Sophia Network

Review: Living Dolls: the return of sexism by Natasha Walter, Virago (2010)

When Natasha Walter wrote The New Feminism in 1998, she was optimistic that equality for women and men was not far off and that old-fashioned sexism would wither and die. She argued that legislating for equality would provide a good foundation and that enough ground had been gained in the struggle for equal rights - there was no looking back.

A decade on, she admits that she was wrong and asks why some young women are using the empowerment, liberation and choice their grandmothers fought for to pursue an air-brushed, highly sexualised and narrow vision of femininity. She explores the connections between the culture of pink that her young daughter is immersed in, to the expectations fed by ‘lad’s mags’ and the accessibility of pornography. The book will take you from a children's party to a lap-dancing club via a Nuts modelling competition in a bar, and is full of interviews and stories including input from our very own Rachel Gardner.

Walter then goes on to offer a critique of the ‘new determinism’ – the increasingly accepted belief that men and women are distinctively different and gender inequality is down to innate biological differences rather than social factors. She explores beliefs such as women are better at empathising, men are better at maths, women use more words every day and so on, as well as the 'brain science' that says we're born with certain traits and there's no escaping them. She show that all of these are myths which feed into our expectations that men and women should inhabit narrow stereotypes and which disguise the fact that actually there's as much diversity within the sexes as there is between them. 

Well worth a read, this book will stimulate lots of debate but it's ultimately hopeful. If gender inequality is down to our biology then we're stuck with it, but if we choose to challenge the way its constructed then we have a chance to do things differently. I highly recommend it.

Jenny Baker is a co-founder of the Sophia Network

1943 Guide to Hiring Women

This made me smile - an article for Transportation Magazine from July 1943, written for male supervisors of women in the work force during World War II. It begins: 'There's no longer any question whether transit companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The draft and manpower shortage has settled that point.' And then it continues with 11 tips on getting more efficiency out of women employees which includes such gems as:

• Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters.
• When you have to use older women, try to get some who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy.
• General experience indicates that 'husky' girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.
• Give the female employee a  definite day-long schedule of duties so that they'll keep busy without bothering the management every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.
• Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.
• Be tactful when issuing instructions or making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can't shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman - it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.
• Get enough size variety in operator's uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can't be stressed too much in keeping women happy.

It's a genuine article according to snopes, where you can download scans of the original pages. It's fascinating the assumptions it makes about why women work, what kind of work we are suited to and how we best work.

How pink is your Christmas?

Last year in the run-up to Christmas, we highlighted the gender-stereotyping of toys. This year, Pinkstinks - the campaign and social enterprise that challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls' lives - has a Christmas campaign calling for the Early Learning Centre to stop its pinkification and gender-stereotyping of children’s toys. They are quick to point out that ELC is not the only culprit but as they claim to be centres for learning, it's only fair to critique exactly what our children are learning from them. And if it's that girls and boys should be channelled into narrow gender stereotypes rather than having a wide world opened up to them, then parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents would be wise to ask themselves if that's what they want to support.

You can read more on their blog where there's an inspiring story about 13-year-old Philipe Johansson and Ebba Silvert from Sweden who reported Toys 'R' Us to Sweden's Advertising Ombudsman because all the boys in their Christmas catalogue were portrayed as active, and all the girls were portrayed as pink and passive. The Ombudsman decided that the Toys ‘R’ Us catalogue “discriminates based on gender and counteracts positive social behaviour, lifestyles, and attitudes” and the company was issued with a public reprimand. So this year the catalogue will be different!

UPDATE: There's an interview in The Guardian with Abi and Emma Moore who launched PinkStinks which begins: 'Towards the end of the great war, in June 1918, America's most authoritative women's magazine, the Ladies' Home Journal (it still exists), had a few wise words of advice for fretting mothers. "There has been a great diversity of debate on the subject," it wrote, "but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." '

Reflection: Jael - Guts and Glory! by Ruth Perrin

This study by Ruth Perrin first appeared on the Cloud of Witnesses website which she created.

Pause to think:

• Who do you know that you would consider to be brave? Why?
• Does courage look the same in men and women, or different? In what ways and why?

Jael is an interesting choice as a role model. I’ve never heard a sermon preached on her and when you read the text you’ll see the dilemma. What can we possibly learn from a woman living in a time of war who drives a tent peg through the head of a sleeping man?
 
Take a moment to read Judges 4:17-23 and Judges 5:24-27
 
See what I mean? How on earth could she a) be a heroine, b) inspire us today? Well some background information will help. In a time when Israel and Caanan are at war she’s a nomad. Her husband is away from the tents – probably with his flocks – when a renegade army officer on the run for his life turns up and asks for sanctuary. She says yes, gets him drowsy and… tent peg time! (I joke because, to be honest, I’m pretty uncomfortable with it.) Surely if she’d offered him hospitality, didn’t ancient culture mean that she was honour bound to treat him well? Yet Deborah honours her, singing about her courage, this mighty act she’s done for God. She does appear to be a heroine.

A mighty act of murder? How is that inspiring?It doesn’t take rocket science to realise that there are a number of cultural and historical issues for us to overcome with this story. It is an ancient, nomadic culture. Living in the desert in a time of war; a time of violence. This is Jael’s world; subsistence living, struggling to survive. And she appears to be alone, defenceless without men to protect her (and presumably) the other women and children in the camp. And in rolls an enemy soldier.

Let’s stop and think for a moment. What would your assumptions be? What is going to happen?
 
I read an article on this very subject. I really can’t take credit for these thoughts, they are someone else’s. (I wish I could give you the reference but it’s evaded all my attempts at rediscovery –sorry.) However, they struck me so much that I’ll pass them on to you, while we struggle with Jael in our western 21st century worldview. The author discussed this passage with a group of Korean women at a conference and explained that western women struggled to know what to do with Jael’s murder of Sisera.
 
The Korean women had a whole different perspective

Bunty for Girls

I had a nostalgic half hour on the train today reading the 1972 Summer Special of Bunty that was free with the Guardian today. I used to read Bunty when I was younger, and remember the Four Marys well!

It's interesting to compare this magazine with those aimed at girls today. This edition of Bunty has a curious mix of traditional female stereotypes and feisty role models. There's a story about the Four Marys - four girls all called Mary from different backgrounds who are at the same school together - who have lessons on housework and get marks on how well they do the cleaning. But there's also stories about: 16-year-old Sally Stevens who runs her own business called Emergency 666 where 'she's ready to go anywhere and do anything to help her clients at a moment's notice'; Peggy the Promette, also 16, who rows out in stormy seas to collect Bob Moffat's lobster pots because his lumbago is bad - she and her friend get caught in a storm and have to cling to a buoy when their boat sinks but fortunately they know how to send an SOS message with a bell and a handkerchief and get rescued (Moral of the story: always have a clean handkerchief); and then there's Rose Budd who is starting a career as a model and has her photo taken in a haunted house to prove that the hair lacquer she's wearing really works.

Most entertaining story in this edition is about Carol Lawson who inherits Claremont College, a broken-down school where she offers to teach anything to anybody in order to keep it going. Her latest client is Mrs Ponsonby who brings her daughter Tommy to Clare and says, 'I am the secretary of FFF - the Feminine Freedom Fighters! It's a man's world, but we are working for equality for women. And the only way is for women to be the same as men, able to take over all their jobs. That is how Tommy is to be trained!' So Carol teaches Tommy - real name Thomasina - to box, march like a man, stoke the boiler and dig a ditch - after all that's what real men do. Then back comes Mrs Ponsonby to say that Great-Uncle Edwin has left them loads of money only if Tommy hasn't been indoctrinated by her mother, and a solicitor is on the way to check that Tommy is feminine enough. Cue changing into frilly dresses and trying to be ladylike. Fortunately Thomasina is scared by a mouse, proving that she is a real girl after all - so that's all right then. Anyone else remember Bunty? What comics or magazines did you read when you were younger? You can read a 12-year-old girl's verdict of this edition of Bunty here.

Bob the Builder and Dora the Explorer

A report from the Women and Work Commission challenges the Department for Children, Schools and Families to do more to broaden the horizons of young people when it comes to choosing careers, particularly girls. They say 'Occupational segregation starts at an early age. Often without thinking about it, young girls are choosing to role play at being 'teachers', for example, while boys might choose 'builders'. This segregation is ingrained in our culture and has significant implications for the career choices that young men and women make and, in the longer term, for their future earnings. Challenging these outdated ideas about 'jobs for the girls' is key to breaking down gender segregation in the workplace and changing our culture for future generations.' Girls tend to end up in one of the 5 C's: caring, catering, cashiering, cleaning and clerical where pay is low although part-time work is easier to come by. Just 6% of engineering apprenticeships and 1% of construction apprenticeships go to girls. So while boys may follow in Bob's footsteps, girls aren't doing a Dora.

As well as better careers advice, the commission is suggesting that all young people should do two-weeks' work experience in a non-traditional role, effectively expanding the horizons of both girls and boys to see new possibilities for their futures - so that both Bob and Dora can imagine what it would be like to be an explorer! Knowing how difficult it can be to set up work experience and how key parental contacts are, I wonder how realistic this is, but it seems like a good proposal. Of course young people should be free to choose where they want to work, but if you are only shown limited options, then you hardly have a free choice. We also need to recognise that class is a defining factor in future job prospects so working-class girls get the least choice of all. Surely there's a role here for youth workers, to expand the imagination of young people and to help them discern where God might be calling them.

First Yorkie, now McCoys

First Nestle started advertising their Yorkie bars as 'Not for Girls!', and now McCoy's are branding their crisps as Man Crisps. The current TV ad has a bunch of guys in a pub answering a pub quiz. They're all quick off the mark to answer questions about bands and who won the World Cup, but a question about ballet has them all looking confused. No, wait, one of them does know the right answer! He's clearly not manly enough so he drops his McCoy's crisps and gets sucked into oblivion in case his lack of masculinity contaminates his pals. The website is even more hilarious, showing an interactive pub interior full of blokes, apart from one girlfriend and, of course, the bar maid who miraculously looks more attractive once you put on a pair of 'beer goggles'. Inside there's a quiz to test your manliness, and man guide that gives you tips on being a real man. How helpful.

Lots of adverts use gender stereotypes to sell products. Nestle came in for a fair amount of criticism when they first started saying Yorkie wasn't for girls, but of course that's just increased publicity and an even more successful advertising campaign for them. LIke the Tampax ad I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, the McCoys website and ads are a gift for talking about and critiquing gender stereotypes. Is that really what it means to be a real man?

'So easy, even a man can do it'

Nearly 700 people complained to the ASA about an advert for oven cleaner which says that it's so easy to use that 'even a man can do it.' The ad shows a cross pregnant woman standing by, while the man cleans an oven shelf with exaggerated delight. The ad concludes 'no men were harmed during the making of this commercial.' You can watch the advert here. According to the ASA report, most complainants thought the ad suggested that men were stupid and lazy and so it was sexist and offensive. Other people thought the ad was saying that cleaning is generally a woman's job and so it was offensive and demeaning to women. The ASA did not uphold the complaints, saying that most people would view it as light-hearted and comical. They said, 'We noted that the ad used mild humour to refer to traditional gender stereotypes but considered that the overall impression was such that it did not portray either gender in a way that stigmatised, humiliated or undermined them by using harmful stereotypes.' Homepride, the makers of the product, said that the ad was meant to be tongue in cheek. They have seen their sales rise by 100% since the ad campaign.

The ASA has an interesting feature on their website about the depiction of men in adverts. They say that up until the mid 1990s most gender-related complaints were about the way that women were portrayed, particularly around the gratuitous use of females to advertise products. Since then, women have been portrayed more positively, but there have been more complaints about men being shown in an unfavourable light. While the ASA still receives more complaints about the potrayal of women, they say that the increase in concern about men in adverts is significant. Most complaints fall into two camps, men being made to be the butt of jokes or shown as a laughing stock or men being shown in a demeaning manner. And there's also an article about the depiction of women.

Humour's a tricky thing to complain about because no one wants to seem uptight and lacking in it. Lots of jokes are based on stereotypes, but there's no justification for lazy humour that belittles and offends. In my opinion, neither men nor women are portrayed particularly positively in this advert. Worse was the Carling ad a few years ago that showed a woman pouring beer all over her flat so that her boyfriend would clean it with his tongue. Men being motivated by alcohol and women being manipulative are sterotypes we could do without.

Beyond poodles and terriers...

What springs to mind when you hear the words 'women's ministry'? Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality, writes on the Sojourners blog: 'Do you find yourself reluctant to attend women’s retreats because they tend to focus on things like fashion, women’s emotions, crafts, and new forms of stomach exercises? Are you confused by so-called Christian blogs for women, where again, the discussions center on fashion and emotions? I was recently invited to develop a women’s track as part of an international conference for evangelicals, only to learn that the conveners intended to include workshops for women on fashion, beauty, and women’s emotions. Is that what inspires us today as Christian women?'

I think Christian provision for women generally falls into two camps - those that uphold gender stereotypes either because that's what people want to promote as God's design or because that's a way of connecting with women outside the church, and those that challenge gender stereotypes in the light of the gospel. Sophia Network is about doing the second, although there's definitely a place for a critique of what tend to get labelled as women's issues. I'm all for deconstructing the beauty myth and looking at different patterns of work and parenting for example. And I do think that when we connect with young women, fashion, crafts and stomach exercises could be a good place to start for some. I went to a Soul Sista day earlier this year where they had a pampering corner where girls could get their hands and feet massaged, which gave the youth workers there an excellent opportunity to chat in depth and connect. It's a mistake to think that all girls will be interested in those things though. A youth worker I spoke to recently was saying that the girls she works with didn't want anything to do with the sessions aimed at them at a residential they went to, as they felt patronised. 'That's where they tell you that you're fat but Jesus loves you anyway,' was how they summarised it!

I love the Catherine Booth quote that Mimi uses in her blog, 'It would be a happy day in England when Christian women turn their attention from poodles and terriers to the poor and destitute.' And the CBE conference in Missouri in July looks very interesting: 'Are men from Mars and women from Venus? A biblical resonse to gender difference.' Shame it's so far away.

Stereotypes - subconscious sabotage?

How do you respond to stereotypes? You know, gems like 'men are better at maths', 'women are more prone to gossip'. Do you ignore them, agree with them, laugh them off, feel determined to prove the opposite, think of people you know who don't fit that description? Well, some research projects have shown that perhaps they have more impact on us than we realise.

For example, psychologist Sian Beilock recruited some female university students and asked them to take a maths test. One group of students were told that the purpose of the research was to understand why men, in general, do better than women at maths; the others were just asked to do the test. The women in the first group who were reminded of the stereotype that women are worse at maths did worse in the test, getting 10-15% fewer marks. Beilock argued that they were responding to 'stereotype threat' - allowing anxiety to stop us succeeding because we know that we're expected to fail. The same result was gained with elderly people who were asked to do a memory test. Those who were reminded that memory declines with age proved more forgetful. And in tests with school children, asking them to tick a box to indicate their ethnicity before completing an intellectual ability test caused black pupils to do worse than if there were no tick box. More details here.

It's interesting to think that we might be sabotaging ourselves without consciously meaning to, and it shows how important it is to carry with us a sense of who we are and what God has called us to, whatever our gender, age or ethnicity. What stereotypes might be holding you back today?

Hairdressing vs Engineering

One of the proposals in an education bill to be debated in Parliament today is that schools will have to give impartial careers advice to young people. There are concerns that teachers are encouraging teenagers down gender stereotypical career paths by promoting hairdressing to girls and the construction industry to boys. At the moment, only 3% of apprentices on childcare courses and 8% on hairdressing courses are men. In engineering 3% of apprentices are women, and in construction only 1% are women.

Of course there are some people who would say that these figures reflect the fact that the different genders are suited to different roles in life – see this review for example. But surely teachers are only one factor in the career choices a young person’s makes. Much more influential are the role models that they see around them, not least in their own families, and the cultural expectations that they grow up with. And that’s where there’s a vicious circle. If boys grow up, for example, with all female teachers especially when they are young then they are less likely to see teaching as a an ‘obvious’ career choice for them. It will need more than impartial career's advice to open up those possibilities.

More than one rung

Village People made the YMCA a household name, even if it was in ways that they wouldn’t have chosen. But how many of us know much about the YWCA? Founded in 1855 by two Christian women, the YWCA is now the leading charity working with the most disadvantaged young women in England and Wales.

Their current campaign, More than one rung, highlights the poor career prospects of many young women. They say, ‘Thousands of disadvantaged young women have the potential to achieve so much, but instead face a lifetime of poorly-paid jobs with no prospects. For them there is only one rung on the career ladder. The bottom rung. Without opportunities to develop skills and get training, the life chances of a girl from a poor background are massively reduced, as are her aspirations and plans for the future.’ They point out that young women are most likely to be encouraged into the 5 C’s of cashiering, caring, catering, cleaning and cosmetics, all of which are low-paid, low-skilled jobs.

You've been ASBO'd

Interesting stories in this weekend’s Guardian about the different life experiences of teenagers in the UK. First, middle-class anxiety over education in a family where one daughter was too wild for the parents and the other was too academic. Then the stories of former teenage ‘gangsters' about life and death on our city streets. And a heart-breaking story of Janipher Maseko who came to the UK as an asylum seeker from Uganda and ended up in Yarl’s Wood, separated from her children, just days after giving birth.

 
The brilliant asbojesus site sums up the media’s predominant view of young people in this cartoon. Frontier Youth Trust are keen to get more positive stories about young people into the news and have created a ‘You been ASBO’d’ certificate that can be presented to teenagers who are making a difference in their local community. This 'ASBO' stands for 'Alright, Sensational, Beautiful, Original'. You can download the certificate and read more about it on their website.