Nipples and Nipple Tassles

The Free the Nipple campaign, for those of you that haven't heard, seeks to achieve equality between men and women's upper bodies. That is to say that they are fighting against the sexualisation of women's breasts and nipples. Whilst it is widely accepted for men to be seen in public shirtless, this is rarely the case for women.

As the law stands in Britain, it is not illegal for women to be topless in public, however it is up to the police officers' discretion as to whether or not this is disruptive, because if they deem it antisocial, women may be asked to cover up. Thus the double standard does not lie in the law, but rather in our social conditioning.

It used to be the case that both men's and women's torsos were deemed inappropriate. In fact, before 1936, it was illegal for men to go topless in the US, and they too had to fight for the right to take their shirts off in public. However, following their success, it seems unfair that women are not accorded the same rights as men. Why, when men's torsos have been de-sexualized do women's breasts remain objects of desire?

It is clear that we need to alter society's perception of women's upper bodies in order to reach equality on this matter, however this will, undoubtedly, take time.

Furthermore, campaigning on this particular issue is being damaged by claims that the 'Free the Nipple' campaign is contradicting battles against the sexualisation of women in the media. Many argue that women going topless is only leading to more objectification and therefore is counterproductive. Instead they say women should cover up more, and therefore escape the male gaze. However this is not at all helpful, why should women be forced to dress more modestly in order to avoid judgement from males? It does not seem at all fair that women should need to suffer when the problem lies with society's perception of the female body, clearly society needs to change, not the way in which we dress.

The main message here is that we need to appreciate that the problem is not women dressing provocatively, but the reaction that they receive. In our current society it seems absurd that women should have what they wear dictated to them, instead we need to alter society's attitudes, so that women are just as free as men with regards to what they wear. In changing our perception of the female body, in particular breasts and nipples, we can have a situation in which women no longer need to feel self conscious about their bodies, something which is essential in the fight for equality.
 
So please lets avoid misunderstandings of Free the Nipple, because it's aim it to de-sexualise women's breasts and normalize toplessness in public, a very important step towards equality.


Written by Lili

Picture credit: Ellen

http://gotopless.org/timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_the_Nipple_(campaign)    

Is Equality a Must?

Most scream for equality. A confident, assured individual wouldn't contemplate differential treatment. But does that always apply...
Do you expect a 'gentleman' to pay for your meal, pull back your chair or crack on with some DIY? Whilst you stay contempt with ironing shirts, cooking many meals or do the washing up?
Perhaps you scoff at this as the they are the oppressive gender stereotypical roles. But for some this may be the agreed equal responsibilities of respective couples. Surely, it is living in a world with the freedom that can allow one to choose to adhere to activities indicative of gender stereotypes, that we have reached equality. On a macro-level, most women should believe in egalitarian opportunity, socially, economically and politically. However, So many women live in societies uncompromising in their expectations.

Written by Elizabeth

Picture credit: Ellen

The Power of Advertising

I, like many other women, shave my legs nearly all year round. I have done for a while now, and it never crossed my mind not to. The very idea of allowing the spiky black hairs to grow as nature intended is not one I find attractive. In fact quite the opposite.

Nowadays unshaven legs on a women does not have positive connotations. Most men find it unattractive, and I certainly do not know of many young women who are brave enough to expose hairy legs in public.

However, what surprised me, is that the idea of shaving one's legs has in fact only been around since the First World War (about 1915). Before this it would seem that both men and women went about their daily lives without casting a second thought to the hair on their bodies - something that may seem strange to us now.

When skirts became shorter and sheer stockings came into fashion it became obvious when a women had unshaven legs. However I am not sure as to what extent this would have influenced societal norms had it not been for the advertising.

Big companies soon realised that they could exploit this new 'hair removal' culture, and thus the fashion was born. Endless advertising campaigns begun, with captions such as: "the fastidious woman today must have immaculate underarms if she is to be unembarrassed." This idea of shaming women into removing hair from their bodies is what caused such a dramatic cultural shift. Whereas before it had been acceptable to be hairy, now it was something to be ashamed of. Moreover the reasons for the shame were always centered around the idea of pleasing men. Some adverts read "he'll never guess you shave." And the principle message was that shaven legs and underarms were essential for pleasing a man.

I think that the strength of this pressure, and the fact that it revolved around an issue which preoccupied the majority of women at this time (namely finding a man to marry), is why we feel obliged to have perfectly smooth skin at all times.

Regardless of your opinion, I think that is safe to say that the power of advertising is perhaps stronger than we might have guessed. That is to say that these clever companies highlighted a weakness in the minds of women worldwide, namely their desire to be deemed attractive, and thus harnessed this insecurity and used it to their own advantage, selling countless millions of hair removal products over the following decades...

Written by Lili

Picture credit: Ellen




http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-beauty/hair/when-did-we-decide-women-should-shave-their-legs-20150526-gh9ao1 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10968221/What-do-men-think-about-women-with-hairy-legs.html

Jenner and Beauty

I am a cis girl, therefore I will never truly understand the struggles that someone who does not feel comfortable in their assigned birth gender will experience but I will try my hardest not to make unfair judgement in this piece.

I am thrilled for Caitlyn Jenner that she can finally be her true self. I have great respect for her for going through something so challenging in the eye of the world’s media, but I am shocked at the way the media has treated it.

Before her transition, Caitlyn was an olympic gold medal winner, and any news articles written about her 20 or 30 years ago would describe her as an American sporting hero. Not once was there an article whose main focus was her appearance instead of her successes.

Now everywhere I look, on the train, in shops, on the internet; the only stance the media has now is how beautiful Caitlyn is. You’d be forgiven for forgetting that this is the same person who has won olympic gold medals. Naturally, because of societal norms and pressures, we all want to be deemed attractive, but it is important to remember that Caitlyn Jenner is part of a multimillion dollar family who have access to the world’s best surgeons. Caitlyn Jenner is still the same woman who appeared in the Diane Swayer interview, pre operations, but it seems only now that the newspapers dare to call her beautiful. Only now she has conformed to our society's expectations of how a beautiful women should look.

I think I’m trying to make two points here; the different way in which the media treat men and women, even when they have accomplished the same achievements, and the fact that people who are transgender are only fully accepted by society when they have spent a lot of money conforming to our idea of beauty.

Transgender people are still the least economically active group of people in the western world, so many people who find themselves in the same position as Caitlyn will not be able to afford all the treatment she has had, nor may they want it. Therefore it is important that we continue to fight societal pressures so that people can feel comfortable in their own skin, despite how they look.

Written by Georgina

Picture Credit: Ellen

The Danger Lurking Underground

It seems a while ago that we first heard about the controversial technique of Hydraulic Fracturing, or  'Fracking,' as a way of extracting Shale gas from the ground, yet the issue has not gone away, and with the Green Party still left with just one MP after Thursday's election, the danger is only likely to increase.

So is fracking really all bad? Supposedly fracking could be worth over £1.1 billion across the UK over the course of around a decade, and given that the gas and oil companies have a scheme involving huge economic benefits for the local communities, it is unsurprising that David Cameron has said fracking is "good for the UK."

However, if for a moment we consider this issue from an unselfish point of view, we might be able to see past the potential money in the fracking industry and remember that we are currently facing many serious issues regarding our environment and climate change.

The process of fracking involves pumping numerous harmful chemicals (up to 330 tons per well) into the ground in order to force the gas out of the ground. This might not be so bad if it was not for the fact that so many of these chemical leak into the ground. It has been found that 5-7% of all new fracking sites leak, and that in the long term every well will leak. This has disastrous effects on the local community, because these chemicals contaminate the ground and the water supply, and have consequently been linked to higher incidences of cancer along with other illnesses across the country. Not only does the process of fracking pollute our water supply, it also uses millions of gallons of water during the process itself, thereby wasting our precious water supply.

Furthermore, perhaps the strangest thing of all is the fact that once we have extracted this gas and oil through fracking, we then proceed to burn it as we normally do with fossil fuels. This only adds to the growing amount of pollution in the world, and as we all know, unleashing this carbon dioxide has a detrimental effect on out environment. Moreover this is not even a long term solution to our energy crisis, it has been shown in the US that the supply of this type of gas and oil has already peaked after just a decade of exploitation, meaning this process is far less efficient than our North Sea oil for example, and also requires more and more wells to be drilled to keep up with demand.

I personally believe that the cons far outweigh the pros of fracking, and I cannot believe that any economic gain is worth destroying our planet in this way; after all, without sounding too extreme, if we carry on like this, our planet may no longer be inhabitable, and I can't see the economy being important under those circumstances....

Written by Lili



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/fracking/11224097/Fracking-wont-cut-bills-and-ministers-oversold-shale-gas-benefits-experts-say.html
http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-hell/

My Take on the Anti-Austerity Marches

This is my "I'm-angry-at-the-lack-of- respect-for-anti-Tory-protesters-but-I'm-going-to-try-to-remain-civil-to-those-that-may-disagree-rant". I can't see this possibly going wrong.

First, a Latin lesson.

When you consider the word democracy, it actually comes from the Latin "demos" meaning people. People. People make a democracy. It is a living, breathing, organic manifestation that we call the centre of our society. It is not a thought experiment with variables and hypotheticals. We have it in place in order to create some sort of order, but in our non-representational democracy where 1 million votes can equal 1 MP, 1.5 million can equal 56 and 39% somehow equals a majority, there is bound to be dissent.

So, when it emerged that the Conservatives had won the General Election outright and I was in utter disbelief, of course I was very excited when I knew I was not the only one who felt so strongly opposed, clearly, given the protest. Up until then I felt I was going mad; like I and a few others had missed something. This feeling of solidarity quickly dissipated though when tweets AGAINST the protest kept popping up on my Twitter feed. I was so confused that rational people were trying to silence people's democratic right to protest. Until suddenly, all became clear:

                                                           

                                                         

Now I understood. The riots had a violent element to them and a WW2 war memorial had been defaced. Obviously this behaviour is unacceptable but we must remember that the majority of the protest was peaceful.

To those who read these tweets and condemn the riots, please, this is my olive branch to you. This is how we feel.

For months and months, those who read the constant doom and gloom of the newspapers (Bedroom tax, food banks, austerity literally killing the poor) have been thrilled at the idea of more liberal parties gaining power. Bored of the same boys club politics, constant promises from newspapers that a new dawn is coming, many of us truly believed it would be over. Of course, it never occurred to many of us that one would read all the horrors we hear of millions of children going to school under clothed and under fed and not want change. It truly was such a shock for many.

To then be told that the "majority" of people voted for this and there was not even a hung parliament despite speculation for months that there undoubtedly would be one, there would be change, there would be improvements, really was stunning.

With all of this in mind we need to understand the gravity of the election result. This will have serious, life changing effects for people. This goes beyond a fun little debate topic that you can drop after a week when you get bored. This election, this austerity will seriously change people's lives for the worse. £50 million pounds is being cut from mental health services for children alone. People who desperately need benefits, who are disabled, who are terminally ill are being deemed fit for work and die as a result.

Whilst I accept that a voter has the right to vote for a party whose policies may be detrimental to others, that voter must in turn accept that those negatively affected by the election result have the democratic right to protest.

Written by Ella

The Tories Stand out in More Ways than Won

I intend to write this post without bias, so apologies if my opinions seep through.

I thought it was worth acknowledging that since the recent resignations of Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage and Ed Miliband, all the major political parties bar the conservatives are currently being led by women.

Admittedly Harriet Harman (Labour), Sal Brinton (Lib Dem) and Suzanne Evans (UKIP) are only acting leaders for the moment (although Suzanne Evans is likely to take over as leader if Farage decides not to run again) this is still fairly impressive given that as recently as 2001 only 118 MP's were women, let alone being in charge of the parties.

I suppose you might wonder why this important, and maybe it isn't. But I do think there is some significance in this sudden surge in women leaders. For me it is an exciting prospect to be able to finally vote for a women prime minister (no disrespect to Natalie Bennet (Green Party) but she was highly unlikely to win the election), and perhaps this marks a shift in our politics at last.

For too long British politics has been dominated by Oxbridge educated middle class men, and I believe that for a true democracy it is essential that the people feel represented. It is no wonder so many people are disillusioned with politics (only 66.1% of us voted on Thursday) when politicians seem so out of touch with real people.

Undoubtedly one of the secrets to UKIP's success is Nigel Farage's ability to connect with the electorate and his image as 'one of us,' perhaps the other parties will learn from this.

Back to the issue of women in politics, I would like to draw attention to a newly elected MP for the Scottish National Party, Mhairi Black. She is a 20-year-old university student, and has made history as the youngest British MP since 1667. Regardless of whether or not you support the party to which she belongs, it cannot be argues that she has made an incredible achievement. Not only did she win her seat, she also beat Douglas Alexander, and Labour MP who's name I am sure you all recognise. Winning against such a tough opposition only reinforces her success, and I hope that she inspires young people, particularly young women, to get involved in politics.

We are more equally represented now than ever before, and I really hope this encourages more people to take an interest in politics more frequently than every 5 years. Whatever you think about our politicians, they have the power to shape our society and consequently have a huge impact on all of our lives.

Written by Lili

Picture Credit: Ellen

http://www.ukpolitical.info/FemaleMPs.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/every-major-british-political-party--except-the-conservatives--currently-led-by-a-woman-10238390.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11592557/General-election-2015-highest-turnout-since-Tony-Blair-landslide.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/08/politics/uk-elections-scotland-mhairi-black-labour/