The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

But then there's things like this that make me want to do violence:

That's not the answer.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by DanaC

There's a lot in that piece that is heartening. But then there's things like this that make me want to do violence
...

I think the next thought was: "Can you insert a rape scene here "

[DanaC]

As a spin-off from women in film more generally, here's an interesting piece about female super heroes. It's a really positive article, about the changing scene. But it also frames the problems well. What stifles development of female characters is often the way in which they have previously been depicted. Films with leading female characters have been made and bombed, and the lesson executives and male film makers have taken from that is not that they were bad films with badly drawn and shallow characters, but that people don't want to see female leads - yet plenty of male-led films bomb and nobody suggests that making a film with a male lead is a risk. Male-led films are judged, and succeed or fail, as films. Female-led films are judged, and succeed or fail as ambassadors for the concept of female-led films. And, as the article Lamp posted points out, films that succeed with a female lead, instead of acting as a proof of that concept are set aside as flukes and forgotten, whilst the next flop gets included in the proof that female-led films are a risk, and remembered as such for decades.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...male-superhero

Currently, men outnumber women five to one production roles; in 2014 women made up just 13% of directors and writers. But the problem isn’t just men writing fewer female superheroes, Rosenberg says, it’s that they write them badly. “A white man is never defined by his whiteness and maleness,” continues Rosenberg, “whereas being female is treated as a defining facet.” Writers and producers treating women like “The Other”, she says, results in the same stereotypes again and again: femme fatales, coy virgins, stern battleaxes.

That right there is pretty much 100% my problem with the way female super heroes have generally been depicted.

In fact, a dictionary-worth of terms exists to describe how unfairly women are treated in the superhero genre. There’s Women in Refrigerators Syndrome, where female characters are killed off in a gruesome way – say, stuffed in a fridge – as a plot device to motivate male characters. There’s the Smurfette Principle: that there will always be only one woman on a team of men. And there’s the wonderfully named Sexy Lamp Test. Coined by comic book writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, it states that “If you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.”

Nicely put ;p

With the varied, more dimensional women that we’re starting to see, though, it finally feels as if the genre is recognising and reacting to these disparities. In 20 years, when we’re watching the 11th Avengers sequel, will we look back and laugh at how we once wrote films where cape-wearing journalists spun the world backwards to reverse time, but we couldn’t write a female character who wasn’t someone’s wife or mother?

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Fame is fleeting.

[Happy Monkey]

It's a major award!

[Undertoad]

It works the other way as well.

In "A Christmas Story", dad delightedly gets a leggy woman by delivery, and displays her in the front window, to the embarrassment of his wife.

The film is improved

In "Aladdin", Young poor Aladdin can't vie for the love of princess Jasmine. So he steals a woman from the Cave of Wonders, which is considered a legendary task. But that's still not good enough, so he rubs the woman a special way, at which point he gets the wishes he needs to transform himself until he can marry Jasmine.

The film is vastly improved

[xoxoxoBruce]

13 women who transformed the world of economics, at the World Economics Forum.

Economist Justin Wolfers recently wrote about how female economists are airbrushed out of academic discussion when they have a male coauthor.
We decided to bring together some of the women who’ve had the biggest impact on the subject and the practice of economic policy, whether in academia, business, politics, or education.
These women are not just modern academic economists. Several are historical figures who made major contributions to the discipline at a time when female participation was incredibly difficult.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I noticed in this 1925 picture of 6 high school girls, at least 3 of the hairstyles probably wouldn't draw a second look in any decade.

[Lamplighter]

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.

[Aliantha]

That girl on the right in the front row looks like the kind of woman you might not want to piss off, especially when she's holding a gun. haha

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, be careful whom you spurn.

[DanaC]

I was going to post this in the summer, but it got by me and has suddenly popped up on a list of what's currently being read on the site.

One area of life in which women have struggled to achieve much of a presence, and which it is really important for women to achieve some presence is the realm of politics and government. As with the discussion about the number of female characters on screen and the number of female experts and news readers, this is one of those things where we (I think) almost instinctively feel as if there has been an explosion of female presence, to the point where they seem to be everywhere - but when you actually analyse it they've a fraction of the presence of men. We just don't realy notice the number of men, because they are the standard - we notice the presence of women.

One of the ways that sexism manifests in our culture is not just the number of women in politics and government, but how we discuss and understand female politicians. It is worrying to me how little that has changed, in some ways, since I was a child. Any woman in the public eye in any kind of a position of power, influence, or the potential of either gets taken down a peg in the language used to describe her. I don't meangets taken down a peg, as an individual - that happens to all politicians in the media. I mean taken down a peg as a woman. Everything about the way female politicians are discussed, interviewed, described and reported on underscores their femininity in a way that is weakening.

For example, the way a candidate in this year's Labour Party leadership contest was treated by the national political press.

How much do you reckon Jeremy Corbyn weighs? How does he measure up if you compare his looks to Prince William’s? How stylish would you say Andy Burnham is? And, if you had to guess, what kind of product would you say he uses in his hair?

The answers to these questions do nothing to help us decide who would make a better leader of the Labour party. But they do influence how voters perceive candidates.

The Mail on Sunday’s profile of leadership candidate Liz Kendall describes her as a “slinky brunette” and a “power-dressing Blairite” with a “lithe figure” who “remains New Labour to the tips of her stilettos”. The paper’s political editor, Simon Walters, asked if she wants to “get married and have kids”, quizzed her about her fitness routine and twice compared Kendall to Kate Middleton. At one point, Walters speculates that “she looks the same weight as the Duchess – about 8st”; later, he disingenuously asks her to discuss “the cruel comments about being a ‘childless spinster’”, neither telling readers who made those “cruel comments” in the first place, or where.

In any case, sexist media coverage has a real impact. A 2010 US study, commissioned by a non-partisan coalition of women’s groups, asked 800 likely voters to listen to descriptions of two hypothetical congressional candidates, Dan Jones and Jane Smith. Half of the voters then heard a sample back-and-forth debate about the candidates, which included sexist descriptions such as “mean girl” and “ice queen” and “prostitute” to talk about the female candidate. The other half heard a similar discussion without the labels. The findings of the study were stark; when sexist language was included, Jane Smith lost twice the support compared to the discussion that focused solely on her policies. Her initial support rating was 43%, which fell to 33% after policy based attacks, compared to 21% after sexist slurs.




The study also found that sexist language undermines the public perception of the female politician, prompting voters to see her as less empathetic, effective and trustworthy.

A follow-up study in 2013 by US organisation Name It Change It presented 1,500 likely voters with the media profiles of two fictional political candidates, one male and one female. Voters were divided into four groups: one quarter heard no reference to the female candidate’s appearance, while the other three groups were presented with either neutral, positive or negative descriptions of how she looked. The study itself used real quotes taken from media coverage of female candidates in 2012 elections. The conclusion? “When media coverage focuses on a woman’s appearance, she pays a price in the horse race, in her favourability, in her likelihood to be seen as possessing positive traits, and in how likely voters are to vote for her.” Importantly, all references to appearance, even apparently positive coverage that seems to praise a female politician’s looks, still result in a detrimental impact on her candidacy – a fact especially worth remembering when a journalist comments on the appearance of a woman in power and disguises it as a compliment.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...er-perceptions

[sexobon]

We men accept full responsibility for one cause of sexist remarks. As primitive humans we have not yet overcome this obscenity. Please accept our heartfelt apology for the shameful action of dressing our females.

We can't all be Ferengi.

[DanaC]

It isn't men, hon. It's people. Unconscious biases affect us all. Women are just as put off voting for other women as men are when this kind of reporting is used. We are also likely to focus on another woman's looks in a way we don't with men.

I noticed it myself with my nieces. As they were growing up I had tomakea conscious effort not to comment on appearance all the time. 'Hi babes - oh you look nice, where did you get that top?' Standard girl-to-girl greeting.

Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself, but it has an impact when it becomes the central focus for how we view women even in positions of power and responsibility.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So now you're the uncaring aunt who never even notices how hard they tried to look good.