Fashion Is No Joke (And Here’s Why)

“Why are people scandalized by spending money on clothes? Everybody is so passionate about this — there’s a resistance to fashion — an idea that to love fashion is to be stupid. Clothes are very intimate. When you get dressed, you are making public your idea about yourself, and I think that embarrasses people.”
-Miuccia Prada

Anyone in doubt over fashion’s economic worth should note that, according to a report published by the British Fashion Council, Britain’s fashion industry is worth £21bn to the country’s economy. In 2009, 815,000 people were employed in the UK fashion industry; fashion contributed approximately £98m to the tourism industry and the total annual revenue of Britain’s fashion magazine industry was £401m. Through good and bad times, the fashion industry has shown itself to be practically recession proof. Strip it away, though, and you’re left with something incredibly simple: the act of getting dressed. What is it that is so powerful about this act? How can it be such a potent form of individual, political and cultural expression? And how can it be reconciled with feminism?

“My passion for fashion can sometimes seem a shameful secret life,” wrote Princeton University English professor Elaine Showalter in a 1997 issue of Vogue, to much derision.  One colleague asked whether she had “better things to do”. It is no coincidence that fashion  – one of the few spheres primarily associated with and dominated by women – is often derided as trivial and shallow. Treating it as superficial is a subtle form of sexism in itself, as is the assumption that women primarily follow fashion to get male attention and approval. While men often enjoy shopping and dressing well too, it is mostly women who read fashion magazines, shop for enjoyment and compliment each other’s clothes.

The reality is that fashion is – and always has been – far from frivolous. Minh-Ha T. Pham succinctly summarises its wider significance: “That most ordinary and intimate of acts, getting dressed, can have very real political and economic consequences.” Globally and historically, fashion is closely wrapped up in political movements and cultural identities. It also has strong associations with feminism. Suffragists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries used fashion to express their political values, such as green, white and violet jewellery: the first letters of each colour – G, W, V – formed an acronym for ‘give women votes’. And Chanel’s ubiquitous trouser suits were a powerful statement of women’s growing sense of independence, particularly in the workplace. This year’s Vogue Festival included a discussion featuring fashion heavyweights and political campaigners Vivienne Westwood and Katherine Hamnett, titled ‘Can Fashion Change The World?’ My answer to that is a categorical yes.

This doesn’t mean that the fashion industry isn’t hugely problematic as it is. In the words of Winona Dimeo-Edgar: “As much as I love talking about fashion as an empowering space for self-expression, the industry itself is always the impeccably dressed elephant in the room.” Advertising which aims to make women feel ugly and insecure and designers who dismiss larger women and women of colour need to be questioned and confronted. Campaigns have been fought against designers who pressure models to be size zero, magazines which use models in blackface, and companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch which shamelessly perpetuate racist, sexist and sizeist beauty ideals. We live in an age of social media and as consumers we have the power to speak up. Enjoying fashion doesn’t mean that we cannot criticise problematic aspects of the industry or campaign to change. And surely it is better to attack from within.

Are the couture items we see on the catwalks insanely expensive and unwearable? Of course they are. Just as most people who gaze longingly at the walls of the National Portrait Gallery could never afford a painting from there, very few people today will ever feel the luxurious satin of a Dior couture gown against their skin. Neither are women realistically expected to change their entire wardrobe every season; style never goes out of fashion, and you don’t need money to have style. For those of you who are still wondering “How is this overpriced crap related to my Primark purchases?”, the catwalk collections directly influence the clothes sold on the high street for a fraction of the price. You only have to turn to Miranda Priestly for a succinct explanation of why that blue sweater you picked up from a jumble sale because you thought the colour was nice is still a part of the industry you look down upon so insistently.

I’ve decided fashion can be two things. It can be as simple as something you put on to make yourself feel beautiful, or as dynamic as something illustrative of culture, time and its transformations.
-Katherine LaGrave

Ultimately fashion is a means of communication and expression. It is a language and an art form. What we wear can speak volumes about our personality, our values, our culture and our tastes. But does it really matter if fashion contains an implicit social and political use? What is wrong with liking something because it is aesthetically pleasing? The answer is: absolutely nothing. So go out and work that Topshop dress – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

“She’s deader than OJ’s wife”: what Steubenville and its coverage tells us about rape culture

Steubenville High School football players Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were recently found guilty of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old girl at a number of parties in August. Disturbing video evidence includes a gleeful commentary from a drunken friend of the rapists, still available on Youtube. “She’s deader than OJ’s wife!” he giggles. A photo of the naked, unconscious victim being dragged away was quickly circulated around the internet; the boys urinated on her body afterwards. The case received a great deal of attention mainly because of the way in which social media provided crucial evidence.

Newscaster Candy Crowley, correspondent Poppy Harlow, and legal expert Paul Callan of CNN in America prompted global outrage by focusing solely on the consequences for the two rapists of being convicted and on their emotional anguish, rather than on the impact their actions had on the victim.

Harlow: I’ve never experienced anything like it, Candy. It was incredibly emotional, incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures – star football players, very good students – literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart…when that sentence came down, [Ma'lik] collapsed in the arms of his attorney…He said to him, “My life is over. No one is going to want me now”.

Crowley: You know, Paul, a sixteen-year-old now just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, the other one just seventeen, a sixteen year old victim, they still sound like sixteen-year-olds…The thing is, what’s the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?

Callan: Well, you know, Candy, we’ve seen here a courtroom drenched in tears and tragedy….The most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law…That will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Employers, when looking up their background, will see that they’re registered sex offenders. When they move into a new neighbourhood and somebody goes on the Internet, where these things are posted, neighbours will know that they are registered sex offenders.

As if CNN couldn’t stoop any lower, they later named the victim, whose identity had been kept secret up until that point. The entire coverage was eerily similar to a 2011 parody video from spoof site ‘The Onion’ about college athlete rapists being portrayed as heroes, with no regards to the victim. It prompted an online petition on Change.org demanding an apology from CNN, which has garnered almost 300,000 signatures to date. But the channel was not the only one to blame: ABC News, NBC News, Yahoo News and others joined in lamenting the boys’ crushed hopes and damaged prospects.

The problem with CNN’s coverage is not that there was mention of the emotion in the courtroom. It’s not that the rapists weren’t treated as monsters. It’s that the focus was placed squarely on the tragic effects of the conviction on the rapists, despite the fact that this was a result of a crime which they chose to commit. There was no focus on the shortness of their sentences, a minimum of one or two years in a juvenile detention facility. Instead we heard of the personal implications of them being classed as registered sex offenders: “What’s the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?” There was no real sympathy expressed for the victim. There was no discussion of the lasting effect of being raped and of having a photo of the lowest point of your life circulated across the globe, before being named on a national news network. This is rape culture. The media coverage of the verdict was just the tip of the iceberg.

I still feel sorry for these rapists. Not because their futures are destroyed but because they thought it was justifiable to rape someone while their friends encouraged them from the sidelines, circulating photos and recording video commentaries. Because they live in a culture where rape is normalised and even trivialised: as the case garnered more attention, defensive internet users argued that because both sexes were drinking at the party, the victim was to blame for her rape. Rape is laughed about on TV, on the internet and in everyday conversation. And a 2009 US study concluded that only about 2% of rapes reported to police in the US resulted in a prison sentence (the attrition rate is around 7% in the UK). It is estimated that the vast majority of victims do not report their rape in the first place.

An official investigation of a potential cover-up in the Steubenville case is ongoing. It wouldn’t be the first example of athletic clubs in America – and even entire towns – sweeping allegations of sexual violence under the carpet. In Michigan in 2010 two basketball players accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her dorm were found not guilty, despite one of the accused admitting that he had sex with her when he knew she didn’t want to. In 2007 a student-athlete at Iowa State University claimed that she was sexually assaulted by two football players; according to the victim’s mother the athletic director, head football coach, associate athletic director and a faculty member encouraged her to accept an on-campus investigation instead of reporting it to the authorities; for weeks she was harassed by the alleged perpetrators before any action was taken. And then there was the Texas student who was kicked off her school’s cheerleading squad for refusing to cheer for an athlete, whom she had accused of rape (he was not convicted; his lawyer suggested that she had been “asking for it”). These are just a few of the numerous disturbing manifestations of an insidious and infectious rape culture, which can thrive in high schools when athletes are put on a pedestal and realise that the adults surrounding their team will rally around them, even if they’ve committed a serious crime.

Rape culture is when universities actively discourage victims from reporting their rape to the police. It’s when the University of North Carolina threatens to expel a student for talking about her rape because it is “disruptive or intimidating” (she didn’t even identify her attacker). It’s when the Steubenville judge said during the sentencing that the case highlighted the need for caution in “how you record things on social media that are so prevalent today”; without the evidence circulated across social media, which pales into insignificance compared to the ghastly crime itself, it might never have ended in a conviction. It’s when Facebook censors photos of mastectomies and women breastfeeding but refuses to take down images promoting rape and domestic violence, such as the picture of a woman tied up and gagged next to the caption: “It’s not rape. If she really didn’t want to, she’d have said something.” And it’s when victims are told to bear partial or total responsibility for their rape because they’d been drinking or wearing a short skirt, or because they’re a “slut”. Because they were “asking for it”.

If anything I’m sorry that these rapists will become part of the American prison system, which only serves to reaffirm rape culture: sexual assault and rape are commonplace amongst inmates and prison staff, with a 2012 study revealing that 9.6% of former inmates at state prisons across the US reported at least one incident of sexual victimisation during their most recent period of incarceration. And I’m sorry that people can’t make the connection between the actions of the rapists and the culture they were brought up in. What will happen in the wake of the Steubenville conviction? What about the thousands of rape and sexual assault victims each year who continue to be silenced, their experiences erased? When will we finally accept that we are all complicit in this culture?

I wonder if coaches will start to discuss consent with their athletes. I wonder if American schools will stop attempting to cover up rape allegations. I wonder if internet users will think twice about laughing at rape jokes or participating in ‘casual’ victim blaming. Because collectively we could have prevented Steubenville. And, until we accept that, it will happen over and over again.

Blue for Boys, Pink for Girls

Christmas is approaching and, for toy stores, it’s the most important time of year. Approximately half of yearly toy sales happen between the months of October and December alone. It’s a time when successfully marketing the toys which will become the next craze is crucial.

Many of us will remember trips to Toys ‘R’ Us as small children. The gender-segregated aisles have hardly changed since my first visit about 15 years ago: the girls’ section is almost entirely pink and crammed with make-up kits, dressing up clothes, princesses, fairies, ‘baby’ dolls, ‘teen’ fashion dolls, play-kitchens and play-ironing boards with pictures of girls on the boxes. The section aimed at boys couldn’t be more different: most products are red, black and dark blue. Common sights include cars, wrestling figures, toolkits with only pictures of boys on the boxes, weapons, fireman/Power Rangers/pirate/cowboy costumes and even ‘Fantastic 4′ character outfits with padded biceps and 6-pack.

The ‘Baby X’ studies of the 1970s and 1980s were crucial in exploring the way in which children are gendered from the moment they are born. The research included an experiment in which the same baby (wearing a yellow jumper) was introduced at different times as male and female to adults with three toys: a football, a Raggedy Ann doll, and a teething ring. None of the men presented a ‘female’ baby with the football and 89% of them presented ‘her’ with the doll. 80% of the women presented a ‘boy’ baby with the football, and three-quarters of them presented a ‘girl’ with the doll. According to Principal Investigator Phyllis A. Katz, “it’s hard to disentangle the part [of the child's behaviour] that’s really there from the adult’s socialisation of the kids”. In another experiment, two female and two male babies appeared in both ‘gender-appropriate’ and gender-neutral clothes and they were given ‘gender-appropriate names’. Mothers then played with the babies, whom they had never seen before. When they believed that they were playing with a boy, they responded significantly more often to the baby’s movements. The researchers concluded that it’s not surprising that boys tend toward higher rates of activity and physical ability, because of stimulation during infancy. Further research has shown that parents will, without realising, verbalise to female infants more and play with them in a less boisterous way.

The extensive research on the ways in which children are brought up to embrace stereotypical gender roles clearly shows that girls’ preference for pink princesses and boys’ penchant for action figures and guns is not strictly biological, to say the least. But why does it matter? As someone who regularly played with dolls, pink Lego and princess outfits as a child (to my parents’ dismay) and who still loves pink, I am living proof that playing with a toy kitchen doesn’t necessarily mean that a little girl will grow up to be unambitious or limited in her outlook on gender roles. But there will always be those who buck the trends: research has shown that people tend to adhere to the expectations which are presented to them and that there is immense pressure on children to behave in stereotyped ways. These behaviour patterns are generally equated with social acceptance. The human brain responds more readily to things which it can recognise easily, so advertisers exaggerate perceived differences between genders to quickly communicate with their desired audience. In an experiment where children viewed 10 toy adverts, the children could identify the target audience every single time. This makes the products easier to sell, which in turn generates profits for companies. Not only can this kind of marketing impact children’s perceptions and aspirations, it can also alienate those who want to cross traditional gender divides and who don’t conform to stereotypes.

Leading stores have recently made attempts to end the ‘gender apartheid’ amongst children’s toys, including Harrods, whose makeover was revealed in July. The new six-zone Toy Kingdom is multi sensory and groups toys by theme rather than sex. While more effort could be made – female workers wear pink T-shirts, while men are in blue, a decision apparently made entirely because they were nice colours – it’s certainly a step in the right direction. Following a high-profile campaign last year, Hamleys stopped labelling floors in blue and pink for boys and girls. Debenhams, like Toys ‘R’ Us, has stuck firmly to separate sections for different genders, each containing toys which reinforce stereotypes about the roles of men and women.

Historically it has been much more socially acceptable for girls to cross the gender divide than it has been for boys: a trouser-wearing girl wanting to buy a gun or a set of toy soldiers wouldn’t be treated the same as a boy in a dress looking to play with a toy kitchen or a set of Barbies. Femininity is subconsciously seen as shameful and emasculating; but, in the words of Iggy Pop, “I’m not ashamed to dress ‘like a woman’ because I don’t think it’s shameful to be a woman”.

There isn’t anything inherently bad about buying a dolls’ house for your little girl or a set of toy cars for a boy. But equally there isn’t anything wrong with buying them gender-neutral toys, or encouraging them to play with toys which wouldn’t usually be associated with their gender. Why buy your daughter a Lego Friends Stephanie’s Bakery Set when your son gets a Lego space shuttle? And why limit the toy kitchen to girls? It can be difficult to fight against the consumerist tide of gender stereotyping in toys, but proactivity pays off. Here’s to a Christmas filled with presents which boys and girls can enjoy together.

On Julian Assange

Even by what Julian Assange’s own defence lawyers say, he’s a rapist.

He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to … continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.

In the other incident, in which Assange is alleged to have held a woman down against her will during a sexual encounter, Emmerson offered this summary: “[The complainant] was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her … [she] felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom … she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration … [she] tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. [She] says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.”

So in both cases Emmerson doesn’t dispute the version of events. The first woman was asleep. This is rape. Legally and morally. She did not consent. The fact that she consented AFTER he had started still doesn’t mean that it isn’t rape (it is, in the eyes of the law). People in Sweden have been prosecuted before for doing the same thing (such as in 2011). The second woman didn’t want sex without a condom and he wasn’t wearing a condom, which means that he did not have consent and he tried to rape her. Again, btaining consent afterwards doesn’t make a difference in the eyes of the law in Sweden (and in the UK).

It doesn’t matter that the women had engaged in consensual sex with Assange before because consent can be given and withdrawn at any time. Having sex with someone doesn’t immediately make them available for your sexual use without the need for prior consent. As for the fact that the woman didn’t properly fight him off, that is completely ignoring the emotional trauma of sexual violence and places responsibility on the victims, which is completely fucked up. And you don’t have to use words to withdraw consent which you never gave…

 

And as for the argument that they didn’t go to the police immediately, it’s not unusual for sexual violence to go unreported (only approximately 5% of rapes are reported in the first place). We don’t know what kind of emotional trauma they were personally experiencing. It takes a lot to accuse anyone of rape, let alone a man with such a huge cult following. Judicial proceedings in sexual violence cases are notoriously traumatic, lengthy and extremely upsetting, and evidence (including physical evidence) is often dismissed. Would I have reported a rape like that? No, I probably wouldn’t have. For fear of the trauma, fear of being disbelieved and attacked, maybe even because of an emotional connection to the person (most rapists are people we know, after all). Were they encouraged to come forward because of who he is? Who knows? That doesn’t make their accusations any less legitimate or worth following through. Assange should face rape charges in Sweden. He shouldn’t be extradited to the USA and executed for his involvement with Wikileaks, which is currently hindering progress on the rape allegations front.

 

Assange admitted to having sex with a woman whilst she was asleep and pushing another woman’s legs apart when she said no. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with that. Assange said that he THINKS he had consent, and he didn’t. There’s a reason why so many rapists have no idea they are rapists. They don’t think putting their penis inside someone without consent is rape.

Under Swedish law, Assange committed rape.

Then there’s the fact that Assange’s lawyers also said that the prosecutor leading the rape and sexual assault case against Julian Assange is a “malicious” radical feminist who is “biased against men”. Many of the Assange apologists have something in common: a contempt for feminism and for women who dare to challenge their perfect vision of Assange. When someone accuses a person of rape, their accusations should be taken seriously rather than dismissed as hysterical and malicious. There’s a reason why only 5% of rapes are reported and why only 6% of rape cases result in a conviction. All the odds are stacked against women who report rape. And if 94% of women are deemed to be liars, it’s no wonder that Assange’s accusors are receiving the same treatment from numerous people on the internet, most of whom are male and some of whom come from the left.
It’s worrying that many people identify more quickly with a suspected rapist than with a victim. Assange’s legal representation basically admitted the rape and tried to downplay it. One would have thought that, by now, penetrating a woman who is unable to consent or using force to penetrate a woman would be classed by everyone as rape and therefore punishable.

I still support Wikileaks, which is run by many people and therefore not dependable on Assange to survive. I still don’t believe that Assange should be extradited to the USA. I still think that there are many who would like to see Assange’s downfall and view the rape allegations as a convenient way in which to facilitate it. The idea that this is a huge set-up on the part of the anti-Wikileaks lobby is highly unlikely. Wikileaks is a huge organisation which is fully-functioning without Assange. It is possible to simultaneously believe the rape allegations may well be true and that the US and its allies will milk them for their own ends, and to oppose the latter. Assange has done a lot of good. That doesn’t mean he can’t rape women. Rape is a frequent occurence. We must not ignore these women because they could may well be rape victims, ordinary women who are being exploited by all sides of the Wikileaks debate and who deserve justice. This sentiment is echoed by writers such as Laurie Penny in this excellent article.

The same people who throw about phrases like “lack of evidence” and “feminazis” are ignoring the fact that this is exactly why 94% of women who say they’ve been raped are not believed. The system is biased against rape victims. Defending Assange like this is buying into the culture of disbelief which produces the shocking rape conviction rate in the first place and which ensures that any powerful figure like Assange is considered unable to commit any real crime when the likelihood is that, by legal definition, he is a rapist. Rapists are everywhere amongst us. Anyone can be a rapist. Neither Assange’s name or his political history should make any difference when it comes to putting him on trial for rape. Sexual violence isn’t rare. The odds are stacked against these women and all we are doing is contributing to the fact that reports are actually becoming less frequent because of distrust of the police and for the fear of not being believed. Assange’s defence lawyers essentially admitted that he had non-consensual sex. Assange doesn’t seem to think that having sex with a woman without her consent is rape.

And this is why I think Julian Assange is probably a rapist.

My Big Fat Gypsy Stereotype

Of all the odious trash under the guise of ‘documentaries’ spurned out by Channel 4, Thelma’s Gypsy Girls has to be one of the worst offenders. Following the success of the Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series, dressmaker Thelma Madine, who claims to be the go-to designer for travellers (she’s not), embarks on a project in which she trains ten female travellers as seamstresses and eventually hires the best. Madine portrays herself as the saviour of travellers – “this is, like, the opportunity of a lifetime you’re getting here” – and constantly reminds us that she is on the brink of “losing everything” through this venture. Classic lines include “if this doesn’t work then I’m penniless basically” and “I’m putting my life, which is comfortable now, on the line, something that is not going to make me any more money, I’m just gonna put what I’ve made into helping these girls…I could lose everything I’ve got”. Aside from the fact that most of this money has been invested in new premises to expand her business rather than in the girls themselves, one can’t help wondering how much Madine is set to earn from Channel 4 for this series. If times get really tough for Madine as she predicts, there’s always the option of withdrawing her daughter from private school or selling the luxurious 5 bedroom house complete with swimming pool which she is so keen to show off to the viewers. She proudly shows off her gaudy furniture, pointing to a white leather chair and exclaiming “this is real gypsy. I like everything they like”. Gesturing to a guest bedroom, she remarks “that’s definitely a traveller room. There’s nothing subtle”. But as traveller and blogger Pipopotamus argues:

“Her garish furnishings seemed a world away from the reality of my trailer, let alone the homes of my family situated in Bulgaria’s Gypsy Ghettos.”

Despite claiming to understand and empathise with travellers, Madine seems to have no problem with perpetuating stereotypes and provoking hostility. Throughout the series she talks about them in terms which, if applied to any other ethnic or racial group, wouldn’t make it on the air. One of the most telling moments is when Madine informs her staff of the project: she delivers the good news that they are employing ten new girls, but “the bad news is that they are all travellers”. When one member of staff questions why this is bad news, she replies “you come back to me and say that in three months when they’ve been here”.  She later explains that, because some of the trainees were taken out of school at a young age, “they’re not like 16 year old girls…they’re like 11 year old girls” and must be treated like children accordingly, a statement chillingly reminiscent of the racist and paternalistic treatment of Native Americans in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. She accuses travellers of being uneducated and unreliable: “they’re never, ever gonna be offered a job by anybody, are they?” She ignores the fact that Bridget Deadman, who was featured regularly on the show, has 7 As at GCSE and won a place at college, and allows one of her employees to call her a “smart arse” behind her back. Deadman is also forced to sit through English and Maths lessons, apparently to make up numbers for the tutor. As she herself explains:

“Every stereotype there is about gypsies was pushed to the hilt and Thelma and the camera crew seemingly ignored anything that didn’t fit that image.”

Madine also accuses travellers of being racist – “they most definitely look down on the people who don’t talk English” – because her staff members born outside the UK have been asked by the children of traveller customers “why can’t you speak English?” As Pipopotamus points out:

“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but unless this is the comment of a child raised by skinhead neo Nazis, then surely this questioning is nothing more than the bluntly phrased questions of a child discovering the uniqueness of British society? While Thelma is quick to brand these children racist, she seems to ignore the fact that her own, eight year old, daughter Katrina is guilty of this exact behaviour. Indeed, whilst reminiscing of the day she was first asked to make a Gypsy dress, little Katrina tells her mother that she “should have just said no”. It appears to me that Katrina doesn’t rate the Romany and Irish Traveller communities highly, an attitude inherited from her mother.”

We see several clips of Madine’s 8 year old daughter which reveal her worrying prejudice towards travellers. In episode 4, the trainees are invited to Katrina’s birthday party and are each told to bring a young relative with them. Katrina sweetly explains to the camera crew that if the gypsies “…are naughty I’m going to put them on the naughty step”. The party itself is oddly extravagant for a woman who claims to be financially crippled by her latest venture, and it’s clear that the traveller children are simply there as ‘exotics’, like some sort of novelty circus act. They are gawped at by Katrina’s casually dressed friends; in stark contrast, the traveller children are wearing custom-made revealing and sparkly costumes on Madine’s orders. Madine herself is brimming with smugness and self-importance, proudly announcing “there hasn’t been any segregation at all”.

A theme which crops up regularly throughout the series is sexism. Madine claims that for traveller women “the idea of a day to day job is an alien concept” and that “women get a raw deal in the traveller community. They’re brought up to say, you’re gonna be homemakers, and that’s it”. This is a gross misrepresentation of reality. Seeing as most of the girls selected for the course are 16 or 17, it’s hardly surprising that they haven’t been in paid employment before. When interviewing travellers for the course, Madine asks questions which say more about her view of the traveller communities than it did about them: “some people say in the traveller community that it’s shameful for women to work” and “what would you say to people who might say it’s shameful that you’re working?” Anyone under 18 needed to bring a parent with them, so it seems that a large number of adults didn’t think it was shameful at all. Grace, one of the trainee dressmakers, explains that traveller women “like our independence” and many of them do more than cleaning. She has a choice to do housework and look after the children, and she enjoys it. Yes, some families are unwilling to let women go out to work. Sexism and patriarchy are engrained in every culture. Pigeonholing it as one culture or race’s problem and stereotyping all traveller women as voiceless and oppressed is patronising and ethnocentric:

“There are Romany and Irish Traveller woman who do chose to enter the world of education and employment, and in my experience it is something that is not so uncommon anymore. Within my own family I have an aunty who is a social worker, a sister, cousin and aunty who are hairdressers, a cousin who has ambitions to become a professional dancer, and a grandmother who is a business owner. Thelma Madine believes her scheme is a once in a lifetime opportunity, something that has never been offered before. She is of the opinion that ‘no one gives Travellers a chance’, yet this is misplaced arrogance. In fact, there are a number of academic scholarships, internships, and courses aimed at young Romany and Irish Traveller people, offered by much more prestigious organisations than a Scouser’s dress shop.”
-Pipopotamus

Bridget Deadman’s perspective on the role of women within travelling communities is also very insightful:

“…all of the women in my family have worked just as much as the men, not through need but through want, as we are driven women and we are not content with a life centred on looking after the home. Yes, we are very family-orientated but you can have two, and be extremely happy balancing them both.”

Thelma’s Gypsy Girls is yet another stereotyping and misleading show aired solely for entertainment purposes – or in Madine’s case, to enhance her glittering TV career and to increase her bank balance. There are countless incidences of ignorance and racism throughout the series which are treated as normal and acceptable. When Deadman doesn’t want to model a short lycra dress because she thinks it’s inappropriate, Madine attributes it to differences between English and Irish travellers and accuses her of “not doing herself any favours”. The stereotyping of entire cultures and communities is cringeworthy. So are the prejudices of the non-traveller staff members, who mock them behind their backs and refuse to eat lunch in the same room as them, something which Madine doesn’t seem too bothered about. Deadman, who quit the show early, feels that the programme is exploitative and misleading:

“Thelma wasn’t interested in teaching us anything. It was just a freak show which made us look violent, tarty and stupid. At times it was like being on Jeremy Kyle. The crew were determined to make us look wild. The whole thing was disgusting. We trusted Thelma to help us learn a skill.”

Deadman experienced racist bullying at school as a result of the Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series and had hoped that the dressmaking course would be different, but in reality it “has just made things a hundred times worse”. She would like to go back to college, which she dropped out of to take Madine’s course, and study events management.

The Oxford Student’s interview with Bridget Deadman and Pipopotamus’s blog offer a much more genuine insight into the experiences of travellers than faux-documentaries fronted by self-indulgent and ignorant people like Thelma Madine, and they don’t attempt to generalise entire cultures either. Pipopotamus eloquently summarises everything that is wrong with Thelma’s Gypsy Girls:

“I am willing to throw my hands up and apologise if I have misjudged fairy godmother Madine, yet I am positive that she most definitely is not on the side of the Romany and Irish Traveller communities. The project itself could have provided a new and exciting opportunity for the girls who were picked, but due to Thelma’s longing for money and fame, these girls have been paraded in front of the cameras as an excuse to induce humiliating, degrading and abusive comments over social networks and the media. If Thelma’s heart was truly in the right place, she would have had the decency to conduct her training away from the public eye. Instead all Thelma has proven is that she is the most dangerous ‘spokesperson’ for the Romany and Irish Traveller communities, and one of the biggest threats to our fight for equality.”

Variety is the spice of love: thoughts on polyamory

I recently came across a Facebook page with over a million fans, called “A relationship is only for two, but some bitches don’t know how to count”. While it presumably refers to the practice of cheating – specifically by women – I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the assumption that only two people can be involved in a happy, healthy relationship. What about polyamory, aka consensual non-monogamy, “the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved”? Does a relationship have to be “only for two” if all parties are happy with a different arrangement?

Polyamory gets a bad name because it is often confused with polygamy, which almost always takes the form of the marriage of one man to several women. In America, polygamy is associated with fundamentalist Mormon culture, and especially with its leader Warren Jeffs, who was imprisoned for sexually abusing young girls. But the history of polyamory is a radical one. Modern-day polyamory is intertwined with the rise of feminism and its roots go as far back as the 1840s. Flouting the repression and conservativeness of the Victorian era, the most radical women renounced monogamy as a tool of their oppression. The anarchist Emma Goldman lived with her boyfriend and another couple, and the four of them often made love together. The first books on the polyamory movement were written by women; a sizeable number of polyamorous households consist of more men than women. Associated with a kind of utopian New Age feminism, polyamory has historically been as much about carving out one’s own little corner of the world as it has been about sex.

Although I am someone who has only ever experimented with monogamy before, I believe that it’s possible to be just as happy in a polyamorous relationship. It’s true that polyamory is not inherently feminist: like monogamy, it has the potential to go wrong, and if a relationship is structured or negotiated on unequal terms it’s obviously not healthy. For some it can be difficult and overwhelming, as Zoe Whittall found out:

“I felt unconfined and open-minded and totally confused. Intellectually, non-monogamy made complete sense; emotionally, it felt like sandpaper across my eyelids.”

But when we enter into a monogamous relationship with another person, we enter into a series of unsaid expectations of how that relationship will function. Polyamory is different because it forces you to have open discussion about these expectations. Society does not yet have a preformed package of expectations for poly relationships. And talking on equal terms about how to structure your relationship rather than defaulting to the unspoken heteronormative is beneficial for all parties. There are fewer cracks through which insidious power dynamics can creep. As Red Chidgey quotes Tristan Taormino in a previous F-Word post:

 “Non-monogamous folks are constantly engaged in their relationships: they negotiate and establish boundaries, respect them, test them and, yes, even violate them. But the limits are not assumed or set by society; they are consciously chosen.”

Some would argue that polyamory is an unnatural state – but monogamy isn’t exactly natural either. During the Stone Age it was common for a man to impregnate a woman  and provide resources to protect her and her offspring, while impregnating as many other women as possible in order to replicate his genes. In the words of David Buss:

“The picture is not a very pretty one, but humans were not designed by natural selection to coexist in matrimonial bliss. They were designed for individual survival and genetic reproduction.”

Many people believe that a polyamorous person cannot truly give themselves to anyone, because their love is shared. This is based on the “starvation model” of love – the idea that you only have a limited amount of love, comparable to sharing a pizza or dividing up your wages, and it is completely false. Others don’t believe that it’s possible to love more than one person at a time, so if you’re in a position where you’re in a relationship with one person and you happen to fall for someone else, this shows that you don’t really love the person you’re with, right? After all, we are put here on this earth to love only one other person, our one true soulmate who is right for us in a world of seven billion people…This is the “scarcity model” of love, and it is deeply flawed.

I’m not suggesting that we should all reject monogamy. What needs to change is the widespread closed-mindedness regarding different relationship structures and the assumption that polyamory is somehow less valuable or viable than other relationship structures. We should question our monogamy because in most cases we didn’t freely choose it. We defaulted to it.

Leave My Hair Alone: The Politics of Depilation

Most women spend over a year of their lives removing body hair. That’s according to a recent episode of “Cherry Healey: How to Get a Life”, in which Healey took to the streets and interviewed random passers-by about their thoughts on body hair. The response was overwhelmingly negative; going au naturel was branded “scary”, “horrible”, and “dirty”. Several people said they would rather break their legs than have hairy armpits and a hairy vagina for the rest of their lives; one man chose breaking his leg over sleeping with a woman with a hairy vagina.

Healey herself admits to being obsessed with shaving, waxing and plucking; even the hair on her arms is stripped off regularly following a cruel remark from a boyfriend 15 years ago. Yet even she describes hair removal as “really painful, really time consuming, really annoying” and laments the “unrealistic idea of physical perfection” which drives so many women to the act.

The media bombards us with images of women sans body hair; the vast majority of mainstream porn depicts women with trimmed or waxed pubes; female celebrities who dare to not shave are lampooned and ridiculed by the press. Hair removal for women has become automatic and unquestioned. A ridiculous article on celebrities spotted out and about with hairy underarms declares that “there’s nothing more embarrassing for a woman than to get busted with hairy armpits, and when celebs are getting snapped 24 hours a day, there is no excuse for them to forget to shave”. Aside from the fact that these women may have actually wanted to go out like that, the overriding implication is that we should make an effort to not be caught out in our natural states. We should make society forget that our hair ever existed. And the Daily Mail’s description of Geri Halliwell’s hairy underarms as a “misstep” is a reflection of the way in which the female body in all its natural glory is still looked upon with disgust and contempt.

Why do we even have body hair? There must be a reason, right? Well, underarm hair wicks sweat away from the skin and helps maintain good ventilation. It’s true that sweat can cling to underarm hairs, but that’s what showering is for. Our underarm hair also harbours pheromones, scents produced by the body which are said to be sexually stimulating to others. There is much debate over humans’ sensitivity to pheromones, but papers such as this one list some compelling evidence.

Pubic hair keeps particles of sweat and bacteria from entering the vagina and causing infections. It forms an air pocket to keep the area cool, preventing sweat which will breed yeast and bacteria. Pubes also contain pheromones and even act as a dry lubricant. Body hair develops as a mark of puberty. It’s just one of the things which distinguish us from our prepubescent selves.

What many women aren’t aware of is that shaving the pubic area carries risks. It can get dirty and full of bacteria and, if there’s a cut, that cut could become infected. Ingrown hairs, which can be caused by shaving, are infections on their own and they’re very uncomfortable. The skin down there is very sensitive and prone to razor burn. Stubble is worse there than it is on the legs or armpits. Waxing is safer, but if not done properly can cause an infection. And, if you want to shave around your anus, remember that the lack of hair will make it practically impossible to pass gas silently.

A shaved pubic region may be sexually appealing to a man, but to a woman it means a number of health risks. Hair removal of any form should be an individual’s decision. It’s their body and their health, and that’s more important than their partner’s sexual pleasure. Everyone should know the risks involved. If you shave, think about why you actually do it.

There is a clear societal double standard when it comes to body hair. Yes, some men are pressured to shave by their partners – which I also disagree with – but body hair is frequently described as “masculine” and therefore the exclusive territory of the man. “Femininity” is equated with pre-pubescence. As Autumn Whitefield-Madrano explains:

“…body hair remains verboten for women because it breaks the ultimate taboo: gender…Body hair contains a threat, and in fact maybe it’s a combination of its embedded masculinity and its embedded female maturity that makes it such. Body hair is thriving proof that gender isn’t entirely binary (testosterone prompts its growth), and it’s also proof that women’s sexual characteristics aren’t limited to just the curves that make such nice statues.”

And I couldn’t ignore Laura Woodhouse’s excellent analysis of the politics of shaving:

“That’s exactly part of the reason I don’t shave – I think shaving, along with many other “beauty” practices, is part of the effort to create and accentuate difference between the sexes in order to allow and justify us being treated differently. It also causes us to see our natural female bodies as disgusting and as such can be another form of oppression (it doesn’t need to be, but the majority of defensive reactions to women who don’t shave their legs go along the lines of “well I just think it LOOKS better”. Of course you do, because you’ve grown up being told that female body hair is disgusting).”

And that’s partially why I don’t shave anymore. In this sense my decision is political as well as personal. I feel much more physically comfortable with body hair, but I am also acutely aware of societal beauty expectations and don’t intend to follow this one. If I don’t love my natural body, how can I be truly happy with myself as I am? Do I really want to be a slave to the razor for fear of being rejected by those around me?

My favourite part of “How to Get a Life” is when Healey pays a visit to Those Pesky Dames, a group of inspiring young women who produce YouTube videos “shouting about feminism, thwarting patriarchy, and generally annoying misogynists” (in their own words). They are brilliant advocates for challenging the beauty status quo – and they talk sense. “It’s really horrible that we have to feel so ashamed about natural body hair,” said one. All of them champion the principle of choice unhindered by societal expectations and pressure from partners. And that’s what it should come down to. It isn’t wrong to shave, wax or trim your body hair. But when it’s the only acceptable lifestyle choice being pushed upon us – when every mainstream media outlet recoils with horror at the sight of a woman going natural – there’s something wrong. It’s time for the body police to back off. And that includes you.