Where “Peace And Tranquility” = Wet T-Shirt Contest

Through starting The Dawn Chorus, I have come to the realisation that the Travel section of many Australian newspapers is where the worst examples of sexist photo selection hide – who would’ve thought, eh?

The latest example is this piece from The Age/Sun-Herald (sent in by reader billyjoebob) from a week or so ago on Koh Samui; the article, ‘Leisure island’, by Isobel King, takes in the Fisherman’s Village, cooking courses, local wildlife, elephant treks and the local health and beauty spa. It follows, then, that the image illustrating the piece should be a picture of a woman draped alluringly in a wet sheet:

There is no mention of whether or not this is King herself, so I think we can assume it isn’t – and while I’m happy to be proven wrong on that front, why this pic? Why not the elephant treks? The 12-metre high Buddha statue? Fisherman’s Village? A shot of the beach, or the rainforest? Anything other than an anonymous woman’s nearly naked form?

Global Warming: We May Get More Droughts, But At Least They’ll Be SEXY!

Now, I am aware that stories on the front pages of newspapers’ online portals need to catch the eye of the reader in order to secure the all-important click-throughs and page impressions. But in the instance of this story’s front page image (the piece is about how, at the rate we’re going, Victoria could soon experience drought in three out of every four years), surely something shocking like sheep dying or dry, cracked riverbeds would be more appropriate than this:

Then again, maybe I’m being too hard on those poor TheAge.com.au photo editors. Because when I think of “droughts”, I know I think of hot, oiled-up chicks, sunning themselves on the beach.

The Way We Were – Brownies vs. ‘Tweens’

I read an article in my local community newspaper last week that detailed the shortage of people volunteering as Girl Guide leaders. Having been a Brownie in my formative years, collecting such elusive badges as ‘Cook’, ‘Hostess’, ‘Gardener’, ‘Camper’ and ‘Knitter’, I was reminded of the innocence and joy that came with being a Brownie Guide (a member of the Girl Guide Association between the ages of seven and eleven years).

Brownie Guides by Nancy Scott (1978)

Last weekend The Age’s Good Weekend magazine featured an edited extract from What’s Happening To Our Girls, by Australian writer and lecturer Maggie Hamilton. Hamilton’s research on teens and ‘tweens’ examines the pressures of young girls living in a society obsessed with image, fame and fortune. They are isolated and anxious, and are spending less time with their parents and more time with their peers. This, claims Hamilton (and I am inclined to agree with her), robs them of the ability to make sense of the world.