Cynthia Magazine September 2013 by Helen Armitage

Cynthia the magazine for women with something to shout about EVERYday sexism project Challenging sexist culture

September 2013 £2.50

Misogyny & Music Five reasons to hate Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines

the art of seduction Pickup artists think you’re sexually passive

Arguments from both sides of the fence

How is the anti-victim blaming march faring two years on?

cynthia is ue 1 sep 2013

can men be feminists too?

Slutwalk 2013

COLLAGISM presents

FREE PUSSY RIOT! an exhibition

The Vestibule Rechurch Street London E2 7DJ www.collagism.com

For everyday use, festivals, camping and more! www.shewee.com

Welcome to the debut issue of . . Cynthia

the magazine for women with something to shout about

A letter from the editor

I made a magazine!

ell, hello there dear reader! May I wish you a very warm welcome to the first ever issue of Cynthia, the brand new magazine dedicated to all things feminist.

Cynthia magazine was born out of a frustration with mainstream women’s magazines and their focus on ads, fashion and beauty and celebrities. I wanted to create a magazine full of interesting, thought-

Cynthia magazine would like to thank... John Armitage, Trevor Armitage, Trish Armitage, Hannah Ballard, Suswati Basu, Laura Bates, Bella, ‘Ben’, ‘Beth’, Betsey, Tiffany Beveridge, Bertie Brandes, Jackie Brown, Nicole Burnett, Rachel Charlton Daily, Conni, Coop, Corrine, Darren, Dr Jonathan Dean, Deborah, Rachel Eklund, Melissa Eklund, Emma, Jacob Engelberg, Dr Elizabeth Evans, Everyday Sexism Project, Fabian Women’s Network, Dr Michael Flood, Ally Fogg, Rosalind Gill, Rachel Graham, Lizi Gray, Dr Jeffrey Hall, Dr Peter Hegarty, Helena Horton, Dr Miranda Horvath, Melinda Hughes, Sarah Hutchinson, Alison Jane, Heather Jarvis, Sut Jhally, Juicy Lucy, Dominika Kaczkowska, Ahmed Kadry, Dr Ann Kaloski-Naylor, Dr Brian Klocke, Niki Kopcke, Lee, Arden Leigh, Dr Ruth Lewis, London Feminist Film Festival, Luminous, Mazi Mas, Heidi Mirza, Mod Carousel,

provoking and often funny features that looked at the real issues facing women today from a distinctly feminist perspective. At Cynthia magazine, we don’t believe there is one ‘right’ kind of feminism. We don’t think you need to have all the answers or extensive knowledge of feminist theory, just an honest passion for gender equality and a genuine concern for the issues women face on a daily basis. We sincerely believe that feminism can only achieve its aims by being inclusive of all women and working together with people who are supportive of feminism. So whether you’re a radical ‘bra burner’, a - shock, horror! - male feminist (see our feature on page 22), or just starting to get involved in feminism you’ll find something that appeals in Cynthia magazine. I hope you enjoy reading the first issue of Cynthia as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Helen Armitage

Editor

Angelique Mulholland, Meghan Murphy, Natalie, Jennifer Nelson, Harris O’Malley, David Perry, Cliff Pervocracy, Paul Phillips, Pretty Nostalgic, Anna Read, Rebecca, Regan, Katie Russell, Dr Kathryn M Ryan, ‘Sarah’, Dr Christina Scharff, South London Women Artists, The Women’s Library@LSE, Lee Thompson, Clarisse Thorn, Anna Towlson, Fay Wilberforce, Henry Wilberforce, Paul Wilberforce

Editor/Writer Helen Armitage

Designer

Helen Armitage

Cover Artwork Daniele Gennara mbf2012 Shelby Gemmaka

All photographs and fonts used under a Creative Commons licence

Contents

News Roundup

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen

Everyday Sexism Project

Misogyny & Music

The latest news in feminism

An interview with Heidi Mirza

How women are challenging sexism

Featuring Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines

The Art of Seduction A pickup artist’s ‘rapey’ Kickstarter campaign

Sex, Lies and Magazines

Misleading sex advice in magazines

SlutWalk two years on Newcastle upon Tyne’s third annual SlutWalk

Britain’s rape culture Victim blaming and slut shaming in the UK

Should men be a part of the fight for gender equality?

Including London Feminist Film Festival and Roller Derby

Can men be feminists too?

The Culture Section September 2013

Cynthia

NEWS

NEWS ROUNDUP

The latest news in feminism

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen Feminism in London 2013: the calls out white feminist media sixth annual conference

Twitter hashtag created by a black feminist writer challenging white feminism’s exclusion of women of colour has gone viral, trending globally.

After so-called, now disgraced, male feminist Hugo Schwyzer admitted, in a very public Twitter meltdown, to ‘trashing’ women of colour during his career because they ‘got in the way’, his former female editors, among them Jill Filipovic of blog Feministe, reacted with either sympathy (as in Filipovic’s case) or by distancing themselves from Schwyzer. Writer and pop culture analyst Mikki Kendall, disgusted by this reaction, created the hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, responding to the situation with tweets including, “I know #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when Big Name Feminism benefits from @hugoschwyzer abusing women of colour.” Also frustrated by mainstream feminism’s exclusion and deprioritising of women of colour, thousands of Twitter users tweeted their own views on solidarity between white feminists and the hashtag went viral, going global in just 24 hours of its creation and inspiring debates around feminism and racism. See next page for an interview on racism and white privilege in feminism with Heidi Mirza.

eminists of all ages and backgrounds will come together at the annual Feminism in London conference next month to discuss feminism and celebrate inspiring feminists.

The conference, which was first held in 2008 by womenonly grassroots campaign group the London Feminist Network, is organised by an all-female committee of volunteers and provides a platform for all women, regardless of their age, race, social class or sexual orientation, to discuss what they can achieve together. Feminism in London 2013 will feature keynote speakers including Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, who will talk about sexism in William Murphy the media and Natalya Dell, who is deaf and a bisexual activist, discussing inclusive feminism. The conference will also feature a Stop Porn Culture workshop, which will explore how feminists can challenge the porn industry, and one woman will receive a £1000 award through the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize, which recognises women who raise awareness of male violence against women and children. The event will end with London’s 10th annual Reclaim the Night march and an after party.

Kaje

Feminism in London 2013 takes place on 26 October at London’s Institute of Education. Check out www.feminisminlondon.co.uk for more information.

Amanda Palmer makes a tit out of the Daily Mail

usician Amanda Palmer has responded in song to an article by the Daily Mail that detailed her ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during a set at Glastonbury Festival.

Amanda, a solo artist when she isn’t performing as one half of dark cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, was rocking out on stage when her bra rode up and revealed one of her breasts through her partially open shirt. The Daily Mail, in typical horny schoolboy fashion, saw fit to write extensively on how Amanda had ‘made a bit of a boob out of herself ’. Funny. Those of us who wear bras will know that they often have the annoying habit of riding up, slipping down, chafing and generally getting on your tits (pun intended) – a fact the Daily Mail chose to make a news item out of. How did the wonderful Amanda react? Did she hang her head in shame? Did she don a nun’s habit to ensure that pesky breast never made a surprise appearance again? Did she fuck! In response Amanda penned a song, ‘Dear Daily Mail. Sincerely, Amanda Palmer’, sang it at one of her gigs and uploaded a video of the performance to YouTube. The original video has been watched nearly 300,000 times and was shared on Twitter by thousands of people including Caitlin Moran, Imogen Heap and Russell Brand. Amanda’s hilariously scathing musical attack on the tabloid features lyrical gems including ‘You state that my breast had escaped from my bra like a thief on the run, 4

Cynthia

September 2013

Burns! How do you know that it wasn’t attempting to just take in the rare British sun?’ and ‘I’m tired of these baby bumps, vadge flashes and muffin-tops, Where are all the newsworthy cocks?’ The Daily Mail has yet to respond. Amanda Palmer 1, Daily Mail 0.

NEWS

#SolidarityIsFor WhiteWomen What does writer Mikki Kendall’s viral hashtag say about the state of feminism? We ask Professor Heidi Mirza about racism and white privilege in feminism F

ollowing Mikki Kendall’s viral hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and call-out of exclusionary white feminism we talk to Heidi Mirza, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths College, about how feminism is still largely a movement for white women.

OREALC/UNESO Santiago

There is enough black feminist scholarship and theory in both the UK and US to stand up to Schwyzer’s pathetic tirade. How can feminism become a movement that is truly inclusive of all women?

Why are some feminists unwilling to address white privilege in feminism?

Judith Butler once said that there are so many ‘isms’ – racism, sexism, ageism – that they can lose the power of analysis. Feminism can try to be so inclusive that we lose the basis of collectivity and dilute its arguments.

I don’t think that all white feminists are failing to address their privilege. But white feminism tends to be mono-causal. There is a great deal of self-absorption and a lot of pressure to build reputations in certain areas with particular kinds of feminism.

We need to have something like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of ‘strategic essentialism’, where we are strategically always thinking how issues of being women unite us, but also be acknowledging of difference.

At the moment, there’s a current focus on particular issues of work-life balance and flexible working in British feminism. But what has this got to do with factory workers in India? White feminists overlook certain issues partly because it’s not a world that they know about or enter into on a daily basis. They might be more focused on issues closer to hand, rather than the bigger global issues. Look at the uprisings in London in 2011. Black women in Tottenham were saying ‘What about us? There are gangs on the streets, our kids are being killed’. Middle class white feminists didn’t address these issues at all. We need a new black feminist voice to help understand these issues. How prevalent is white privilege in feminism? It’s absolutely everywhere. One of the things we talk about in critical race theory is the really integral way in which race is constructed in the structure of society. White privilege is very much linked to capitalist economic structures where certain groups and elites dominate other groups, and black bodies provide the means by which this privilege can be sustained. And feminism isn’t immune to this. White feminism struggles with intersectionality – colour, race, class, sexuality, age and so on – and mainstream white feminism has always looked after its own, that is, white women. White privilege silences black feminist voices – and when white feminists try to speak for black feminists, it is a form of privilege and is silencing and unrepresentative for black women. And the thing is that white women’s privilege sets the agenda of what is mainstream and what is important, and this is a place of power. Issues in white feminism can totally negate issues for black women. What do you think of Hugo Schwyzer, self-proclaimed male feminist and the catalyst behind #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen?

The best of the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen tweets #solidarityisforwhitewomen when woc are accused of creating racial division in feminism simply for saying it exists @NadineThornhill

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen means Rihanna has a responsibility but Miley is just experimenting @Blackamazon White feminists who seek to defend or buffer themselves from #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen are likely the most culpable. STOP. LISTEN. LEARN @laurenrankin #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when you care more about the organic label on your strawberry than about the immigrant woman who harvested it @aurabogado #solidarityisforwhitewomen when white feminists get more recognition for critical race talk than WOC who’ve been having this talk for years @thefeministwire

Hugo Schwyzer is a narcissistic, self-possessed, unpleasant person who discovered he could get attention by trashing people. He isn’t a feminist - he’s just a windbag looking for a platform in the media. I don’t take him too seriously and I doubt we’ll be studying his work in years to come!

#solidarityisforwhitewomen when I’m pretty for a black girl, intelligent for a black girl, successful for a black girl @KamoneFromPluto

People like Schwyzer and some hostile white feminists don’t like the fact that the black feminist platform is based on skin colour, and that this is the thing that binds us. They can’t get into this experiential space and so will trash it.

#solidarityisforwhitewomen is not so much about who is racist and who isn’t, it is about unfair privilege and recognising it @GarnerStyle September 2013

Cynthia

ACTIVISM

EVERYDAY SEXISM PROJECT We look at the innovative project that is challenging systematic sexism URBAN ARTefakte

“W

e’re living in a culture that limits, marginalises, stereotypes and belittles women at every stage of life,” said Laura Bates, at the Southbank Centre’s annual Women of the World festival in March this year.

Laura is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a website she set up in April 2012 as a place for women to document their experiences of sexism, from the seemingly inconsequential to the overtly offensive, with the goal of calling out the sexism that has become so normalised in society.

the Metropolitan Police Safer Transport Command and City of London Police, that aims to reduce instances of sexual assault and sexually inappropriate behaviour on London’s public transport systems. The Project’s online success has been palpable. Laura, alongside US non-profit Women, Action and the Media, which works to bring about gender justice in the media, and feminist activist Soraya Che-

“Women are putting up with something every day,” said Laura, “something they are legally protected from by law, just because we’ve got so used to suggesting it’s all part of life, it’s part of being a woman.”

Since Laura’s speech at the Women of the World festival, the Everyday Sexism Project has been featured in publications including the Guardian and Huffington Post, and Laura has been interviewed by the BBC and US news network CNN. The Everyday Sexism Project is also a critical partner in Project Guardian, a London based initiative set up by the British Transport Police, Transport for London, 6

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September 2013

Let’s take a look at how the Everyday Sexism Project is bringing together women from across the globe and of all ages, sexualities, backgrounds and ethnicities to share the prejudice they, as women, face in their daily lives and talk to member of the Everyday Sexism Facebook group about what the project means to them. “I think Everyday Sexism, though less ‘radical’ than other forms of feminist activism, will have the longest, deepest effect as just about any woman can identify with something, even if the idea of sexism is on a continuum,” says Dr Ann Kaloski-Naylor, lecturer in women’s studies at the University of York.

The website, which Laura expected to only attract a few submissions from friends and family, exploded receiving nearly 25,000 submissions of everyday sexism from women across the globe, whose experiences will culminate in a book to be released by publishers Simon and Schuster in 2014. These include tales of school age girls experiencing sexism in the classroom, not only from their male classmates, but from teachers too. Women sexually harassed by co-workers as their bosses turned a blind eye. Belittling comments, offensive catcalls on the streets, groping in nightclubs. All troublingly frequent aspects of the everyday lives of women and girls.

As of writing the Everyday Sexism Project had over 90,000 followers on Twitter, 5000+ members in its Facebook group, and around 50,000 submissions to its website. Spin-off sites have been developed in the US and Canada, Germany, Brazil and Russia, to name but a few.

Dr Jonathan Dean, a lecturer in politics at the University of Leeds who specialises in feminist theory and politics, agrees the project has the potential to have a massive impact.

Laura Bates Barrow Cadbury Trust maly, spearheaded the Twitter campaign #FBRape. The campaign targeted big name brands, including Dove and American Express, urging them to pull their Facebook ads until the social networking site banned material condoning violence and rape against women. #FBRape achieved success with Nationwide UK, Nissan and House of Burlesque refusing to advertise with Facebook until changes were made.

“The Everyday Sexism Project is a really clever, innovative way of showing the existence of sexism in Britain today. It’s a very powerful and vivid way of showing how prevalent and widespread sexism is,” he says. “It highlights how sexism isn’t always obvious and overt, like domestic violence – it’s little comments and behaviours that reinforce certain kinds of sexism. It may not be really bad or obvious, but it demonstrates it is so widespread that it adds up to create a culture – a structural, general presence.” This sexism comes into play at a very young age for a lot of women. Conni, a member of the Everyday Sexism Project Facebook group, was in the first few years of school when she had her first run-in with sexism.

ACTIVISM “The first memory I have of sexism is when I was six. The boy who sat next to me in school would repeatedly ask me to kiss him, then one day he pulled out his penis and said, ‘If you’re good you can kiss this too’. I started crying and told the teacher who said to calm down, stop overreacting and return to my seat.” Deborah was just a 12-year-old when an older man had the audacity to sexually assault her in public, and in front of her mother no less. “I was groped on the bum by a grown man when I was waiting with my mum at a bus stop, and I remember being too embarrassed and ashamed to tell her. That man probably doesn’t even remember doing it. The memory is as clear as day in my head.” Emma tells a horrifying experience of when she was on a night out with a friend who injured herself and an ambulance had to be called. Emma followed her friend to the hospital in a taxi driven by a man who tried to take advantage of her distressed state. “I was visibly upset and not thinking so I just sat in the front and told the taxi driver to follow the ambulance,” says Emma. “He asked what was going on so I told him and he kept putting his hand on my knee. I pushed him off and told him to stop it. Then every time we hit a traffic light he used the opportunity to force his hand up my skirt to grope my vagina. “I kept trying to fight him off as best I could and, due to my struggling, I managed to stop him getting his fingers inside me but only just,” Emma continues. “The sick thing was I still paid him when we got to the hospital as I didn’t want to make him mad or get in trouble with the police.” As terrifying and disgusting these experiences are, it isn’t always the overt and physical acts of sexual assault. As Dr Jonathan Dean said, sometimes it’s those small, niggling comments that, however innocent seeming at the time, that build a culture of sexism. Rebecca experienced this with an instance of ‘mansplaining’ – a portmanteau of ‘man’ and ‘explaining’ which involves a condescending explanation of something by a man to a woman, who assumes she is stupid. “I had a man mansplain mansplaining to me a couple of months ago. That was pretty mind-blowing!” says Rebecca, amused by the ludicrousness of it. “He went into a big no-paragraph-breaks evo-psych explanation of why what I called mansplaining was something else entirely, and how sexism isn’t really a thing, it’s all just evolution and it was silly of me to expect anything else.

“the Everyday Sexism Project is bringing together women from across the globe and of all ages, sexualities, backgrounds and ethnicities to share the prejudice they, as women, face in their daily lives” “I normally have a really high tolerance for bullshit in a debate setting, but it was such an irony bomb. It really floored me.” Rebecca was relieved to find a space in which she could get incidents like this off her chest, a space which is accepting of all kinds of feminism. “I think the level of supportiveness is really impressive and above par even for a feminist safe space,” she says. “I’m really heartened by the number of people who know what poly is, who are trans-friendly, who have wholly embraced third wave feminism and maleinclusive and intersectional feminism. And this is going to sound conceited as fuck, but I love not always being the smartest person in the room.” One of the things about throwaway sexist comments is that they’re often so subtle and so commonplace that getting pissed off by them can sometimes make you feel like you’re going mad, like you’re overreacting and need to lighten up – it’s all just light-hearted banter after all (which, funnily enough, is an excuse often used by those uttering the sexist remarks). And part of the appeal of the Everyday Sexism Project is knowing that

Besdomny you’re not alone and there are others out there who have felt this. “When you see things online and in the media that get on your nerves it’s really good knowing that you’re not the only one who thinks that way,” says Corrine. “I’ve learnt a lot about sexism, feminism, shaming, intersectionality - a whole bunch of thing, just from talking to the right people.” Beth*, who grew up in a conservative rural town around what she calls ‘monotone opinions and personalities’, thinks the project can act as an introduction to sexism and dispel common myths about feminism. “For those who might be unaware of just how bad sexism is within our society, or for people who are ignorant about feminism, it’s good to have a resource dedicated to explaining that we are not a cult of psycho, hysterical vagina people who murder in their sleep and eat baby foetuses,” says Beth, “but actually a group of very normal everyday people who believe that women are people too and want to destroy the sexism and patriarchy that is controlling all of us, women and men.” Herein lies the power of the Everyday Sexism Project - the power to educate and support, to link likeminded people and challenge perceptions. But most of all, it has the power to change things. Whether it’s a statement designed to belittle a woman’s intelligence and worth, young women battling off the inappropriate, and quite frankly illegal, sexual advances of an older man or a ‘nice tits’ comment on the street – here is a group of women ready to put to shame the sexism they face every day, a group of women who think they deserve more than this.

Frank M Rafik “I want more. I want more than rape joke pages on Facebook. I want more than to be told to ‘get a sense of humour, love’,” said Laura, back in March. “I want more, and I hope you do too, because our voices are at their loudest when we raise them together.” *Name changed to protect identity

www.everydaysexism.com

Sexism in Britain: the statistics A poll of 523 female Londoners about their experiences of sexual harassment (including wolf whistling, sexual comments, staring, exposure and touching) in public spaces over the last year revealed that...

42% 21% 4%

of women aged 18-34 have experienced unwanted sexual attention of some nature

of all women have experienced unwanted sexual attention

of all women polled have experienced unwanted sexual touching

SOURCE: YouGov, May 2012 September 2013

Cynthia

RANT

MISOGYNY AND

MUSIC

feat. Robin Thicke Five reasons to hate Blurred Lines . . (if you don’t already)

can’t say exactly what it is that so boils my piss about Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines.

It could be because, like any inane, supposedly ‘catchy’ (read: brainless, repetitive) popular song, it’s fucking everywhere – radio, TV ads, pubs and clubs – to the point I consider Van Gogh-ing my ears each time I hear the opening beat. Maybe it’s because, ignoring the female nudity (which really isn’t that shocking because – gasp! – I’ve seen a pert pair of naked breasts before) the video is so basic and artless that it looks like something I produced for my Media Studies A Level coursework back in the heady days of the early noughties. I’m pretty sure that part of it is that Thicke (who I’m annoyed now takes up so much of my thought processes as, god bless my 80s throwback soul, I hadn’t even heard of him before the Blurred Lines debacle) through the whole controversy, and in the video itself, seems like such a smug dickhead. But there are some other niggling things about what I’ve come to clumsily refer to as Blurred Lines-gate, and I’ve compiled a handy list so you can further bask in my fury. 1. Some of the lyrics are actually pretty sexually aggressive I’ve heard a few defenders of Blurred Lines claim it’s all done with a knowing wink. It’s all a big joke and ranting mares like me just aren’t getting it. But there’s no denying a few choice lyrics are a bit questionable - ‘I know you want it’ and ‘I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two’ spring to mind. “Robin Thicke definitely didn’t do a good job at making sure the lyrics to Blurred Lines were kosher for most ears,” says Luminous, of ‘boylesque’ (boy burlesque, get it?) troupe Mod Carousel, whose brilliant parody of the video sees them – actual dudes – being objectified instead of women. “He may have been attempting to push boundaries slightly but instead came off as overly aggressive with no mention or implication of consent.”

Arno Arno 2. It’s a negative, simplistic portrayal of women and it’s smack, bang in the middle of mainstream culture Not that I’m saying sexism and misogyny are fine as long as they’re on the periphery of culture, only talked of in hushed voices and in dark corners of working men’s clubs. Not at all. But Blurred Lines, as I’ve already said, is fucking everywhere. It reached number one in 14 countries worldwide, including countries that I consider to be cultured who should therefore know better (France, Italy – I’m looking at you). It’s on that Beats Pill advert. It’s my mate’s three-year-old daughter’s favourite song. “It’s mainstream. It’s catchy. It’s popular,” says Melinda Hughes, an actor and comedian turned fellow Thicke parodist with her feminist interpretation, Lame Lines. “Combine the song with visuals of naked, inexpressive women being ogled by fully clothed men and you’ve got a piece that portrays women as vapid, thoughtless sex dolls with not much else of value to offer. If women are represented as objects in mainstream media, then what are we teaching people?”

redfishingboat

3. Blurred Lines is so normal that it’s nothing to shout about – and this is exactly why we should be shouting about it Whenever I’ve slated Blurred Lines, there’s always one that asks something along the lines of ‘What’s the big deal? There are loads of videos like it out there!’ My point exactly! Lyrics about bitches who want it and are gold diggers and hos, images of partial nudity and jiggling, twerking female hindquarters are everywhere in music. If Blurred Lines was just a one-off, fair enough. But it isn’t. It’s sexually objectifying lyrics and video are representative of the whole music industry – which is part of a wider culture that persistently views female sexuality in a very limited and often degrading light. Sut Jhally, professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts and producer of the Dreamworlds documentary series that explores women’s roles in music videos, thinks this is precisely the point. “Individual videos don’t do so much. Individual messages by themselves don’t have much of an impact,” says Sut. “It’s the system of messages that is really important, and how music videos come together and tell a story of a very narrow definition of female sexuality.”

The wonderful Mod Carousel Witty Pixel

“What is interesting about Thicke’s video is that it consolidates what is in the rest of the system,” adds Sut. “We should focus on the political system that gives this narrow definition of femininity and forces women to be less than they could or should be.” September 2013 Cynthia 9

RANT

Robin Thicke is a bit of a prick Look, Robin! I can spell out things with balloons too! 4. It’s a cheap shot at controversy Let’s, for a moment, imagine the video concept meeting for Blurred Lines. Robin Thicke, Diane Martel and a couple of music marketing execs, slicked back hair and impeccably tailored suits (think Patrick Bateman in American Psycho) sit in a plush office bouncing ideas off each other: ‘We need it to be controversial! Eye-catching! Attention-grabbing!” says one of the execs, gesticulating enthusiastically. ‘Models. Naked. Tits,” murmurs Thick, blue eyes wide and unblinking, picturing the scene. ‘And…and…a stuffed dog!” chimes in Martel. “And one of the models could dry hump it! It’ll be arty and meta!” “Videos are advertisements for whatever music is being sold,” says Sut. “Marketers want their advertisement to be controversial and stand out from the competition, and this is what the Blurred Lines video was designed for. In this sense, it has succeeded – we’re talking about it after all!” Ah, crap. Maybe I should shut my trap and stop giving Blurred Lines the attention it so craves – treat it as I would an annoying attention seeking child and ignore it. But – think about this – take away those mesmerising naked breasts, swaggering Neanderthal men and shiny balloons proclaiming the impressive size of Thicke’s dick (because nothing screams over-compensation like spelling it out in balloons, Robin),and you’re left with a pretty banal Marvin Gaye rip off. As Lee Thompson, music manager for BT Vision and former head of music at The Box, says of female nudity in music videos, “It’s a perfect way of creating a buzz around often mediocre tracks.” Even with lyrics like ‘Baby I’m hot just like an oven, I need some lovin’’ (80s classic Sexual Healing, for those not in the know), I still think I’d rather be listening to Marvin Gaye. 5. Robin Thicke and Diane Martel’s excuses are piss poor and delusional For those who are still sceptical about Blurred Lines being a misogynistic piece of crap, have you even heard Thicke and Martel’s supposed rationalisations of the video? Here’s a few choice quotes. “We tried to do everything that was taboo. Bestiality, drug injections, and everything that is completely degrading towards women,” said Thicke in an interview with GQ. “Because all three of us are happily married with children, we were like ‘We’re the perfect guys to make fun of this’,” Thicke continues. “People say ‘Hey, do you think it’s degrading to women?’ I’m like, ‘Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I’ve never gotten to do that before. I’ve always respected women’.” Ah, I get it. Because Thicke has done his time being respectful to women, he gets a free pass to degrade the odd woman every now and then – and take pleasure in it! I’ve spent most of my years being respectful to my elders, so I assume I’m now entitled to tell an OAP to fuck off next time there are no free seats on my bus – and take pleasure in it! Blurred Lines director Diane Martel doesn’t exactly do herself any favours either. “I wanted to deal with the funny, misogynistic lyrics in a way where the girls were going to overpower the men,” says Martel in an interview with Grantland. “I directed the girls to looks into the camera, this is very intentional and they do it most of the time; they are in the power position. I don’t think the video is sexist. The lyrics are ridiculous and the guys are silly as fuck.” I do agree with Martel in some respects – the lyrics are ridiculous and the guys 10

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September 2013

redfishingboat are silly as fuck. But funny and misogynistic? Are those two words that should really be seen together? And how is a model on all fours with a stop sign balanced on her naked behind or getting cigar smoke blown in her face by a man empowering? I’m not buying it, Diane. So there you have it - yet another feminist complaining about Blurred Lines. But next time you’re driving along in your car listening to it on the radio, cheerily singing about ‘something big enough to tear your ass in two’ please think about what you’re really saying. Please?

Just to prove Blurred Lines isn’t just a one off here are a few more recent similar videos... CAN’T BELIEVE IT – FLO RIDA FEAT. PITBULL Basically a three-and-a-half minute long excuse for close-up shots of women’s arses. Also featuring a hot air balloon, alligator and atalking gold medallion, this video is like a motion picture version of a Salvador Dali painting. If Salvador Dali was obsessed with the female posterior. They say: She got that ba-donkie donk donkie, Thing so fat, thing so chunky We say: Ba-donkie donk donkie?!

TUNNEL VISION - JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE Three women, naked apart from flesh coloured thongs, contorting and writhing into sexy positions. Close-ups of Justin’s face and his little dancing feet. But then it starts to get a bit weird. A magnified image of Justin’s face is projected on to the ladies’ naked bodies, and at one part one of his over-sized blue eyes rests right on one of the women’s nipples. Right on her nipple. Like that creature from Pan’s Labyrinth, only sexual. They say: I know you like it, I know you like it, I know you like it, I know you like it, I know you like it, I know you like it, I know you like it We say: We don’t like it

SOMETHING REALLY BAD - DIZZEE RASCAL A bit tame compared to Flo Rida and Timberlake, Dizzee at least has the models in his video wear swimsuits and, in some cases, somewhat demure long-sleeved roll neck leotards (albeit with bondage bras over the top). Nevertheless, Dizzee’s recount of a romantic one night stand has a fair bit of twerking and cavorting, with a hint at lesbianism thrown in for good measure. They say: I’m giving her good pipe, we’re having a good night, I’m pretty sure one day she’ll be a good wife We say: Marry me?

WORD TO THE WISE

The art of seduction (or how sketchy men are using pseudo-psychology to get into your pants) Pazzia

“A

ll the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women. They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye contact, and were shameless in their physicality. Even when a girl rejects your advances, she KNOWS that you desire her. That’s hot. It arouses her both physically and psychologically.”

He surpassed his initial goal, attracting over $16,000 by his fund-raising deadline. Casey Malone, a comedian and blogger, linked Hoinsky’s Kickstarter project to his rape-like Reddit posts and urged his readers to canvass Kickstarter to remove project.

Hoinsky goes on: “Pull out your cock and put her hand on it. Remember, she is letting you do this because you have established yourself as a LEADER. Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick.”

“Pull out your cock and put her hand on it. Remember, she is letting you do this because you have established yourself as a LEADER. Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick.”

These are just some of the words of wisdom from Ken Hoinsky, self-professed seduction expert and frequent contributor to the Reddit sub-forum, /r/seduction, dedicated to discussing and perfecting the art of seducing women.

Official proof that romance is indeed dead, but sexually threatening misogyny is alive and thriving, if I ever saw it. This strange little corner of the internet is the cyber hangover of the works of renowned pickup artists such as Neil Strauss, author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, a subculture of men whose purpose in life is to seduce and sleep with women, often by nefarious means such as ‘negging’, backhanded compliments designed to weaken a woman’s confidence, thus making her more susceptible to seductive advances. Confined to a Subreddit, Hoinsky’s guide to sexual assault disguised as dating advice may have largely gone under the radar. But Hoinsky, not content with internet infamy and the adoration of his fellow Reddit users, wanted to consolidate the seduction advice he had posted on Reddit into a book, Above The Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome with Women, and took to Kickstarter to raise $2,000 to fund his project.

As Hoinsky’s project did not include excerpts from Reddit, Kickstarter was unable to revoke his funding and, despite the outrage, Hoinsky got his $16, 369. Kickstarter, however, eventually did a u-turn, apologising for allowing his project to proceed, and donated $25,000 to RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organisation based in the US. And even Hoinsky, the man himself, promised to work with similar organisations to ensure his book did not incite readers to commit sexual assault. Kickstarter ended up issuing a ban against

all future seduction guides or similar projects that, in their words, ‘encourages misogynistic behaviour’. Nevertheless, the popularity of Hoinsky’s project, on an internet site accessed globally by millions of users every day, says a lot about how some men still view women – sexually passive creatures who don’t mean no when they say no.

Seduction forums started springing up all over the internet and by the late nineties, the underground seduction scene was flourishing with pickup artists including Eric von Markovik aka ‘Mystery’, establishing training courses and workshops for those willing to pay to learn the art of seduction. It was under the schooling of Mystery, and other pickup artists, that Neil Strauss researched what would become The Game. Mystery went on to star in his own reality TV show, The Pickup Artist, which helped male contestants get over their lack of success with the fairer sex by educating them in the art of pickup. Interest in the community even spawned a Channel 4 documentary, The Rules of Seduction, which explored the lives of British pickup artists. “The pickup community speaks to a widely known and believed feature of masculinity – that the measure of a man is his ability to bed women, particularly attractive women,” says Dr Jeffrey Hall, professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, who has studied the link between sexism and aggressive courtship tactics. “There is very little discourse that supports versions of masculinity that aren’t at least in some way measured by this ability to bed women, and there are a lot of men who want to do that so there is a demand for what pickup artists are selling,” explains Dr Hall of the appeal of the community to young men.

So why are men attracted to this often bizarre method of picking up women? What do women have to say about these so-called ‘seduction’ techniques? And are all pickup artists as bad as Ken Hoinsky?

The art of pickup, can include tactics like the aforementioned ‘negging’, invading a female target’s personal space, indulging in frequent physical contact, whilst isolating her from any potentially disapproving friends – all with the intent of sleeping with and the misguided belief that this ‘seduction’ is an exhilarating experience for a woman.

The seduction community – as it likes to call itself – dates back to the work of Ross Jeffries who, back in the early 1990s, developed a technique known as ‘speed seduction’ based on linguistic hypnotism that supposedly lulls a woman into finding the likes of Jeffries irresistible.

“They think that these strategies are just part of a larger seduction experience for the target woman. They justify it by saying that these women want to be swept off their feet and seduced,” says Dr Hall. “The defence is they are merely copying or mimicking strategies that women are programmed to want.” September 2013

Cynthia

WORD TO THE WISE

Though Darren thinks there are massive differences between the US and UK pickup artists scenes. “I think sites like Reddit allow people to hide behind the anonymity of the internet, which can make it very misogynistic, but the LSS is much less this way inclined – we meet up in real life which makes a massive difference.” “A guy from the US, Alan Roger Currie, who hosts an online radio show about seduction, starting posting misogynistic advice in the LSS forum and we basically took the piss out of him,” laughs Darren. “We will tell someone when they’re being an idiot!” Ben*, a 27-year-old LSS member, thinks so-called pickup artists/Reddit loiterers like Ken Hoinsky are all talk and no trousers. “Every single seduction ‘guru’ tries to take things a bit further than the last,” he explains. “They’re always trying to outdo each other. I don’t think people are necessarily doing the things Hoinsky suggests. He’s trying to sell a product, so he’s being more extreme than a lot really are.” Paul*, 28, sees reflections of the Hoinsky method in the techniques he practiced in his younger days of being a pickup artist. blowslikeyourmom

Harris O’Malley a former pickup artist turned writer and dating coach, working under the nom de plume Dr Nerdlove, left the scene after discovering life as a player wasn’t as satisfying as it first seemed and was turning him into somebody he didn’t particularly like. He has come to think the seduction community attracts men who want to exert dominance over women who scare them. “There are a lot of guys that come to the pickup community because they are intimidated by women and don’t know how to interact with them,” says Harris. “There are also a lot who get into it because they actively dislike women and are all about having power and control over them. “I think a lot of pickup art works because it takes social interaction and turns it into a flow chart or video game where there are expected encounters and specific actions bring specific outcomes,” he continues. “If you listen to a couple of pickup artists talking shop, it sounds a lot like a pair of guys talking about World of Warcraft; she threw up a bitch shield, so I negged her to bring it down. “People are going to be less intimidating if you feel like they’re not as ‘real’ or as important as you, so turning women into a video game component metaphorically speaking, makes it easier to interact with them.” Clarisse Thorn, a feminist writer who blogs about sexuality and subcultures, spent time studying and researching the seduction community, which culminated in her book, Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser. “I often compare pickup artist tactics to mundane tools, like swords and tables,” Clarisse explains. “Some tools, like swords, are hard but not impossible to use in a friendly way. Some tools, like tables, are hard but not impossible to use in a fight.” “The way we frame our relationships helps us decide what tools to use: if you feel like your partners are enemies, then you are likely to use social tactics that hurt them,” she adds. “My main complaint with the seduction community is that many pickup artists frame women as enemies or objects. And most pickup coaches do not differentiate ‘sword’ tactics from ‘table’ tactics – they treat all tactics the same way as long as they get results.” Clarisse can see the appeal of the community to certain types of men, and even how it can work as a sort of therapy for the socially awkward. “In general, the whole community has a strong selfhelp component. One thing I discuss in my book is the overlap between some pickup artist techniques and certain therapeutic treatments for social anxiety,” says Clarisse. “For example, some cognitive-behavioural therapists have patients with social anxiety keep a log of successful social encounters in order to build self12

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September 2013

confidence – and pickup artists often do this by writing what the pickup artist community has come to call ‘field reports’. “It’s not just about social anxiety, though – there are a range of personal and emotional issues that are being addressed in the community, especially issues of masculinity and identity. But of course, these issues are not always handled well. Large sections of the community are extremely sleazy and misogynistic.” Sarah*, a professor of anthropology at a Canadian university, was one of the victims of the sleazy and misogynistic side of the seduction community. Sarah’s curiosity in the scene was sparked by The Pickup Artist TV show, and after hearing the particularly harrowing news that Allen Robert Reyes (aka ‘Gunwitch’), a minor player in the US seduction community, had shot a woman in the face, joined a site called puahate.com, dedicated to exposing pickup artists shams.

“People are going to be less intimidating if you feel like they’re not as ‘real’ or as important as you, so turning women into a video game component metaphorically speaking, makes it easier to interact with them.” “I bashed pickup artists on there from a feminist perspective for a couple of years. But the site took an ugly turn away from pickup artist bashing and into virulent misogyny,” says Sarah. “Photos of mutilated corpses were routinely posted. I was cyber stalked and threated with rape and death.” “The problem with these communities is that they assume women say one thing and mean another,” explains Sarah. “To these ‘students of attraction’, or whatever they want to be known as, women cannot ever truly know themselves the way a man can know them. They have a very crude faith in man’s experience as an objective way to know the world. That’s probably a result of limited life experience and other opportunities.” What about pickup artists themselves? What do they get from the scene? We interviewed members from the London Seduction Society (LSS) to understand the appeal from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Darren, 36, who got involved in the seduction community ten years ago, but has since calmed down his seductive activities since getting into a relationship, explains the pull of the pickup scene. “A lot of guys in their mid-20s feel like they’ve gotten into relationships without having any control over it and get into seduction to get more experience with women,” he says. “On the other hand there are a lot of ‘geeks’ who might not have had many interactions with women and lack the social skills to do so.”

“Funnily enough, I used to be quite similar. It didn’t work out too well,” admits Lee. “The realism is that on paper all these theories and techniques seem like they’d work really well. But in reality women are very different. I understand what Ken is trying to get across, but it’s rapey and too upfront.” “I don’t pay too much attention to the community outside of the LSS. We are much more grounded and real in terms of achieving success with the opposite sex,” Lee continues. “A lot of seduction communities focus on improving how to talk to girls. The LSS is about improving your life – your look, body, career, social circle – and making it one that a girl will want to be a part of.” Pickup artists. Misogynistic and rape-promoting? Or a way for men lacking in self-confidence to improve their social interactions with women? Certainly, parts of the seduction community, like Hoinsky, are more than worrying in their severely misconceived perception of how to woo a woman, but the guys from the LSS seem like a decent bunch. The problem with the seduction scene is that it boils women down into a challenge to be conquered, who aren’t always certain of their own minds. “When you’re a pickup artist, you see the world in pickup artist terms, which are by their nature somewhat antagonistic,” explains Harris O’Malley. “Is this girl teasing me because she likes me, or is she shit-testing me and trying to see whether I’m just going to be another grovelling supplicant who’ll buy her drinks in hopes that she’ll sleep with me? It’s really hard to have a normal conversation you’re using pickup lingo and see human interaction in terms of a model. “The problem is in the attitude that’s prevalent in the community – the antagonistic, commercial model of sex, where a woman’s ‘value’ is all about sex and men have to meet her ‘market price’ in order to gain sexual access,” says Harris. “When you see women as the ‘opponent’, and sex is something you have to earn or coerce out of someone, then you’re coming from a really negative place.” Hoinsky has said his book will be released in early October. Only time till whether he keeps his promise to work with anti-sexual violence organisations to edit out any rape-promoting material. Until then, we’ll leave you with another gem from Hoinsky, female psychology extraordinaire: “Women want to be taken on magic carpet rides. Women want adventure in their lives. They want to wake up the morning after meeting a man thinking, “Wow, who WAS that guy?” Women want to feel beautiful. Women want amazing stories to tell their friends and make them jealous. Women want passion. Women want to be swept off their feet.” Okay, Ken, good luck with that. *Names changed to protect identity

WORD TO THE WISE

ARDEN LEIGH: Feminist pickup artist

Hoinsky’s writing: ‘women love it when you do this’ and ‘women all act like that’. Women have depth and complexity and variety that cannot be summed up in broad strokes like that.” But Arden and her co-authors believe that relationship advice, the same spiel written in every women’s magazine and self-help book, is severely lacking to and in need of a feminist shake-up.

Anthony Williams

rden Leigh, co-founder of New York based women’s seduction company, Sirens, and author of The New Rules of Attraction, a female perspective on seduction, believes that women can actually benefit from practicing the art of pickup themselves.

“What I admire about pickup artistry is it practical, applicable approach: there are distinctive, actionable steps to go through and to practice,” says Arden. “Meanwhile women are usually just told to sit there and not text a guy too much.” Arden, along with collaborators Amy Van Doran, a professional matchmaker and love coach, and Madame Rosebud, burlesque performer and ‘guerilla feminist subversionary’, intend to crowd-fund a book

– A Feminist Guide to Picking up Men – as a reaction to Kickstarter’s ban on seduction guides. “They said they would be issuing a site-wide ban of all seduction material because it ‘encourages misogynistic behaviour’,” says Arden. “I’m like, excuse me, but I’m a seduction coach and I’m not a misogynist, thank you very much. They smeared seduction and I took offence to that.” Arden recognises that there are factions in the pickup artist community that spout some idiotic and problematic crap masquerading as ‘advice’, like the Ken Hoinsky episode. “Telling a group of socially uncalibrated men on the internet to force themselves on women is not only offensive, but also just plain stupid,” she says. “Also, there were far too many sweeping generalisations in

“We want to empower women with a set of tools so that she can use whatever in her arsenal feels most right to her, with a focus on honesty, authenticity, sex-positivity, consent culture and self-actualization.” “Women’s relationship material desperately needs some proactive, positive advice,” Arden explains. “We believe necessary to feminism is the belief in giving women the widest range of options for their personal agency. We’re trying to put out material that is valid and flexible enough for each individual woman to find something in it that resonates with her, so she can tap into her authentic seductress and stay true to her personal integrity while trying out what suits her, being playful, and staying positive in her self-image.” “We want to empower women with a set of tools so that she can use whatever in her arsenal feels most right to her, with a focus on honesty, authenticity, sexpositivity, consent culture and self-actualization.” Find out more about A Feminist Guide to Picking up Men on www.indiegogo.com

ISSUES

Daniel Oines

Sex, lies and magazines Magazines are selling and telling you lies (except this magazine of course)

agazines. Something to casually flick through on the train during your morning commute or curl up in an armchair with and soak up intoxicating images and interesting ideas. Somewhere to go for information on politics, culture, fashion - and for better or worse, but probably worse - sex.

We’ve all done it, been drawn in by the glossy front covers of magazines, bold, capital typeface flashing like a neon light - ten easy, guaranteed tips to ensure you have the most mind-blowing sex ever, whilst fulfilling his deepest fantasies and giving her an orgasm so powerful she won’t be able to walk for a week. But are magazines that boast these grand promises the best place to go for sex advice? In a word, no. Women’s and men’s lifestyle magazines, despite the 14 Cynthia September 2013

magazine industry taking a blow in recent years, are still a popular source of entertainment and information. And these magazines are notorious for sources of sex ‘advice’.

“They often retreat to a repressed version of women and sex in their articles, with stories focusing almost solely on how to please your man, how to keep your man, how to land a man”

“They often retreat to a repressed version of women and sex in their articles, with stories focusing almost solely on how to please your man, how to keep your man, how to land a man,” says Jennifer. “The focus seems to be couched in the Helen Gurley Brown 1960s mentality of what dating, sex and relationships meant for women back in the day. And unfortunately, two to three decades later magazines are still singing the same theme song.” This hackneyed and rehashed misinformation left a lasting impression on sex blogger Cliff Pervocracy who, via her blog produces a segment called ‘Cosmocking’ which pokes fun at Cosmo content.

amines the negative impacts of the women’s magazine industry, thinks seemingly progressive sex advice in magazines like Cosmopolitan and Glamour is actually far from it.

“I used to read Cosmo un-ironically. Back when I was a young teenager, 13 or 14, I actually thought it was a good source for information on sex,” says Cliff. “But it filled my head with a ton of ridiculous miscon-

Jennifer Nelson, author of Airbrushed Nation: The Lure and Loathing of Women’s Magazines, which ex-

ISSUES

Elizabeth Gallagher ceptions about how sex was something you did right or wrong, something you shouldn’t communicate about, and something that was mostly about women entertaining and pleasing men. And I just never forgave Cosmo for that.” There’s something contradictory about sex advice in women’s magazines – you’re expected to learn skills necessary to deliver the perfect blow job, while exuding sexual confidence and sexual liberation. But all of this must be effortless. “It definitely promotes the idea that a woman’s job in sex is to have perfect technique and creative ideas and look gorgeous and come on command – and do all this without giving the impression that she’s though about it or practice it because that would be slutty – and a man’s job is to show up,” adds Cliff. “It’s upholding the stereotype that men are beasts who can’t be asked to modify their sexual behaviour, and a weird Madonna/whore dichotomy for women who are supposed to be experts at sex without admitting they have any experience in it.” Rosalind Gill, a professor of social and cultural analysis at King’s College London who has analysed sex and relationship advice in women’s magazines, found the advice upheld unequal gender relations and privileged men, something she think is damaging for men and women.

women are getting their advice here and perhaps taking it to heart. Men’s magazines, or more specifically lads’ mags, aren’t much better and in fact may be much worse, especially in the often negative and misleading portrayal of women. The ‘Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign, spearheaded by Object and UK Feminista, officially began in May this year, but not before Object having campaigned about negative and damaging portrayals of women in magazines and newspapers for ten years prior. The campaign aims to get to get high street shops, supermarkets and newsagents to cease selling lads’ mags.

“It’s upholding the stereotype that men are beasts who can’t be asked to modify their sexual behaviour, and a weird Madonna/whore dichotomy for women who are supposed to be experts at sex without admitting they have any experience in it.”

“Lads’ mags dehumanise and objectify women, promoting harmful attitudes that underpin discrimination and violence against women and girls,” said Sophie Bennett, campaigns officer for Object, in a statement back in May. “Reducing women to sex objects sends out an incredibly dangerous message that women are constantly sexually available and displaying these publications in everyday spaces normalises this sexism.” And the Lose the Lad Mags campaign has achieved a modicum of success. In July the Co-op, while not completely prohibiting the sales of lads’ mags on its shelves, did state it would no longer sell them unless their publishers place them in ‘modesty bags’ to obscure the sexualised imagery on their front covers – a halfway measure perhaps, but perhaps a step in the right direction. The issue with lads’ mags may be more problematic than just the visual depictions of women though. A 2011 joint study conducted by Middlesex University and the University of Surrey found some very disturbing similarities between the sexually hostile verbal Thomas Hawk

“I think ultimately both men and women lose out from the perpetuation of these stereotypes and myths about what sex ‘is’ and ‘should be’,” says Rosalind. “It often feels that the magazines have an almost hysterical feel to them – trying to persuade people to follow set script or a fixed menu of sex acts, rather than to communicate and explore with a sexual partner what turns each of you on. Ultimately, we all suffer as we get an ever more restricted idea of sex that is paradoxically present as open and adventurous.” And then there’s the almost total absence of any sex that isn’t hetero-normative, apart from the odd oh-so risqué ‘girl crush’ confession, and based on clichéd and stereotypical roles. “The portrayal of women’s sexuality, the lack of bisexuality or lesbian content, the continued stories of women being portrayed to constantly please their partner instead of learn about their own needs and desires is troublesome,” says Jennifer. “Especially if you consider that generations of teenagers and young

September 2013

Cynthia

ISSUES

Sassattack descriptions of women in lads’ mags and that of convicted sex offenders. Dr Miranda Horvath, one of the authors of the study and a senior lecturer in forensic psychology at Middlesex University, thinks lads’ mags often dismiss these sexually hostile statements about women as harmless banter and fantastical wishful thinking. “Lads’ mags want to portray an image that their content is a joke – and if you question their content, you’re not understanding the joke,” says Miranda. “It’s a clever argument that stops people from interrogating them, but if their attitudes weren’t believed, lads’ mags wouldn’t exist. “It may be more about wish fulfillment and fantasy, but a lot of young lads turn to these magazines for information who might not necessarily have the critical argument to decipher the ‘joke’.”

The Kitten’s Toe

Robert Couse-Baker

Araceli Arroyo

Top three ridiculous sex tips from men and women’s magazines

Hold his penis in one hand and lightly slap it with the other...you can tap it back and forth like you’re volleying a tennis ball

Miranda believes the introduction of ‘modesty bags’ and the focus on visual depictions of women may be misguided. “The words in lads’ mags are just as damaging as the images,” she says. “So placing these magazines in a modesty bag is only half the job, but it is a move in the right direction to show that it is not acceptable to portray women in such a sexist light.”

Pop your chap in a jar of Nutella, then present it to your lady. Be rewarded with a very enthusiastic blow job

Atomic Taco

Emily Hildebrand

Dr Peter Hegarty, co-author and head of the school of psychology at the University of Surrey, is ambivalent about the covering up of lads’ mags. “There’s the rationale that young people are harmed by lads’ mags and need to be protected from them – I want to query and interrogate this idea,” says Peter. “It’s a grey area. If images of women in bikinis are harmful, then we need to censor women’s magazines too. A lot of attention is given to the idea that images of naked women are harmful. Naked bodies are not inherently harmful. It’s the words in lads’ mags, rather than the images, that are harmful.” Maybe we should take a leaf out of comedian Bridget Christie’s book, whose feminist comedy A Bic for Her scooped the prestigious Foster’s Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Festival this year. In A Bic for Her, Bridget confessed to audiences how she takes smutty magazines and tabloids off supermarket shelves and surreptitiously dumps them in the nearest bin. Criminal? Probably. Justice? Definitely. So, whether it’s a woman soaking up ’10 sex tips to blow his mind’ or a dude ogling images of near-naked women and sexually hostile accompanying words – it seems we’re all being done a massive disservice from mainstream magazines, which are skewering the way both women and men see sex. “The industry is still struggling to report on sex content in a way which doesn’t degrade women’s intellect, doesn’t set them up to be subservient to men, doesn’t continue to suggest women are in sexual relationships to satisfy their male partner,” says Jennifer. “These are some of the areas magazines should be striving to improve on if they want to start being more truthful to their readers.”

www.losetheladsmags.org.uk www.pervocracy.blogspot.co.uk/search/ label/cosmocking 16

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September 2013

If you’re out in public but want to make your intentions clear, slowly and firmly flick your tongue against the palm of her hand

Cook dinner topless, apply a little tomato sauce to your nipple and ask your man to lick it off Peter Beens

Spanish Flea

Joyosity

Chew a small piece of mango...then take him in your mouth. You can use whatever fruit you have, just don’t try anything too acidic as it can burn him Source: Cosmopolitan

Kari

Make a bedroom burrito. While you’re rolling around in bed, wrap her up in the sheet so she can’t do anything with her arms Source: Men’s Health

PROTEST

slutwalk two years later

t’s an uncharacteristically hot summer’s day in Newcastle upon Tyne as people gather for the city’s third annual SlutWalk, the often controversial protest march that rails against the blaming of victims of sexual violence based on their appearance. A scorching hot Saturday in July – the same day that SlutWalks are taking place in Edmonton, Canada and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil – as we congregate at the International Centre for Life, Newcastle’s pioneering science village established to promote the advancement of life sciences. Quite a befitting meeting place for a feminist protest that challenges biological differences based on sex. The sun beats down on the growing motley crew of marchers - a diverse group of young and old, some revealingly dressed and some with a more conservative sartorial style. “We’ve had a really good response,” says organiser Lizi Gray, as she surveys the crowd. She was just 16 when she coordinated Newcastle’s first SlutWalk back in 2011, and is determined to change attitudes towards women in the North East region who she thinks suffer due to the city’s renowned nightlife.

Does the protest march still have an impact two years after the first SlutWalk?

“I think Newcastle’s image as a party city is partly to blame. It’s important for people to know that women in Newcastle aren’t here purely for the enjoyment of men,” says Lizi. “Do you know they actually have ‘lads’ tours’ of Newcastle? I intervened in one recently and gave the tour guide and lads a piece of my mind. They weren’t impressed.”

Already a group of lads sitting in a pub beer garden are leeringly craning their necks at the growing predominately female crowd, frowning at signs emblazoned with messages like ‘Feminism is not a dirty word!’ and ‘My little black dress does not mean yes’. She might have a point. The march hasn’t even started yet and already a group of lads sitting in a pub beer garden are leeringly craning their necks at the growing predominately female crowd, frowning at signs emblazoned with messages like ‘Feminism is not a dirty word!’ and ‘My little black dress does not mean yes’. “It can be a very male-dominated and male-

Garry Knight

centred place,” says co-organiser Rachel Charlton-Dailey, “There’s that whole working men’s club culture where women aren’t allowed. I think because it’s a largely traditional working class region, feminists like us are seen as radical ‘bra burners’!” It may be surprising then that a considerable number of male marchers have turned up to show their support. “Women need to take the lead in the fight against sexism, but they need the support of men too,” says Paul Phillips, a 24-year-old call centre worker. “The comments made by the Toronto police officer that sparked the SlutWalk movement shows how sexism is still so embedded in Lizi Gray our society.” by Helen Armitage September 2013

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PROTEST

It was an offhand comment made back in January 2011 by police constable Michael Sanguinetti at Toronto’s York University that inspired the first ever SlutWalk march. While giving a talk on campus safety, Sanguinetti is purported to have said: “You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here. I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.” This prompted outraged activists Heather Jarvis and Sonya Barnett to organise a procession through the streets of Toronto, with the 3000 person strong march culminating at the city police headquarters. Since then the movement has spread to all continents of the globe, barring Antarctica, with SlutWalks taking place in London, Melbourne, Cape Town, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Kolkata, to name but a few. “What was supposed to be a one-time, one-off protest about an issue in Toronto has grown into something we never expected or planned,” says co-founder Heather, “When we saw that other SlutWalks were taking place we were shocked. It was powerful and amazing but also very disheartening to see how universal victim blaming really is.”

As the procession passes Newcastle’s Central Station a resounding heckle of ‘Get your tits out!’ rings through the air. Seems like Natalie spoke too soon. The source? A young, cocky looking man clad in a garish Hawaiian shirt, some ill-begotten stag do or lads’ tour theme. And women in Newcastle were just some of those attracted to a movement that aims to expose the ‘slut shaming’ and rape myths that blight the lives of so many women, whether victims of sexual violence or not. “I’m marching today because there are too many ignorant people in the world,” says Natalie, a 29-year-old burlesque performer, “I’m sick of being treated like shit by men.” After an obligatory run through of protest health and safety procedures and a respectful minute long silence for victims of sexual violence the SlutWalk Newcastle begins its meandering route through the city. As the procession passes Newcastle’s Central Station a resounding heckle of ‘Get your tits out!’ rings through the air. Seems like Natalie spoke too soon. The source? A young, cocky looking man clad in a garish Hawaiian shirt, some illbegotten stag do or lads’ tour theme. “Thanks for proving exactly why we’re doing this!” retorts Rachel Graham, a 27-year-old advice support worker. A few more catcalls of ‘Bitches!’ and ‘Fuck off!’ and I’m starting to question whether a group of mostly females trying to decry victim blaming by reclaiming the word ‘slut’ is more problematic than it seems.

Garry Knight 18

Cynthia

September 2013

“I’m a bit dubious of using the word. It plays into the whole Madonna/whore dichotomy,” says the vociferous Rachel. “But I still think it’s important to challenge its usage because so many men still use the word to shame women.”

PROTEST

Helen Armitage

Garry Knight

Critics of SlutWalk have debated this point since the movement’s inception. “While it engages younger women who have no previous feminist engagement, it is clearly problematic for a number of feminists,” says Dr Elizabeth Evans, lecturer in politics at the University of Bristol. “Although the SlutWalks were intended to encourage women to challenge established conventions regarding the monitoring of female sexuality, it’s clear a number of issues are at play. “I remember asking my students, who were largely pro-SlutWalk, would they identify as a slut? Answer? No, none of them would. We have to be careful with language. Whilst on an intellectual level we can accept it’s slippery, the fact remains that the word ‘slut’ is used daily, usually by men, to oppress and control women.” Tricky the use of the word ‘slut’ may be, but for a movement designed to be provocative and stimulate dialogue about sexual violence it certainly does trigger some interesting reactions from passers-by. As the procession marches on through the centre of Newcastle to chants of ‘Fight the pow-

er, fight the system, what we need is feminism’, looks of bemusement and looks of disdain are balanced out by expressions of support – a woman stands outside her shop cheering and clapping; a man outside a pub shouts ‘Good on you!’ as we pass him by. The march, sparse at first, has now grown to about one hundred riled supporters as SlutWalk Newcastle reaches its final destination, the looming Grey’s Monument, the site of many a North East protest.

Tricky the use of the word ‘slut’ may be, but for a movement designed to be provocative and stimulate dialogue about sexual violence it certainly does trigger some interesting reactions “It doesn’t matter what we wear, where we go, or how drunk we get. We need to fight rape culture and attitudes of victim blaming,” says Lizi through a megaphone from the steps of the monument to a rousing cheer from marchers. I look around my fellow SlutWalkers. I see college students, career women, mums with their kids and a young couple whose 13 month old

Helen Armitage

baby daughter, who I’m assured is a feminist in the making, is the youngest marcher here. While I’m proud to be a part of a protest that means so much to so many, I’m still undecided about SlutWalk. The march magnifies how some parts of society still see fit to blame the victims on the basis of their clothes, their character and their sexual history, rather than the perpetrators of sexual violence. But it also raises important questions of the oppressive nature of the word ‘slut’, and the negative associations the word still has for many. At the very least SlutWalk, even in its third year, is still prompting important conversations about sexual violence and encouraging people to think differently about sexual violence. “Talking about the array of sexual violence is much more common. Even the police are using the term ‘victim blaming’ in statements,” says Heather Jarvis. “I am thrilled that even more people are taking part in conversations about rape and sexual assault, and acknowledging that they leave big wounds in communities. I’m just happy that people are still having these conversations.” September 2013

Cynthia

SOCIETY

Britain’s overlooked rape culture Ignorance may be bliss, but Britain needs to start acknowledging and addressing its own rape culture

vicious, horrifying gang-rape on a bus in New Delhi so violent that it culminated in the death of the brave woman who fought in vain to fend off her attackers. Reports emerging at the beginning of July of at least 43 women, including a female journalist, suffering sexual assault and rape at the hands of ‘revolutionists’ during protests against President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The rape of an intoxicated teenage girl by 16-year-old high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio who then posted pictures of her assault to Facebook and Twitter for the amusement of their friends. For all the British media’s furore surrounding these high profile cases, you’d be forgiven for thinking these disturbing, terrifying and saddening incidents were something that only happened abroad, not in good Old Blighty, something we must be immune to. But it exists, it’s there. Britain has its very own rape culture, no matter how it tries to hide or ignore it. “I think this is particularly due to the fact that Britain has quite a hyper-sexualised society in which it believes that it has ‘moved past’ viewing women as domicile creatures from the 1950s and instead as ‘liberated’,” says Suswati Basu, a writer, feminist activist and journalist who has written for the Guardian. “The British government and media works within a ‘pornified’ cultural system, hence it finds it difficult to associate its own rape culture with others.” But statistics released in January this year by the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Office for National Statistics show the true extent of Britain’s rape problem. The report, titled An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and

Cynthia

September 2013

Johanna Ljungblom

Wales, sated that in the 12 months prior to its release, 404,000 women had been the victim of a sexual offence. Around 85,000 of these women a victim of the most serious sexual offences of rape and sexual assault by penetration. Katie Russell, media and communications coordinator for Rape Crisis England and Wales, the national body that represents independent centres providing support for victims of sexual violence, agrees. “There is a turn in the UK to distance ourselves from sexual violence by focusing on, say, the problems in India rather than the problems in our own back garden,” says Katie. “It gives us comfort and a false sense of security by focusing on sexual violence only happening overseas.”

“The British government and media works within a ‘pornified’ cultural system, hence it finds it difficult to associate its own rape culture with others.” And even when the problem is happening in our own back garden, the British media likes to perform a process of ‘othering’ the rapist. “It seems there is a focus in the media on the ethnicity of perpetrators in high profile sexual violence cases – such as the child prostitution rings in Rochdale and Oxfordshire – where the victims were young white women and the perpetrators were Asian,” add Katie. “We have been approached a lot by the media during the reporting of such cases and there was a sense that media outlets wanted a sweeping generalisation of such incidents, when the issue is not about race, but gender,” Katie continues. “Statistics show that it can be men of all

backgrounds and ethnicities that commit, and it is the same for female victims too. The media is constantly looking for new angles of what is newsworthy – it’s surprising that they don’t think everyday violence is a story.” The Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales report also showed that only 15 per cent of the victims of the most serious sexual offences reported the incident to the police, with the 85 per cent that didn’t citing reasons including that they ‘didn’t think the police could do much to help’ and that it was ‘too trivial or not worth reporting’, and 90 per cent of these women knew the person who committed the offence against them. Adding insult to these staggering statistics is the way victims of rape and other sexual offences are often talked about by public figures – those in the media, in the judiciary system and in parliament – who just don’t seem to have grasped any concept of why men commit rape and why women are not to blame for their attacks. Back in January Richard Graham, MP for Gloucester, said to local newspaper the Gloucestershire Citizen, “If you are a young woman on her own trying to walk back home through Gloucester Park, early in the morning in a tight, short skirt and high shoes and there’s a predator and if you are blind drunk and wearing those clothes how are you able to get away?” In May this year, former Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross, in an extract from his new book, Crime, printed in the Mail on Sunday claimed that “rape isn’t always rape” and that “We would laugh at a bank that stored stacks of cash by the front door. We would be aghast if an airport badly skimped on its security”.

SOCIETY

RECLAIM THE

NIGHT 2 2013

Jonathan McIntosh

And just last month in August, Judge Nigel Peters allowed a paedophile, 41-year-old Neil Wilson, to walk free as his 13-year-old female victim was ‘predatory’, ‘looked older’ and ‘egged him on’.

“If the system is allowing sexual aggression, then the system must be changed. Ultimately, it will take a sea change in mentality to end rape and rape culture,” says Kathryn. “Rape myths will die a natural death and education may help.”

These incidents, although notable due to the status of the idiots that uttered these statements, are by no means out of the ordinary. A study by The Havens Sexual Assault Referral Centres in 2010 that measured attitudes amongst Londoners towards rape found that 18 per cent of respondents – both male and female - agreed with the statement ‘most claims of rape are probably not true’ , with men more than twice as likely to believe this than women.

Katie agrees, but believes the government needs to play a vital role in deconstructing rape culture and educating its citizens.

And these attitudes of the general public and public figures alike all help to add up to a culture based on rape myths in Britain. Dr Kathryn M Ryan, a professor of psychology at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania who has conducted several research studies in to rape myths and sexual scripts, believes rape myths function to restrict women sexually, socially and culturally by blaming them and pardoning the perpetrators of rape. “Rape myths help to control female sexuality. By blaming the victim, they allow rapists to engage in horrible behaviour that can be minimized and denied,” Kathryn says. “Rape myths also serve as warnings to women. They may provide object lessons concerning the circumstances under which some women ‘deserve’ to be raped. They may reflect the culture’s beliefs concerning ‘justifiable rape’.” What can be done to tackle Britain’s overlooked but clearly existent rape culture? Kathryn thinks a massive societal change is needed.

“It needs to be addressed on a micro and macro scale through face-to-face education and wider government campaigns,” she says. “The government has had massive successes with campaigns around wearing seatbelts when travelling by car and the dangers of drunk driving – which begs the question, why not with rape?”

A recent study released by Reveal Magazine, conducted in partnership with Rape Crisis, surveyed 1000 women on their experiences of sexual violence and found that… 16% of respondents had been the victim of rape Over three quarters of these women did not report it to the police 20% did not report it because they were scared of what people would think of them A third of those who had been raped didn’t think anyone would believe them 26% didn’t think there would be a strong chance of prosecution even if they did report it

Dru Marland

Join the London Feminist Network for the city’s 10th Reclaim the Night march Say NO to rape and violence against women Saturday 26 October Meeting at: Institute of Education Bedford Way London WC1H 0AC Nearest tube: Russell Square www.reclaimthenight.org September 2013

Cynthia

DEBATE

Can men be feminists too? Should men play a role in feminism or is it best left to women?

Garry Knight

en and feminism. Like chalk and cheese? Rush Limbaugh and Gloria Steinem? Superman (or Superwoman) and kryptonite?

A good amount of debate exists – from both women and men – around whether men can, and should, play an active part in feminism. More to the point, do men even want to be a part of feminism? A 2010 survey by public opinion researchers YouGov on women and equality yielded some conflicting results. While 75 per cent of British men polled said they thought feminism had played an important role in helping women to achieve greater gender equality with men, only 14 per cent of men would identify as feminists themselves, and 54 per cent of men expressly stated they were not feminists. Across the pond, in the land of the free, the situation isn’t much different. A CBS News poll conducted in 2009 found that only 14 per cent of American men identified as feminists, although this number did increase to 58 per cent when they were provided with a definition of feminism. However, 60 per cent of men believed a strong feminist movement was longer needed and 24 per cent considered the term ‘feminist’ to be an insult. This hasn’t always been the case however. Historically, men played an active part in feminism, at least in its early years. 22 Cynthia September 2013

While Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is largely regarded as the one of the earliest feminist texts, reformist Jeremy Bentham had espoused women’s rights to participate in politics in 1781. It is was a man, French utopian socialist Charles Fourier, who was credited with coining the term ‘feminisme’ in 1837, and it was British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill who, in 1869, wrote the essay The Subjection of Women, which challenged the legal and social subjugation of women by patriar-

60 per cent of men believed a strong feminist movement was longer needed and 24 per cent considered the term ‘feminist’ to be an insult chal society and is considered a seminal feminist text (though it is purported it was co-written by his wife, women’s rights advocate Harriet Taylor Mill). There is evidently a confused relationship between men and feminism, and this isn’t just among men. Within feminism arguments rage about men’s place, in or out of the movement. Can men be full-fledged feminists or just pro-feminist? Or are men just simply not compatible with feminism at all? Dr Michael Flood, a senior lecturer at the University

of Wollongong, Australia who has written extensively on pro-feminism, violence against women, and antifeminist backlash, identifies as feminist and thinks feminism can enrich men’s lives. “Contemporary gender roles are not only oppressive for women, but also limiting for men,” says Michael. “We’re taught to be unemotional, that we have to prove ourselves as men. I questioned this and it freed me of the pressures of masculinity.” “Feminism has benefitted my life in all sorts of ways. My personal relationships with women have more trust, honesty, respect and equality,” adds Michael. “My friendships with men have gone beyond narrow, ‘blokey’, superficial friendships to much deeper and more honest ones.” Michael recognises that a lot of men don’t ‘get’ feminism, and thinks this is precisely why they should be encouraged to engage in it and learn how things like patriarchy and gender inequality affect both them and the women around them. “When I identify as feminist, men often express confusion and bewilderment. They have the idea that feminism is for and about women and question how it relates to men,” says Michael. “We need to spell out how feminism is of personal concern to men. Point out how the women in men’s lives - their relatives, spouses and friends - are harmed by gender inequality

DEBATE

Women’s eNews dens of patriarchy and masculinity, the men’s rights movement was distinctly anti-feminist and saw matriarchy, rather than patriarchy, as the root cause of problems faced by men.

Tamara Craiu and highlight the injustice in women’s lives. We need to ask men to raise the bar, to speak up and not be the silent majority.” While Michael has had largely positive reactions from female feminists, not all have been so welcoming. “Some feminists are suspicious of me – and for good reason. Some men approach feminism in a sleazy, rhetoric manner - they walk the walk but don’t talk the talk,” says Michael. “I’ve experienced some hostility and distrust and people questioning my agenda, but that is to be expected.” It isn’t uncommon for men to experience hostility, sometimes even exclusion, from female feminists, as Ahmed Kadry, writer and lecturer at Imperial College London, recounts. “I’ve experienced exclusion in terms of not understanding the cause,” says Ahmed. “There’s this idea that as a man I can never fully understand what it feels like to be prejudiced against because of my gender which is of course largely true, or at least less likely to happen to me because I am a man.” David Perry, a writer and associate professor of history at Dominican University in Illinois, thinks to take exclusion or hostility from feminism personally as a man would be counterproductive. “I’ve have never had a negative reaction from a female feminist, but I’d be ready for it,” says David. “Rule number one is it’s not about you. Women are fighting a much harder battle, so if some, scarred from the wars, react to me with suspicion or hostility, I can take it.” David acknowledges that within feminism, there is

often the need for female-only spaces in which women can safely speak of their experiences and bond, but that men need to be part of feminism if any objectives are to be achieved. “I know that a lot of women come to feminism after experiences with sexism and don’t feel safe or empowered expressing themselves in contexts with men present, so I’m all for women-only spaces,” he says. “It just can’t be the total of feminism, because men are the patriarchs, the patriarchs have power, and men are go-

“Some feminists are suspicious of me – and for good reason. Some men approach feminism in a sleazy, rhetoric manner - they walk the walk but don’t talk the talk,” says Michael. “I’ve experienced some hostility and distrust and people questioning my agenda, but that is to be expected.” ing to have to be part of the solution to eroding its grip on society. But just part of it.” Not all male supporters of feminism agree that men should take central positions in feminism though, or even wish to identify as male feminists. And some men are decidedly anti-feminist. The late 1970s saw the rise of the men’s rights movement, an offshoot of the men’s liberation movement that appeared in the first half of that decade. While men’s liberation was largely characterised as sympathetic to feminism and sought to free men of the bur-

In more recent years, the internet has provided a platform for the extension of men’s rights groups, with Reddit threads and websites like A Voice For Men dedicated to exposing ‘feminazis’ and the injustices of supposed gyno-centrism. While this faction of the men’s liberation movement in undoubtedly misogynistic, there may be some sense in a movement separate to feminism that addresses the issues that men face. Manchester based journalist and writer Ally Fogg, while supportive of feminists female and male and by no means an anti-feminist, thinks it is a movement best left to women and can become tricky when men get involved. “Feminism is and should be a movement for women, of women, and primarily led by women,” says Ally. “I can’t see any problem with men identifying as feminists unless they have prominent platforms or want to take any kind of leadership role, at which point it does become problematic, because it inevitably involves men telling women how to be feminists.” Ally instead envisions a proper men’s movement, void of anti-feminist MRAs (men’s rights activists), that works in parallel with feminism, but addresses gender issues specific to men. “There are a range of male gender-specific issues that should be addressed, such as men’s health, mental health and suicide rates, the status of fathers,” says Ally. “And then, in a rather more abstract sense, there are questions of how we understand masculinity as a society and what it means to be a man, what is expected of men and how boys are socialised, particularly into attitudes of stoicism, aggression, violence.” He points to campaigns and organisations that are addressing these issues such as this year’s Men’s Health Week that focused on encouraging men to talk about mental health issues, and the National Conference for Men and Boys, now in its third year, which aims to September 2013 Cynthia 23

DEBATE

Doviende improve the lives of British men and boys in relation to issues like fatherhood, housing and homelessness and crime prevention. “I think most feminists are happy to allow men space to sort this stuff out ourselves,” he adds. “My experience is that for the most part, when I or other men write about men’s issues without turning it into a battle against feminism, feminists are quite happy to let us get on with it, and in many cases actively supportive.”

portrait of a

Dr Brian Klocke, assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and pro-feminist has similar sentiments – women should remain at the forefront of feminism.

male

“Men who are pro-feminist can nurture feminist ideals into their identity and practice,” says Brian. “But feminism is not just about personal politics but about dismantling patriarchy and misogyny within culture, within social institutions, and structurally at national and global levels as well. I believe this is best when there is regular, both informal and formal accountability to feminist women.” He thinks men who do define as feminists, whether well-meaning or insidious, can hinder feminism if they approach it in the wrong way. “The issue is not the label ‘male feminist’ as much as the pattern that many feminist groups experience of some men, from time to time, trying to co-opt a group or label for nefarious ends or sometimes because of unintentional ignorance and unawareness of privilege, do damage to groups or put feminist women and feminist groups in the background again,” Brian says. Brian believes however that any right-thinking man needs to take an active stance in combatting gender inequality by learning from feminism, even if this is on the side-lines of feminism or out of it completely. “It is beyond time for pro-feminist men to collectively confront patriarchy and misogyny in themselves and in their brothers, fathers, sons, and friends,” he says. “It is important to follow the lead of contemporary feminists and to encourage everyone to develop an intersectional approach to understanding the complexities of gender and patriarchy.” Ally agrees. “Feminism has provided the toolbox through which we can understand how gender works within society, how patriarchal culture enforces restrictive and oppressive roles upon both men and women,” he says. “I think men have a huge amount to learn from that.” Whether men define themselves as male feminists and part of the movement, or pro-feminist better suited to the side-lines of feminism, it is clear that male supporters of feminism think they do have an integral and important role to play in tackling gender inequality and patriarchy. 24

Cynthia

September 2013

feminist armasena

Janaka Dh

acob Engelberg, a 20-year-old student and filmmaker based in Brighton, tells us how he started identifying as a feminist and why feminism is important to men and men are important to feminism.

When did you start learning about feminism and what were your first experiences with it? When I was 16 my friends and I were just beginning to engage with feminism and we bounced ideas off of each other as we began to get to grips with these ideas. We shared books and linked each other to blogs or articles which helped us engage with the large amount of issues feminism addresses as well as establishing a kind of feminist arsenal with which to equip ourselves. Also around this time, I began having frank conversations with female friends of mine about their own life experience; during this time I finally began to come to terms with the misogyny they faced every day. Have you ever experienced hostility from a female feminist? I have had positive reactions from the vast majority of female feminists I have met. Most are just happy that men are having this realisation and feel that having men understand the marginalisation of women is essential for things to change. I have had one negative reaction from a woman, but it’s important to understand where that person’s coming from and she was someone who’d had bad experiences with male allies in feminist politics. In

tarnishing all allies with the same brush however, I feel that she failed to acknowledge the way in which good allyship is important for marginalised peoples. While I am male, there are facets of my identity that make me subject to discrimination and I believe that having allies who listen to me, understand my oppression and fight alongside me is vital for my own activism. This is what good allyship is and what I strive towards in feminist politics. How did you deal with coming to terms with your own male privilege? Coming to terms with any kind of privilege has been something privileged allies have historically not been great at. When I first began identifying as a feminist I was still very much blind to many aspects of my own male privilege as I did not fit the archetype of the macho womaniser whom I had naively lumped all of the problems with misogyny on to. This myth was dispelled however with the more I read and the more I learned. Similarly, the way in which I had spoken about men and women having innate qualities was inherently misogynistic. I also began to realise that the things I have achieved in life were not all of my own doing. The privilege afforded to me by being male, being cis, and passing as white was very much a contributing factor to the successes I have had in my life. Before I had made these realisations, being a feminist ally was near impossible. Recognising and anatomising the misogyny of your past and present is essential for male allyship as well as acknowledging all the societal privileges men are afforded How can more men be encouraged to engage with feminism? I’m a big believer in men talking to other men about feminist issues. I do feel however that it is a sad reflection that it is so often the voices of other men and not the voices of activist women which manage to create awareness amongst men. I feel like this is symptomatic of a sexist undercurrent which allows preachy and politically passionate men to be heard but treats women with similar messages as haranguers. Therefore as well as male allies speaking with other men about feminism the change that needs to happen is in the attitude of men towards feminist women. We must listen to these women, understand their anger and allow them to galvanise us into activism themselves.

What about the women?

DEBATE

We ask two female feminists their thoughts on male feminism

ngelique Mulholland, a freelance writer who has written for The F-Word and anti-VAW (violence against women) organisation the Pixel Project, thinks men have an important part to play in feminism and their inclusion is the key to dismantling gender inequality. For Angelique, it is recognising that men - their beliefs, circumstances and situations - are products of patriarchy too that is central to understanding misogyny among men. “Little boys are not born misogynists. Misogyny isn’t a mental illness; it’s prejudice born out of patriarchy and inequality,” says Angelique. “Why do some men choose to sexually harass women while others are outstanding fathers and partners who treat all women with respect? We need to understand how these attitudes develop.”

Lai Ryanne

ancouver based writer and founding editor of popular blog Feminist Current, Meghan Murphy is supportive of men engaging with feminism but thinks that far too many men approach it in the wrong way. Meghan has had more than a few encounters with self-proclaimed male feminists whose actions implied anything but feminist. “Beyond your run-of-the-mill ‘nice guy’ who tries to either suck up to women by claiming the feminist label, I’ve experienced men beginning arguments with ‘As a feminist’, as though this should provide them with some level of credibility,” says Meghan. “These men generally go on to explain why whatever feminist woman they’re trying to engage with, is wrong and they, being the biggest feminists around, are right.” Part of the problem with disingenuous male ‘feminists’, Meghan believes, is that they don’t take feminism seriously, or come to it with little knowledge of what it’s really about.

“If you behave in sexist ways - go to strip clubs, objectify women - and then say ‘But I’m a feminist’, it doesn’t count. So many men do this that I not only don’t take men who call themselves feminists seriously, but I feel irritated that they would be so presumptuous as to take on the label” “If you behave in sexist ways - go to strip clubs, objectify women - and then say ‘But I’m a feminist’, it doesn’t count. So many men do this that I not only don’t take men who call themselves feminists seriously, but I feel irritated that they would be so presumptuous as to take on the label,” Meghan says. “So many men jump into feminist debates, having done no reading or research, thinking their opinion should be given equal weight as women who have been studying feminism and/or doing feminist activism for years.”

While Angelique understands that some female feminists think that men, by virtue of being born male, can never fully comprehend their own privilege and the day-to-day discrimination that women experience, she believes this attitude can hamper progress.

“Men being part of the conversation means they can challenge misogyny and sexism from other men...Why not harness men’s support in order to challenge the negative ideas of other men?” “Many female feminists feel that the feminist movement was created for women, by women and men will never be able to understand the inherent injustices of being born female,” she says. “Ultimately, it hinders the road to gender equality. In my opinion, it’s as frustrating as eliminating white people from the fight to end racism against black people. Fully identifying with a victim of injustice is not a pre-requisite to fighting the good fight for equality.” Likewise, isolating men from feminism can deny the movement potentially powerful and useful allies. “Men being part of the conversation means they can challenge misogyny and sexism from other men. Unfortunately, the kind of men who purport sexist dialogue are more likely to listen to other men if challenged. Why not harness men’s support in order to challenge the negative ideas of other men?” asks Angelique. “The feminist movement becomes more powerful with every feminist – male or female – working towards ending discrimination,” she adds. “Cutting out men who want equality too simply alienates potentially powerful allies and makes the road to equality that much longer and more arduous.”

The biggest problem, for Meghan, is that man can’t fully comprehend what it’s like to be a woman – to constantly modify you behaviour and face discrimination daily – which is perhaps why men often don’t fully appreciate feminism. “I think they need to try to understand what it feels like to move throughout this world as women. They can probably never truly understand what that’s like, but they need to try. It’s very different,” concludes Meghan. “We do feel afraid and unsafe much of the time. We’re constantly assessing our surroundings, listening to hear if someone is approaching us behind. I do believe that men just don’t need to consider this stuff.”

McClouds September 2013

Cynthia

The Culture Section Business Pop-up restaurant Mazi Mas & vintage magazine Pretty Nostalgic

Film The London Feminist Film Festival 2013

Art South London Women Artists’ Piecework exhibition

Literature The Women’s Library @ the London School of Economics

2happy

Politics

Fabian Women’s Network @ the Labour Party Conference

Weird Wonderful Web My Imaginary Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter & wigs for baby girls

Sport Get your skates on with roller derby

CULTURE

Mazi Mas

Doing “Cooking that happens in the public sphere is valued by virtue of having a price tag and contributes to the economy,” explains Niki. “Cooking that happens in the private sphere is assumed to form part of the ‘emotional labour’ of being a mother, and therefore needs no compensation.

Marianne Chua

how difficult it is to find a job if you don’t have a recent history of employment.”

The brainchild of director Niki Kopcke, Mazi Mas was set up in 2012 to give long-term unemployed, marginalised women to showcase their culinary talents. Working with migrant women in London, Mazi Mas hosts pop-up restaurant events featuring food themes from around the world.

This business has a distinctly feminist edge – Niki hopes Mazi Mas will give women the skills and experience needed to set up their own food enterprises and challenge the male-dominated culinary industry.

azi Mas, meaning ‘with us’ in Greek, is a roaming restaurant and social enterprise with a difference.

Mazi Mas is an enterprise close to Niki’s heart, inspired as it was by her ‘Nouna’ (Greek for ‘godmother’), Maria Maroulis, who herself dreamt of starting up her own food business. “Nouna raised me from a baby and taught me not only how to cook, but also that food is a means of showing love and bringing people together. It is as much an imperative for social wellbeing as it is for survival,” says Niki. “One of Nouna’s greatest regrets in life is that she never got to fulfil her dream of opening her own bakery,” adds Niki. “Her husband, my godfather, wouldn’t hear of it. He told her she’d make a laughing stock of him. According to him, women weren’t supposed to own businesses.” While Niki was volunteering in kitchens across London with organisations like FoodCycle, a charity that uses surplus food to provide nutritious meals for those facing food poverty, she came across many women in similar situations. Like Nouna, they were migrant women, who had followed their husbands’ work to foreign lands, and now dreamed of putting the skills they had nurtured cooking for their families for years to good use. “I decided to start Mazi Mas in order to help women along the path top fulfilling this dream, while celebrating their diverse cultural food heritages,” says Niki.

Naturally, Thamara and Roberta were an obvious choice when Niki set up Mazi Mas a few months later.

They were migrant women, who had followed their husbands’ work to foreign lands, and now dreamed of putting the skills they had nurtured cooking for their families for years to good use “The industry is tough – and tough still for women,” says Niki. “The hours are long and late, the pay poor unless you’re at the very top and the work insecure. Add to that the fact that the work is exhausting and most restaurants are boy’s clubs where masculinity is enforced daily and casual sexism is the norm – Gordon Ramsey being the apotheosis of this. We have to ask ourselves, who do these conditions accommodate? “Women and men may be equally able to do this kind of work early on in their careers, but what happens if they decide to have families? Men carry on and women drop out. Someone has to stay at home with the baby and sacrifice the career, and that person is almost never a man. Thus the boy’s club environment of restaurant kitchens becomes a self-fulfilling and selfperpetuating prophecy.” Niki hopes Mazi Mas will redress this imbalance and give the home cooking that is often the activity of women a more equal weighting with restaurant food.

“People hardly ever think to compare cooking for money to cooking for a family, even though both are the same kind of work, because we are so accustomed to discounting any activity that occurs in the home – it isn’t ‘work’.” Mazi Mas defies this by bringing traditional home cooking out of the domestic sphere and onto the plates of paying customers in a restaurant environment, giving it the same value as ‘real’ chef ’s culinary efforts. So what can food lovers dining at a Mazi Mas popup event expect? “Incredible food and the warmth of dining in a home,” says Niki. “Our events invite you to draw up a seat at someone’s dinner table and discover food that you won’t find in any regular restaurant. “We believe that eating should be a social experience, so there’s no rigid separation of kitchen and dining room – you’ll get to know the chef and might even learn some of her secrets!” With a number of successful events already under its belt, including Sri Lankan and Brazilian pop-up restaurants catered by Thamara and Roberta, Mazi Mas looks set for a bright future. Niki plans to develop the business into a permanent neighbourhood restaurant providing part-time jobs for 10 women, and use social franchising to export Mazi Mas not only to communities across the UK, but also internationally. “This way we can multiply economic opportunities for unemployed migrant women while enriching the culinary landscapes of disadvantaged communities,” says Niki. “And of course, bring together people from different walks of life over the pleasure of a good meal.” The next Mazi Mas pop-up event - A Greek Feast, in association with Oxford Art Circus – takes place on 22 September at Fusion Arts, Princes Street, Oxford, OX4 1DD. www.mazimas.co.uk

It was while volunteering with FoodCycle that Niki first met two of Mazi Mas chefs, Thamara Jayasinghe, a Sri Lankan native, and Roberta Siao, who is originally from Brazil. “Thamara was a whizz in the kitchen and reminded me a lot of Nouna – especially when she started bringing me beautiful, delicious plates of Sri Lankan specialties because she thought that I wasn’t eating enough!” laughs Niki. “Thamara is a doctor by profession, but her qualifications aren’t recognised in the UK,” she continues. “This is a common story among migrant women in London, and one of the main reasons they have so much difficulty finding work.” Roberta was in a similar situation having, like Thamara, come to the UK because of her husband’s job. “I was immediately taken with her kindness, spirit and love of food and people,” says Niki. “having taken years out of her career to care full-time for her young son, she was looking for work and discovering just 28 Cynthia September 2013

Marianne Chua

CULTURE

business “I

t’s just something I felt I needed to do,” says Nicole Burnett, co-founder and owner of Pretty Nostalgic, the vintage lifestyle magazine she set up in 2012.

It was a general distaste for the current magazine market that spurred Nicole on to create her very own magazine.

“I’m an avid magazine reader and was sick of reading magazines full of stock photography and un-researched features, like a factory line churning out issues, more concerned with advertising than actual content. “The final straw came when I was sent a copy of a vintage lifestyle magazine. It was full of cheap and crappy so-called ‘vintage’ items, like massproduced Chinese goods rather than British handmade products.” Nicole was running the Happy Days Vintage Home Store in the market town of Cowbridge, Wales with her business partner, Sarah Legg, when an opportune meeting in the shop with experienced editor Jo Keeling led to the launch of Pretty Nostalgic. Nicole laid out her dream of a vintage magazine with an emphasis on content and genuine vintage products and convinced Jo, who was working as a features editor for Countryfile magazine at the time, to take a sabbatical and help launch what became Pretty Nostalgic. The bi-monthly magazine, which is now in its ninth issue, is packed full of quirky features on topics ranging from learning how to lindy hop and rediscovering the lost joys of tree climbing, to up-cycling your old clothes and how to forage for wild food. “The whole magazine from scratch is bespoke, unique and commissioned,” says Nicole, “I don’t think readers want superficial, Wikipedia-researched articles. In fact, we get a lot of feedback from readers that they love how we don’t just rehash content ever month.” The Pretty Nostalgic team, whose motto is ‘spend

Each month we look at two entrepreneurial women and the innovative, female-led companies they run. This month...pop-up restaurant Mazi Mas and vintage magazine Pretty Nostalgic

Pretty Nostalgic wisely, waste less, appreciate more’, taps into the current trend of harking back to past times of responsible and sustainable living. Here in the UK we’ve seen a resurgence of all things retro – like Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair, which travels to 30 cities in Britain selling everything from fashion to furniture, and hobbies like swing dancing on the rise, as seen with the popular London Swing Festival. Our love of nostalgia even extends to our palate with shows like The Great British Bake Off tantalizing taste buds with retro revival recipes. “There is a trend, but I think it runs deeper than that,” muses Nicole, “There is a human desire to change the way we are doing things.

“Our current staff all live and breathe Pretty Nostalgic. They never switch off because they’re following their passions” “We’ve lost personal responsibility for our own lives. We’ve become sheep – we’re told what to buy and when to buy it. We’ve lost our relationship with shopkeepers and makers and we’re no longer making things ourselves either. “We encourage our readers to take a DIY approach, like making their own clothes and bringing out their inner hunter-gatherer by rummaging through vintage stores. There’s a certain satisfaction in making your own things and finding value in vintage products that were made to last rather than mass-produced goods.” Nicole’s background as a museum curator and her genuine love for all things vintage is what sets Pretty Nostalgic apart from its competitors. “I think it helped that I’m extremely particular about research and content,” says Nicole, “I’ve also amassed a personal library of vintage books and pictures, and own the copyright to a lot of images which has kept picture licensing costs down. “I started collecting my personal archive of bits and bobs as a teenager. I don’t know why – I just felt compelled to do it. And 20 years’ worth of collecting fell into place when Pretty Nostalgic was created!” laughs Nicole The magazine, which is published independently, now has a 7000 issue print run, and is available via the Pretty Nostalgic website, a number of local stockists including WH Smiths and Foyles bookstore and to overseas customers via independent distribution company Central Books. Despite the magazine’s success, Pretty Nostalgic has faced the odd hurdle. While the first issue was funded by Nicole’s vintage store she eventually amicably split with business partner Sarah, and

since the third issue, had funded the magazine completely herself. “It’s an incredibly risky business,” says Nicole, “We’ve expanded very quickly compared to other indie magazines and we don’t expect to start making a profit until we build our print run in the coming year. “We have no advertising, just a directory of like-minded British producers. So, the magazine is very expensive to produce – we retail at £8 because we have to!” But the magazine seems to have found its niche, and Nicole credits this to her talented, dedicated all female team. “Our current staff all live and breathe Pretty Nostalgic,” she says, “They’re already living the lives it promotes, so we came together very naturally. They never switch off because they’re following their passions. “I’m amazingly proud of the magazine and our team and allow them to be as creative as they want to be.” Under the Pretty Nostalgic umbrella, Nicole has also produced a number of other items including a vintage scrapbook and a range of retro greeting cards designed by artist Mel Burgum. This October, the team will hold its first event, the Pretty Nostalgic Gathering at Bristol’s historic Kings Weston House. The weekend-long event will feature a range of home-grown vintage businesses and skill-sharing sessions. “We’re very supportive of artisan crafts and British vintage products,” says Nicole, “and the skillsharing classes will feature inspirational talks to inspire people to start their own vintage activities. We’re very excited about the event!” What advice would the owner of a successful magazine give to other aspiring publishers? “Think outside the box and do what feels right for you,” says Nicole, “I didn’t have any prior experience in the magazine industry when I decided to set up Pretty Nostalgic, but maybe too much information and experience can restrict you! “Know your readers and what they want really well. You don’t need expert market researchers. It’s about getting out there and talking to readers and fellow vintage enthusiasts. “But most of all,” stresses Nicole, “focus on creativity. Find a great designer and editorial team and hold on to them. Trust them and give them the freedom to be creative. Don’t stifle them – if they’re not having fun, readers won’t feel their passion for the magazine. It’s their thought and care that make Pretty Nostalgic what it is.” www.prettynostalgic.co.uk September 2013

Cynthia

CULTURE

A collection of cultural, feminist goings-on in film, art, lit and politics...

Ladies Turn A film by Helene Harder

fter a successful first year, the London Feminist Film Festival will return for a second run to once again celebrate female directors and feminist films.

The festival, which aims to address the lack of feminist films and filmmakers in the industry while challenging misrepresentation of women in films, was established last year by festival director Anna Read. “Like a lot of people, I was a bit tired of so many films being sexist - even some by women directors - and I wanted to see the views of the world that are so often missing from the mainstream,” says Anna. “Plus I really wanted to get to see, and for other people to see, all these classic feminist films that are hard to find and that are rarely shown in cinemas. “We also want to support women directors in the

male-dominated film industry and provide role models for other women who might want to get into the industry, so we only accept films by women directors,” she adds. The first festival screened 16 films including Ladies Turn (pictured), a 2012 documentary by Helene Harder on a non-profit organisations that gives Senegalese women a chance to play football and, in the festival’s Feminist Classic section, Dutch feminist director Marleen Gorris’ A Question of Silence, a drama about three women driven by patriarchal society to spontaneously kill a man. Nearly 1000 people attended the four day event, which also featured an awards ceremony with three categories – Best Feature Film, Best Short Film and the Feminist Favourite Audience Award.

Ilinca Cantacuzino

ondon’s Espacio Gallery will play host to an exhibition by South London Women Artists (SLWA), a collective of female artists from south of the Thames, later this month.

The exhibition - Piecework - focuses on the theme of work paid for according to the amount produced rather than an hourly rate often associated with the poor working conditions of the industrial age and will feature a variety of film, painting, sculpture and textiles from 22 members of SLWA. Jackie Brown, education officer for SLWA, along with fellow Piecework curator and artist Pia RandallGoddard, were inspired to create the exhibition after attending a posthumous show of Czech female artist Bela Kolarova, who often created her art from objects 30

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associated with domesticity, at the Spitalfields Raven Row gallery. “We were struck by the femininity of the exhibition,” says Jackie. “Echoes of our practice as female artists could be found in Kolarova’s art. These objects had a domestic modesty – the safety pin, the snap fastener, bits of steel wool, potato peelings. By the time we got to Shoreditch High Street station to make our way home we had devised Piecework, an exhibition that would explore the relation between piecework and feminist art.” Espacio Gallery’s location in East London’s Bethnal Green is perfectly situated to house an exhibition around piecework with its history of silk-weaving and cheap labour practices during the 19th century. Piecework will feature diverse responses from SLWA

The 2013 London Feminist Film Festival will feature even more film screenings and will see an expansion of the Feminist Classic segment. Anna hopes that after the success of the inaugural festival, feminist films and filmmakers will reach an even bigger audience. “We want to get feminism out there more and get people talking about feminist issues more and to try and inspire people to get involved in feminist activism,” she says. London Feminist Film Festival 2013 24-30 November Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London, E8 1HE www.londonfeministfilmfestival.com

South London Women Artists bcdghjopqtuvz members including Laura Moreton-Griffiths, whose piece draws links between historical industrial unrest and the 2011 London riots, and Ilinca Cantacuzino, whose evocative work (pictured above)) pays homage to the girls forced into piecework involving the handling of deadly phosphorus in the matchstick factories of the 1800s. To accompany the Piecework exhibition, SLWA is also producing a limited edition hand-made book, featuring information on the show. Piecework, 19-24 September 2013 Espacio Gallery, 159 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 7DG www.espaciogallery.com www.southlondonwomenartists.co.uk

CULTURE

The Women’s Library @ the London School of Economics

he Women’s Library, Europe’s largest collection of material relating to women’s history, has taken residence at its new home at the London School of Economics and is now open to the public.

Formerly housed by the London Metropolitan University, the collection was founded in 1926 as the Library of the London Society for Women’s Service, an organisation founded by suffragist Millicent Fawcett and is the leading source for documents relating to women’s lives, with an emphasis on the political, economic and social changes of the past 150 years and the role women played in bringing these about. The library includes over 60,000 books and pamphlets and 5,000 museum objects such as photographs, posters, banners and postcards amongst other materials. It includes rare and historical items such as Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of

Women (1972) and first editions of the Bronte sisters’ works, alongside more recent additions including a 1971 Anti-Miss World campaign poster by the Women’s Liberation Movement and protest badges from the first Reclaim the Night march in 1977. ‘The Women’s Library is a journey through the personal, political and economic struggles that have symbolised women’s battle for equality over the past 600 years,” says Anna Towlson, who managed the transfer of the library to the LSE. “The library fulfils a need for a specialist collection devoted to women’s lives, both contemporary and historical.”

Building upon the current Women’s Library, the LSE is currently constructing a new reading room and exhibition area to complement the collection and has developed a digital library featuring a selection of over 300 items from the collection. The LSE is also creating a mobile phone app, Women’s Walks, which will allow users to walk the streets of London to engage with historical materials from the library related to their location – a sort of interactive historical tour to be released in 2014. http://www.lse.ac.uk/library

Fabian Women’s Network Emma Reynolds MP Jon Worth

his month, the Fabian Women’s Network will hold a series of seminars at the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton to ensure women’s issues and concerns are heard by Labour and included in its policy review.

The Fabian Women’s Network, an offshoot of Labour affiliated socialist society and think tank the Fabian Society, works to give women a voice in political debate and provide the skills needed to contribute to public life. Policy and social media officer and editor of the Network’s Fabiana magazine Sarah Hutchinson thinks the Network is particularly important in representing women in the age of austerity and the coalition government.

“Many of the issues that are side-lined as being ‘women’s issues’ by the government are actually central to how the economy works – employment, social security, economic growth,” says Sarah. “Childcare provision, for example, is not just a matter for individual women. Organizing work and childcare so that it excludes so much female talent affects women’s lifetime earnings and productivity and is going to have a negative effect on the economy.” The Fabian Women’s Network events at the conference will explore three key issues – women’s role in business and economic growth, the future of maternal health, and women’s rights and foreign policy. “Maternal health is something I’ve wanted to cover for a while,” says Sarah. “I think it’s something that, generally people only think about when they have to,

@ the 2013 Labour Party Conference

but it’s absolutely essential to so many women’s lives and health. “Cameron made promises about increasing the number of midwives before he became Prime Minister, but he hasn’t delivered and there are terrifying stories of maternity wards having to temporarily close because they’re overstretched. This is unacceptable in a society as well-off as ours and a horrifying example of what can happen when equality is not central to policy making. “We need to ensure women’s rights and opportunities are protected.” The Labour Party Conference takes place on 22-25 September .at The Brighton Centre, Brighton. To find out more about the Fabian Women’s Network visit www.fabianwomen.co.uk September 2013

Cynthia

CULTURE

Weird W onderful Web mv

Our roundup of the weird and wonderful things we’ve found on the interwebs

l u f r

My e nd o Imaginary w Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter M

y Imaginary Well-dressed Toddler Daughter, or MIWDTD for short (but don’t ask me how to pronounce that acronym), is the side-splittingly funny and satirical Pinterest board that has taken the internet by storm.

The brainchild of Philadelphia based freelance copywriter and mum of two boys Tiffany Beveridge, MIWDTD chronicles the life of young Quinoa - pronounced ‘keen-wah’ and yes, the namesake of the rice-like grain beloved by Incas and hipsters alike – an impeccably fashionable little girl, who along with friends Chevron, Absinthe and Fugue, to name but a few, navigates her pre-teen years outfitted in haute couture, going on Avant-garde play dates and having Great Gatsby themed birthday parties. What started out as a running joke between Tiffany and her friends and family grew into a collection of Pinterest sourced images of precocious child models borrowed from upmarket designer clothing stores, and went viral this summer. The MIWDTD Pinterest board now has over 74,000 followers and little Quinoa

d r i e

Wigs for baby girls?!

‘It always breaks my heart when Quinoa wakes up terrified from a bad hair dream’

‘For their very first play date, Quinoa presented the royal baby with a handmade floral crown and an on-trend nickname: Sir Twiglet’

‘And now Quinoa will reveal this season’s hot new facial expression: the semi-sneer’

has her very own Twitter - @ImaginaryQuinoa. Her bio? Toddler fashionista, jet-setter, helper of poorly dressed orphans. “It started out innocently enough,” says Tiffany. “I kept seeing great little girl’s clothes on Pinterest, but felt I had no claim to them since I only have boys. I created a board to catalogue these images and gave it the name ‘My Imaginary Well-dressed Toddler Daughter’ without much thought at all. “It wasn’t long before I began finding highly-styled, over-the-top images and my sense of humour got the better of me. I started writing funny captions and named my ‘daughter’ Quinoa. Nobody was more surprised than me when it went viral!” There’s no rhyme or reason to MIWDTD – one day Quinoa might be an impossibly stylish and clean fouryear-old sporting a sleek black bob and giving fashion advice to BFF Chevron, the next a precocious tween, all tumbling locks and a pout to rival Angelina’s, attending her presumably posh private school’s 1980s Awareness Day. But this is what makes MIWDTD so hilarious and silly.

Part of the appeal of MIWDTD is the gentle mocking of certain types of parents – the type with more money than sense who give their kids ridiculously pretentious names and would simply die if they got a spot of mud on their designer romper suit. “That’s what is so funny to me,” says Tiffany. “Most people who have, or have had, toddlers know that every attempt to dress them well and keep them clean is futile. Toddlers are usually highly opinionated, prone to spills and are literally growing bigger every day. But I guess this is what we love to hate about it – this adorably garish waste of money.” Tiffany has recently signed a deal with independent publishers Running Press to write a book of Quinoa’s adventures to be published in spring next year. Until then, keep up with Quinoa’s exploits on Pinterest. www.pinterest.com/tiffanywbwg/my-imaginarywell-dressed-toddler-daughter

of all babies, gives a flying shit about bald baby heads. Just let babies be babies you weird wig weavers.

ave you ever been stopped in the street by an old biddy asking what ‘his’ name is, even though you decked her out entirely in pink so as to avoid any gender confusion? Is your baby girl just simply not feminine enough?

Well fear not because help is here. An American company called Baby Bangs! is offering hair/headband contraptions in an array of natural looking hair colours for your bald as a coot bambino.

Dale Lane

The Baby Bangs! website states that with its products ‘Your Little Princess’ can wear her fake hair ‘arranged in the cutest and most adorable elfish coiffure!’ Bald-shaming babies? It’s not like your daughter has got the rest of her life to develop a million and one complexes about her appearance, so why not start her young? And while you’re buying toupees for her little bald head why not start watching her weight too? Maybe start calorie counting her baby food? (please note the sarcastic tone here). In all seriousness nobody in their right mind, least 32 Cynthia September 2013

Todd Lapin

Dave Jacquin

CULTURE

Get your skates on!

Discover the popular and exciting female full contact sport

wo groups of five women in co-ordinating outfits speed and swerve around an indoor sports hall on roller skates, elbows and hips flying sending each other careening into crowds of onlookers.

What the hell is this? Gang warfare at a roller disco gone bad? No, this is women’s roller derby, the sport taking the UK by storm and, quite literally, knocking down stereotypes about women and sport. What is roller derby? Roller derby is a fast-paced, full-contact female sport played on quad (four-wheeled) roller skates played on an elliptical track. It began in the US in the 1930s with Leo Seltzer’s male and female roller skating marathons and developed into the full-contact sport it is today, with collisions and falls. Its popularity grew during the late 1940s when the sport was televised in the US, but interest dwindled in the 1970s. The sport saw an all-female revival in 2003 with the establishment of the Texas Rollergirls and the phenomenon spread throughout the US, before hitting the shores of the UK when the London Rollergirls league was formed in 2006. The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), the international governing body for the sport, represents 212 roller derby member leagues from across the globe. The UK Roller Derby Association (UKRDA) now has 36 member leagues dotted around our fair isle. How is it played? Each game, or ‘bout’, is made up of a two minute segments known as ‘jams’. Each jam involves five players from each team joining the track – one jammer (the 34

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Photos by Gomison point scorer), three blockers (defensive and offensive players) and one pivot (who acts as the lead blocker and last line of defence). Pivots and blockers from both teams gather at the start line, with the two jammers 20 feet behind them. On the referee’s first whistle, the pivots and blockers start skating around the track, and the jammers on the second whistle. The aim of the game is for the jammers to make it past the opposing team’s pivots and blockers, scoring points for each opposing player they pass. Pivots and blockers aim to stop the opposing jammer and help their own jammer pass. This is done by using your hips and shoulders to shove opponents out of the way or knocking them over. Anywhere on the skater’s body between the shoulder and mid-thigh is fair game to hit (except for hands, elbows and forearms). It sounds a bit brutal! What’s the appeal? ‘Juicy Lucy’, captain of London based rollergirl team the Ultraviolent Femmes and membership officer for UKRDA, loves the sport and believes it can be empowering for women. “It’s women playing a full-contact sport, which isn’t necessarily encouraged in society,” explains Lucy. “And you don’t have to be a particular body shape to play the sport – there are many different people that are involved in roller derby.” “But for me, the biggest thing that today’s roller derby offer is the fact it is made by women. There is no

other sport in the world that was invented for women, continues to be guided with women’s governing bodies and is not a rehash of a mainstream men’s sport,” adds Lucy. “This is our environment, we made the rules, and it’s a place where we can play sport and be competitive without criticism.” Juicy Lucy?! Ultraviolent Femmes?! What’s with the funny names? The WFTDA website states that player nicknames are a tradition of the modern incantation of the sport, like a funny alias that acts as a rite of passage into gaining full membership in a roller derby league. Some creative examples include Susan B Agony, Tess of the Derby Wheels and Ellie-Mental. Rollergirls are often as creative with their league names too, especially in the UK. For example, we have Sheffield’s The Inhuman League, Hull’s Angels Roller Dames, and my personal favourite – Birmingham’s Crash Test Brummies. Do you have to be a professional roller skater to get involved? Not necessarily. A lot of leagues have ‘fresh meat’ or recreational leagues where new players can learn the basics. If the thought of racing around on eight wheels while people try to knock you into oblivion is terrifying, you can always get involved in bout organisation or as an NSO (non-skating official), taking on duties like keeping track of scores and timing jams. Find out more at www.ukrda.org.uk

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