Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Feminists trample on women's rights

Originally feminists fought for important rights, like universal franchise. Doubtless I'd have been amongst them. They fought for women's rights. But now, in some respects, they seem to fight against them. For instance the campaign against  sexualised images of women.


In the UK, the Co-op, "one of Britains' largest magazine retailers"  has agreed to only stock mags in bags. But it's not enough,
Sophie Bennet, spokeswoman for the Lose the Lad's Mags campaign by UK Feminista and Object said that the Co-op's move did not go far enough. "The more accurate term for these so-called "modesty bags" is "misogyny bags" because the issue for the thousands of people who have called on shops to lose the lads' mags is absolutely not about nudity. It's about sexism. And if a product is so degrading to women that it has to be covered up then the Co-operative should not be selling it.
"By stocking magazines like Nuts and Zoo, retailers like the Co-operative and Tesco are sending out the damaging message that it is normal and acceptable to treat women like dehumanised sex objects.
But if a female wants to act like a "sex object" and earn an income from it, what about her rights?

(Just discussing this with my 19 year-old son who says that these mags are, in fact  "empowering to women who use their natural assets to make shitloads of money and degrading to men who show how pathetic they are by buying them." Always nice to get a different perspective.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My wife worked for Penthouse in the UK.

We got to know a lot of the models, including the ghost editor Linzi Drew. Some were a bit light in intelligence but most were highly intelligent and making good careers for themselves.

We also met the parents of one 19 year old who was just starting her career. They were very well to do and happy that their daughter had the opportunities opening up for her.

from our experience I'm in agreement with your son. The women we met were definitely exploiting us poor blokes - and all seemed happy with it.

Anonymous said...

Its like lots of things - your animal instinct says drool but your civilised side says don't get caught doing it. I think the world would be better without sexualisation of almost everything but that's not the way it works. I'm not sure whether to be grateful or ashamed.

3:16

Anonymous said...

To be sure though, not all feminists agree with the proposition that being pro-censorship is the sum total of feminist activity these days. There's a vociferous anti-censorship and pro-sex wing amongst younger feminists, who also tend to support sex workers rights.

Craig Y

Humberto said...
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