A delightful illustration... part 5

Women doing work: "help me!"
Men doing work: it's natural

Firstly, who is making that second statement? Is it the woman telling the man it's natural for him to work, or society as a whole? Because either of those arguments can quite easily be attributed to the fact that women throughout history were not allowed to work, and the attitude that men should be breadwinners is a hangover from that (loooong) period of time. So while this picture is painting that assumption as only harmful to men, frankly, it's just as harmful, if not more so, to women. If we're taught that only men are capable of work as it comes "naturally" to them, then won't we (without any further questioning) assume that teaching to be true? This is an attitude that men have perpetuated (and continue to perpetuate with images like this, I'll get to that in a moment) and for them to now fall victim to it is unsurprising. No, not all men are good at "work" (here implied to be physical labour, heavy lifting etc),  and not all women are bad at it. People are individuals, people are different, have different skills and different flaws, and gender has absolutely nothing to do with that.

The other thing that bothers me greatly about this picture is that asking for help is portrayed as being inherently weak (because, y'know, women are weak and delicate, men are strong and tough, so only women ask for help), and as being a negative thing. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Asking for help is a way of looking at your flaws and moving past them to accomplish whatever task is at hand. Yes, okay, so I can't lift a fridge freezer by myself. But neither can most adults of any gender. Asking for help to do something is sometimes the only way to do that thing, and it doesn't mean shit, except that I'm committed enough to the task to want to finish it.
And the implication in all this, is that actually, women aren't as suited to work as men, and so the image is perpetuating the very stereotype it is claiming to be victim of.  *sigh*

A delightful illustration... part 4

Women are romantic if they suddenly kiss men
Men are perverted if they suddenly kiss women

Once again, the body language of these little stick people is so vastly different that it's only on reading the text that I understood that they were illustrating the same point. The woman in the first one is balanced on one leg, in a fairly unstable position - if the male figure were to push her away, she couldn't really continue with her action, as she'd be falling over. It looks like she is holding hands with the male figure, although he's obviously changed his mind about this situation, and is ducking away from her (and he is clearly able to hold her back with plenty of space between them).

The man in the second picture is using a much more forceful gesture - he's holding he head so she can't escape, both feet planted firmly on the floor for balance. The woman's arms are in the air, as if she's struggling, and it's a much more uncomfortably physical scene than the first.

The whole situation in general is entirely dependent on the people involved; a "sudden kiss" isn't usually perverted (since that implies some kind of desire that's not "normal"), it's usually just an innocent attempt to show someone you want to move things into a more romantic sphere of existence, but obviously when one party isn't consenting then the kisser needs to re-evaluate what they're doing. Our culture has a big problem with asking for consent; we're so used to images (in advertising, films, literature etc) showing us that romance is spontaneous, and that it happens without words, that we're afraid of asking how someone feels lest it "break the moment" or embarrass us. We need to remember that those things are all fiction, and that it's much more likely for us to get the result we want by asking than just taking and hoping for the best.

A delightful illustration... part 3

Women staring at men's crotch: it's flirting.
Men staring at women's breasts: it's perverted and offensive.

Another simple one really, again the grammar is bad and the stances of the "people" are different (although this time it makes little difference unless you believe what cosmo says about men putting their fingers in their belt loops being deliberate attention-drawing to their dick) - is the woman skipping along in her fancy-free female daydream? If not she's a little lopsided. But anyway.

To begin, among the people that I know, anyone staring at anyone's body is a little creepy. It's not a gendered thing, but anyone looking at you like an object really isn't cool. And that's a big point that's missing from this little diagram. Women face objectification on a scale that men don't. Not that men never experience this, but women do experience it more. In the media, fashion magazines and perfume adverts use sexualised images of women's bodies, sometimes even cutting models' faces completely out of the picture to focus on their bodies alone, without that pesky worry of people focusing on the actual person in the photograph. Women's breasts are sexualised in almost all moments of their lives, even when they don't have any actual breast tissue there (see this story and the fact that pre pubescent swimwear for girls always covers their flat, supposedly non-sexualised chest). And after all, if we're supposed to be comparing like for like, why isn't the man in the diagram staring at the woman's crotch? Because vaginas are taboo, aren't they. They carry some kind of shame, and unless we women remove all signs that we've gone through puberty (hair, smell, periods) we should just pretend they aren't there.

So a man stopping to stare at a woman's breasts carries a lot more behind it than a woman staring at a man. NEITHER is right, or acceptable without the...gazee(?)'s consent, but the reason it's considered by some to be less acceptable is because women aren't stared at as people, they're stared at as objects, more often than not.

x.S.x

A delightful illustration... part 2

It's just a mistake if women goes into men's bathroom
Men are perverted if they go into women's bathroom

Bad grammar aside, this is a pretty simple one. I don't know many people who genuinely think that any male who goes into the ladies' toilets is going there deliberately. Let's face it, the majority of women's bathrooms are enclosed, and (although I'm not saying it doesn't happen) I've never encountered a man in there that hasn't been a) so drunk they didn't know what they were doing wrong because they couldn't see the sign or b) ridiculously embarrassed and apologetic. There are probably people out there, of all genders, who get a kick out of being creepy and going into the "wrong" bathroom, but it's definitely not the majority, and most people know this and treat the situation fairly objectively.

There is a little more I'd like to say about this one, but I'm going to have to go and think about the phrasing a little. Rest assured, I'll be back to it.

x.S.x

A delightful illustration... part 1

...of how sexism still exists. Turns out I'm gonna do this in parts because it'd be really really long if I didn't. 

It's hard to know where to start with this, because there are so many layers of double standards and misogyny/misandry* and general DERP involved.

I'll start by saying that the biggest problem I have with this picture is the caption. I realise that "it's just a joke", but it's a badly phrased joke. If the title had read something like "Double Standards", or even just "Gender Equality?", with that all important question mark, I may not have gotten so riled up about it. Because that question mark is, after all, a question, posed to anyone from any side of the debate, but in my mind, especially to those who actually say that we live in a gender equal society. As it stands, to me, it reads more like a "look what feminists have done to us, they all hate men *whine whine whine*" kind of post.

But on to the actual picture.

Women are brave if they hit men
Men are evil brutal perverts if they hit women

So yeah, it's a double standard, fixed on the belief that men are all brawny violent people and women are vulnerable and weak. Of course it's not "brave" to hit another person, regardless of their gender, unless you are defending yourself from an attack, especially one where the odds are stacked against you. Anyone who hits another person to vent their anger is doing something drastically wrong and unhealthy for everyone involved (although "evil brutal pervert" isn't always the case), and I don't think that anyone with any sense actually thinks that it is acceptable for a woman to hit a man, any more than they think that it's acceptable for a man to hit a woman.
But there's another problem with the image, and it's what makes all of these individual images so uncomfortable - the stick figures acting out the text aren't performing an equal action. In the pictures above, the first image shows a "female" figure bending towards a cowering "male" figure, but not touching him. He looks vulnerable but she isn't actually making contact. His arm is raised as if to defend himself, as is his knee.

Now take a look at the other picture. The "woman" in this picture is on all fours, facing away from the "man". The "man" is effectively stomping on her back (very definitely making physical contact), which is an altogether more violent position than the first image - she has no way of defending herself, and he is continuing to attack her. Obviously this is just a stick figure illustration, but it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. The position of her hand also seems very odd to me - the position she is in seems more like a "doggy style" sexual pose rather than one of fear, especially with what would be her hand in front of her face. I'm not sure why the figure would have been illustrated that way, other than to justify the attacker being labelled as "brutal" or "perverted". Or maybe it's ironic, the woman being sexually presented no matter what the situation. I'm holding out hope for that reasoning ( not much though), because I can't see an alternative that isn't more than a little fucked up, and extremely objectifying.


*points deducted from google chrome for not recognising misandry as a word, when misogyny is recognised. Although it also fails to recognise the word google...
x.S.x

I'm a woman...

I'm a woman. I'm not a child, please don't refer to me as a girl, then talk about my drug use and sexual activity. I don't drink, smoke or party every weekend, but that's my own personal choice, and if I wanted to, I would. And it would be none of your damned business. I'll sleep with who I choose, when I choose, and as often as I choose, in or out of a "serious" relationship, because I'm a human with needs and desires, and sex is one of those desires. I'm not governed by the need for attention, I'm living for myself. If I do need someone to pay attention to me, it shouldn't be ignored because I'm a "girl" and my problems are inherently childish and trivial. If I make my problems open to the world, maybe people should listen to me, instead of assuming that my experiences aren't valid, and dismissing them as drama, because I am experiencing life the same way that you are, regardless of gender. And maybe some people don't need to express their feelings to deal with them, but I do, and I'm not going to shut up because it's inconvenient for you.Yes, I exist, and I'm no less or more of a person than a person who doesn't do these things, or live this way. And I won't be slut shamed or told that my lifestyle is inappropriate for a woman, because I am not defined by my gender, my gender is defined by me.


x.S.x

Other people's business. Part 2.

So it's the early hours of new years day, and we're making our way home from a fancy dress night out, after a pretty damn good night. We're walking around the town centre of Bradford, past the lovely grass-over-a-hole-creation that is the urban garden (for those who aren't from Bradford, it was going to be a shopping centre, but it's been...put on hold, indefinitely, and is now a fenced off park) and we see a group of five guys in the park. They're shouting at someone, what sounds like "get the fuck over here", so we edge back the way we came, font being in a fit state to defend ourselves due to the ridiculous nature of our costumes. but as we back off we notice that they're shouting at someone else.

Shouting at a woman, stood in the centre of the group.

Obviously, we can't just walk away from this situation, leaving someone vulnerable like that, so we hid behind a nearby wall to see how things are playing out, phone in hand ready to call the police.
As we're stood there, one male grabs the woman by the ears, shakes her head violently, screaming in her face. from where I was, it looked like he head-butted her, but I'm not 100% certain. Still, we judged that to be enough aggressive behaviour to need an intervention, so I rang the police.

At this point, we're all hiding behind a wall, looking like something from a bizarre whack-a-mole game, heads popping up over the wall to get a better description of the people involved, but trying to stay safely out of sight. While I'm on the phone to the police, going through the usual how-many-are-there, can-you-get-a-description, the shout goes up that the man has punched the woman square in the face, and as I look over the wall she's handing something over to one of the other men, and the first guy grabs her arm and they take her coat off. At this point we're all terrified of what's about to happen, and are readying ourselves to go intervene if the police aren't fast enough. They arrive just seconds after this,  and the group obviously saw the car coming and started to walk away from the scene, but the car heads them off. We stand around impatiently, trying to see where the woman has gone, and if the police are taking her out of harms way, but no one can see her anymore.

The officers get back in the car, alone. No one can see the woman. The group of five men walk away, around a corner, out of sight, whooping and cheering, like they've won some sort of victory.

after  no more than a minute, I hear a scream.
I ring the police again, the operator tells me that after the officers spoke to the group, all of them, including the woman, said that there'd been no incident, that they'd send a car round to check anyway, but that it was, officially, a false alarm.

I can't describe how sick I felt, hearing that, after there were ten witnesses of her being punched in the face, the woman couldn't admit that anything had happened.

Not angry at her, I hope you realise, but sick with guilt, for not going over when the police where there. Maybe, with ten other people there, she'd have had the courage to tell them what happened. Sick with the thought that she might have to live with the man that attacked her, that she might suffer that kind of attack on a regular basis, and is too afraid to speak out.

And sick with frustration, that even though there are ten witnesses, that the police couldn't take any action  because the victim was too scared to speak out.

So without any kind of finality, with heavy hearts, and tears in our eyes, we had to head home once the second police car had passed. I hope, with all my heart, that the young woman got away while the first police car was there; she stood no chance of defending herself alone - high heels and a tiny dress that restricted her movement - and that she didn't know them, that it was just a random attack and she managed to get out of the situation because of our intervention.

But, sadly, I doubt it. From her reactions, and indeed, her assailant's actions, it seemed as though they knew each other.

I liked to think that I knew that this sort of thing happened, and understood the situation that the victims were in. But in my mind, it was always a past victim, someone who'd finally gotten away from their situation, and could look back on their reasons to stay in that situation - with a partner, or a friend, or family - and realise that  although they'd had  such a damaging relationship, that keeping quiet about it only makes things worse.
But seeing it for real triggered all kinds of horror in me, the realisation that this is someone's reality, this is there everyday, makes me feel so... abhorrently guilty that I'm sat in a home where I feel secure, around people I trust, who I can feel safe around, and that I assumed to understand the pain and anguish that a victim of abuse goes through.

x.S.x