The Forgotten Work…

I think it is important to reflect on the inequality that many women face when it comes to motherhood, childcare, domestic responsibility and employment work. Whilst more men may have started to help domestically, research shows that women’s responsibility in terms of childcare has actually increased.

Inefficient childcare policy is one of the many reasons that women are the ones who are more likely to stay at home, give up a chance to get onto a paid career ladder, and instead raise the kids.  Moreover, in a true nuclear family ideal, men are more likely to be the ones who go out to work and take on a ‘breadwinner’ role.  It is important to also remember discrimination that exists in the employment market prima facie involves women being paid less money than men for the same jobs (the gender pay gap, is something I have wrote extensively about in the past). This inequality must play in the minds of women and men when deciding who will stay at home with the children, whilst the other party goes out to work – hence, why overwhelmingly women are the ones who stay at home.

I do recognise that changes are happening, however, these changes themselves are bringing new inequalities. Women are now expected to work AND look after the children, creating profound extra pressure on women and possibly even their marriage or relationship, if they have one (as we have seen a big increase in the number of lone mothers).  One only has to look at recent changes to maternity/paternity leave to see how there is a natural expectation for women to stay at home and look after the baby/babies in its/their early stages. These cultural pressures make women feel they have to stay at home at least for the first part of the child’s life in order to fulfil their ‘natural’ duty. However, it is important to recognise that these cultural pressures extend over most of the child’s life, as the woman is seen as the most obvious candidate to stay at home and look after the children, often in isolation (hence valium being called the housewife’s drug). Many feminists have highlighted how this can lead to problems such as depression, which thus, can break the family down – the opposite to the intended effect.

This leads me to the conclusion that whilst there are changes, women are ‘forgotten workers’. Whilst women’s contribution to society in looking after children cannot be undervalued, it has to be taken into account that this is precisely what happens. The role women often take as the primal care giver is undermined by the poor childcare policies and the little financial recognition women receive for doing what is technically a full time job. So, where is the woman’s pension at the end of it all? Where is her true recognition?  When the kids are old enough to branch out on their own, if their partner has left them, where are their life & emergency savings – especially when financial help from the man often only goes as far as ‘full time education’ (aka until they finish secondary school/college). However, doing a university course, I can reassure you that to me this still is very much ‘full time education’, if not more so.  I believe, there is a genuine debt to be paid to women who give up a career to be stay at home mothers. There really is no thought of the consequences of this.  As I have said, no pension. These mothers also give up their chance to get onto the career ladder at a desirable age and hence give up a huge earning potential consequently. Time out of work makes it harder to get back into it; they can hardly be expected to pick-up where they left-off?  With the given economic crisis, and the level of discrimination towards women and age in the workplace it is hardly easy for them to get a job after a break of necessity in raising kids, just like that! Importantly, also, neither would they have started upon any pension plan to continue in paid employment.

The situation is simple. Society creates the problems and society has to deal with them.  Ideally, I would like there to be a universal childcare policy provided for women and men to balance childcare and work; as despite right-wing press there are some men today who would like to try to balance things more, although traditionally many man are still happy with the ‘status-quo’.  There also needs to be the reduction of stigmatisation for women who do go to work, this will involve long-term cultural change – which I recognise will not be easy. Also, it may be silly to some but, there should be a definite pension provision for women who do not work but stay at home and look after children.  I recognise that this would involve much research into the best way to provide it, but where there is a will there is surely a way!

Overall, I have highlighted the engrained inequality that women face from the mundane and undervalued but rewarding task of bringing up children, in place of a ‘paid’ career in the workplace.  Women are conveniently seen as simply ‘designed’ to do this. The situation is so wrong, unfairly biased and needs to change to give proper credit to women. Yes, things are changing, but nothing like they need to be doing. There needs to be more thought into better childcare polices, arrangements after separation/divorce (if applicable) so that both parties have equal levels of commitment towards their children, albeit in different ways.  Lastly, but not least,  there needs to be serious, credible thought into real pension provision and sound  financial support that women deserve and indeed may need after sacrificing a career by doing what I have called, the forgotten work…!

Groundbreaking Education Film – We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For

James Mulrennan wanted me to inform people about a groundbreaking education film, We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For, (watch the trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUODHGy60no). I have copied in the e-mail he sent me to provide you with more information.

“The film, titled ‘We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For’, was inspired and guided by Lord Puttnam and Sir Michael Barber and explores the education system in the UK and asks whether the current system provides young people with the opportunity to develop their talents. High-profile figures sharing their personal experiences and views include Sir Richard Branson, Germaine Greer, Henry Winkler, Bill Bryson, Sir Ken Robinson and a wide range of education experts from around the world.

This thought-provoking film offers unique insight across generations and nations, and reveals a very inconvenient truth about education. The world is changing rapidly – but our education system is not keeping pace.

‘We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For’ follows the lives of five Swindon-based teenagers and the challenges they face during their education.  It reveals the dislocation between our education system and the rapidly changing, globalised world which is increasingly dominated by digital technology, and focuses on the need for fundamental change in teaching and learning

Lord Puttnam said: “I’ve no doubt that ‘We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For’ has the potential to be a powerful catalyst for overdue educational reform.  We need to provide all of our young people with an education that motivates them to learn, and enables them to discover what they are good at.  ‘We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For’ is intended to act as nothing less than a wake-up call.”

By exploring some of the more innovative approaches to education around the world, the film offers a glimpse of the future.  It shows how much more flexible, exciting and engaging learning could be for young people – and how our education system could support them in identifying and making the most of their individual talents.

Following the premiere of ‘We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For’ on Tuesday 17th November the film will be released online on request at www.wearethepeoplemovie.com and will also be syndicated free with the Guardian on Saturday 28th November”

Truss shows how the Tories have a contradiction between the individual and the ‘Broken Society’

The news that Elizabeth Truss has kept her selection is a positive result for women’s rights and common sense. Why the South West Norfolk Conservative Party felt that Truss should have disclosed such a personal matter as an affair in a selection process is quite outstanding. Why is it that Mark Field, the MP she had the affair with, has not been criticised in these debates? Well it links to the Conservative grass route traditional beliefs regarding women and men. The Conservatives still have central to their discourse the belief that men and women are fundamentally different, and that men ‘naturally’ have a higher sex drive, whereas women who have a high sex drive are ‘peverse’. This type of discourse seems to be apparent in the attitude of the local party association, despite Conservative HQ backing of the ‘A-list’ candidate.

A clear example of this discourse is shown by the classical Tory newspaper, the Daily Mail:

“Liz Truss had an 18-month relationship with married front bencher Mark Field, the Tories’ 41-year-old culture spokesman

Yesterday, as she pushed a pram carrying her two-month-old baby, 30-year-old Miss Truss refused to comment on the affair, which ended last June.

But Mr Field has told friends that the liaison with the married Miss Truss has cost him his own marriage. He and his wife are divorcing.”

I have highlighted the key words above. Look at how the first sentence makes out that it is the woman to blame by saying Liz Truss had the affair, not Mark Field. Look at how in the second sentence they play on how she has a child, oh what a bad mother she is. And look in how the last sentence they juxtapose her situation with his, making out that he has been hard done by, presumably because he has been meeting his own sexual ‘needs’.

It is amazing how little Cameron said about the incident. Whilst he provided her his backing, he didn’t state how fundamentally wrong the situation was in terms of women’s rights. Whilst i do not support affairs, it is important that Conservatives wake up from their back to basics dream, as they had to do in the 1990s when John Major the man who started the campaign was found to have an affair, and wake up to reality. Cameron may appear to have backed her, however, if you look at the Conservatives they are a party riddled in contradiction. The Conservatives seem to offer everything but the kitchen sink. Within this comes the central problem – a disjunctive between individual rights and their emphasis on the negative effects of indivdualisation causing the so-called ‘broken society’. Truss’s affair highlights how the Tories, including Cameron, have this backward looking view of society, where anything that happens that does not fit their nuclear family model is perverse and an exemplar of the ‘broken society’. Where this conflicts with individual rights is that one of the main causes they outline for this is increased individualisation, as we have seen a fragmentation around the family ideal. However, in order to have individual rights, you must have increase individualisation, thus, the contradiction occurs.

Truss, to many of them seems to have somehow defied the party by not telling them intimate details of her affair (on an aside, it was in the local press when it happened, thus, she wont have felt it upon her to tell them, nor should she anyway. They should have done their research like Malcom Tucker!). Her apparent defiance thus links to the contradiction outlined above. Her individual rights of privacy are constrained due to their views around the ‘broken society’. Further contradictions can be highlighted, as for example, John Major’s affairs shows that within their discourse around the ‘broken society’, they themselves, as a party, do not live up to this ‘ideal’.

Thankfully she has been selected, however it is worrying to see some of the ways that the affair has been talked about, making out that it is only Truss’ fault. The story also highlights the innate contradiction of individual rights and the ‘broken society’ rhetoric that the Conservatives preach…

One of the many flaws of the Afghanistan mission…

With the news that Gordon Brown has high hopes of Nato sending an additional 5,000 troops into Afghanistan, it is important to consider for a second, what a lot of people have already been questioning for a long time, which is the important question of why we are fighting there. I want to pick up on one of the many reasons that has been given for the war, which is to improve the rights of women. I wholly agree that the human rights in Afghanistan for women is appalling, the way women are degraded to non citizen level is sickening. However, do we really believe that killing thousands of civilians (which rarely is reported, as a Question Time audience member rightly pointed out yesterday), will drive the change of attitudes towards women?

Of course it wont. We have to remember that we are supporting a government that brought in a degrading policy only recently, which further reduced women’s rights, gave men the right to rape within marriage. With international pressure the law was changed, but only to allow men the right to deny women food if they do not fulfil their sexual demands, whilst making women seek permission from their husbands to work. Furthermore, controversial views in regards to rape can again be shown in the law:

“It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her,” the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

The Karzai government as we all know, is illegitimate. We are supporting a government that for one, implements laws that go against one of our 1000 aims of the war, and two, a government that is full of corruption. The government itself has shown that it supports degrading polices towards women. Is our government, and other government’s involved in the fighting, really saying that once we have blasted the country to pieces, that there would have been a profound shift in culture; that men would no longer see women as objects, and women would no longer see themselves as possessions? I very much doubt it. This is a long cultural process, and for starters, the laws that surround the country are important when attempting to change attitudes, thus implementing discriminating laws whilst apparently receiving international support hardly helps with the cultural shift.

We have to recognise the agency of the women too. Many will not see their position as oppressive, as they have been brought up in a culture that normalises the inequality they face.  There needs to be greater thought to this reconstruction. Our own military concerns of Nato, fear of Afghanistan turning into another Vietnam and so on, seems to be undermine our ability to recognise the growing apparent flaws of the mission.

Furthermore, we can hardly preach women equality when we have some of the worst statistics on issues of discrimination, such as the gender pay gap and when women’s bodies are objectified daily as sexual objects. The UK and Afghanistan can thus be said to be on some type of continuum where the UK has the overt daily sexual exploitation of women, emphasising their bodies, whereas Afghanistan emphasise the need for women to be covert about their bodies. Both problems relate to male control over women and their body. As whilst the UK women may feel as though they are liberated, social evils such as mental illness and eating disorders, stem from this unrealistic pressure applied to women everyday.

In an interesting article supporting my views, it is interesting to consider the following powerful critism of the isolation and neglect women in Afghanistan face during this war:

“In the case of Afghanistan, the situation for women has actually worsened under the watch of American soldiers. Violence against women has increased to the point that statistics now show over 70% of Afghan women and girls are victims of violence; girls’ schools are regularly bombed, teachers shot in front of their students, one if four Afghan women die in childbirth, and widespread campaigns exist to make vocal women’s rights voices vanish. Oh and the Taliban, who never really went away, are back. The situation is so bleak that major women’s rights groups, even in the US, have called for a full troop pullout.”

There needs to be a serious consideration of women in terms of the Afghan mission. The government and supporters of war just seem to slip in comments about women’s rights every so often to justify the war, but don’t set our or explain how they intend to improve them. There really needs to be consideration of the aims and the implications of these aims in Afghanistan, and a reconsideration of the importance of women’s needs to be taken into account when fighting, or not fighting, whatever the situation may be.

Failed defeat of homophobic “free speech” amendment shows the need for House of Lords reform

With the news that the government have conceded defeat over the amendment proposed by Conservative Lord Waddington, which claims that inciting hatred towards homosexuals is part of ‘free speech’, the need for the House of Lords to be reformed has never been so great. Comedians worried about criminal prosecution also stirred up moral panics, as the government clearly stated that:

“The offence only covers words or behaviour that are threatening and intended to stir up hatred.”

We all know when a comedian is joking, and when someone is actually threatening violence. This homophobic, heteronormative attitude is symbolic of the backwards unrepresentative nature of the House of Lords. It shows the desperate need for a reform of the House of Lords. The House of Lords needs to become elected, as are the MPs. Why is it that those who are elected by the public, largely oppose the amendment, but it is those dinosaurs in the upper house that have the final say? Most of them are upper class, white, heterosexual males – hardly a representative sample. Interestingly, Lord Bach resonates with these concerns, as he seems to acknowledge the illegitimacy the House of Lords have when deciding important policy issues:

“There must come a point where this House, with all its great virtues, gives way to the House that has been elected by the people of this country.”

How true. The amendment conflicts with two central discourses that inform central values of our party. Firstly, our strong belief in equality is important here. Our “homophobia is gay” campaign helped show that we rightfully believe that whether you are a lesbian, gay man, straight, transsexual etc. everyone is equal. Secondly, civil liberty issues are very central to these discussions. We must state clearly that discriminating someone in a hateful way, because of the person they fall in love for, is not a ‘freedom of speech’. Freedom of speech is a contestable concept, however. I for example, defended the right for Geert Wilders to have been allowed back into our country. The difference here, is that the way he approached the matter was no different to how the BNP approach matters on a daily basis (in public). If he had been wanting to come to the country to do what the BNP do in private, which is to actively beat up and discriminate on the grounds of race and ethnicity, then it would have been a different situation. The same can be said for homosexuals. If someone has an opinion that homosexuality is wrong, whilst I profoundly disagree with them and would like them to read some books on Ancient Greece, they are still rightly able to hold that view. The difference is in the provision of protection against the action that may be taken to promote these views. If someone actively threatens someone with death threats for being gay for example, then this is something that should not be defended on the grounds of ‘free speech”.

The Conservatives may say that this is not what they meant by the amendment, however, if you look at what the amendment was replacing, the right to “only cover words or behaviour that are threatening and intended to stir up hatred“, then it seems like they are supporting this type of action with their screwed up view of civil liberty.

With homophobic violence still ever growing, the amendment is a worrying development for equality activists. With the news that the LGBT Labour group are calling for the Labour government to not give in and still fight for equality, it is disappointing to see that Delga, our own LGBT affiliation, has not yet commented on their website. For example, police claim that  90% of homophobic violence goes un reported, and is more un reported than racial violence, this development is hardly going to spur homosexuals to report homophobic violence.  It is worrying to consider that Lord Smith, an openly gay peer, supports the assertion that as a result of this, there will be more homophobic violence, and this is especially worrying given the high level of under reporting by the homosexual community.

Overall, the amendments illustrates the desperate need for reform of the House of Lords. They are clearly out of touch with society, there needs to be representative elected individuals whose opinion will not be seen in the context of their backward minority opinions of equality.

Object, object to Lads’ Mags/Newspapers – Part 2 Teen Mags to Lads’ Mags

This is the second in a series of my own personal analyses of reports by the campaigning body, Object, into various lads mags and their implications in terms of the objectification of women (to see part 1, click here). The report looks into the comparisons between teen mags, that are magazines designed for girls, and lads’ mags, which are designed for men and boys over 16 years old (it is claimed). The teen mags they focused upon were those promoted towards girls who are younger than 15 years old, as they are regulated by Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel (TMAP), which the Home Office set up to ensure that teenage magazines provide sensible sexual content. This clearly arises the question of why is it that girl magazines are tightly regulated, whereas boy magazines, which lad’s magazines such as Zoo and Nuts are, have no regulation of the kind. The response I have sometimes received when calling for lads mags to have tighter consideration of what they put on their magazines has been met by calls that I am not liberal enough. Well it simply isn’t liberal in my eyes to promote unrealistic expectations of women and expose them to the degradation, just in the name of predominantly men’s sexual pleasure.

This links to the predominant discourse often used to justify rape, which states that men’s sex drive is ‘naturally’ uncontrollable (see for example this). They have to satisfy their sex drive from having sex with women, even if this means against women’s will. Whilst I do not agree with radical Feminists assertion that all heterosexual sex is rape, the point regarding the sex drive discourse is very relevent today. Pornography of this nature also ridicules lesbian relationships. They are made to be seen as only purely acceptably in a heterosexual framework, only when they are hyper sexual are they acceptable. The minute lesbian relationships, and indeed homosexual relationships in general, appear as though they are caring and sensitive, they are seen as ’sick, ‘perverse’ and all the other names you can think of. Why is this the case? It seems a tad odd when comparing it to pornography where violence in a heterosexual context is seen as pleasurable and desirable. How can this not be furthering the degradation and subordination that women face in society? Thus, sexuality has to be considered here too, as these magazines clearly prop up an inherently heterosexuality dominated market. The only way lesbians seem to be portrayed to males are as sex objects that are up for any kind of sex and degradation.

The report argues convincingly that the lads mags such as Zoo and Nuts that contain objectified and degrading images of women, should be seen as a teenage magazine for boys. This relates to how the magazines can be bought over the counter with no real age restrictions at pocket-money price, and teenage boys have very few lifestyle magazines to choose alternatives from. It is worrying that the lad’s mags are seen as educating boys about sex. No wonder it plays into the culture of degradation that women face.

As the report states, it is time that the lads mags are regulated like teen mags are. The TMAP should assess its own role and justify why it chooses to regulate teenage girl orientated magazines, but not obvious teenage boy orientated magazines. Why is it that teen mags are marketed with the pull of free gifts, whereas the lad’s mags are marketed by the pull of ‘cheap’ girls? As the report states, the male pin ups in teen mags are fully clothed, without any real sexual connotation. Instead, there is more female degradation and sexual connotations placed in teen mags, as women with the ‘wrong’ dress or who are not ‘thin’ enough or are too ‘fat’ are exposed. There is no such exposure of males.

The underlying message of the report and indeed of this blog is that the regulatory body, TMAP, need to start regulating lad’s magazines that teenage boys can easily pick up and buy, given that the TMAP’s guidelines are as follows:

“It is recognised that magazines have an important role to play in the field of sex education for, and emotional development of, teenagers. It is recognised that magazines have an important role to play in the field of sex education for, and emotional development of,teenagers.”

Another proposed way of dealing with this is making sure that these magazines are only sold to adults. Maybe that would work. However, I think this is an un welcomed compromise, as there needs to be regulation of the degrading comments and images that are placed in those types of magazines, as there are teenage magazines.

Brown’s handwriting highlights the ingrained disability discrimination in society

I want to take a different angle to the Sun’s disgusting reporting of Gordon Brown’s handwriting. Applying what is called the Social Model of disability, this really does highlight the engrained stigmatisation and discrimination that disabled people have in society. The endemic nature of discrimination may lead many to ask why I am even talking about disability in relation to Brown’s letter. Well a disability, using the Social Model’s definition, is when society itself is what disables the individual. It is not the actual impairment, so in this case, Gordon Brown’s handwriting, is not the disability per se, instead, it is the societal actions and stigmatisation in society that has lead it to becoming a disability.

I myself suffer from extremely bad handwriting, so bad that I have to use a computer for my exams so I have experience of what discrimination in relation to your handwriting feels like. However, if Brown had used a computer when writing the very personal letter then I am sure there would have been complaints that he was not person enough. The mother of the solider who complained to The Sun states that she questions whether the Prime Minister even really cared when writing it, and instead saw it as part of his duty. Well if he really didn’t care, then why doesn’t he send out a computerised automated round robin letter to all the relatives of soldiers killed at War? Of course he cares. I really can’t believe the level of criticism that Brown has faced, mainly from The Sun, for simply having bad handwriting and for simply being a human being.

This links to something I have blogged about recently in relation to Europe, in how The Sun appears to be increasing losing its credibility. They claim for example, Brown:

“COMMITTED four other spelling mistakes: Greats for greatest, condolencs for condolences, you instead of your, and colleagus for colleagues”

Do they even take into account that he has poor handwriting, so what they perceive to be spelling mistakes may actually just be illegibility? Do they take into account his poor eyesight when writing this? Well the answer to the latter is yes, but highlights how the media can use disability to question the legitimacy of the worker – as shown by their use of the following  Brown quote:

“I have had very serious problems with my eye and it has been very difficult over the years. But you can do a job, you can work hard.” (my emphasis)

It is an obvious attempt, as the last sentence of the article, to make people question whether Brown is competent to do the job. What this highlights is the ingrained stigmatisation within the media around disability issues. Disability issues are both physical and mental, as shown by the debates surrounding whether Brown was taking pills. It is very depressing when you see human beings being treat as though they are robots with no problems, there needs to be a fundamental change to the culture of our society, as this is just simply wrong.

Real Women campaign highlights the need of legislation to change cultural attitudes

There have been many a discussion relating to the Real Women’s pledge to address the problems around airbrushing, in how it promotes unrealistic expectations of women. There were various amendments proposed at the Conference attempting to modify the policy commitment, as they felt that cultural changes needed to happen on themselves, without any legislation commitment. However, the important question to ask was, how do you suppose these cultural changes will happen? Why would they just magically happen if they have been so endemic in the history of exploitation of women? Instead, there needed to be progress in the attempt to help further mobilise cultural changes, as there are movements existent that have helped thus far. That is why I supported the proposals, as they acted as a further catalyst for change to modify the cultural attitudes that can put unrealistic pressure on women.

That is why it is pleasing to have received an email the other day from the Liberal Democrat mailing list stating:

“Thank you to all those who helped with the first part of our Real Women campaign. As a result, the Advertising Standards Authority has received almost 1000 complaints about the misleading use of airbrushing, compared to just five last year.”

How about that for a cultural change? Women are now realising that they do not just have to sit back and except their objectification, they have every right to report it. They may argue that this would have happened without the pledge, but seriously, do you really think that would have been the case? With proposing legislation it highlights the issue as a concern of public interest. It shows that the party is prepared to do what it takes to help change the situation. Why not have legislation helping tackle discrimination against women, we have a Race Relations Act for example, why not legislation to tackle the discrimination placed on women as well? It highlights how many women were obviously just accepting it as they felt powerless to do anything. Providing the legislation commitment empowers women, this is what is so crucial to help change cultural attitudes, not sitting back and hoping for the best as the amendments wanted. This shows how the Real Women campaign has helped mobilise a women’s and indeed a man’s voice against objectification and unrealistic expectations placed on women.

Whilst I believe that this is a long-term process, and the 1000 bench mark complaints should not be seen as mission complete, it is an important breakthrough and helps prove the skeptics wrong. Hopefully, as the campaign moves onto childcare, as the only party to really tackle the problem of childcare, the next step of the campaign may have a similar breakthrough.

What this has shown is that cultural changes are possible from legalisation commitments, as it mobilise a hidden voice of oppression so the social group can stand up for what they really believe in and say “this is wrong”.

Cameron, what does sovereignty even mean anymore?

There have always been two main sides of the European debate in the UK, and both centre on sovereignty. Even us Liberal Democrats, the most pro European party in the UK, often fall into the whole, “we will not compromise our sovereignty in Europe”. But then we need to ask the important question of what does sovereignty actually mean anymore? We live in an increasingly interdependent world, we really need to question the need of this debate and concept.

It has an historical context. The Conservatives get stuck in acting as though we still have an Empire. To pass a Sovereignty Bill, whatever that means, would be humiliating and totally isolate Britain from the UK – as shown by comments by French Europe Minister, Pierre Lellouche. What does Cameron actually want to achieve with this? His proposals have not even succeeded in keeping his party happy, as shown by Tim Montgomerie conceding Europe is no longer the Conservatives’ selling point (much to Farage’s delight).

Sovereignty used to mean something, it just doesn’t now. The more integrated we become with Europe the more irrelevant sovereignty is. I think this is a good thing. Passing a law to privilege the UK’s decisions over Europe at all times is a disastrous idea. Not only will it not work, as the Conservatives have isolated themselves from where the power lies in Europe, the world we live in now as shown by the economic crisis, relies on cooperation, not privileging interests.

The Conservatives have one and truly shot themselves in the foot. As PoliticsHome have highlighted, the Sun fails to mention the ‘’cast iron guarantee’ that Cameron promised on the Lisbon Treaty. This is just another example of how Cameron promises one thing then does another. He is a political opportunist, the methods he used to win the leadership that of lies and manipulation, will be the ones he uses if he becomes Prime Minister.

As Lellouche stated, Cameron can try if he likes, he can try and isolate us out of Europe, but as previous Conservative governments soon realised, doing so will only lead us being isolated from important decisions and thus paradoxically damage British interests. There really needs to be a sense of realism as sovereignty really does not matter anymore, the world has changed.

The ‘Obesity Crisis’ considered in the context of objectification

How about looking at the supposed ‘obesity crisis’ within the context of debates surrounding the objectification and sexualisation of our culture? There are obvious concerns around the validity of the so-called ‘obesity crisis’, for example, how do we actually measure obesity? Weighing people is not always the most reliable way, as how do we account for muscle? What about sport stars, such as rugby players, where it is an advantage to be of a greater mass? Anyway, putting these technical difficulties aside, it is interesting to consider the obsession with people being overweight and the obsession with wanting people to be ‘thin’. (For some more information around myths of obesity visit this link).

It is important to recognise that whilst objectification in terms of sexualisation occurs mainly against women; men are also subjected to the moral panics around being overweight. However, for this blog post I wish to focus on the objectification that women face and how this has helped create the scares around obesity. One of my recent blog posts considered a report into the Daily Sport, by the campaigning body – Object. The report showed how the Daily Sport apparently consider the fake plastic thin women they have in their newspaper as an exemplar of a ‘real woman’. Apparently, they have a sister newspaper making this claim load and clear. Thus, this is a prime example of how women who are thin, and over sexualised are constructed as meeting the ideal ‘beauty’. This ideology of beauty is destructive, and instead of focusing on the often social/cultural/political factors for obesity, the media are stuck on the so-called individualistic nature of the ‘obesity crisis’, where people have become out of control and no longer meeting the ideals of what it means to be ‘beautiful’. It also relates to the blog post I wrote yesterday about how we have seen the development of an ideology called Healthism, were individuals are increasingly blamed for their illness as socio structural factors are ignored. The main reason with this, as well as ideological views, is that changing the structure of society would cost a lot of money, telling people it is their fault barely scratches the purse strings.

There was once a time where being slightly overweight was a desirable thing. This links to a key aspect of sociological thinking, which is that most things in society are socially constructed. Some of the values and attitudes that inform the social construction of the so called ‘obesity crisis’, are similar to the values that inform the objectification debate. The values I am talking about are those that are more likely promoted in newspapers, not by politicians, who are mainly right wing, and instead focus on the Healthism aspect of the debate. However, recent news stories surrounding Elizabeth Truss and her affair shows how politicians can also delve into objectification. As the man she had the affair with is an MP and is having none of the criticisms she is facing, one can only assume that it is because she is a woman. She is being objectified, not in a sexual pleasure sense, but in a sense that her sexuality is seen as wrong, whereas the man’s is seen as ‘normal’.

I find approaching the ‘obesity crisis’ moral panic with the debates surrounding objectification as interesting and relevant. It is an interestingly angle to approach the debate with, and it clearly highlights the social construction of what ‘real beauty’ is and how this is promoted through discourse on obesity. Whilst being overweight can lead to serious problems, the concerns around obesity are exaggerated and we need to consider the hidden agenda and values undermining the debates, which further highlights the inequality and exploitation that women (and in this case, men) face in society.