We May Have Won The Battle, But The War Rages On

Today, #Meninists everywhere are in mourning. No, not for their sanity, dignity or humanity but for Page 3 (or so I imagine). It seems as though media Mogul and long term fan of breasts, Rupert Murdoch, has decided to rather quietly pull the feature from The Sun, it only took him 46 years. Well done, Rups! 

The reasons are unclear and a spokesperson from The Sun is yet to comment, but their sister paper, The Times, has respoerted that it's over - and I'm pretty sure that's as close to an answer as were ever going to get. 

 

There's no denying that the No More Page 3 Campaign had something to do with it. Murdoch may have been tweeting that he thought it was old fashioned, but the campaign was a platform. It was a spring board for those, up and down the country, from all walks of life, to come forward and share their stories. I don't think anyone expected the impact Page 3 could have. Women and men came out in their hundreds of thousands to sign the petition. Hundreds of thousands. If you think that this was work of some group of 'fucking feminists' then you, my friend, are wrong. This is a battle that has been won by everyone. 

As for those wonderful people at NMP3 HQ - thank you. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. Thank you for your loyalty to the cause. Thank you for waking up every morning and still believing in this. Whilst 3rd Year and being a graduate took over my life and my involvement sadly became less and less, that awe-inspiring group haven't rested. They developed and they've grown. They've adapted their stance. They created a movement. 

I'm not sure what happens next. The media is still horrible at portraying women properly. You've only got to glance at a magazine wrack to figure that out. Chances are, they'll just show celebs in their bikinis or in their latest underwear collections. It'll be called progress (and in so many ways it is) but women's bodies will still be the only thing of inportance. Young girls will still grow up being catcalled, my friends and the millions like us will still walk into bars all over the world and have their arses pinched by those who wrongly believe it's theirs for taking. Our mothers will still worry if we walk home alone at night. But it's a start. 10 years from now, no one will think it's normal to have half naked ladies in the paper, no one will be sitting awkwardly on the Tube with boobs in their face. It's a tiny drop in a massive ocean, but drops create ripples, and some ripples are infinite. 

This has, in no way, eradicated sexism. It in no way means that the stigmas around sexual violence that affects both it's male and female survivors have disappeared or that we've solved the global pay gap. 

It's 2015. You can catch a commercial flight to space and for now it seems, there is No More Page 3.

You're a Feminist, Harry!

Unless you've spent most of this week under a rock, or somewhere so remote the internet does not exist, I'm sure you will have all read about, watched and formed your own opinions on Emma Watson's incredible UN Speech.

To many of us of, Watson has always been some what of an idol. Not only did she play the one of the greatest female literary characters of the millennial generation, but she grew up right before our very eyes without going off the rails. She got herself into an Ivy League College (which was probably tougher than getting the role of Hermonie) and has always fallen into the category of female that girls want to be and men want to be with.

As face of new campaign HeForShe, a campaign that promotes the novel idea that, guess what? MALES CAN BE FEMINIST, she eloquently listed for the crowd reasons why she decided to be a feminist. As a female of roughly the same age, not many of them shocked me. Feeling sexualised at far too young an age, being called 'bossy', worrying that sports would make my  body look 'unfeminine' (well alright, that one was less me, who at 15 thought sport was just about the most awful thing on the planet, but I do remember friends of mine worrying that playing so much netball was 'making their boobs weird').
The one that stuck out most to me though, was when she said that at 18, she watched her male companions struggle to communicate their feelings... Because it's true and is probably the biggest thing that all feminist haters seem to over look.

We live in a patriarchal society, we have done for generations and whilst yes, here in the west, in the UK and the US it is better, there are places not so far away from us where things are not better at all. We spend so much time telling girls how over emotional they are that we miss it giving boys a direct message that emotions are not human, they're female and that somehow, that makes them bad.

We live in a society where new father's are expected to get back to work straight away and are somewhat looked down on if, God forbid, they want to work from home to look after their kids whilst their wives/girlfriends return to work to continue where they left off.

Feminism doesn't do that. Patriarchy does.

Patriarchy teaches boys not to cry like a girl/hit like a girl/throw like a girl. Patriarchy teaches your daughters and sons that if she's upset, she's probably over reacting or due on and therefore, wahtever upset probably wasn't that big a deal. It breads insecurity in our own emotions. It teaches girls not to fight back, whilst teaching boys to be the first one to throw a punch, but punching is only disrespectful if you hit a girl. It teaches that mother's make the better parent, even though every single family is different and that can't always be true. It teaches us that men are automatically the monsters, when we all know that women can commit some pretty horrific crimes too.
Patriarchy, not feminism, is what's standing in the way of you, boys. All this time it's been lulling you into a false sense of security that those dirty, bra burning feminists just want to ship you all off to a remote island and leave you there to rot, when really it's been doing all the rotting for you.

So I hope Miss Watson opens some eyes. Having graced multiple sexiest women lists as well as multiple best dressed columns, she's the perfect ambassador for HeForShe. She's asking that we simply start to look at the word 'feminism' as another way of saying 'equality'...

And a little equality never hurt anyone.

Oh Dear, Ms Greer

Disappointment, we all know that feeling. Whether it's the shop being all out of your fave chocolate bar, being let down last minute  or someone doing something that totally shocks you, disappointment is rubbish.

But what happens when someone, a public figure, says something that so largely contradicts everything you thought they stood for?

If you don’t know who Germaine Greer is, you’ve either never really been that into feminism, never studied ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ or have just generally been under a rock for the past few decades. Writer of ‘The Female Eunuch’, Germaine Greer is one of the world’s ‘super feminists’. So when she wrote back in 2010 that Page 3 of The Sun wasn’t all that harmful, you couldn’t help but feel that a mother of the feminist movement had kicked you in the proverbial balls.

Last Tuesday, 4^th February 2014, at ‘An Audience with Germaine Greer’, 16 year old Kathryn (who hasn’t even taken her GCSEs) sat and listened to a lecture Greer was giving on breast cancer, cosmetic surgery and image issues faced by women. At the end of the lecture, Greer opened the room up to questions, and a journalist asked Greer if she had heard of NMP3 and what her thoughts were on it. Greer (the swine) replied that she thought Page 3 was totally innocent and that it was only bought by old men (lies, I think Greer lives in some sort of bubble, anyway…) and that it was nothing in comparison to the porn that’s available online anyway.

Firstly, Ms Greer, I think you’re a traitor to the cause here. I studied you at 16 after reading Atwood and thought you were this fabulous voice of reason and now, now I just think you’re a hypocrite.

And it would appear that I’m not alone. Following Greer’s response, Kathryn got given the mic, stood up and quite calmly stated,

'I am a full supporter of no more page 3. Page three is part of mainstream culture and sexualises and objectifies women shamelessly, and is essentially a gate way into hardcore pornography. If this 'soft porn' is openly available in mainstream culture, then it makes it seem like looking at the more hardcore porn is acceptable. How can you not support a campaign that is trying to shut that down, and how can you call it innocent?'

The whole room applauded.

And it says a lot.

SHE IS 16! 16!
A 16 year old girl stood up in front of Germaine BLOODY Greer and a room full of A2 Sociology students (I repeat, she hasn’t even sat her GCSEs yet) and spoke her mind. Not only did she speak her mind, but she said the words on the lips of thousands of young women up and down this country and across the world who are BORED of being objectified on a day to day basis and being told it’s all ‘harmless’.

I wish I’d been that brave at 16. I wish I’d had the guts to stand up and shout back when told that I was over reacting about the boys who branded my friends ‘sluts’ because they’d kissed someone at a party… Hell, I wish I’d had that much courage 9 months ago when I was bartending and customers felt it perfectly ok to comment on my chest when making their cocktails as if I wasn’t even there at all.

Germaine Greer is meant to be a feminist figure head. She should be at the forefront of a campaign that is trying to end the daily objectification of young women. Porn and Page 3, simply cannot be compared in my books. You go looking for porn, you know what you are doing, you’ve made the conscious decision to watch it. Same goes for when you buy a ‘lad mag’. You know what you’re looking at. People buy The Sun because it is a newspaper, Ms Greer, they buy it because, presumably, they want to know what is going in the world. Therefore, please, please, PLEASE tell me how this image of a young woman, boobs akimbo, on the third page of a NEWSPAPER is in anyway innocent, because I’m obviously missing the point here.

I mean, Page 3 has become so damn normalised that even one of the world’s leading feminists thinks it’s ok!

We live in a society where, when the lights get dimmed and music goes up, it is ok to see women as objects. Where girls are taught that if they go out alone in the dark they risk being attacked and where the media has no issues using the bodies of women to sell whatever product the latest big cooperation has invented.

We need more Kathryn’s. We need more young women (and men) who see the things that need to changed and aren’t afraid to challenge those who stand in their way.

Young girls are starting to find their voices. The idea that Page 3 out dated is no longer the fight of middle aged, middle class women with little more to do. We’re finding our voices, and we’re using them.

So society should be prepared that we won’t be silenced until it’s an equal playing field out there…
Greer, I’m talking to you.

A Splash of Love

If you have been anywhere near the internet today, you will not need me to tell you what all the fuss is about...

Team GB Medallist, Tom Daley, has announced that he is in a relationship. A relationship with a man.

Almost as soon as Daley had tweeted the link to his video announcement, choruses of  'I told you so!' and 'I knew it!' could be heard from miles around. Despite the fact that he never once labelled himself within the video, it has been decided: Tom Daley is gay.

Firstly it should be recognised that he has not, come out as gay. He has come out with the news that he has fallen for someone and that someone just so happens to be male. He has admitted he still fancies girls, which would make him Bisexual and bisexuality is not something that should be shrugged off as 'not a thing'. It should be accepted just the same way being singularly attracted to girls or singularly attracted to guys is.

Tom's confession, although not really that much of a big deal (I mean, surely he is allowed to love whoever the hell he wants, right?) has left many people wondering why he even needed to bring it up anyway. It is 2013 and this is modern Britain. The fact that one of UKs most beloved and cherished sports stars is in a gay relationship should have nothing to do with how we view him as a human being. It should not still be 'a thing' when a person 'comes out'. It saddens me that we still live in a world a person is distinguished by who they fall in love with.

Daley's actions today were, without a doubt, brave... and this is someone who throws themselves (gracefully) head first into a pit of water from 10m up. Despite the fact that I am straight and would never claim to fully understand the fear a person must feel in the years, months, weeks and days leading up to telling the people around them that they are gay, I will say this; admitting you have fallen for someone is TERRIFYING.

The first time I was really honest about my feeling towards my boyfriend, it made me feel almost sick. Its just not the kind of thing you can take back. Once you admit to falling for or loving someone, once you put that out there into the universe, you cannot have it back. I cannot imagine what it must feel like then, to face the fact that you are in love alongside the fact that there are going to be people condemning you for having those feelings at all. Even Daley admitted that, upon telling his wider family, it created a mixed reaction.

It is wonderful, that in a society that still sees such high levels of homophobic bullying, a young, talented star has been brave enough to step forward and say 'This is who I am'. We need more people like Daley to step up and say 'it's ok to fall for someone who makes you feel happy and safe, even if they are the same sex as you', so that young people all over the world have role models they can look up too. Being a teenager is hard enough without limitations being put on who we are expected to fall in love with.
Fact of the matter is, Daley's news in no way changes the fact that he is a credit to our nation as a sports personality nor it does not affect his ability to leap and flip through the air into diving pools and countless medals in sporting events around the world. We should still want him to get to Rio 2016 and bring back medals. As a nation we should support him as an athlete because that is what he works so God damn hard for.

I hope you're relationship is a happy one, Tom. Falling in love is such a special and momentous thing, and I for one, am happy to support love in a world that appears so filled with hate.

- xo

If you haven't seen his video, check it out here.