Skint: Channel 4 Joins the Tory Party

A friend brought Channel 4's latest victim-blaming bullshit to my attention last week. I was going to actually watch the program before registering my dislike but I have just seen the ad. Again. And, it's pissing me off. The press pack on the program doesn't exactly help their case.

I know the program is scheduled for tonight but I will not be watching it. I will not watch the vilification of the poor for the entertainment of those who lack empathy; for those who have no understanding of poverty and for those who see nothing wrong in the exploitation of vulnerable people, particularly children, for entertainment. I have said this before on this blog but I do not believe that children should be allowed to appear in documentaries. I do not think parents have the right to set their own children up for the bullying that will inevitably follow their appearance in these types of programs.

Whether or not the program Skint will show what it's like to actually be skint remains to be seen but let's be realistic here: the press pack is clearly focussing on two men. Women are far more likely to live in poverty than men and their level of poverty is more likely to be long-term. Will Skint show mothers going without food to feed their children; elderly women trying to decide between heating their poorly insulated flat or buying food? Will it show the sheer number of single parent families headed by women living in poverty solely because the father refuses to pay maintenance? Will it show the sheer number of mothers who are on benefits because they are caring for children with disabilities for whom there is no childcare? Will it show the differential in pay between women and men once women are employed? Will it show the difference in benefit packages?

Will the show explain how women are far more likely to be dependent on the welfare state and the NHS because we care for our families? 

Will the show explain how the destruction of the welfare state and the NHS effects women more than men?

Poverty is gendered. 

That is forever the elephant in the room.

The refusal to acknowledge the gendered nature of poverty allows the othering of those in receipt of state benefits. By producing these types of programs, which are inevitably played for the number of viewers rather than real analysis, channel 4 perpetuates the othering of poverty. 

It's not really surprising for channel 4 though. This is the channel that brought us the racism of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

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#StopBiggestLoser: The Myth of Parental Consent

Anyone who reads this blog will not be surprised by my stance on reality television. I think its the 21st century version of the 19th century freak show. Our main source of entertainment is the deliberate and malicious humiliation of vulnerable people. I have no interest in any kind of reality television from X-Factor to Dancing with the Stars to Celebrity Big Brother to anything featuring Gok Wan. They have no value except in their exploitation of people for the entertainment of others. I genuinely don't understand why people watch them; or why people think it's acceptable to make snide and offensive remarks about the physical appearance of the contestants.

Reality television is cruel when it's X-Factor; The Biggest Loser takes it to a whole new level of violence. The fat-shaming is indefensible and inhumane. That is without getting into the quite serious health consequences of crash dieting. Yoni Freedhoof MD has written eloquently on the physical and emotional harm caused by The Biggest Loser in the Huffington Post linking to a study which "demonstrated that watching even a single episode of The Biggest Loser dramatically increased hateful weight bias among viewers -- an effect that was heightened among non-overweight viewers". The Biggest Loser buys into the worst kind of hateful choice rhetoric which blames individuals for their "poor choices" without acknowledging the political, social and personal structures within which their "choices" are made.

The Biggest Loser is hateful, fat-shaming misogyny at its most insidious; dressed up as entertainment for bullies.

This season's The Biggest Loser has taken the bullying a step further and allowed three children to "participate" in the program: two of whom are only 13. They are 13 years old and their parents have consented to their public humiliation and bullying.

There are a few things which parents should be legally prohibited from consenting to on behalf of their children and participation in reality television is one of those things. No child should be placed in a position wherein the outcome would be their public humiliation and that includes MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen to Toddlers and Tiaras and it's spin-off Honey Boo Boo. Children deserve the right to grow up safe and secure. Placing them in front of cameras and labelling them fat or spoilt or stupid is not allowing children to be children. It is adults profiting from the emotional and physical abuse of children. No parent should have the legal right to put their child in this position.

Children are not possessions and we do them tremendous harm when we treat them as such.

We need to stop treating our children as possessions and we need to stop pretending that parental consent trumps all (and that's without getting into the whole your baby, your choice or a happy mamma = a happy baby twaddle which is used to excuse all manner of nincompoopery). There are already many things in which parental consent is invalidated due to state laws. We need to expand this to prohibit the appearance of children on reality television.

Parental consent is not a get-out clause. It is a myth. Parents should not have the legal right to make decisions on behalf of their children which will cause them imminent harm. Appearing on reality television is harmful. Allowing our children to be bullied and humiliated for "entertainment" is harmful.

But, this isn't just about the parents who consent to "allowing" their children to appear on reality television. As I have said in the Huffington Post: "(b)efore we start blaming others, we need to check our own behaviour, examine our own privilege, and stop financially supporting an industry based on the abject humiliation of others". We need to prohibit the appearance of children on reality television but we also need to stop allowing children to watch reality television. 

We need to stop exposing our children to "entertainment" which gives them permission to verbally abusive to others.

We need to stop exposing our children to "entertainment" which tells them that fat-shaming and slut-shaming are acceptable behaviours.

We need to stop exposing our children to "entertainment" which tells them that they deserve to be publicly humiliated for being "different".

We need to stop telling our children that being a "celebrity" is more important than their emotional well-being.

Our reality television culture obsession needs to end.

Our children deserve better.

And, parental consent is not an excuse. 

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Kim Kardashian is Pregnant: Let the Slut-shaming Commence

Kim Kardashian has announced her pregnancy with Kanye West. As a general rule of thumb, I try to ignore celebrity pregnancies since they are none of my business, but then I tend to feel that way about most women who are pregnant; the obsession with the contents of other women's uteruses is the hallmark of the patriarchal control of women. However, Kim Kardashian is the quintessential Circus Freak Show Act in our Reality TV obsessed culture. She is a frequent object of ridicule with every  minute detail of her life dissected in the media. Yes, she bears some responsibility for placing herself in the public eye but that does not negate our own behaviour in participating in this culture of bullying. I have no idea what Kim Kardashian has supposedly done to become such an object of ridicule; unless she's a serial killer or funded the War on Women, I'm going to guess she doesn't deserve it. 

And, personally, I doubt very much that Kardashian agreed to release her "sextape". Like Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton before her, Kardashian knew all to well that she had no real legal recourse once the tape was leaked online. Once something is on the internet, there is no way to "unleak" it. Kardashian was a victim of sexual violence, just like Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and Kate Middleton. She may have settled her lawsuit with the distributor, but, let's be honest here, she had no chance of actually winning the lawsuit. A woman's sexual behaviour is always up for public speculation and insult. It is always for sale and, usually, without our consent.

Now Kardashian is pregnant, the slut-shaming will start again. Kanye West will receive congratulations but Kardashian will receive nothing but comments on her behaviour and her weight. Once she gives birth, Kardashian will be judged on her failure to lose weight immediately or on how fast she lost the weight. She will be judged for breastfeeding or not breastfeeding. She will be judged on her parenting skills. She will be judged for having the support of a night nurse or nanny or she will be judged for not having help. She will be labelled fat, selfish, and a bad mother and this is without acknowledging the issue of racism.

She will be judged.

She will be found lacking.

No matter what she does.

We all know that pregnancy is one of the most vulnerable times for women; even without the added risk of domestic violence. Our default position for *all* pregnant women should be one of support.

So, congratulations Kim Kardashian. 

And, shame on those who are already lining up to insult, denigrate and mock you. 

No one deserves the treatment you will receive over the next year.

After all, we're all trying to survive in the Capitalist-Patriarchy the best we can.

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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 since I'm opposed to all forms of reality television and that's without the level of misogyny involved in "auditioning" girlfriends. I had no idea that Flavor Flav was  a violent misogynist. I just thought he was the garden-variety misogynist. I also never looked into it. I should have because his history is disgraceful. In 1991, he pled guilty to assaulting his partner Karen Ross and served 30 days in prison as well as losing custody of his children [a law the UK might want to look into]. In 1993, he was charged with attempted murder when he shot his neighbour but, apparently, he only spent 90 days in jail. He was also arrested that year for domestic violence as well as drug offences. He has also had his license and passport revoked for failing to pay child support; the sign of a real man. His arrest on October 17th, in Las Vegas, is for domestic assault and battery. 

Now, this might seem like the history of yet another violent man, but this article   , includes the lovely line: 

Flavor Flav became a well known as a personality by wearing big clocks like necklaces, yelling out “Flavor Flav” and Yeah Boy” during performances and dating beautiful women (such as Beverly Johnson in 2000 and Bridgette Nelson in 2004).  

Now, I may be confused but at what point does dating "beautiful women" make one a "personality". And, what is the relevance in an article about a man who has just been arrested for assaulting his partner, scaring his young child and threatening to kill his stepson. Celebrating a man who dates "beautiful women" is just ridiculous, even if he hadn't just assaulted a woman.

This is the problem with the Patriarchy. Flavor Flav has a serious history of domestic violence for which he has never really been held accountable. Yet, Public Enemy have been nominated for induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Their song was used by Channel 4 to advertise the ParaOlympics and an article about his history of domestic violence also has to discuss the fact that he "dates beautiful women"; as if this somehow mitigates the violence he perpetrates. Maybe if Flavor Flav had been held accountable the first time he assaulted a woman, rather just 30 days in prison, we wouldn't be looking at such a long history of violence.

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Apparently, Feminists Can Only Concentrate On One Thing at a Time

At least, Sarah O'Meara seems to be implying that Feminists are incapable of being worried about more than one thing at a time in her article Give Me Page Three Models Over "Celebrity News" Any Day in the Huffington Post; a newspaper well-known for its refusal to to publish news about "celebrity culture". Of course, the article is really nothing more than one of those self-serving defences of porn in which anyone who even thinks about the harm caused to individuals within the porn industry and its wider effects on human sexuality in general is immediately anti-sex. We can't possibly have taken the time to think about how harmful it is for young teenagers to learn about their sexuality and healthy relationships from the pornography freely available on the internet. We can't possibly have thought about how restrictive the sexuality porn dictates is. We can't possibly have thought about the how much damage is caused by the rape and torture of vulnerable women's [and children] bodies. Not only that, we can only concentrate on one thing at a time so either we tackle page 3 OR celebrity culture. But not both.

See, oddly, I think that both the Sun's soft-porn Page 3 and the obsession with celebrities help perpetuate rape culture. They are both part of the pornographication of society; the celebration of vapidity and the objectification of women's bodies.  I think they are destroying our children. I think that the people who buy celebrity magazines are culpable in perpetuating extremely damaging and narrow misogynistic constructions of sex and gender. I think the obsession with reality television, whether it be X-Factor or the Kardashians, serves only to function as nothing more than the 21st century version of the 19th century freak show. They are both harmful.

But, you know what, I can campaign against Page 3 and celebrity culture. At the same time. Shocking, I know. So, when other women write things like this:

However, this tired, out-dated crusade against Page Three comes at a time when the rest of mainstream media is actively conquering and exploiting a far more insidious form of female objectification. ... 

While feminists feebly fight the Sun, the online titillation monster grows daily, snatching bite-sized chunks of celebrity bikinis from the hands of news publications and serving them up to whomever types 'Kim Kardashian' and 'bikini' into Google. ... 

Instead of fretting over the Sun, let's start being a little more honest about how the media is really warping men's minds towards women.

I have to wonder about their motivation. Why are they belittling a campaign against objectification in one specific area by claiming that feminists don't see the harm caused in other areas? I've never met a feminist who didn't think reality TV and celebrity culture were toxic. I've never met a feminist who wasn't campaigning about several things on several fronts ALL at the same time. I find myself increasingly bored by this assumption that feminists are too stupid to do more than one thing at once. This is the kind of misogynistic twaddle I expect from men like Neil Wallis. Not other women.

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So, Prince Harry Got Naked in Vegas and I'm Supposed to Care about HIs Right to Privacy

As ever, I think the media, and the all dipsticks in a frenzy over this, have got themselves mixed-up in some sort of David-Bowie-inspired-Labyrinth debacle. This isn't about the constraints on the British Press which prohibit them from invading the privacy of the Royal Family. This debate should be about everyone's right to privacy. No one should find pictures of themselves being drunk, stupid and naked on the web; even over-entitled white boys with some serious privilege issues. And, let's be honest here, the media sources making po-faced statements about not being allowed to show pictures of Harry's penis are actually whinging about not being allowed to. I doubt even channel 4 news would have managed to refrain themselves from showing all the footage of Harry's penis if they though they could get away with it.

I couldn't give a rat's arse about Harry. I think he's a buckethead and I have no time for him or the rest of the nincompoops in his family. I do, however, care about his right to privacy and that of ordinary people; especially those who are vulnerable. I think Paris Hilton is nincompoop but no one deserves to have their sex tapes available on TMZ [or whoever posted them. I'm not going to google this to double check which parasitic media outlet actually published them]. No one deserves to be sexually assaulted in this manner. And, here, I do mean sexually assaulted. Having pictures of your unclothed body posted about the net for others to sneer at or masturbate to is sexualised violence.

And, yeah, I'm sure some will read this and think I'm over-reacting; that Harry is just being a jack-the-lad and it's all a bit of a fuss over nothing. I would agree that Harry playing naked billiards with his mates is neither news-worthy or surprising [although, let's be honest here, possibly a bit unsafe playing it drunk]. But, it is sexualised violence to post pictures of his body naked without permission. Frankly, I'm not overly-fond of the issues around consent and naked pictures in general. I think far too many vulnerable people get pushed into both being photographed or filmed naked and then lose the rights to their images but are somehow led to believe they have "consented" through "choice" [and, seriously, do I loathe "choice" feminism and it's insistence on pretending to "empower" vulnerable women through their sexual exploitation].

There is also a gendered dimension to this issue which the press is conveniently obfuscating. Harry, age 27, running about naked is a bit of a laugh; Vanessa Hudgens, still pretty much a teenager, sending a man naked pictures of herself is a "slut". This is without even getting into the serious misogyny which has punished both Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan. The old slut-shaming double standard always rears it's ugly-head in these situations. As @londonfeminist tweeted this morning:

Just imagining today's headlines if Prince Harry were Princess Helen.

We all know the Daily Fail would be running headlines about a Princess Helen being disgrace to the crown, a slut, a whore and a whole passel of nincompoopery. They'd publish the photos. They wouldn't care about a Princess's right to privacy; not in their desperate attempt to label her a whore.

Publishing photos of people either naked or in other sexually compromising positions is sexualised violence. This should apply as equally to bucketheaded princes as it does to vulnerable 17 year olds. And, the media aren't the only ones responsible for perpetuating this sexualised violence. Every time ordinary people google these images, they are buying into and feeding the sexual exploitation industry and helping to increase the number of sexually exploited people.

The whole reality television and "celeb" magazines industry need to die. Today.

People need to stop financially supporting the sexualised violence of others. This serves only to feed rape culture.

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Liz Jones: The Quintessential Handmaiden?

I don't buy the Daily Fail for the usual reasons of it being utter hypocritical, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and disablist twaddle. Just seeing Liz Jones' name makes me twitch. I consistently dislike what she writes as it is inevitably pro-patriarchal handmaideny nincompoopery. Problem is, I don't think Jones is the quintessential handmaiden. I think she's a very unhappy and angry woman who is [ab]used by the editors of the Daily Fail. She is a caricature of "woman" and, as such, is an object of mockery. We are supposed to hate Jones and everything she stands for, which, in Daily Fail terms, is pretty much anyone with a vagina. A responsible editor and friend wouldn't allow someone they care about to make such a public spectacle of themselves but the Daily Fail sets Jones up weekly. And, we buy into this woman-blaming discourse by insulting and denigrating Jones at every opportunity.

Jones isn't her own worst enemy; although she certainly seems to try very hard at doing this. The patriarchal arsehats who pay her to be publicly humiliated are her enemies. Like with Samantha Brick, it is those that give Jones the space to publicly humiliate herself who are the main problem. But, standing up to contribute to the vilification of Jones is also inherently unkind and perpetuates women-blaming culture. She is, at best, an unhappy woman whose self-loathing is played out daily in the press. We need to stop giving platform for anti-feminist diatribes written by women who are fundamentally unhappy with themselves. We need to stop reinforcing the women-blaming culture which gives a platform to women like Liz Jones who deserve our compassion and not our ridicule.

Yes, I get that Liz Jones writes a lot of stuff which is unbelievably unkind and hateful about other women. What she writes pisses me off [and I've not linked to any of her work because I don't want to increase the Daily Fail's advertising revenue]. However, Liz Jones is part of the 21st century version of the 19th century circus freak show. Like with all reality TV, from the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, Towie to X-Factor and the Voice, our society gets off on the public humiliation and denigration of those deemed "unworthy". We are raising a generation of children who think they only have value for being a "celebrity" irrespective of how they become famous. How do we expect anyone to be happy in a culture that privileges humiliation over self-worth? Frankly, I think reality television meets the UN definition of a harmful cultural practise and all of it should be banned. We need to stop mocking those who are different and start celebrating those differences.

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