Dame Joan Bakewell - Feminist Icon has she done a U-turn

CDfm

Here is an interesting article from todays Scotsman

For those who dont know the protagonists discussed Mary Whitehouse was a pro-censorship activist and joan Bakewell a sexually liberal femimist and they were as alike as chalk and cheese, cliff richard and keith richards.

You get the idea

Garavelli: Mary Mary, still contrary





Published Date: 06 June 2010




By Dani Garavelli


LEARNING that Dame Joan Bakewell thinks moral crusader Mary Whitehouse was right about the permissive society is a bit like finding out that Margaret Thatcher now sees the unions as the backbone of Britain or that Ian Paisley craves a blessing from the Pope.
Bakewell didn't just disagree with Whitehouse in the way, let's face it, most people born after 1960 did. She took pride in setting herself up as her nemesis. If the primary school teacher with the horn-rimmed glasses was a symbol of moral rectitude ADVERTISEMENT



who looked wistfully to the past, then Bakewell with her chic mini-dresses was a symbol of sexual liberation.

While Whitehouse fired off condemnatory letters to the makers of any programme that contained as much as a "bloody", Bakewell pushed boundaries, using the show she fronted Late Night Line-Up as a platform for discussing controversial subjects such as contraception and abortion.

Neither of them cared a whit what anyone thought about them and neither appeared to mellow with age. As Whitehouse lay on her deathbed in 2001 – as intransigent and strident as ever – Bakewell was watching a couple having sex in a pornographic movie for her TV series Taboo. It was almost as if she was taunting her old adversary.

So what on earth has caused Bakewell to experience this epiphany so late in life? And if an inveterate liberal like her now believes society is too sexualised, is it perhaps time to start reining ourselves in?

As articulate as ever, Bakewell has no trouble making her new position clear. It isn't sexual liberation itself that has proved so corrosive, but the love of money and the way it has encouraged us to make all the wrong choices. "Everything came to be about money – so now sex is about money, too," she has written. "Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff on newsagents' shelves? It's money that's corrupted us and women are being used and are even collaborating. I never thought I would hear myself say as much, but I'm with Mrs Whitehouse on this one."

She qualified her statement, making it clear that – in all other regards – she still views her bête noir as a fantasist who failed to see that life in the 50s was riddled with hypocrisy. But her caveats were lost in the rush to portray Bakewell as a poor misguided feminist who has, at last, seen the error of her ways.

Right-wing commentators used her "conversion" – as the conversions of Bel Mooney and Roy Hattersley before her – to lend credibility to the woman whose clean-up campaign was once the source of so much derision. In fact, her rehabilitation began when in 2008 the BBC showed Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story, a television play about her life. But as her torchbearers railed against everything from the new Sex and the City film to the lyrics of Rihanna's Rude Boy last week – Whitehouse's transformation from standing joke to prophet of moral degeneration was complete.

It's easy to be seduced by this argument. After all there can't be many people that don't, from time to time, feel uneasy about the way in which a movement aimed at ending repression has produced a world where nothing is sacred and women collude in their own degradation.

But let's not forget exactly what Whitehouse stood for. Or what cultural gems society would have been deprived of if her views had represented the zeitgeist. If Whitehouse had got her way, there would have been no Cathy Come Home, no Last Tango in Paris, no Benny Hill (OK so that's probably a plus) and probably no Dr Who. In fact, there was very little of which she didn't disapprove, Pinky and Perky having provoked her ire over the pigs' "callous" attitude towards their human co-star.

Whitehouse lacked any sense of context. She couldn't distinguish between gratuitous sex or violence and sex or violence used to make a point. She didn't see the morality that underpins the work of Dennis Potter and failed to recognise Till Death Do Us Part as satire.

Whitehouse hated homosexuality, believing the majority of gay people could be "cured" with treatment and pursuing (and winning) a blasphemy case against the editor of Gay News, Denis Lemon, for publishing a poem about the physical love of a Roman centurion for Jesus.

Ironically, far from acting as a restraining influence on British culture, she spurred writers, comedians and producers on to new levels of explicitness. Earning a complaint was a badge of honour; an endorsement, the kiss of death. But Whitehouse didn't understand this. She was a woman devoid of humour, compassion or personal insight.

So no, I don't like the fact rap stars call women "bitches" while gyrating provocatively on their videos, or that girls of 12 wear crop tops and have babies. But for all its faults, Britain is a more open, compassionate and tolerant place than it was in the Fifties.

Before any of us – and that includes Bakewell – start reappraising Whitehouse's place in history, we ought to ask ourselves if we really want to go back to an era where single mothers were stigmatised, gays persecuted and abortions were carried out on kitchen tables. And then we should call a halt to all this silly revisionism.

seenitall

Dame Joan Bakewell is now old and is slightly annoyed and disapproving of the various goings-on that the youth of today gets up to, a liberal icon of yesteryear or not. This is all too familiar. It is just about the various stages of a lifespan and the psycho-social roles induced by these changes subconsciously. Age catches up with everyone, I'm afraid.

CDfm

seenitall wrote: »

Dame Joan Bakewell is now old and is slightly annoyed and disapproving of the various goings-on that the youth of today gets up to, a liberal icon of yesteryear or not. This is all too familiar. It is just about the various stages of a lifespan and the psycho-social roles induced by these changes subconsciously. Age catches up with everyone, I'm afraid.

Sorry, I am not buying that.

Dame Joan conducted a social experiment based on her theories on Society and influenced opinion and public policy.She is an intelligent woman.

Feminism adopted Marxist theories and the dialectic as developed by Hegel & the triad ; thesis, antithesis, synthesis and inherent in this is that you cannot predict the outcome. That is part of the theory and some "new feminists" and "capitalist feminists" are critical of this.

Now she (Dame Joan) has come out with an "Ooops, oh deary me -the results are a bit of a mess. Sorreee"

A bit of a cop out really & without actually taking responsibility.

seenitall

I don't see how my appraisal of her current views contradicts in any way with what you are saying.

I am just looking at the matter from a diferent angle, one more interesting to myself (tbh, I have no room to look at it any other way since my knowledge on the subject of feminist movement of the 60's and its various theories etc. is rather vague); that is, the psychological changes facilitated by the advance of old age, that almost invariably make a yesteryear's liberal a present-day traditionalist.

That's how this article reads to me, anyway.

CDfm

seenitall wrote: »

I don't see how my appraisal of her current views contradicts in any way with what you are saying.


That's how this article reads to me, anyway.

And it is a way of looking at it but its a bit revisionist. I dont think Dame Joan is dismissable as a doddering old dear just because her views are now off message.If anything - the logic and arguments fit nicely into the triad with some precision and on that basis it makes the article compelling reading.

The basis of the triad is that the synthesis becomes the new thesis and therefore the new challenge. Maybe she is a bit more progressive than you give her credit for.

seenitall

OK...

BTW, I never dismissed Joan Bakewell in my life . It was someone else (and a man, by the sounds of it) who dubbed her "the thinking man's crumpet". Now THAT's dismissal!

CDfm

seenitall wrote: »

OK...

BTW, I never dismissed Joan Bakewell in my life . It was someone else (and a man, by the sounds of it) who dubbed her "the thinking man's crumpet". Now THAT's dismissal!

I wasn't suggesting that at all and the article here is by a woman Dani Garavelli.

The person who refered to her as the thinking mans crumped was indeed a man, the humourist, writer and broadcaster Frank Muir (a previous generations Michael Palin) who commented on a fellow celebrity.
,
What I am saying is that on the basis of the theory she manages to enter the debate and demonstrate to her peers ,older and younger, that she is in control and manages the argument well on a tabloid level and an intellectually rigourous level that her peers may find difficult to challenge.

So maybe she has become the thinking womans oldie.

vicecreamsundae

According to this article, it doesn't seem to me that Bakewell is backtracking all that much.
I would consider myself a sex-positive feminist, and I am strongly against the sexualisation of women and girls in much of todays media.
There is nothing hypocritical about it. There's a huge difference between being sexual, and being sexualised.

all that stuff about Whitehouse being homophobic, and anti-swear words/violence in movies is irrelavant. Bakewell wasn't quotes as saying Whitehouse was right about everything all along, she simply said, referring to the commodification of sex "I'm with Whitehouse on this one."
Big. Difference.

CDfm

vicecreamsundae wrote: »

According to this article, it doesn't seem to me that Bakewell is backtracking all that much.
I would consider myself a sex-positive feminist, and I am strongly against the sexualisation of women and girls in much of todays media.
There is nothing hypocritical about it.

She is just saying that her arch nemisis was right about its affects on society and she does not like the changes that her ideology has caused.

Thats a huge thing to admit.

EDIT - A snippet of Whitehouse

Friday, 23 November, 2001, 17:31 GMT
Mary Whitehouse: Moral crusader or spoilsport?


In her book Whatever Happened to Sex, she explained that as a happy family woman she had nothing against sex, but against its exploitation in the media.

AS for being a Sex Positive Feminist. That label is from the 80s Feminist Sex Wars when you had sex positive feminism vs anti pornography feminists.

Which group of sex positive feminist do you support re you with Backlash, Feminists for Freedom of Expression or British Libertine Feminists.

Do you support the links the antipornographic feminists have made with the political right and the church.

I have a feeling this is one of those rhetorical questions fool of lots pf woollieness and nonsense which essential boils down to "one rule for us and another for everybody else" just like "Alice in Wonderland".

There's a huge difference between being sexual, and being sexualised.

So the bikini sportswomen in beach volleyball or athletics or tennis players who wear sports gear that is revealing and not performance enhancing are doing what ???

There is no coercion in that and their sports are being sexualised in the media by themselves and for the money no doubt.

So you are criticising them or is it men and their sexuality who are at faiult ?

all that stuff about Whitehouse being homophobic, and anti-swear words/violence in movies is irrelavant. Bakewell wasn't quotes as saying Whitehouse was right about everything all along, she simply said, referring to the commodification of sex "I'm with Whitehouse on this one."
Big. Difference.

No its the changes in society she does not like. Thats what she doesnt like that were broughtabout by her policies.

She realises that now that the genie is out of the bottle you cant put him back.

As the article says

So what on earth has caused Bakewell to experience this epiphany so late in life? And if an inveterate liberal like her now believes society is too sexualised, is it perhaps time to start reining ourselves in?

As articulate as ever, Bakewell has no trouble making her new position clear. It isn't sexual liberation itself that has proved so corrosive, but the love of money and the way it has encouraged us to make all the wrong choices. "Everything came to be about money – so now sex is about money, too," she has written. "Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff on newsagents' shelves? It's money that's corrupted us and women are being used and are even collaborating. I never thought I would hear myself say as much, but I'm with Mrs Whitehouse on this one."

She qualified her statement, making it clear that – in all other regards – she still views her bête noir as a fantasist who failed to see that life in the 50s was riddled with hypocrisy.

Well Bakewell was the one who promoted the free choice and liberation but the triad is all about the black box theory and not being about able to predict the outcome of change.

So it would seem the hypocrite is Bakewell as Whitehouse was aware that the hypocritical values exerted some type of control and everything in the garden was not rosy.

To say that its too influenced by money is massively hypocritical by Bakewell who was the microskirted poster girl who made pots of money and capitalised on her own celebrity.

"Pot" & "kettle" springs to mind :pac:

Jeez -she is starting to sound like the Jesuit "Docterine of Equivocation".

vicecreamsundae

She is just saying that her arch nemisis was right about its affects on society and she does not like the changes that her ideology has caused.

Thats a huge thing to admit.

i suppose, but it's not hypocritical to look back years later and realise someone [even an arch nemesis] was right about one thing. it is not as if she is doing a major turnaround and saying Whitehouse had everything perfectly figured out all along.

AS for being a Sex Positive Feminist. That label is from the 80s Feminist Sex Wars when you had sex positive feminism vs anti pornography feminists.

Which group of sex positive feminist do you support re you with Backlash, Feminists for Freedom of Expression or British Libertine Feminists.

Do you support the links the antipornographic feminists have made with the political right and the church.

I have a feeling this is one of those rhetorical questions fool of lots pf woollieness and nonsense which essential boils down to "one rule for us and another for everybody else" just like "Alice in Wonderland".

i know where the term originates from. i wouldn't neccesarily consider myself alligned with any of the groups you mention. as a sex positive feminist, i am not anti-pornography. that is not to say I don't find much mainstream porn sexist, but that I think porn is not inherently sexist. I am for sexual expression, i am against sexualisation. i sometimes agree with anti-porn feminists on some of their reasoning, but ultimately I am against censorship and think the answer to bad porn is more, better porn [as annie sprinkle would say].

So the bikini sportswomen in beach volleyball or athletics or tennis players who wear sports gear that is revealing and not performance enhancing are doing what ???

There is no coercion in that and their sports are being sexualised in the media by themselves and for the money no doubt.

So you are criticising them or is it men and their sexuality who are at faiult ?

i think it is silly if an athlete chooses to wear an outfit which is going to compromise their ability, yes. but i didn't realise shorts were more 'performance enhancing' than skirts? or is it just that shorts are considered the default because men wear them?? but i also think everyone has the right to wear what they choose.
i would be more critical of the fact that female athletes draw more media attention for their outfits and appearance than their ability.it's no secret that women are valued more for their appearance than men are. this is the root of the problem, and it is this which bothers me more than the individual athlete who purposely wears a short dress or individual male spectator who watches her ass rather than her game.

i certainly never said anything that "criticised men and their sexuality" or said they were at fault. i do feel a little like because i said i am feminist, you are trying to paint me as having something against men, which is not the case, but maybe i'm just mistaken there.
besides, it is not about simply blaming one or the other, blaming the sexy model in a g string or blaming the male photographer. it's an entire cultural issue, and yes certainly women buy into it and are well capable of sexualising themselves and other women. and no, i don't think it's cool when women do that.
it's the difference between women having sexual desires of their own, and just looking sexy to appeal to a male audience.

No its the changes in society she does not like. Thats what she doesnt like that were broughtabout by her policies.

She realises that now that the genie is out of the bottle you cant put him back.

As the article says



Well Bakewell was the one who promoted the free choice and liberation but the triad is all about the black box theory and not being about able to predict the outcome of change.

So it would seem the hypocrite is Bakewell as Whitehouse was aware that the hypocritical values exerted some type of control and everything in the garden was not rosy.

To say that its too influenced by money is massively hypocritical by Bakewell who was the microskirted poster girl who made pots of money and capitalised on her own celebrity.

"Pot" & "kettle" springs to mind :pac:

Jeez -she is starting to sound like the Jesuit "Docterine of Equivocation".

[/QUOTE]
I still don't see how that has anything to do with Whitehouses homophobic/anti-swear words view.
. Bakewell was for sexual liberation. This whole Nuts magazine/Playboy/Pussycat Dolls/Bratz culture is far from sexual liberation, in my opinion. It's a very narrow view of sexuality that caters to hetero men. I can see how Bakewell would be disillusioned, and admitting that this isn't how she saw things turning out.That doesn't make her a hypocrite.
And seriously, what does it matter if she wore short skirts? I wear dresses and short skirts. I didn't realise I was cashing in on my sexuality by doing so, or that it made me a hypocrite because I don't like how women and girls are sexualised.

CDfm

vicecreamsundae wrote: »

i suppose, but it's not hypocritical to look back years later and realise someone [even an arch nemesis] was right about one thing. it is not as if she is doing a major turnaround and saying Whitehouse had everything perfectly figured out all along.

Ah but its the biggie and the central plank of her very public spats with Whitehouses group. Its kinda fundamental in a atheist vs theist way

Its like opening your newspaper in the morning and reading that Richard Dawkins say well believing in God is quite logical and the pluses outweigh the minuses.

i know where the term originates from. i wouldn't neccesarily consider myself alligned with any of the groups you mention. as a sex positive feminist, i am not anti-pornography. that is not to say I don't find much mainstream porn sexist, but that I think porn is not inherently sexist. I am for sexual expression, i am against sexualisation. i sometimes agree with anti-porn feminists on some of their reasoning, but ultimately I am against censorship and think the answer to bad porn is more, better porn [as annie sprinkle would say].

But lots of people dont know what the term sex positive feminist means or originates from.

Does it mean that you are a porn user and like it and find it a turn on ??

I am ambivalent about it and it doesnt bother me one way or another what people watch in the bedroom or their living rooms -its just not for me but the group Feminists for Free Expression in the States have cracked the anaysis for me

http://www.ffeusa.org/html/statements/statements_pornography.php

Or what do we give a label to the Wexford Hurling Manager who came out in support of Greg Jacobs the Wexford Hurler who made a movie with British Porn Star Tanya Tate in a camper van.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/manager-backs-pornfilm-hurler-2219026.html

Well does that make Tony Dempsey a Sex Positive GAA official

Efforts by senior members of the GAA in the county to have him banned from the game have been rebuffed by team manager and former Fianna Fail TD Tony Dempsey, who said "we are committed to playing Jacob".
Jacob, who was a member of the Wexford senior hurling squad until his injury earlier this year, caused a storm after starring in an X-rated movie with TV porn star Tanya Tate on her 'Erotic Tour of Ireland'.

i think it is silly if an athlete chooses to wear an outfit which is going to compromise their ability, yes. but i didn't realise shorts were more 'performance enhancing' than skirts? or is it just that shorts are considered the default because men wear them?? but i also think everyone has the right to wear what they choose.

i agree but we are talking sports here which lots of kids and teens watch so we are looking at sports people as role models.

So its not shorts vs skirts but the sexualisation of sports that is the issue -if thats what you support.

i would be more critical of the fact that female athletes draw more media attention for their outfits and appearance than their ability.it's no secret that women are valued more for their appearance than men are. this is the root of the problem, and it is this which bothers me more than the individual athlete who purposely wears a short dress or individual male spectator who watches her ass rather than her game.

Now this is what I can never understand in discussions like this & I am not really a sports fan other than the big games and wouldnt be a ballet fan or a lapdancing fan either. Still given the choice of ringside seats to see Susan Boyle or Kylie Minogue I would go for Kylie.

i certainly never said anything that "criticised men and their sexuality" or said they were at fault. i do feel a little like because i said i am feminist, you are trying to paint me as having something against men, which is not the case, but maybe i'm just mistaken there.
besides, it is not about simply blaming one or the other, blaming the sexy model in a g string or blaming the male photographer. it's an entire cultural issue, and yes certainly women buy into it and are well capable of sexualising themselves and other women. and no, i don't think it's cool when women do that.
it's the difference between women having sexual desires of their own, and just looking sexy to appeal to a male audience.

I am not trying to blame you for anything by the way but just saying that when you have all this going on its just over analysing the images qand their context in the extreme.

And you are stereotyping it a bit with male photographer as there are plenty of female porn photographers and internet porn providers.

But back to Dame Joan Bakewell vs Mary Whitehouse .

Well Mary Whitehouse said essentually if you have sex portrayed in the media thus then the risk is this is what you will have in mainstream society. That was her theory or hypothesis.

Dame Joan Bakewell took the opposite view and promoted sex in the media and exposed what she says was hypocritical values of the 1950's.

The media portrayal was Bakewell was the sopohisticated one and Whitehouse the fanatic flake.

So what Bakewell is saying is the outcome and effect of her theories on society is that which Whitehouse predicted.

I still don't see how that has anything to do with Whitehouses homophobic/anti-swear words view.

wasnt that a different debate about obsenity and whether whitehouse was homophobic.

. Bakewell was for sexual liberation. This whole Nuts magazine/Playboy/Pussycat Dolls/Bratz culture is far from sexual liberation, in my opinion. It's a very narrow view of sexuality that caters to hetero men. I can see how Bakewell would be disillusioned, and admitting that this isn't how she saw things turning out.That doesn't make her a hypocrite.
And seriously, what does it matter if she wore short skirts? I wear dresses and short skirts. I didn't realise I was cashing in on my sexuality by doing so, or that it made me a hypocrite because I don't like how women and girls are sexualised.

Joan Bakewell in short skirts was the context of her media vs the prim & proper Sunday School Mary Whitehouse who was often parodied by commedians/iennes even one of Caroline Ahernes Mrs Merton TV show was based on her.

So when you promote sexual liberation as a cultural value Marxist theorists will tell you that you can exert control over how the market (ie people) will behave which you can't really do. Well I dont think you can anyway.

Neither can you impose cultural norms or beliefs on people over how they should think about images etc as these evolve over time.

Its like King Canute and the sea -when his courtiers tried to flatter him and say he could turn the tide back he astutely demonstrated he couldnt.

You may not like the way women and girls are sexualised ,but hey, thats the era we live in and Dame Joan Bakewell played a not so insignificant part in making it so. Chicken and egg -I'm afraid.

vicecreamsundae

Ah but its the biggie and the central plank of her very public spats with Whitehouses group. Its kinda fundamental in a atheist vs theist way

Its like opening your newspaper in the morning and reading that Richard Dawkins say well believing in God is quite logical and the pluses outweigh the minuses.

well fair enough, i see you see it that way, but to me, realising something new about something does not equal completely regretting everything you said or did before.

But lots of people dont know what the term sex positive feminist means or originates from.

Does it mean that you are a porn user and like it and find it a turn on ??

it doesn't mean i personally use porn, because i could be a sex positive feminist and just not really be into porn, so my personal use is irrelevant. but since you ask, yes sometimes. it's kind of like asking if i like music though -some i enjoy and some i don't.

Or what do we give a label to the Wexford Hurling Manager who came out in support of Greg Jacobs the Wexford Hurler who made a movie with British Porn Star Tanya Tate in a camper van.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/manager-backs-pornfilm-hurler-2219026.html

Well does that make Tony Dempsey a Sex Positive GAA official

i'm not here to speak for Tony Dempsey, how should i know? maybe he is, or maybe he is a waterford-hurler-positive GAA official? you'll have to ask him, CDfm!

i agree but we are talking sports here which lots of kids and teens watch so we are looking at sports people as role models.

So its not shorts vs skirts but the sexualisation of sports that is the issue -if thats what you support.



Now this is what I can never understand in discussions like this & I am not really a sports fan other than the big games and wouldnt be a ballet fan or a lapdancing fan either. Still given the choice of ringside seats to see Susan Boyle or Kylie Minogue I would go for Kylie.

not sure what you're saying here ..that it's only fair the "kylie minogues" of the sports world are given more opportunities/attention than the "susan boyles" ? i hope i'm misreading you here. even when we're talking about sports,where ability should be important, and appearance should not?? even though this is something male athletes don't have to deal with [cough wayne rooney cough].
and it's not a case that sport altogether is being sexualised, it's that female athletes are sexualised more than their male counterports. female olympians posing for playboy [and sometimes for free! voluntarily!]etc... i just feel like ..why?! male athletes dont feel they have to prove they can be athletic "but still sexy!".


I

am not trying to blame you for anything by the way but just saying that when you have all this going on its just over analysing the images qand their context in the extreme.

And you are stereotyping it a bit with male photographer as there are plenty of female porn photographers and internet porn providers.

oh thats okay, i dont feel like you are blaming me.
of course i know there are female photographers and porn makers, i intentionally said "female model posing and male photographer" because you explicitly said "are you criticising them [women who dress sexy in sports] or is it men and their sexualities at fault", so i was just making an analogy.

But back to Dame Joan Bakewell vs Mary Whitehouse .

Well Mary Whitehouse said essentually if you have sex portrayed in the media thus then the risk is this is what you will have in mainstream society. That was her theory or hypothesis.

Dame Joan Bakewell took the opposite view and promoted sex in the media and exposed what she says was hypocritical values of the 1950's.

The media portrayal was Bakewell was the sopohisticated one and Whitehouse the fanatic flake.

So what Bakewell is saying is the outcome and effect of her theories on society is that which Whitehouse predicted.

yes but its not simply a black and white matter of having sex in the media or not. things were extremely conservative in the 50's and im glad there were people like Bakewell promoting the fact that it was OKAY for women to have sex lives and that sex is not bad or dirty. that was extremely neccesary. Bakewell is not now saying "Whitehouse was so right that i wish i'd never put on a miniskirt in the first place, i wish there was no sex on tv EVER!"
She's admitting that things have gone in the wrong direction yes, but not that it was a huge mistake to promote sexual liberation altogether!

Joan Bakewell in short skirts was the context of her media vs the prim & proper Sunday School Mary Whitehouse who was often parodied by commedians/iennes even one of Caroline Ahernes Mrs Merton TV show was based on her.

So when you promote sexual liberation as a cultural value Marxist theorists will tell you that you can exert control over how the market (ie people) will behave which you can't really do. Well I dont think you can anyway.

Neither can you impose cultural norms or beliefs on people over how they should think about images etc as these evolve over time.

Its like King Canute and the sea -when his courtiers tried to flatter him and say he could turn the tide back he astutely demonstrated he couldnt.

You may not like the way women and girls are sexualised ,but hey, thats the era we live in and Dame Joan Bakewell played a not so insignificant part in making it so. Chicken and egg -I'm afraid.

do i hate the way women and girls are so overly sexualised these day? yes.
would i for one second rather we were living in a much more Whitehouse society where people didnt talk about sex, and it was not acceptable for women to express their sexuality, and porn was deemed absolutely immoral? hell no.

i know we can't impose cultural norms on people. but we can educate people to change attitudes and threfore behaviours. we can teach our daughters that they are more valuable than their bra size and to question why posing in playboy is such a dream come true. we can teach our sons to give female athletes the same respect as male ones.
i must say find it really depressing how you say "hey thats just the era we live in, chicken and egg" as if the idea of living in a world where women are not sexualised more than men is simply a pipe dream. do you think the sexualisation of women and girls is just natural? women form half the population. why are they the sexualised ones by default? I also do not see how you can blame Bakewell, one individual with having a large share of the blame. How exactly did she "sexualise" anyone?

all i can do is repeat myself and say that there is a HUGE difference between believing women have a right to express their sexuality, and this culture where women HAVE to be a certain type of sexy all the time [at least to be in the media.]

[sorry for all the typos/poor grammar -exhausted! packing for holiday:cool:]

DeVore

I wonder what the suffragettes would have made of the "Dame". Worse or better then what she makes of modern day women?

DeV.

CDfm

vicecreamsundae wrote: »

well fair enough, i see you see it that way, but to me, realising something new about something does not equal completely regretting everything you said or did before.

I think you dont exactly get my point. Bakewells brand of feminism was in your face.

She is well educated with a degree in economics from Cambridge and MA in History.

I am using Hagels Triad & Marxism here mainly as its was the dominant theoretical basis around which feminist theory has been written on.

it doesn't mean i personally use porn, because i could be a sex positive feminist and just not really be into porn, so my personal use is irrelevant. but since you ask, yes sometimes. it's kind of like asking if i like music though -some i enjoy and some i don't.

:eek: Ya floozy. * I take the moral highground*. Well I suppose you havent fessed up to dressing up as a nun & calling yourself Mother Sundae of The Seven Vices.

i'm not here to speak for Tony Dempsey, how should i know? maybe he is, or maybe he is a waterford-hurler-positive GAA official? you'll have to ask him, CDfm!

LOL - it had to be said. Waterford hurler positive. Your kinks are coming out.:p

On Dempsey/Jacobs- on a badboy scale of badness - its relatively minor vs assault, drug dealing or crime -kudos for Dempsey in speaking out.

not sure what you're saying here ..that it's only fair the "kylie minogues" of the sports world are given more opportunities/attention than the "susan boyles" ? i hope i'm misreading you here. even when we're talking about sports,where ability should be important, and appearance should not?? even though this is something male athletes don't have to deal with [cough wayne rooney cough].

I am not a real sports fan other than big events -so I used that analogy from entertainment. Anyway, Susan Boyle has never recorded with Nick Cave.

David Beckam, Paul Gascoigne, Julio Iglesias - sport sells and even Roy Keane lends his image to guide dogs & the special olympics.

and it's not a case that sport altogether is being sexualised, it's that female athletes are sexualised more than their male counterports. female olympians posing for playboy [and sometimes for free! voluntarily!]etc... i just feel like ..why?! male athletes dont feel they have to prove they can be athletic "but still sexy!".

I don't think female athletes posing are doing it to prove anything other than to make money.I had a thread going in tGC and I got athletics fans noses with my "bikini sports" examples. But hey, in beach volleyball there is a choice of singlet & shorts vs bikini's. So as Dame Joan might say "Ceteris paribus" *(all things being equal).................:pac:

*used in the economic sense .Dame Joan would approve

oh thats okay, i dont feel like you are blaming me.
of course i know there are female photographers and porn makers, i intentionally said "female model posing and male photographer" because you explicitly said "are you criticising them [women who dress sexy in sports] or is it men and their sexualities at fault", so i was just making an analogy.

I am not expecting sportswomen to be any different to any other personalities when it comes down to exploiting commercial gain.

Its life. Human nature. I dont have a moral view on it only when I hear it being justified with spurious logic and even then it amuses me greatly.,

yes but its not simply a black and white matter of having sex in the media or not. things were extremely conservative in the 50's and im glad there were people like Bakewell promoting the fact that it was OKAY for women to have sex lives and that sex is not bad or dirty. that was extremely neccesary. Bakewell is not now saying "Whitehouse was so right that i wish i'd never put on a miniskirt in the first place, i wish there was no sex on tv EVER!"
She's admitting that things have gone in the wrong direction yes, but not that it was a huge mistake to promote sexual liberation altogether!

Not really

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/10202116.stm



But she says girls have not used sexual freedoms as wisely as it was hoped.
"I never thought I would hear myself say as much, but I'm with Mrs Whitehouse on this one," she said.
Writing in the Radio Times, Dame Joan concedes that women's liberation had unintended consequences.
"The liberal mood back in the 60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn't be seen as dirty and wicked. The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves," she said.
"Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely

do i hate the way women and girls are so overly sexualised these day? yes.
would i for one second rather we were living in a much more Whitehouse society where people didnt talk about sex, and it was not acceptable for women to express their sexuality, and porn was deemed absolutely immoral? hell no.

i know we can't impose cultural norms on people. but we can educate people to change attitudes and threfore behaviours. we can teach our daughters that they are more valuable than their bra size and to question why posing in playboy ...............I also do not see how you can blame Bakewell, one individual with having a large share of the blame. How exactly did she "sexualise" anyone?

Again to quote Dame Joan on free will & market forces

"The liberal mood back in the 60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn't be seen as dirty and wicked. The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves," she said.
"Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely.

all i can do is repeat myself and say that there is a HUGE difference between believing women have a right to express their sexuality, and this culture where women HAVE to be a certain type of sexy all the time [at least to be in the media.]

I believe women have that right and dont judge either way,how women use it is up to themselves.

The bit with Dame Joan is that she behaved in a certain way & cant expect others to behave any differently. Not that I am judging her at all - just comparing what she said against the theory.

You might like this article on Motivational Theory used in HR - its old but its good.

http://www.accel-team.com/human_relations/hrels_03_mcgregor.html

It dovetails nicely into the issue of two apparently contradictory opposites and looks at it as a continuum.

sorry for all the typos/poor grammar -exhausted! packing for holiday:cool:]

Thats ok - hope its somewhere nice.

I gotta ask -will there be bikinis

DeVore wrote: »

I wonder what the suffragettes would have made of the "Dame". Worse or better then what she makes of modern day women?

DeV.

Anna Haslam would probably have have disagreed with the Dame and thought some of her behavior morally dubious but then she was Quaker.

She probably would not admit to watching porn or be seen wearing a bikini

Nevyn

There was huge religous, political and moral differences between members of the suffragettes movement, esp in america and once they had achieved the goal of getting women the vote they moved on separately to other separate issues which is why it took decades before the emergence of the women's liberation movement.

Prison reform education for women and prohibition were three of the causes that were taken up by various groups.

Suffragettes had believed that once they had the vote that it was all they needed to get the changes and equality needed, alas that wasn't the case.

If you are looking to watch a something about the suffragette movement then I would suggest Iron jawed angels

I for one think that the pendulum has swung to far in terms of the sexpoiltation of both genders but it's all gratification and titillation driven by business, media and esp the internet and we still don't' have esp in the country proper sex and sexuality education.

Ireland never had the sexual liberation which other countries had in the 60s and 70s which was killed of with the discovery of HIV and AIDS.

Contraception was made legal in 1984 and yet people's ignorance of their contraceptive options or how pregnancy occurs or how and what sti they can get is still staggering.

We still have a lot of growing up to do about sex and sexuality.

CDfm

DeVore wrote: »

I wonder what the suffragettes would have made of the "Dame". Worse or better then what she makes of modern day women?

DeV.

Interesting point.

I have quoted this article elsewhere and these are letters from the husbands of Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington & Anna Haslam both Corkwomen. Anna is fascinating and ran a shop in Rathmines and supported her husband who was in poor health. Hannah Sheehy had her husband take her name on marriage two generations before John Winston Lennon became John Ono Lennon.

The Irish Times - Wednesday, April 28, 2010
April 28th, 1906: Women's protest for right to vote polarises opinion






FROM THE ARCHIVES: A noisy protest in the gallery of the House of Commons in 1906 by women campaigning for the right to vote was criticised by The Irish Times in an editorial, drawing a prompt counter response from several letter writers, including Francis Sheehy Skeffington, who was later murdered by a British army officer during the Easter Rising. – JOE JOYCE
Sir, – Will you allow me space for a few words of common sense in relation to the scene enacted in the House of Commons upon Wednesday night? Some comments in the Press remind me forcibly of a modification of the old saying to the effect that, while a man may steal a horse, a woman may not look over the wall. No one proposes to disenfranchise the entire male population of the United Kingdom on account of the disgraceful scenes that are sometimes exhibited, not, indeed, in the galleries, but upon the floor of the House, amongst the members themselves, and under the eyes of the Speaker; but because some half-dozen foolish women got an admission to the Ladies’ Gallery upon Wednesday night, the entire womanhood of the Kingdom are to be denied their constitutional rights indefinitely, if not, indeed, to the end of the world! I do not believe that the incident will have the effect of retarding the Parliamentary enfranchisement of women by a single day. Such incidents, if they were multiplied one hundred fold, would not have a feather’s weight, with reasonable men, in annulling the legitimate claims of women, which 400 members of the present House of Commons are pledged to support. Whether that support will embody itself in an Act during the existence of the present Parliament, I am not in a position to predict; perhaps the deputation to the Prime Minister upon the 19th of May may elicit an answer; but the cause of women is progressing by rapid strides throughout the whole civilised world and their Parliamentary enfranchisement cannot be much longer postponed at the bidding of an ever-diminishing number of opponents, even though consisting of both sexes. - Yours, etc., Thomas J. Haslam.
125 Leinster road, 27th April, 1906.
Sir, – I need not occupy much space in protesting against the tone of your leading article on the Woman’s Suffrage Demonstration, because your London correspondent, in a neighbouring column, has given an effective reply by telling us that, in the opinion of some “old Parliamentary hands,” the vigorous agitation which culminated in Wednesday’s disturbance cannot fail, in the end, to benefit the feminist cause. These old Parliamentarians are right, and the officials of the National Union of Woman’s Suffrage Societies, in deploring and repudiating the occurrence, are wrong. The question has passed beyond the stage of argument. Only hide-bound prejudice now stands in the way of woman’s emancipation, and that prejudice can only be overcome by vigorous and even violent attacks. That women have at last roused themselves to organise such attacks is a healthy sign, and should dispose of the worn-out argument that “women don’t want to vote”. A new earnestness and fervour have come into the movement, with the growing interest in it of the working-women. Mrs [Millicent] Fawcett , who will not be suspected of any strong sympathy with revolutionary methods, put the case admirably in her letter to the Morning Post in a few months ago. She said, in effect (I am quoting from memory), “We, middle-class women, have been agitating the suffrage question for a long time, in our own middle-class way, and have made very little progress. Now the working-women have taken up the question, and are agitating it in their own way. It is not our way, but it may be a much more effective way.” And she went on to instance, as a parallel case, the difference in methods and in success between Butt and Parnell.
Some suffragists may be too “respectable” to approve of the methods of the working-women; but they may have to choose between respectability and efficiency. Napoleon won his battles by breaking all the rules of warfare. – Yours, etc.,
Francis S. Skeffington
8 Airfield road, Rathgar, 27th April, 1906

The point I have highlighted in red interests me, in the context of Dame Joan, in that her comments highlight the issue of class as do Millicent Fawcett's 100 years a part. Interesting, to see that the debate about the "masses" in its infancy when you did not have universal suffrage for men -in the History form pre 1918 we did a rough estimate that only 32% of men had the vote with,with men over 21 & women over 30 from 1918-to 22 & 100% of men and women after 1922.

Countess Constance Markevicz would have been more at home with Marxist analysis given her Connolly connection. She would have understood that it was impossible to predict the outcome when the rules changed.

I would like to think Markevicz would have predicted the outcome & given Dame Joan a run for her money.

@thaed -in the town I grew up in they were selling condoms in the local chipper from the mid 60's and the growth in children outside marriage and emigration means there was lots in the line of sexual revolution. I imagine the liberation in the 60s in other countries is exaggerated. Also, you didnt have free secondary school education until 1967 so the first batch came thru in 1973 or 74. So class, emigration, demographics etc were equally important variables as were economic means to participate in this society.