IWD March 8th 2011

This has actually been mentioned on Sky - a trail after the news...and on BBC World Service.

"I'll Make a Man Out of You"--essay on strong women in Scifi TV

This was published (uploaded as a PDF by the author to her blog) several months ago now, but I've just come across this interesting master's thesis about the role of strong female characters in science fiction and fantasy television shows. A fascinating study of gender stereotypes/archetypes and feminist theory, and why this popular culture phenomenon is important.

• "I'll make a Man Out of You": Strong Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Television, Anita Sarkeesian, York University, Toronto, Ontario

More headline idiocy

As I understand it the TUC has passed/ is discussing a resolution to stop employers forcing women to wear high heels at work, on health grounds.
They are not forcing women to stop wearing high heels. They are not asking women to stop wearing high heels.
Yet it has been misreported in this way, under the headline:
Daggers drawn over stilettos
A TUC vote to ban high heels in the workplace has won support from doctors – but derision from women.
Where? In the Independent today. And all the usual suspects are up in arms.

How headlines change the story

Thanks to Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column for this one:

http://www.badscience.net/2009/07/asking-for-it/#more-1250

I quote the intro verbatim:

There’s nothing like science for giving that objective, white-coat flavoured legitimacy to your prejudices, so it must have been a great day for Telegraph readers when they came across the headline “Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists”. Ah, scientists. “Women who drink alcohol, wear short skirts and are outgoing are more likely to be raped, claim scientists at the University of Leicester.” Well there you go. Oddly, though, the title of the press release for the same research was “Promiscuous men more likely to rape”.

Dora going 'tween'

A Pink Stinks blog entry about how young girls are manipulated for marketing purposes, in particular objecting to the way Dora is being made to grow up into a 'tween'. Dora is a cartoon character who so far has presented some kind of active role model for little girls.

Comments are interesting too.

There is a petition you can sign here

Binge-drinking and role models

Clare Clinton on AOl front page pontificates about the terrible role models presented to young women - Amy Winehouse and others. But isn't her article doing exactly what she claims to deplore - giving this behaviour publicity? I suppose it would be too much in our celeb obsessed age to ask the media to ignore drunken celebs. And now I've clicked on the article twice, so I suppose I'm helping to push it up their 'most read' list.

Politics and the City

I haven't looked at this very closely yet - but it may be interesting.
From the BBC website today:

TV presenter June Sarpong hopes her new website, http://www.politicsandthecity.com/, will be the cool place for all ambitious women to be.
The 31-year-old, best known to teenagers as the face of Channel 4's youth programme T4, reckons there is a gap in the market for fashionable young women who like celebrities and gossip - but also want to keep on top of current affairs.
The result is a slick looking site which covers, politics, news, fashion, beauty, gossip and music.

Come on, you under 40s, let me know what you think. My immediate reaction is, why do we have to sugar the pill? But hey, I'm just an old fuddy feminist.

How important is this teenager's FF bra cup?

The headline on the main UK news page reads -

Sleepy baby bat beds down in receptionist's FF bra cup

Above the story itself, we have Teenager finds bat asleep in bra. Why the titillating (geddit?) headline?
Yes, I know, it's a light-hearted little story to be sure - there must be a couple of cartoons in it somewhere.

Well, dang me, they've changed it, since I wrote in and commented.
It's now:
The woman who thought she was going batty when her bra vibrated.

Girls and Crime

It seems that crimes committed by girls have risen by 25% in three years. The Youth Justice Board says girls committed 59,000 offences in 2006-07 - up 12,000 on 2003-4 but still far less crime than that committed by boys.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7401826.stm

But maybe girls aren't getting worse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/15/ukcrime.youthjustice
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/16/ukcrime.gender

From the Independent - a very detailed article - I reprint the summary below:

Is there a crimewave among girls?
Yes...
* A 25 per cent rise in offences is objective proof of more lawlessness among girls.
* Female binge-drinking is growing, resulting in more violent crime offences.
* There has been a succession of reports about girl violence in all parts of the country.
No...
* Girls commit far fewer crimes than boys – only 20 per cent of the offences committed by children.
* They are being prosecuted for offences that would have previously received an informal warning.
* Drink-fuelled high spirits are hardly a pointer to criminal behaviour in later life.

Not sure how long this will be available as a link, but the comments on the BBC's Have Your Say are an interesting example of reactions to the headlines.

International Women's Day 2008 ? I blinked and missed it.

On March 9th, the day after the big one, I could find very little about this in the news online.
AOL had its usual front page of celeb bad boob jobs, fit celebs with gorgeous bodies, weather 'babes'.
Two other mentions of women or girls - Margaret Thatcher's 'hospitalization', and a murder victim. Oh well, I guess it was a bad day.The Guardian had three films about key issues that affect women in the developing world titled Why International Women's Day matters.

The Independent had an article about intellectual women ending with the words 'Women beware women.' I only found this by searching for an article about women in the opinion section.

The Telegraph had an interesting article about male and female sexuality in France.
Maybe I was looking in the wrong places, but IWD did not hit me in the face.