Worshipping at the Altar of Abortion

Which, as Tracy pointed out over at the DMHFFH Facebook HQ sounds like a brilliant name for a riot grrl band, is the best comment so far over at today's anti-choice article:

"Two or more abortions could more than DOUBLE chances of a premature birth next time"

Well ladies, that's you told, isn't it.

However, even the DM admits that fertility doctors have said that the research does not prove a link. As they've not actually provided a link to the actual study, or indeed who carried it out, I did a little internet digging, and found this gem of a quote from Dr van Oppenraaij, the man who headed the research team: "[m]ore large controlled studies, ... are needed to confirm our findings." What the DM also failed to mention - and here's the key part - that the study didn't conclude just abortion caused an increase in premature birth. The list of causes included a range of problems, from previous miscarriage, a history of premature birth, high blood pressure, being over or under weight, vanishing twin pregnancies... the list is pretty long, actually. So it's not just abortion, then.

Back to the article. The DM quoted some experts as saying the evidence was "compelling" - however, obviously, it didn't say who the experts were. Possibly because they might have been from the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a pro-life (of the "let's involve a Christian Priest variety") organisation, according to sourcewatch.org. It's not dissimilar to asking a Tory if Gordon Brown is a good PM.

A few links on the same research:
Sciencedaily.com
Teh Grauniad
The research article itself

No, Burger King, I don't want your seven inches in my mouth

So Burger King have got a new phallus shaped burger called, wait for it, the Seven Incher (oh hee hee, ha ha, such wit). How are they going to advertise it? By posing a woman like a blow-up doll and shoving into her mouth of course! With clever headline about "blowing" your mind, natch:

http://perezhilton.com/2009-06-25-do-hamburgers-make-ya-horny#respond

*Sigh* Because that's all women are, just vessels, waiting anxiously to take your seven inches, any which way we can get them. Except if you look at this model closely, her eyes are widened in alarm/terror. She doesn't want your seven inches. But your going to make her take it anyway, yeehaw!

Because rape is HILARIOUS, obviously. Maybe that's an extreme reaction to this, maybe most people won't see it as incitement to commit sexual assualt. Hopefully. But what is clear to anyone viewing this advert is that women are subservient, women are here to provide sexual pleasure to men, whether they say they want to or not, women or of little value. Hey we're just a marketing tool, sex sells, after all.

And just when will the cock jokes start to wear thin? I always wonder how men feel about having their anatomy reduced to an un-funny one liner. I guess advertising execs will stop making penis jokes at about the same time they make an advert alluding to the idea that women are sexually dominant over men. I.e. never.

NB: A word to the wise, avoid the comments on that article if you want to avoid the rage. Nobody is implying that oral sex in and of itself is demeaning to women. If you don't get that, you're not clever enough to be allowed access to the internet, imo.

Gamin' Ladies: Are there any true Femiheroes in the world of videogaming?

As an avid gamer myself, I have sometimes found myself searching the male-dominated world of videogames for a positive representation of a strong, capable woman. And often, when I feel like I might have found one, something will come along to scupper the revelation. Now, I know the Daily Mail teaches us that computer games are Bad - playing Grand Theft Auto will inevitably lead to a life of drug abuse and crime, and playing Mario Kart will cause children to throw banana skins out of moving vehicles, causing a surge of road accidents. But putting those cautionary tales aside for a moment, let's look at some of the leading ladies of videogames, and their relative femihero merits.

1) Lara Croft. The First Lady of gaming, Ms Croft has amassed a loyal following among gamers - Tomb Raider was one of the first major titles on the original Playstation. And there's not much Croft can't do - she runs! She jumps! She shoots things! She grabs ledges and shimmies over abysses. She's a strong, independant woman, self-motivating and determined. And she certaintly doesn't need a man to help her. Gamers may notice that, in the later games, a male team were assembled at Croft Manor - they talk Lara through some of the trickier missions, although she's always quick to put them in their place if they give her a hard time.
So far, so good. But there's one little problem with Lara, and that's the small matter of her blow up doll appearance. Lara habitually dresses in tiny hotpants and a tight tank top. While Sam Fisher, Solid Snake and Master Chief are dressed appropriately for their physical, violent outings, Lara is very exposed. And with boobs like those, it figures she'd need a little more support. Alternative costumes include a skin tight catsuit and a slashed-to-the-thigh ballgown. So ultimately, to make Lara acceptable to (mostly male) gamers, the strong female angle has been watered down by her sex object appearance - it's almost as if gamers would be unable to accept such a strong woman if she were wearing, say, combat trousers and a sweatshirt.

2) Tifa Lockhart - Final Fantasy 7's leading lady, Tifa is an ass-kickin', bar-ownin' martial arts expert. Part of an underground rebellion against The Man, Tifa is strong, smart and capable of leading, as she proves when main man Cloud is rendered useless through illness. The problem with Tifa, however, is Lara Croft syndrome once again - her strength is diluted by her overtly sexual appearance. Tifa fights in a miniskirt and tank top, with proportions not dissimilar to UK 'glamour model'/freakshow Jordan. Once again, she is made hyper feminine in order to make her strength acceptable - she becomes a caricature of sexuality. The other issue with Tifa is her seeming weakness without Cloud - it's almost as if she's powerless without his support.

3) Jill Valentine, one of the main characters in the Resident Evil series. And in her first outing, she appears to have avoided Lara Croft syndrome: she isn't characterised by her 'hotness', kicks an appropriate amount of ass and gets out alive. By the time Resident Evil 3 came out, however, the designers must have decided there wasn't enough non-zombie flesh on display and promptly redesigned Jill's costume. This coincided with her reappearance as a main character.

I'm just scratching the surface of gaming heroines here, and I may well examine some more key characters in future posts, but today's conclusion is this - all three women abovementioned are strong, capable and (mostly) independent. They can fight as well as any man, and are capable of besting men in combat. They do what they have to do without complaint. For all these reasons, they are excellent role models, true femiheroes. But I can't shake off the nagging anger at the need to portray them so sexually. Can a woman not be strong and attractive without dressing impractically and skimpily? And can we not portray 'attractive' without resorting to the tired old formula of 'big tits, skinny waist, flesh on display'? And, perhaps the biggest question of all - why does a female character have to be conventionally attractive at all? Of course there is nothing wrong with being good looking, but where's our female Gordon Freeman?

I can't help but wonder who game manufacturers are trying to please by dressing their female characters in tiny hotpants and tank tops, and by inflating their proportions - is this really the only way we can make our videogaming heroines acceptable to the mainstream gamer?

Horny Hernu vs. The Front Page Campaign

What is it with the name “Piers”? The first that springs to mind is of course Mr. Morgan, but lately it’s been his equally slimy, paunched namesake getting (he wishes) on my tits; Piers Hernu, sometime Daily Mail contributor and, as I have had to hear twice on the radio this week, former editor of Front magazine and contributor to FHM. Journalism is of course the world’s second oldest profession – but no more so than in Mr. Hernu’s case does one suspect it was only an excuse to sidle a little closer to the oldest.

The reason for the BBC’s infliction of his dulcet tones is the Front Page Campaign, which, having recently won lottery funding, is now also receiving some media attention, leading to on-air debate between its founder (Amy King) and Piers Hernu. The campaign’s stated aim is “to protect children from offensive media and restore choice for adults”, particularly regarding “sexually explicit photographs and language”. In practical terms, this is a demand that such material be age-restricted and placed on the top shelf, out of sight and reach of children, but still perfectly accessible to adults. So what’s all the fuss about? Horny Hernu’s ego, apparently.

The first broadcast took place on 5live on Monday. I wondered at first if he's got real live friends to go out with at the weekends, because Hernu still sounded drunk; judging from his second performance on Radio Ulster on Wednesday, he’s either an inept alcoholic or has mugged one for their baseless bravado. When he wasn’t busy sniggering or talking over Ms. King (a tactic most of us leave behind with ill-judged haircuts and notes home from the teacher) Hernu repeated a couple of MENSAesque points over both interviews.

Firstly, lads’ mags are “clearly not sexually explicit” because “um, you know, I think that there’s a, a big, ermmm” – *wheezy silence* – “problem here with, with, with mistaking, erm, toplessness with pornography”. Well, quite. After all, the term definitely wasn’t “sexually explicit” rather than “pornography”, and anyway tits and ass have absolutely nothing to do with male heterosexual arousal – it’s really all just an NHS-sponsored biology campaign. Everybody else can tell that lads' mags are sexually explicit – why doesn't one of their own contributors have the Nuts to admit it?

Then, on Wednesday, he squawked that “if you were to suggest this to any other country in the whole of Europe, they would laugh you out, you know, th- they would just laugh at you, because the rest of Europe has a much more enlightened attitude towards nudity and sexuality”.

Question: has Hernu ever been to the rest of Europe? I know it’s a funny foreign place all the way across the channel, but had he ever lumbered aboard a Eurostar, he might conceivably be aware that, actually, the rest of Europe wouldn’t need to “laugh… out, you know, laugh at” anyone for starting a Front Page Campaign, because they simply don’t have a comparable lads’ mag “culture” to protest in the first place. Their “enlightened attitude towards nudity and sexuality” would balk as much at Zoo as it does every summer at its escapees’ yearly migration to Eye-beef-fah. (And if we really had a problem with “sexually repressed morality”, we might have less of a problem with teenage pregnancy which – oh look! – is the highest in Europe).

So far, so dense. But he wouldn’t be a proper little sexist without a good bit of cliché thrown in, would he? Never fear, he’s on the case; “it’s usually some embittered old harridan who’s got- who gets on her high horse about this, and, and, you know, nobody actually listens, ’cause this has come up time and time again, you know, various women have fronted these kind of campaigns and, as usual, it, er, it turns out that there aren’t lots of people up in arms about this, there aren’t lots of children traumatised by this, it’s just, it’s just not the case that people are bothered about it”. Well yes, of course; “women” – the word spat out like curdled milk – taking issue with it is entirely different from proper “people” doing so, isn’t it?

Ms. King’s citation of surveys indicating that 98% of the general public agree with the campaign was met with further bluster, and burblings about young men being “slowly broken in, as it were, to the harsh realities” – *snort*– “of the sexual world”. But whose sexual world? Lads’ mags have nothing to do with the delicate flowering of male sexuality and everything to do with the entrenchment of male sexism. An airbrushed, submissive, surgically-enhanced, Aryan model flaunting her knickers and knockers isn’t sex; it’s wank-fodder. Wank-fodder, no less, for the spotty teenager who can’t get a real girl because he doesn’t know how to - and Nuts and Zoo sure as hell aren’t going to teach him.

Well, maybe if he's really lucky he'll grow up to be as “embittered” about “various women” as poor old Piers Hernu himself. Sexual enlightenment, my arse.

I am NOT selfish because I don't want to marry or have children. Quite the opposite!

I don't want children.
I first said this in conjunction with "I don't want to get married" at the age of 8. I am now 31 and not only do some people (not my Mum, bless her) STILL not believe me, I am being actively critisized by the Daily Fail for not breeding - in the past few days we've had:

"Women should have babies between the ages of 20 and 35 or risk missing out on motherhood, doctors have warned."

This came complete with several of the usual understanding, sensible comments such as:

Thanks but no thanks. I will have a child when I am good and ready. At 18, 25, 35 or 45. No later, as I see it morally wrong, just as I see no right in any government to tell me when and how I should have a child, manage my life, etc.
- Simon T., Right here, UK, 16/6/2009 6:39

Errr Simon, they mean women, you twazzock.

Swiftly followed by this gem:

"Baby, you left it too late: Two women reveal how they gambled on late motherhood...with very different results "

And this is one of the comments that actually greatly upset me:

I am so glad to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and to know that there is a Divine Design, and that marriage and families are part of it, and that children are to welcomed into a marriage, not postponed because of a career. Selfishness. So often, we do reap what we sow, don't we.
- Donna, Calgary, AB Canada, 17/6/2009 5:24

I am not bloody selfish, and I'll tell you why:

I have no problem with children. I have a niece and step nephew who I love dearly. I am always the woman children seem to migrate to at weddings and parties - maybe they like that I talk to them like they have a brain, and aren't morons, who knows - but I am not some bitter old hag who put my career first.

That seems to be the greatest myth - that feminists, and women generally who choose not to have children, are some sort of career driven, materialistic, robot monster bitches without a loving bone in their body. I don't have a "career". I have a job that I like very much, and I have been promoted a few times, but it's hardly CEO...

Also, have any of these idiotic, insensitive commenters considered that maybe, just maybe, not having a child can be a selfless act?
I suffer from severe depression, which my father passed to me. If it's genetic, which I believe it can be, there is NO WAY I am passing that to a child, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I had terrible, terrible acne that had to be severely treated, and I'm almost certified blind. I am NOT passing that on either! My parents (and a disturbing amount of my friends) are divorced - I don't want to get married because it lessens my chance of divorce quite significantly. Divorce messes kids up - I should know!
Finally, I am in a lot of debt and the Fail would be the first to complain if I was getting benefits because of a child.

I didn't know all of this when I was 8, but I was bloody right and I will not accept that I am being selfish.

Prostitutes go to Heaven. It's their clients who go to Hell.

Some people say that feminism is all about choice, about giving women the freedom to do whatever they choose with their bodies. That's true, but it stops short of giving the whole story - feminism is about giving women freedom of choice, but it's also about helping them to make the best choices, for themselves and for all women.

That's where the title of this post, a quote by David LaChappelle comes in. There is no supply without demand. It doesn't make good business sense. Many women choose to go into prostitution, few do so because they actively *want* to. They feel they have to. But whether that young woman on the streets is there to feed her two-year-old son or her crack habit, if men didn't offer to pay for her services, if society as whole didn't dismiss serious debate about prostitiution with flippant remarks about it being the oldest profession, with jokes that marriage is "legalised prostitution", with wishy-washy legislation which at the moment punishes only those least responsible for keeping the industry going, far fewer women would make that choice. Maybe more women would be aware of the other options available to them, of the help they could get, until one day, nobody chooses to work in an industry that degrades *all* women.

This is why the proposed legislation on prostitution, which would make it an offence to pay for the services of a trafficked or "controlled" prositute, whilst legalising prostitution itself, are at least a step in the right direction. While men are still willing to pay for sex, desperate women will be willing to sell it, but if that demand dwindles, society will have to step up and look after these women, instead of leaving them to dice with fate, selling themselves to perfect strangers, many of whom have a propensity to violence towards women.

Of course, this legislation doesn't go far enough, because as a country we're not bold enough to say that buying women's bodies is wrong, full stop. But it's a start. The next step is for feminists, and especially male feminists, to stand up and say, loudly: "the purchase of female flesh is wrong and I will not be a consumer."

We are not for sale.