Femen: Because they really bug me

Normal 0 0 1 1071 5358 University of Edinburgh 85 8 7501 10.2006 0 0 0 Femen are back in the media once again.* This time they are running about Ikea with their breasts bared to protest Ikea’s decision to edit out all the images of women in their catalogue for the market in Saudi Arabia. Now, I’m quite offended by Ikea’s decision but I’m not sure what protesting in the Ikea in Paris two weeks after the story broke is going...

Read More

I am Pro-Woman not Pro-Choice

You see, unlike all the penises who believe they have the right to dictate the contents of a woman's uterus, I happen to believe that women are not only fully human but are also capable of making decisions for themselves. Without the help of a penis. I support unlimited access to abortion on demand because I believe women are human. I believe women are more than capable of making decisions for their own bodies. I believe no woman will have...

Read More

We're a Culture Not a Costume:

I love Halloween. It is my favourite holiday ever. When I was a child, Halloween was about making the most original costume possible. Witches, skeletons and cats were dull. I have been a ladybug, a broken heart, a cabbage patch kid and a punk rocker; my mother being far more artistic than me. Unfortunately, the push to be creative at Halloween involved costumes based entirely on offensive and racist stereotypes. I frequently find myself with clenched...

Read More

It is the End of Feminism.

At least, this is the story the media keeps spinning based on that pisstake of a survey by Netmums. The sheer number of feminists pointing out the problems with the survey has gone completely unnoticed by the press. So, I say we roll with it. And, we declare feminism dying.Then, we can declare ourselves an endangered species.Technically, humans are animals so I'm sure we can work out how to get ourselves added to the World Wildlife Federation's...

Read More

War on Women: The Abortion Battle.

Nadine Dorries has secured a 90 minute debate spot on abortion on Wednesday October 31 at 9:30. She is asking for the limit for abortions in the UK to be reduced from 24 weeks to 22 weeks. This is just a debate. There will be no vote, however, Dorries is using this as the second stage of her attack on abortion rights. Her next stage is a full parliamentary debate in the Spring of 2003 where Dorries would like to decrease the time limit on abortions...

Read More

Not Quite the Misogynistic Advertising Walk of Shame but it Made me Cranky

Actually, this really isn't even remotely close to making it to the Misogynistic Advertising Walk of Shame. It's actually quite an incredibly cute ad by Ikea featuring a number of small, cherubic children setting the table with the help of their toys. The only complaint I have is that they have gendered the toys. Would it have been so far out of the realm of possibility for a little boy to have a teddy bear and the little girl the blue robot? It's still cute though.But, let's be honest here, the best ad Ikea has ever made was the cat one. There...

Read More

James Bond's Skyfall

I feel the same way about James Bond movies as I do Superhero movies: I like my misogyny straight-up. That way you don't get sucked into watching something arty like Sideways and then discover half-way through that its just another giant wankfest for men. James Bond is usually predictable in its misogyny: every woman who fucks Bond dies a horrible, vile death as punishment for being a slut. After all, the only reason any woman would want to have...

Read More

Misogynistic Advertising Walk of Shame: Move your Lee

@CellarDoor790 brought this ad to my attention [and went out of their way to get a photo of it for me].  Now, normally I would dismiss this as the usual, insidious form of the sexual objectification of women's bodies to see a product. These campaigns are just so tedious and fucking everywhere that no one bothers to complain about them. Now, yeah, they are selling jeans but they don't actually have to have a super skinny model showing off her...

Read More

Femen Redux: Still Conforming to the Patriarchal Fuckability Test

I've blogged about Femen before because I was utterly gobsmacked that a photo of a topless Femen protestor without any political context managed to win a World Press Photo award (and the total lack of understanding of the irony of this photo being called The New Amazons). Supposedly, Femen protests against sex tourism, the legalisation of prostitution and the selling of "brides" internationally. How they quite expect the Patriarchy to take...

Read More

The New Minnie Mouse: Just Reinforcing the Patriarchal Fuckability Test

I was fairly creeped out by these "sexed up" Sesame Street character costumes for women. I can't think of anything worse than women dressing up as "sexy" versions of children's cartoon characters. Turns out I'm really naive because there is a whole industry of selling these kinds of costumes. I don't get how this is even remotely sexual and I would rather scrub these images right out of my brain. The thing is lots of retailers, including Amazon,...

Read More

Watch Porn. Cure Breast Cancer

This rocked up on my FaceBook feed and I genuinely thought it was a joke. I couldn't believe that the misogynists were now using breast cancer as a way to promote the use of porn. This is actually what Men's Health writes about Pornhub's campaign:October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which means every man should do his part in helping to find a cure for the terrible disease that afflicts 1 in 8 U.S. women. And you can start by staring...

Read More

Flavor Flav is a member of the #DickheadDetox

Flavor Flav, one of the founding members of Public Enemy has been arrested, again, for domestic violence. I have to be honest here and say that I have been a fan of Public Enemy for years. I also had no idea that Flavor Flav has such a long history of domestic violence and assault. I did catch the ads for some TV show where he was "auditioning" girlfriends a few years back. At that point, I shoved all my Public Enemy CDs to the back of the cupboard...

Read More

Chris Rock's Good Hair

I genuinely like Chris Rock. He is incredibly funny and usually on the ball with things which are important. Okay, he frequently misses the whole issue of sexism with his tendency to reinforce it in the same breath as claiming to want a better future for his daughters. He is, however, not on my list of Dudes: the hypocrites who think that voting for Obama and claiming to be pro-choice cancels out any violence against women that they perpetrate. [I'm...

Read More

Hilary Mantel Wins the Booker! Again! By Writing about Men

I am genuinely excited by the fact that Hilary Mantel won her second Booker prize for Bring up the Bodies. It is a huge win for Feminism for a woman author to be taken seriously by the Patriarchy. But, like with Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar win for the Hurt Locker, Mantel has won one for writing a book about men. She won for out-penising the penises. Now, I haven't actually read either book, although I do own Wolf Hall, so I can't comment on the books...

Read More

I love my Mooncup

My lovely friend FrothyDragon* has been ranting about the misogynistic twaddle which are the Always "Have a Happy Period" ads here. I hate them. I hate them a lot. I have ranted about my hatred of them here. I have been desperately pretending they don't exist but the freaking campaign never stops. It's like Boots. They've found some misogynistic drivel that they think works and keep using it. But, it ain't working here anymore. The only thing these...

Read More