descentintotyranny:

2012: The year in sexism

Twelve months of disgraceful discrimination.

Dec. 30 2012

January. It is reported that on average a measly two out of ten speakers on the BBC’s Today programme are women. (Later in the year, John Humphrys is reduced to asking a man to “imagine” he is a woman in an all-male panel on breast cancer.)

February. The US radio-show host Rush Limbaugh calls the student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” for speaking in favour of contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans. But at least he finally provides a decisive answer to the question: “How much of a tool do you have to be to make 67 firms pledge never to advertise on your show again?”

March. The infamous Uni Lad website returns after a brief hiatus and promptly begins spewing the same misogynistic vitriol about “smashing wenches”. (Minus its previous advice that low rape reporting rates represent “good odds”. So that’s better.)

April. The Sunday Times TV critic and noted Adonis A A Gill claims that the classicist Mary Beard is “too ugly for TV” and “should be kept away from cameras”. She gently points out that he has accidentally “mistaken prejudice for being witty”.

May. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Gaining Weight While Pregnant Shocker. The media and thousands of fans lambast the Indian actress for failing to shed the extra pounds immediately post-partum. Special mention to those who accused her of “betraying her country”.

June. Two issues of Now magazine appear side by side on newsagents’ shelves. One reports that the model Abbey Clancy is “dangerously thin” and girls are starving themselves to look like her. The other offers diet tips to get her figure. Meanwhile, the European Commission launches a breathtakingly patronising video aimed at encouraging women into science: a masterpiece of dancing and giggling, with a pink background and make-up montages.

July. The blogger Anita Sarkeesian faces a viral hate campaign after merely proposing research into the tropes of women in video games. One geek feels so strongly that there is no problem with the portrayal of women in the medium that he creates an online game where players can punch Sarkeesian in the face.

August. In the US, the Republican science enthusiast Todd Akin proclaims that women’s bodies are magically able to ward off pregnancy in cases of “legitimate” rape. (To be fair, his research efforts were hampered because Mitt Romney had the binder full of women that day.)

September. “No More Page Three” campaigners are stunned into humiliated silence when the former Sun deputy editor Neil Wallis stymies them with the shock revelation that there are other problems in the world. Admirably, the Sun covers these important issues on page two, which incidentally doubles as the crucial buffer zone between the outraged anti-Jimmy Savile campaign on the front page and the teenage tits on page three.

October. Netmums pronounces feminism dead, on the somewhat amusing basis that only one in seven women self-defines as a feminist – giving it a nationwide “membership” numbering just under 4.5 million … more than ten times that of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties combined.

November. PlayStation decides it’s a great idea to advertise its new Vita console using a picture of a woman with two sets of breasts and no head. I’ll just repeat that one. They advertise it using a picture of a woman. With two sets of breasts. And no head.

December. Just as I’m worrying that nobody will be noteworthily sexist enough in the first few days of December to meet my deadline, FHM rides to my rescue in spectacular style with its astounding, assault-normalising advice that readers shouldn’t borrow socks from their girlfriend/mother/victim. Cheers, FHM! Job done.

(via woolfisms)

chrisjeffery:

chrisjeffery:

A pattern I’ve noticed.

I am blown away at how popular this comic has been! Guess I needn’t be so hesitant to express my opinions through the comic.

(via takealookatyourlife)

timeofthedecade:

bigdaddyg-wil:

this guy pulled out his dick in front of like 5 billion feminist protestors holy shit

Some context for the idiots claiming the women are overreacting:

This occurred at a Slut Walk. For those not familiar with it, the Slut Walk is basically a peaceful protest seeking to eliminate the rape apologism so prevalent in society. The basis is that no woman is “asking for it,” with “it” being rape. It’s not a feminist protest; it’s a human rights protest.

Many of the protesters, as you can probably imagine, have dealt with sexual harassment or rape in their own lives. Many of them have structured their daily activities to avoid being raped. The gathering is supposed to be a place for them to feel empowered and able to recover in the company of those who understand what they’ve been through or who will not blame them.

Nobody at a Slut Walk will tell a survivor that it’s her fault. They will not ask what she was wearing to provoke her attacker. Nobody will say she had too much to drink. Nobody will tell the men in the group that they are inherently rapists themselves, and nobody will tell a male survivor that his experience “wasn’t really rape.”

Then, this fellow comes along. He sees this gathering of survivors and their supporters, and to him, it’s a joke. He sees feminazis. He sees girls who are taking “a bit of fun” too seriously. And what does he do? He exposes himself to this group of survivors and supporters - some of whom are, in fact, underage.

He sexually harasses literally hundreds of women in one act. Aside from public indecency, there was cruel intent in his actions. He wanted to make them uncomfortable. He wanted to “put them in their place.” Other photos from this event show him flipping the protesters off and laughing at their anger.

And there are still people defending his actions. There are those who still feel like these women were asking for itand that they deserved to be harassed for trying to claim they weren’t. There are those who feel that women should be taught a lesson this way, and they applaud this man’s actions.

So no, he didn’t pull out his dick in front of feminist protesters. He harassed dozens - if not hundreds - of rape survivors. The reaction to his actions alone outline the purpose of the Slut Walk.

For those of you still doubting whether what he did was wrong (and I do wonder if there’s something wrong with you, if you have doubts), let me give you an analogous situation. Imagine a gathering of black civil rights activists. Imagine Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and all their colleagues gathered together to demonstrate that being black did not make them lesser people. That being black and living in the South did not mean they were “asking” to be the target of hate crimes.

And at this gathering, a white man decides he should teach them a lesson by pointedly hanging a noose from the nearest tree and laughing at their anger. And other white men, laughing along with him, commend him for taking these activists down a peg.

That’s what happened here. It’s not an “OMG, I can’t believe he did that!” moment. It’s an “OMG, there are people who think this is okay” moment. And the fact is, it’s not. It never will be. And that’s the take home message of this ridiculous rant I’ve written up.

(via lipstick-feminists)