On Thursday Labour MP, Gloria De Piero, made the news. Not because of her policies but because of her boobs. It seems a national newspaper offered thousands of pounds to unearth topless pictures taken when she was 15. Days earlier her appointment as shadow minister for women and equalities was announced. That’ll teach a working class woman to have notions above her station.
On Tuesday representatives from Lose the Lad’s mags campaign, including actress Ramola Garai, spoke at a sold out event in parliament. They argued that, having lad’s mags on sale in family spaces, such as Tesco, was contributing to a culture wherein the sexualisation of women and young girls, is considered normal.
Glamour models are ubiquitous. Women, like De Piero, who dare to make a bid for power, using their brains rather than their bodies, however, are either invisible or pilloried by the press. The two stories are inextricably linked.
Initially, the press wasn’t that interested in the Lose the Lad’s Mags story. Then Dominic Smith, grandiloquent editor of Nuts, entered the fray. There’s nothing like a bit of agro to prick the malestream media’s interest.
In an interview with Green MP Caroline Lucas, on Radio 5 Live, Smith seemed flummoxed by Lucas’ use of “big” words, like “culture” and “objectification”. I can see how such vocabulary, coming from a woman, can be discombobulating (gratuitous big word alert) to a man who surrounds himself with compliant teenagers whose brains are sadly often surplus to other anatomical requirements. Smith then used Lucas’ linguistic dexterity to accuse her, and the entire campaign, of being middle class, therefore irrelevant.
I’m a feminist, from a working class background, with a penchant for big words myself (I collected them as a child). I grew up on the “wrong” side of the Liffey and, whilst there were many things we couldn’t afford (hence collecting words as opposed to dolls), education wasn’t one of them. That was free.
It’s because of my education that I can intellectually deconstruct the propaganda peddled by Smith and other purveyors of porn. It’s not just patronising to imply that the only choice open to girls from working class backgrounds, is to get their kit off for male titillation, it’s also cods wallop.
By refusing to engage with the intellectual discourse on the grounds that it’s “middle class”, lad’s mags’ apologists are copping out. When surveys produce data indicating that 63% of teenagers aspire to be glamour models as opposed to doctors, teachers, or, God forbid (in the non denominational sense), politicians, like De Piero, alarm bells should be ringing.
Supporters of lad’s mags say they’re not pornographic (and Tetley isn’t tea). That they’re no worse than women’s magazines. I loathe most women’s magazines. Many are guilty of multitudinous crimes against women, but they’re not porn. Lad’s mags offer free videos of women dressed like schoolgirls, stripping, they contain adverts that lead into hardcore porn and the back pages are awash with numbers for sex chat lines.
Also worth noting, women’s magazines tend to put other women on the front cover. If they serially featured teenage boys in tongs (or naked), leaving nothing to the imagination, with splayed legs and fondling his bits, there would be a public outcry. Sexualised images of women and girls are so pervasive now that we’ve become desensitised to them (see Porn on the High Street? It’s Just a Bit of Harmless Fun!).
It’s reported that half of school girls are considering plastic surgery to make themselves thinner and prettier, 90% of eating disorders are amongst females, teenage gang rape is on the increase and 1 in 3 girls have reported unwelcome sexual touching at school. Camden Girls School made similar points in a documentary, which persuaded their local Tesco to remove lad’s mags.
Portraying women as sex objects perpetuates gender inequalities. Objectification is dehumanising. That’s the point. It’s much easier to abuse (or discriminate against) a non person reduced to mere body parts. Tits and ass usually. The sex industry, which includes lad’s rags, has vested interests in normalising the objectification of women. To them women, and girls, are just commodities. To be bought and sold - in your local Tesco.
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