous. The summary of the scrip is:
{Announcer} How do you become a millionaire?
{Man} Stocks, Job on wall street, Smart Investing…
{Woman} A rich husband (insipid giggle) A wealthy uncle…
end script with inane drivel about how to enter the draw…
Oddly enough, its an expatriate station (virgin radio) thats playing it…
Makes me want to vomit!
Blatant sexism is but one of many infuriating things about the Amanda Knox trial and coverage… And I’ll restrain myself from going into it here as this isn’t really the place for that. (But prosecutors acting out “what could have happened” in front of a jury while playing autopsy footage? Hey, then maybe later we can throw her in the river and see if she floats. Sorry. Stopping now.)
When sexism in media gets you down, I recommend “Mad Men” therapy. Awesome show, awesome clothes, and the sexism it portrays is so outrageous it gives one a sense of progress. Perhaps a false sense… But a sense nonetheless!
Excellent rant! I’ve always said that if women stopped being sexist, the men wouldn’t be able to get away with it either. After all, we outnumber them.
Sadly, studies show that both sexes undervalue women’s contributions in the workplace, etc., to exactly the same degree. Apparently, we women are better at correcting for it when it’s pointed out to us.
@ Madie: I’ve never shagged a random either. Please may my present be the chance to relive my teenage years but fill them with the kind of horrific hedonism that the Daily Mail thinks we get up to?
On a more serious note, yes, it’s utterly infuriating, women are still objectified, underpaid and often not hired on the assumption that they’ll go off and breed in five mins time. I suppose the important thing to remember is that we have had progress and hopefully progress will continue. Maybe by the time our children’s children (ok, not your children ‘cos that’s why you had that stick in your arm) are of working age, things will be different.
I’m with Graham on Mad Men though… best show ever.