Mainstream media takes up the issue The Lovable/Jen Hawkins/body image issue has now gone well beyond these humble blog pages. I spent a significant part of yesterday being interviewed on the subject. Susie O’Brien gave it a good run both as a news piece and a comment piece spread across two pages in the Herald Sun. […]
Save the alarm for the real sexualised and exploitative images of children Is this photo comparable to these? Last week I was asked to comment on photos of little boys, described as reminiscent of the Bill Henson exhibition which included naked young girls and attracted significant controversy in 2008. There was now a “row” over the […]
Stop Porn Cultures conference: how industrialised porn harms us all I’ve just come back from the US where I attended the Stop Porn Culture conference in Boston. While I can’t say I enjoyed it quite as much as the enchanted evening listening to James Taylor and Carole King perform in Washington (my smooth-taking mate DJM from […]
What’s happening to our boys?: Maggie Hamilton’s new book When I first began turning my attention to the sexualisation of girls in the media and popular culture, a book that significantly echoed my own thoughts was What’s happening to our girls: Too much too soon, how our kids are overstimulated, oversold and oversexed (Penguin, 2008) […]
The term ‘pornification’ has recently been given prominence in books by Melinda Tankard Reist and others. Naomi Klein has also been decrying the effects of pornography on women’s sexual self-confidence and the re-shaping of men’s desire. Young girls are the target of earlier and earlier sexualisation, especially through the fashion market, and boys it seems […]
The commodification of sexuality ‘Veronica’ is a 21-year-old Australian woman who has taken up film director-cum-pimp Justin Sisley’s offer to auction her virginity for his film. “I need to do something with my life” is one of the justifications she gives here: [vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/11616540[/vimeo] Being paraded in a meat-market style display in a Nevada brothel in […]
Anne Summers review of Natasha Walter’s Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism was published in the Australian’s Review section on the weekend. In the review, titled ‘The tyranny of self-perfection’, the long-time Australian feminist campaigner for women’s equality admits she had “no idea” about how bad things were for girls in a hypersexualised culture: …This […]
Sexualisation, pressured sex, pornified music video clips, Kiely Williams PR campaign for the women-love-rape movement, a little boy having his wish to go to a strip club granted, leg waxing for little girls, sexism in Christine Nixon reporting: a selection of articles from the last couple of weeks reflecting the status of women and girls. […]
I was looking around for something nice for you for the weekend but couldn’t find anything. So here’s some more pornography instead (sorry Satchel girl). First up, Julie Gale’s piece on ABC The Drum Unleashed on the porn in the corner store issue which I have also covered. Much of the graphic material in the […]
The Age covered the story today: Put soft porn out of view: experts Graphic images delay censor report And also invited readers to vote in a poll: Poll – “Should ‘soft’ pornography be banned from sale in newsagents, milkbars and service stations” Classification system held in contempt For more background on the issue see these […]
“I was startled by what some young women were saying to me about their inability to access dissent; their inability to hear voices that were presenting an alternative” – Natasha Walter I’m half way through Natasha Walter’s new book Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism. It is a compelling read, laying bare the forces of […]
Nice to know I’m not the only one with a negative critique (also published in On Line Opinion Friday)of the Lady Gaga machine. Here’s an extract from a piece by Jim Schumacher and Debbie Bookchin titled ‘What’s Next From Lady Gaga: A snuff film?’ recently published on Huffington Post: What if glitzy Lady Gaga is exactly […]
