Nov 29 2011

Guardian: Pippa Middleton turns party planner – for the wrong decade


You know what is the important issue for feminism today? Pippa Middleton. (This isn’t true but I get to make a bum joke)


Sep 15 2011

Leaked memo on support from women for the coalition government

SOMEHOW, a policy document from No.10 on womenfolk’s attitudes to the Coalition Government has been leaked…

RESTRICTED – POLICY

The problem
After extensive polling we have found that women don’t seem to like us. Cuts in public services will impact on women disproportionately and from the focus groups, women have told us that they find the House of Commons banter “prattish”. There is some suggestion that fear of privileged PR executives is a factor for most women. In addition, the group of old dears we assembled felt strongly that the choice of ‘safe words’ from Cabinet Ministers sent the wrong message as they weren’t adequately gender and ethnicity mainstreamed. Anecdotal views included the observations that this Government didn’t seem to know what it was doing and was destroying public services which would take generations to restore (But it is important to remember that this is purely anecdotal; and that we also found rather surprisingly that women’s views differ as much as men’s).

The messaging around addressing the deficit has not gone down well at all. Women resented being told to tighten their belts as many felt bloated after eating. We should perhaps consider a narrative centred on ‘loosing pounds’ to appeal to them.

Action
After an integrated thought-shower, we generated a long list of ideas, including;

1. Restate an existing policy but press release it on pink paper and with a quote from Geri Halliwell (hard-working mother).

2. Back a campaign that Mumsnet is running. Research tells us that some women are mothers and those that aren’t are generally too jacked up on Magners with ice to vote anyway.

3. Event at No.10 for professional and high-achieving women; ladies love dressing up for parties. This event can include awards for contribution to their field and best dressed.

4. Cabinet members to wear more jumpers; particularly Aran ones.

5. Women like children (middle-class children exclusively), we have to make sure that we like children too. Get Igglepiggle to launch new education initiative whereby children can be taken on holiday during term time if the parents can demonstrate the trip will be educational and the deal was really good.

6. Further research into what women and other minorities think of us. Although women’s issues are certainly ‘niche’ they do seem to wield a certain power when it comes to voting. Polling at school gates and the Next sale queue should do it.

7. While we appreciate the Director of Strategy’s blue-skying, we’ve discovered that suggesting abolishing maternity leave didn’t go down well with women. We will however, look in to another rather radical solution, which will certainly address the problem head on, which is removing the vote from women.

Communications and messaging
8. Our polling shows the urgent need to up our game on communicating what we are already doing. Media profile is key so we will place strategic stories in key media. Initial ideas:

  • We recognise what women are doing already and most of them are menstruating. Let’s get out a story about the PM buying tampons for his wife and how he wasn’t embarrassed to do so. We should do more research into the menstruation market.
  • Support hard-working, reactionary women. Ensure that the lady MPs still front any work that restricts women’s rights à la Nadine Dorries. At all times think ‘What Would Loose Women Shriek’.
  • Check our comedy influences with focus groups. In hindsight it was a mistake to look to Michael Winner as a communications guru. Additionally, feedback from focus groups tells us that PMQ banter comes across as “private school ponces wanking in a tuck shop”. We’re talking to Michael McIntyre’s people.

Aug 31 2011

Guardian: How to close the pay gap (may involve arm-wrestling)

Me on the Guardian with some strategies for closing the pay-gap. Involves Dolly Parton.


Oct 25 2010

Where are the women in the ‘population control’ debate?

I wrote for the Guardian Science Blogs on the obsession with ‘population control’ by some in the green movement and the need to take a women’s rights approach. Read it here.


May 5 2010

Danny Dyer advises cutting women’s faces in Zoo

I don’t think I have the requisite expletives for this. But those fucking wankers at Zoo have published an ‘advice’ column suggesting that a guy who can’t get over his ex should cut her face “so then no one will want her”:

First spotted by @SarahDitum

The good people of Twitter got very angry about this and ‘Danny Dyer’ started trending pretty damn quickly. I, of course, complained to Zoo along with lots of other people. And I offered to collect the crowd-sourced contact details for the Zoo Editorial Staff and the magazine’s advertisers so that other people could complain as well (details at the bottom, I’ll come on to that).

By the end of the day, Zoo had offered a groveling apology (this is a link to Zoo’s website please go and leave a comment), Danny had said he was ‘misquoted’ and even the bloke who wrote the original letter came out of the woodwork (in a great post on this from Dr Petra). I really do believe that such a quick response came due to the involvement of social media in all this. Here’s the apology from Zoo:

Email response from Zoo Editor, sent by Claire Hodgson:

Dear Naomi,

Thank you for your email regarding this week’s issue.

Firstly, let me unreservedly apologise for the inappropriate and
indefensible response to a letter which appeared. I am very sorry for any
offence it has caused.

Danny Dyer, and everyone else that works on Zoo condemn any violence against women, and by way of a sincere apology we are making a donation to Women’s Aid.

An internal enquiry is underway to find out how this extremely regrettable production error occurred and I will be tightening up any procedures necessary to ensure it cannot happen again.

We have already posted an apology on our website and will also be printing a fuller apology in next week’s issue.

Regards

Tom Etherington

Editor
Zoo Magazine

*****************************************

Right, I’d like to make a couple of points….

1. Has any one noticed the line above the face slashy bit in Danny’s advice:

I’d suggest going out on a rampage…and smashing anything that moves

Now, when I first read this I thought it meant going around smashing things like bus shelters and cars. Then I realised that it said “anything that moves“, so men, women, children, animals, animate objects. I’m just saying, he might have a fucking problem.

Update: I didn’t believe this at first, but apparently ‘smashing’ means fucking. Which is much less disturbing… It just means he’s advocating sex with anything that moves; woman, man, child or animal. Yeah?

2. Danny Dyer has claimed that his words were taken out of context which makes me fascinated by what context would make face slashing acceptable…

…the other option is to cut off contact with your ex and face reality…?

Doubt it.

3. “Production error” my arse. Who accidentally lent on a keyboard and “slash a woman’s face” came out? If this stuff is being written in your office, you might want to remove any cutlery and sharp objects.

4. I would believe that this was a “production error” that had been left in by accident by some dumbass intern if it wasn’t for the fact that these errors seem to happen EVERY FUCKING WEEK. Last month, Dyer recommended setting fire to a woman. Another error? Or just business as usual in this wankstain of a rag.

So this is why I’m still recommending that you complain to Zoo and to their advertisers. Their ‘apology’ demonstrates that they are open to criticism and correction, they just have never got it so hard and fast before. Plus it didn’t just come from a bunch of ‘usual suspects’ who they have easily dismissed before. So let’s keep it up.

Below are the contact details which I am still happy to collect by crowd source (tweet them to me@naomimc) and repost as I get new ones.

And just to remind you who we are dealing with here….!

Zoo twitter: @ZOO_UK
Zoo email: info@zootoday.com
Tom Etherington, Editor: Tom.Etherington@zootoday.com
Claire Hodgson, Editorial Asst: claire.hodgson@zootoday.com

Bauer Media, who own Zoo:
Jane Windsor, Corporate Communications: jane.windsor@bauermedia.co.uk
Sarah Ewing, Consumer Magazines – Trade: sarah.ewing@bauermedia.co.uk
Jess Blake, Consumer Magazines – Consumer PR: jess.blake@bauermedia.co.uk
Genevieve Potter, Specialist Magazines (Peterborough): genevieve.potter@bauermedia.co.uk
Catherine Gort, Big City Network Radio: catherine.gort@bauermedia.co.uk
Hermione Clulow (Braben), Magic & KISS: hermione@braben.co.uk
Sarah Ewing, National Radio: sarah.ewing@bauermedia.co.uk

Zoo Advertisers
Kellogg’s: pressoffice@kellogg.com
@KelloggsUK
Aloud.com: feedback@aloud.com
Virgin Media: lucy.atabey@virginmedia.co.uk
Love Film:
Marketing: m@lovefilm.comm@lovefilm.com
Public Relations: pr@lovefilm.com
Advertising and research: advertising@lovefilm.com

Other good links on this story:
Ophelia Bottom (heh)
Dr Petra
Index on Censorship – Nigel Warburton guest post.


Mar 24 2010

Happy Ada Lovelace Day

Hedy Lamarr

Today is International Ada Lovelace Day, a day of blogging in celebration of women in science and technology. I’ve blogged a few times before about women in these areas including the myth of the computer science gene and women and open source.

So in honour of the day I want to say a little bit about Hedy Lamarr, an actor and engineer who helped invent an early form of spread spectrum communications technology, the basis for Wi-Fi.

She led a pretty amazing life and is one of the reasons I am writing this blog on my lap-top on my sofa (well, her and my utter laziness)

10 Facts about her:

  1. Born in 1914 in Vienna, her name was Hedwig
  2. Her mother was a pianist and her father a bank director.
  3. Her film career was stifled by her controlling husband, an arms manufacturer, so instead she set about learning about military technology.
  4. Although her husband was half-Jewish (she was also Jewish), he hung out with Hitler and Mussolini. This obviously didn’t sit easy with her and so she disguised herself as one of the maids and fled to Paris where she got a divorce and moved on to London.
  5. He was the first of six husbands.
  6. In London and then Hollywood, she went back to making films but got into developing a secret communication system with her neighbour, the avant garde composer George Antheil, after getting into a conversation about radio controlled torpedos.
  7. Her idea of “frequency hopping” was completely new and Antheil’s contribution was the suggested device for synchronization.
  8. It was ahead of its time but ended up becoming the basis of modern spread-spectrum communication technology such as most WiFi networks.
  9. She died in 2000 and in 2003, Boeing ran an ad campaign featuring her as a woman of science, not referring to her acting career.
  10. In 2005, the first ‘Inventors Day’ was held in German-speaking countries on 9 November, her birthday.

I think, I think I love her.


Feb 3 2010

The surrealist overdose

I guest blogged at Bright Green over the weekend, whoop here it is:

On Saturday at 10.23am hundreds of people across the country opened a small vial of pills and swallow them all. There was a group of 42 of these people in Edinburgh (video), but no emergency services were called and no deaths or complications were reported. This was because it was a mass overdose of homeopathic remedies.

The ‘Swallowers’, as they are delicately calling themselves, are conducting this stunt as part of the 10:23 campaign (hence the timing) which seeks to raise awareness about the case against homeopathy and those who supply it.

As one of the organisers of the London event, Carmen D’Cruz put it:

“The public have the right to know what we put into our bodies. “Freedom of choice” is not possible without the ability to make an informed decision. A large part of this campaign is to raise public awareness of what homeopathy actually is. Once people understand both sides of an argument, they are better able to make a real choice.”

Homeopathy was invented by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, in the late 18th century. It is based on the principle that “like cures like”, but significantly, that a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it would cause if taken in large amounts. And when I say small amounts …

Homeopathic remedies are usually diluted to a factor of 30c, that is:

1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

Or to give you some idea of what that represents; imagine a sphere of water with a diameter from the Earth to the Sun (a distance that takes light, yes light, about 8 minutes to travel), then imagine one single molecule of that sphere is an active ingredient of the substance that is supposed to cure you. Remember, it isn’t a drop; it’s a single molecule. THAT is what 30c looks like.

Homeopaths claim that this works because water “has a memory” which preserves the active ingredient through the dilutions due to a special shaking. After each dilution the mixture is vigorously agitated in a machine that delivers a calibrated amount of shaking (That last sentence was a direct quote from the Society of Homeopaths website, just in case anyone thinks I’m trying to make them sound stupid. I mean actively trying to make them sound stupid).

Many scientists say that the only possible impact of such remedies is as a placebo.

Therefore, there was no need to perform mouth-to-mouth on any Swallowers. But what are the implications? Raise awareness yes, but should these remedies be provided on the NHS? Should commercial businesses be able to sell them?

This is the second aim of the 10:23 campaign, targeting outlets such as Boots. As D’Cruz explains: “It’s a bit unethical for Boots to sell these pills in their medicine section whilst admitting they don’t work. They’re a trusted company. Why are they lying to their customers (or at least being ambiguous with the truth)?”

Many who wouldn’t go so far as to defend the “science” of homeopathy will at least espouse the positive effects of placebo. And indeed the effects of placebo are amazing and well documented. But should we market a product that we know is a placebo with a mythology of how it works? I would argue that this kind of marketing has a corrosive effect on the public’s understanding of science and medicine. Rather than empowering the patient, it dupes them in the time-honoured tradition of the snake-oils salesmen.

But this stunt has got some people’s backs up. “My inbox is full to the brim with people from all over telling me how much they enjoyed taking part,” says D’Cruz, “with only two people contacting me who were against what we were trying to do.”

“One of them was actually really lovely, and seemed glad that I’d replied in a sensible way (I suggested a couple of books she might find interesting to see things from my point of view if I wasn’t being articulate enough: Trick or Treatment and Bad Science). The other said I was an attention seeker and that I should be arrested. I’m pretty sure that was my mum. She’s got a really good sense of humour.”

To those who have taken homeopathic remedies and believe that they cured them, it is scientifically more likely that you experienced the placebo effect (you got better because you thought you were going to get better) or regression to the mean (you were going to get better anyway, like with a cold).

Now let’s not talk down the placebo effect, it is a truly amazing phenomenon. People have even got better with placebo surgery. It doesn’t mean that you were previously faking it; believing an intervention will make you better can really can make you better (listen to Dr Ben Goldacre’s two part radio programme on the placebo effect).

We can and should harness the power of the placebo effect without misleading people. And we should be just as uneasy with the aggressive marketing of the billion dollar homeopathy industry as we are of the (albeit bigger) billion pharmaceutical industry.

Links:
More on the overdose in Edinburgh
Follow 10:23 tweets: #1023


Feb 1 2010

OK, first and last iPad joke…

And a historical look at Apple vs Feminine Hygiene (boak) marketing. Hmmmm.

Via Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.


Jan 24 2010

Get married. Get fat.

I’ve been away from blogging for a while, so now I’ve got time I thought I’d better catch up with the goings on in the media reporting of science stories about gender. I looked first to the Daily Mail but I had to back away slowly as it has now become obvious that this paper is beyond satire: ‘Killers in your kitchen: Gender-bending packaging, exploding floor cleaners and toasters more deadly than sharks…

I don’t know where to even begin with this story as it is so chocka block with the most ridiculous statements I have ever read that it has rendered me speechless (for the time being). I will come back to the plastic packaging turning boys into girls soon as that little gem has been doing the rounds for a while and is, guess what, shite.

So I turned instead to our old friend, the Daily Telegraph who confidently tells us: ‘Married women ‘4lbs heavier than unmarried counterparts” and for good measure, includes the subheading: ‘Women really do let themselves go when they get married according to a new study which found that they are 4lbs heavier than their unmarried counterparts.’

Now, the Daily Telegraph have a rich history of ensuring that their headlines and subheadings have only a tangential bearing on the facts within the story, as demonstrated well in this previous article on rape. And they don’t let us down here.

This article is based on a paper; ‘Effects of Having a Baby on Weight Gain‘, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The purpose of the research was to see how much weight gain within a cohort of women was attributable to having a baby or to other factors.

Spot the difference between that and the headline?

The article goes on to explain some of the possible reasons why women who live with a partner and have a baby are heavier than those that don’t which include “eating unhealthier food because of their partner” and having less time for exercise.

So not ‘letting themselves go’ then? And actually one of the reasons points to both of the partners eating unhealthily. But no, of course it is much easier to tap into the stereotypical myth of people ‘going to seed’ after getting married. In this instance it’s women only bothering to keep thin till they get a man then stuffing their cake-holes with, er, cakes. They are therefore tricking men into marrying them then ballooning up to 4lbs heavier.

Why does the Daily Telegraph stop there, why don’t they just go the full Burt Bacharach?


Jan 3 2010

Cancer is Awesome!

I’ve been reading a lot recently about the new book from Barbara Ehrenreich, Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America And The World, and it looks fascinating. I first have to admit to not reading it yet – it’s published in the UK at the end of the week and on pre-order. But the extracts I’ve read have been interesting, disturbing and depressing in equal measure. I’ll do my first book review as soon as I’ve got through it. But here are a couple of my initial thoughts about some of the issues Ehrenreich raises.

Firstly, I’m genuinely very interested in her views on chemotherapy and the science and medicine behind the development of breast cancer treatment. Its not my area of expertise, but I’ll follow up on her sources from the book. If any readers know more please link to studies in the comments. But in summary, here is Ehrenreich talking about her book and why if she ‘had her time again’ she wouldn’t go through chemotherapy:

Plus, she believes (probably rightly) that it was the HRT that she was on that ‘caused’ or increased her risk of getting breast cancer. Certainly, there is increasing evidence for a link between HRT and breast cancer.

The two things that really struck me from the extract from her book in the Guardian was a) the devaluing of negativity and b) the particular reliance on a narrow definition of ‘ultrafemininity’ in breast cancer campaigning.

Ehrenreich’s whole book is about how alienating and divisive the positive-wash that cancer is given can be, how she was encouraged to view her cancer as an ‘opportunity’ or even ‘gift’ and how her anger and frustration were often scorned by others. This kind of approach is something that pisses me off on a far less extreme or important level than Ehrenreich – but I think is part of an approach within Western cultures to gloss over the shite in life.

I agree we shouldn’t wallow in negativity and if we focus on all the bad things in life we become insular, boring Emos, or worse, Goths. But sometimes we need to call a spade a fucking useless piece of shit shovel. Sometimes negativity is a good thing, a real emotion, actually brings perspective to what is positive and denying the steaming piles of turd in life can be hugely damaging.

Ehrenreich points to a few studies in the Guardian column*:

* See some writers can link to primary sources!!

These studies show that at best “positive thinking” does not affect cancer survival but at worse that it can lead to the “tyranny of positive thinking” which can conceal distress and leave patients feeling worse. So if you’ve got cancer – its alright to feel shit, angry and frustrated. That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be a full-time arsehole but you can let rip once and while.

The second point that I found striking was the specific type of femininity attached to breast cancer and breast cancer awareness/campaigning and again I don’t think this is a wholly positive thing. Breast cancer campaigning has been incredibly successful, has turned around society’s perception of what was once a hidden and shameful disease and with that has raised phenomenal amounts of money for breast cancer research. But, as Ehrenreich points out, this has been inextricably linked to stereotype of ultrafemininity which is pink, fluffy, appearance-focussed and somewhat reductive of womanhood to boobies.

Possibly the worst example of this, which I have linked to before, is this breast cancer awareness advert for a ‘BoobiBall’ fundraiser:

Breast cancer awareness tends to promote the notion that women are and indeed should be obsessed with their appearance and that the loss of a or both breasts is the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman. Not to mention the hair loss, weight gain or loss, effect on skin etc.

Now there is no doubt that hair loss and mammectomy hugely affect a number of women with cancer and alter their sense of identity or femininity. My concern would be that this emphasis on the femininity of those going through cancer treatment may exacerbate this impact. Ehrenreich talks about the breast cancer marketplace with the prominence of cosmetics and jewellery and websites that talk about chemotherapy helping you to lose weight and smooth out the skin.

What is significant here is that this same femininity is not associated with lung cancer or heart disease – both huge killers of women as well as men. It is associated with uniquely female breasts** and therefore with women’s bodies being the be-all and end-all of their identity.

** I’d be fascinated to know how men with breast cancer relate to breast cancer campaigning.

Breast cancer is seen not only as a disease attacking part of the body but attacking a woman’s identity because women’s identity is so dominated by their physical appearance and attractiveness (with a special focus on breasts). Unfortunately, as with many things, this focus on ultrafemininity is couched in feminist empowerment language and indeed, in America at least, feminism seems to have been replaced by a breast cancer cult.

Maybe less of a focus on how a woman looks during treatment for a life threatening disease is the least we can offer them?