Fellow Australians, be warned! A local version of the UK reality program Ladette to Lady will be hitting our screens in the very near future. In an article published in The Sunday Age, Peter Munro examines the controversial show while providing us with the eye-opening attitudes of some young women at a bar in Bundoora. The women interviewed for the article seem to have been strategically chosen to illustrate the type of participants that the Australian version of the program will most likely feature. For starters:
“We are real classy girls, but when you get a drink into us we are f–kin’, like, oh, my God, the dirtiest people ever,” says Lynda Evans, 18, waving an alcopop in the air. “Having fun is the main thing in life. Who cares if you can arrange flowers or bake a cake — you can buy cakes from a cake shop.”
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Ladette to Lady format, the program basically takes a bunch of ladettes – “foul-mouthed, loud and uncultured young [women]“, and transforms them into ‘ladies’.
Now, I’ve seen bits and pieces of the English series and the whole premise of the show really irks me. Essentially it’s just a platform for reinforcing seriously outdated notions of a woman’s role in society, thinly veiled as ratings-grabbing, shock value viewing. Munro explains:
Successful ladettes will be flown to an English finishing school, where they will study floristry, cooking, elocution and needlework.
Needlework? I’m sorry, what year is it again? He continues:
The finale will be a debutante ball, where the budding ladies will parade before young male suitors.
Once I’d finished cringing, I had a flashback to an excellent article that Catherine Deveny wrote for The Age about the tradition of the deb ball. In it, she compared girls at their ‘debs’ with cows in a saleyard. Enough said.
Don’t get me wrong- I think some of the behaviour that these young women are engaging in is cause for concern. But surely teaching them how to cross-stitch isn’t the answer.
Today’s Guardian newspaper has an update on their long running campaign regarding acid attacks on Indian women. The Guardian has been involved in the issue for many years and in 2003 launched CSAAW (Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks on Women) to work towards the prevention of acid attacks and lobbying the government to rehabilitate the survivors.
They note:
[W]hile there has been some change, there is still terrible indifference. The state is still reluctant to take on the acid manufacturers and there is still no regulation of the sale of acid. Money that has been set aside for the survivors is slow to reach them.
And, not unlike the issue of domestic violence in western countries,
[T]here are enough laws on paper to prosecute attackers, enforcement is, as ever, a problem. The police are reluctant to interfere with what they consider domestic disputes…
I happened to be casually YouTubing my way through Tuesday afternoon and stumbled across an advertisement that I felt I should share.
Apparently this beauty, for Bud Light beer, was ‘too racy for TV’ (according to the video’s full title.) Hmm, racy is not exactly the word I’d use, but I’ll let you make up your own minds.
Now, just before you watch it, I’m going to make a couple of assumptions. Feel free to let me know if you think I’ve jumped to conclusions.
1. This ad was written by a man.
2. The man who wrote this ad was a total prong.
What I like the most is that it says to blokes that it’s OK to make a sex tape with your girlfriend, sell it to XXX stores, and buy heaps of lapdances with your newly earned mint. Then, it’s as simple as sending her a creepy robot to give her a (light) beer and a balloon proclaiming “My Bad!” and all will be forgiven! Ahh, modern relationships.
Once again Ms Brett has whipped up a “column” (blog) that seems to be all about how awesome it is to have one-night stands, with said enthusiasm being only a thin veneer over the same old post-fem slut-shaming and hysteria mongering. Check it out:
When broaching the topic over wines with friends, each had a pressing tale of a one-night stand gone wrong. One quips that she got a urinary tract infection from a guy she met at a bar; another was told that she’d be called the next day, only she hasn’t heard from the dude in three weeks, and the third caught crabs. Eek …
UTIs and abandonment and parasites, oh my! Brett goes on to mention that the paramount “rule” of one night stands is to use protection, which is a good point, but hang on, what’s that?
Not to mention that a third of New Yorkers have an STD, and it’s enough to force you to carry a pack of condoms in your wallet for life.
Thanks for the tip, Sam, I’ll remember that the next time I am having sex all over the Big Apple! Can someone tell her she’s actually not Carrie Bradshaw?
In the course of the blog she quotes another questionable study, and chooses to focus on the fact that some female respondents felt “used and dirty” the morning after and about half regretted it. No mention of the half that didn’t.
I for one am tired of Ask Sam’s conservative dross dressed up as hip, happening modern chick lit. Here’s a thought, Sam: how about a blog on how sometimes, people have brief sexual encounters, do so thoughtfully and maturely, catch no STIs, have an awesome time and feel fantastic the next day?
The coverage of Sienna Miller’s relationship with Balthazar Getty continues this week (evidently he said he was separated from his wife; it was news to her), and regardless of what you think of all parties involved, I stifled a groan when I saw this front page The Age Online piece:
Yes, it says “Scarlet woman”. Yes, it says “Sienna Miller’s affairs” (no doubt meant to be a hilarious play upon words).
Seriously, The Age, “scarlet woman”? A casual Wiki browse might have been in order for the subs:
Then again, it’s not as though they have a great reputation of being right-on to uphold. Why is it that in cases like this, everybody seems to forget that there is also a man involved, a man who – if we are to believe any of this muck – deceived both Miller and his wife and four children, and yet it’s Miller who is at the receiving end of most (nay, all) of the criticism bandied about?
I am not saying that Sienna Miller is without fault here, but it is not her fault, as the papers and gossips would have you believe. It takes two, as they say, to tango.
Last week the judges of the Court of Cassation in Rome reversed the ruling that a woman wearing tight jeans cannot be raped or sexually molested because the removal of the garment requires her “collaboration and consent”.
The ruling came after the conviction by a court in Padua in May 2005 of a 37-year-old man who was accused of sexually molesting his partner’s 16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship by “inserting his hands inside the front of her jeans”. The sentence was upheld by the regional appeals court in Venice in October.
The man, identified only by the initials RP under Italian privacy laws, appealed to the Court of Cassation, citing its landmark 1999 ruling and claiming that he could not have committed the alleged acts against the will of the girl because her jeans were too tight. However the court upheld the one-year jail sentence given to the man for sexual assault, ruling that “jeans cannot be compared to any type of chastity belt”.
This is a step in the right direction and I look forward to the day when a woman’s choice of clothing is not considered some kind of invitation or excuse for sexual assault.
Former Miss Universe and TV presenter Jennifer Hawkins has surprised few by taking the tried and true career route of celebrity fashion designer, launching a swimwear range in collaboration with Myer, called Cozi. At first, Hawko’s reasons for starting the line seemed promising:
Hawkins said she had kept her girlfriends in mind when designing the range and believed that the sizes and styles in the range catered for all Australian women.
Sounds good, but then, not so much:
“I’ve got a girlfriend and she’s tiny and she wanted a bit of padding in there and I’ve got another girlfriend with a really big bust and no butt and she wanted something that would make her boobs understated and her booty a bit bigger. There’s something in there for everyone.”
[...]
The swimwear range, which includes bikinis and one-pieces in a variety of colours and patterns in sizes 8 to 16, features kaftans and cover-ups and will sold exclusively in Myer stores.
I appreciate that swimwear isn’t the world’s most confidence-inspiring clothing item, but there’s something about the way Hawkins describes her line that worries me – I can see she’s going for a ‘make yourself feel beautiful’ angle, but by creating a line of bathers that shrinks and swells and pads and prods, it says, very subtly, “You aren’t beautiful until you’ve corrected all those annoying body faults with the help of my swimwear!”
While it’s (sadly) not unusual to hear of sexist questioning from the defense counsel during rape cases (i.e. “What were you wearing?”, “Were you drunk at the time?”), now we can add racist and idiotic to the party. This is, frankly, gobsmacking:
A barrister has tried to exclude Greeks from being jurors in a Victorian rape trial because of a “common misunderstanding” they like anal sex.
John Desmond, a defence barrister for 23 years, initially told a County Court judge his submission was in fairness to the alleged victim, a Greek woman.
He told Judge Roy Punshon there was a misunderstanding in the community that “Greeks like anal sex” and that the woman might be seen as compliant and “in fact wanting it”.
“That would be doing her a disservice, it wouldn’t be fair to either party,” Mr Desmond said earlier this month.
When Judge Punshon refused the application — saying he would not have a jury empanelled that excluded Greek people — Mr Desmond then made the application on behalf of his client “in fairness” to him.
Asked by Judge Punshon what the issue was with his client, Mr Desmond replied: ” I don’t want a Greek juror empathising with a Greek complainant (the woman), your honour.”
Did you get that? Essentially, Mr Desmond is saying, “Well, she’s Greek, and they love it up the bum, so it wouldn’t really be fair to her.” What a chivalrous guy, huh? Here’s a further excerpt from the transcript:
Mr Desmond began his submission by telling Judge Punshon it would be appropriate that there be a “general exemption for a category of potential juror to be inquired of in the case here”.
Asked by Judge Punshon what was the issue of fairness to the complainant, Mr Desmond replied: “Greeks.
“See, the allegation here, this is a Greek complainant and her nationality will be established on the evidence, your honour, it’s part of the narrative and there are allegations here of anal penetration and there’s a common misunderstanding in the community that Greeks like anal sex and she might readily then be seen to be compliant and in fact wanting it.
“That would be doing her a disservice, it wouldn’t be fair to either party.”
Unbelievable. Mr Desmond must have been pleased that his client was eventually acquitted (the other two men standing trial were found guilty), regardless of the number of “Greeks” on the jury.
Snapped this great bit of collaborative graffiti locally a month or so ago on my cameraphone; since we started The Dawn Chorus, I now have somewhere to post it!
You know what? However a woman chooses to have a baby, whether at home, in a hospital, underwater, with loads of drugs, no drugs at all, vaginally or via caesarean, or in a spaceship cubby with pan-pipes playing and a Batman mask on, that’s her choice (and her partner’s). So what a joy to see the Sunday Telegraph come up with this doozy of a graphic to illustrate their story on ‘maternity hotels’:
Let’s see, what can we count here: there’s the odious “What Recession?” moral/economic judgment based on the apparent frippery of mothers choosing to give birth in a “luxury” environment. There’s the naff sexualisation of the mother-to-be in the photo via the headline made to conjure up thoughts of porno mags (“Penthouse Beach Babes”). Assuming the woman in the photograph is Cinta Taylor, who is interviewed in the story, how do you think she would feel about this bit of photo editing?
‘Maternity hotels’ are nothing new; there are options at certain Melbourne hospitals to have one night in the ward proper after giving birth, and then transferring to a hotel nearby with a nurse and midwife on standby; Sofitel Melbourne and Frances Perry House offer one such program, with costs covered by private health funds (in other words, in this instance, the Tele’s “what recession” gripe is redundant). It’s just another option in the myriad options available to prospective mothers, and I have absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. But like any new concept in obstetrics, the ‘maternity hotel’ has its detractors and supporters; from the Tele article:
Australian College of Midwives president Professor Pat Brodie said anecdotal feedback from interstate was that women enjoyed the luxuries of a hotel while having midwifery care.
“Midwives providing post-natal care in a social setting like a hotel would appreciate the opportunity to provide continuity of care, get to know the woman and offer advice and support,” Professor Brodie said.
“Sometimes that’s difficult in busy post-natal wards.”
This is not a perfect answer to the problems of hospital crowding, nor is it the definitive way to have a baby. But if a mother-to-be has an uncomplicated birth and decides to spend the first few days of baby bonding in a four-star hotel room, I see no reason why she should be chastised for apparently spending too much, or for – heavens above – giving herself and her partner and newborn a treat. I am not one of those “motherhood is the most amazing thing any woman can do” people, but you know, if you do do it, well done you – have some room service and a pay-per-view new release! You’re worth it!
There are already too many value judgments made on mothers (see ‘too posh to push’, to breastfeed or not, blah, blah, blah) and I can see that this is just another excuse for the conservative media to tut-tut at mothers, who just can’t seem to please anyone these days.
