Reading Monbiot today in The Guardian, here, I got to thinking about the state of modern feminism. Driving to work I also heard a debate [listen] on the Today programme featuring Ariel Levy, who discussed her latest book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, which explores the rise of self-sexualisation in women. Levy argues that in the post-feminist modernity, it is women who objectify themselves, through actions such as having cosmetic implants, wearing “raunchy†clothing, and highly sexualised behaviour.
We are passed the bra-burning protests of the sixties; women have made huge progress in shattering some of the inequalities that have limited their opportunities for centuries. Big gains have also been made within the family, where men are more involved and women are able to continue to pursue their career while simultaneously having kids. However it would be foolish to believe that things are equal between the sexes, as in many areas, they clearly aren’t. Women are still massively underrepresented in the boardrooms of our top companies, there still exists an apparent salary disparity, and, women still take on an overwhelmingly large proportion of the domestic chores and childrearing responsibilities.
With so many continuing inequalities, it’s hard to understand why feminism has become such a dirty word in the mainstream, and why women don’t continue to challenge this discrimination? Some women of course, and I refer to feminists such as Germaine Greer and Levy herself, do continue to rally against the male dominated status-quo, but increasingly these women are ignored, ostracised, and ridiculed. Are academics such as Greer really now just relics of an old war? And who won the war? Are women now happy with their lot or have they just accepted it? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 27th, 2006 | Author:Aaron | Filed under:media, politics, uk | Comments Off
I always liked Charles Clarke, and while he clearly made mistakes, he was a worthy Home Secretary. So it’s pleasing to see the old jug-eared Cambridge alumni finally come out fighting in the media this week. Link.
I did enjoy his criticism of John Reid too. This old communist, who has sold his soul to the Blairite project, has exposed himself an opportunistic media-courting moral pygmy, since taking the keys at the Home Office.
One of the less obvious effects of the Internet is that newspapers are no longer a useful source of ‘news’. This means that the broadsheets are now bulging with commentary and columnists. The tabloids, while always a haven for opinionated fuckwits such as Richard Littlejohn, are now looking to become campaigning pressure groups which will further the interests of their proprietors. Yeah, yeah, I know that they have always been mouthpieces for their owners, and that they have always been capable of witch-hunt journalism, but has anyone else noticed the changing, emboldened campaigning nature of the modern British tabloid?
Posted: June 26th, 2006 | Author:Aaron | Filed under:sports, world cup | Comments Off
England again flattered the deceive, but again they’re through, and with Portugal and Holland having torn strips off each other, maybe they have a great chance of reaching the Semis.
The highlight from the Portugal game must be the sight of watching Christiano Ronaldo blubbering again like a big girls blouse. I know quite a few Portuguese people and they’re quite a sensitive bunch. They need to toughen up if they want to turn over English beefcakes like David “Essex-Boy” Beckham and Sol “Fruitbat” Campbell.
Hopefully in the other quarter finals, the teams will likewise do immense damage to one another, one of which will hobble into a semi with England, and then we may find ourselves, having not played well at all, in the final of the World Cup. Stranger things have happened. Carton Palmer got eighteen caps.
I have a busy day ahead, and I’m out tonight, so it will be a slow day here on tygerland.net.
I went out to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2last night, only to find out its not on for two more weeks. Naturally I blame the new Odeon website which is beyond complicated. I got to the cinema, swiped my card, and got tickets for July…great.
Anyway, we traded them in and went to see Alejandro Agresti’s The Lake House, a magical romantic will-they-won’t-they starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and do you know what? I secretly enjoyed it.
Followed that up with a visit to a Turkish restaurant where I had the most deliciously tender mouth-watering lamb that had ever passed my lips. We had wine and a new DVD at home, but being liberated parents (thanks Mum), we were both too exhausted. I watched the rest of the Argentina-Mexico game and went to bed.
Am I getting middle aged?
UPDATE 26.02.07: Comments are closed - spamming bastards
It was sad to see the Mexicans dumped out. Especially considering the fact that Heinze should have walked. The plucky Mexicans proved Argentina are not invincible.
Best game yet? Not sure, but certainly the most competitive. Oh, and another great goal.
Half a million bars of Cadbury’s chocolate suspected of being contaminated with salmonella have been eaten by the public over the past six months, the company admitted yesterday as it took seven of its most popular brands off the shelves.
There are concerns that the contaminated bars may have triggered food poisoning among more than 40 people.
The 53-year-old former politician backed the US and British governments over the invasion of Iraq three years ago despite widespread opposition in Spain. His party was voted out of power after his government blamed the 2004 Madrid bombings on Basque separatists when Islamic extremists had in fact committed the atrocities in which 191 people died.
Regular tygerland readers should have a look at this post, here, which asks: What’s the matter with American Politics?
This, I very much agreed with:
Contrary to conventional wisdom, competing special interests do not lead to democratic outcomes; they lead to elitism, corruption and widespread disenfranchisement.
For seven days, over a million shells had been fired into the German lines, in the hope of softening the front for an Anglo-French attack either side of the River Somme. Read the rest of this entry »
The financial scandals that may engulf four of Italy’s major clubs, was turned up a few degrees yesterday, with news that Juventus, AC Milan, Lazio, and Fiorentina, will all face charges, with relegation a real possibility.
Readers will be aware that Italy’s former right wing president, and sometime nightclub crooner, Silvio Berlusconi, owns AC Milan.
This scandal would put the once great Italian game back decades, and reaffirm many people’s perceptions, both of Italian business practices, and widespread corruption in football.
Juventus, along with Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina, could face relegation for their part in the scandal with 26 further people - but no players - also indicted by the prosecutor conducting a special investigation into the allegations, with the hearings to begin at Rome’s Olympic Stadium next Wednesday. Neither the identity of the individuals nor the precise nature of the charges have been revealed.
[...]
Confirmation of the indictments of the four clubs and 26 individuals by the Italian Football Federation’s prosecutor, Stefano Palazzi, was delayed until after the game in Hamburg with 13 members of Lippi’s squad employed by the clubs concerned.
The federation said all the indictments were for violation of articles one and/or six of the Code of Sporting Justice. Article one covers “general duties and obligations” while article six deals with sporting infractions and the obligation to report them. Juventus, the club at the centre of the scandal, are thought to be at greatest risk of relegation, possibly as far down to Serie C1, and are likely to be stripped of the league titles won over the last two years. The federation has promised it will be over by July 9, the date of the World Cup final.
It’s an absolute disgrace that some tractor, or other cumbersome creeping manure-stained farm-vehicle, should slow down ten or twenty cars that are carrying useful people to work. I’m not deliberately dissin’ the Amos’ and Worzel’s of this world, they do a great job, producing 60% of our food requirements while using less than two percent of our labour force, but at the end of the day, agriculture represents about 1.1% of our national output. This isn’t Stalin’s Russia, farmers aren’t the salt-of-the-Earth backbone of the nation; they’re a bunch of overly subsidised corn-chewing road hogs
I thought they were supposed to pull over when a certain number of cars were following? Nah. I’m pretty sure that they enjoy leading a convoy of frustrated office workers, who spit and swear, as they slowly wind their way through Britain’s country roads. I always make a point of acknowledging tractor drivers who do pull over, and let us followers speed past, “good-egg,†I always say. But I am absolutely convinced some sour-faced farmhands love to stick it to the city-folk who have the sheer audacity to populate the Queen’s Highways.
In my autocratic dystopia, one instance of holding up a convoy of 10-drivers would result in the sequestering of 1000-bags of grain, or the seizure of 2-bovines. One bovine, can of course be substituted for 30-chickens, or, one sheep and 2 barrels of scrumpy – I’m nothing if not flexible. Further hold-ups will result in more creative punishments, with the ultimate possibility of a term of 70-years hard labour in one of my many Gulags that are being planned (ever wondered what we can do with Butlins?).
So beware Giles, or whatever inbred name you’ve been christened with, let us get to work and generate the necessary taxes to finance your huge subsidies, because come the revolution, you’ll realise you never had it so good.
Rightwing pseudo-hard man and wannabe Joe six-pack, Bill O’Reilly, has his own solution to solving the Iraq quagmire, run the place just like Saddam did.
See, if I’m president, I’ve got probably another 50-60,000 with orders to shoot on sight anybody violating curfews. Shoot ‘em on sight. That’s me. President O’Reilly, curfew in Ramadi, 7 o’clock at night. You’re on the street, you’re dead. I shoot you right between the eyes. OK?
This lobotomised goon is clearly not going to dispel the myth that Americans have no grasp of irony.
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