tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/everyday-sexism-9926/articlesEveryday Sexism – The Conversation2020-06-08T14:55:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1402642020-06-08T14:55:56Z2020-06-08T14:55:56ZBBC: yet another male boss – public broadcaster needs to pay more than lip service to promoting women<p>Tim Davie is the <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/director-generals.pdf">17th male BBC boss since 1927</a>. It would be a mistake to appoint a female director general simply as “Mrs Buggin’s turn”, regardless of her suitability for the role. So the issue isn’t about him – rather the shortlist for his job, which is widely reported as consisting of <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/amazon-executive-doug-gurr-in-running-to-lead-bbc-9jvkq58vl">three men and one woman</a>.</p>
<p>The BBC headhunters probably searched like crazy for another women, because three to one is a bad look. But many women must have thought that their chances of being appointed were slim. The BBC executive consists of 18 people – ten men and eight women. This sounds great, but numbers aren’t everything – most people <a href="https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/whoweare/exco">can see at a glance</a> that the men have the meatier roles. The same is even more true of the BBC board. </p>
<p>In fairness to the BBC, this is not unusual at the top of large organisations. The BBC may be better than most – but even so, perhaps it’s no wonder that many of the women approached reportedly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/21/bbc-may-delay-hunt-for-new-director-general-amid-pandemic">refused to compete</a>. The survey research we have done on the <a href="https://expertwomenproject.com/">expert women project</a>, which I direct at City, University of London, shows that many women at all levels suspect <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2016.1232173">the dice are loaded against them</a>. They often refuse to participate, earning the reputation of either playing “hard to get” or of being scared to put their heads above the parapet.</p>
<h2>Where are the women?</h2>
<p>Interestingly, at the time this selection was going on, the representation of women on UK “flagship” news reached a new low for recent years. In March 2020 nearly three times as many expert men as expert women – <a href="https://www.city.ac.uk/news/2020/may/male-experts-on-uk-news-programmes-peak-during-march-2020">a ratio of 2.7 to one</a> – appeared on “flagship” UK news programmes, in the week monitored by postgraduates in the journalism department at City, University of London. </p>
<p>This was a rise of over 40% on another week the students monitored in February, where the ratio overall was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/04/male-experts-dominate-uk-news-shows-during-coronavirus-crisis">1.9 to one</a> – a figure <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2016.1232173">more in line</a> with the levels of expertise in UK society. Further analysis showed that in March, male “politicos” (politicians and government advisers) on air outnumbered female “politicos” by <a href="https://www.city.ac.uk/news/2020/may/male-experts-on-uk-news-programmes-peak-during-march-2020">five to one</a>.</p>
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<p>The BBC selection process for director general should be viewed against this backdrop. A cursory reading of the press stories about women declining to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/07/samira-ahmed-run-for-director-general-of-the-bbc-maybe-next-time">put their hat in the ring</a>” suggests that more women than men declined. But don’t blame the women – what are the real chances of a woman being appointed as DG, in a country with a government which has a ratio of about <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/eec875ac-33b1-11ea-a329-0bcf87a328f2">four males to one woman in the senior cabinet</a> and finds that representative enough? </p>
<p>Of course, headhunters love getting women on shortlists generally. They want to pay lip-service to equality. But equal numbers do not mean equal opportunities to get the job. Please don’t sympathise with the BBC and its headhunters because so many women said no. Instead, ask why they did.</p>
<h2>Gender imbalance</h2>
<p>Tim Davie was a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52933648">successful acting director general in 2013</a>. That was the year when the BBC Academy started its <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112135469">expert women days</a>, in response to City University and Broadcast magazine’s expert women campaign. </p>
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<p>The BBC expert women days recruited women with expertise for media training and confidence building. This initiative alone significantly improved the number of women experts on air, at a time when you would often hear six times as many men as women on some news programmes. </p>
<p>The BBC was overwhelmed with thousands of applicants for the expert women days. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/expert-women-events.html">Tim Davie said</a> in 2013:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first expert women day was such a big success and the response so overwhelmingly positive that we didn’t want to wait before setting up more sessions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’ve heard recently that the BBC Academy now plans to quietly ditch the expert women days despite protest by many of its participants. The BBC seems to feel it has done enough to get women experts on air – even though the Today programme in the 7am to 8am slot, in the week monitored in March, had <a href="https://expertwomenproject.com/">22 male experts to two women experts interviewed</a>.</p>
<p>It has been widely reported that one of Davie’s first jobs will be tackling <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/bbcstudios/2019/bbc-studios-uk-gender-pay-gap-report-2019">the gender pay gap</a>, which tends to focus attention on high-end “talent”. But fairness for all women, down to the interviewees on the news, should be a major remit. The expert women days could be a big part of this. Reinstating them would be a simple, cost effective move which would genuinely make a difference, and perhaps give the future first female DG her start.</p>
<p>And perhaps it might also show that, despite the disproportionate shortlist, and the disappointment of so many people who wanted to see a woman in the role, Davie might be the right person for the job of director general. For now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lis Howell received funding from London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange – a nine-university initiative promoting the exchange of knowledge and expertise with the capital’s arts and cultural sectors for £3500 in 2011 .
Lis Howell is a member of BAFTA and the Royal Television Society. </span></em></p>The BBC has just appointed its 17th male director general. It needs to work harder towards gender equality all round.Lis Howell, Professor Emeritus, Director of the Expert Women Project; former Director of Broadcasting, Department of Journalism, City, University of London, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1392432020-06-04T13:21:07Z2020-06-04T13:21:07ZCharles Dickens: 150 years on, debate still rages over his ‘misogynist’ label<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339743/original/file-20200604-67372-1o3eq7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C463%2C2400%2C2299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charles Dickens with his two daughters. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Portrait Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Charles Dickens the misogynist”, ran a headline in the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8351467/Charles-Dickens-cruel-wife-hated-mother-affair-writes-N-WILSON.html">Mail on Sunday</a> on May 23 2020, publicising a new book marking the 150th anniversary of his death on June 9 1870. “The novelist was cruel to his wife, hated his mother [and] had an affair”, it reported. </p>
<p>But this is an old story. When news broke last year that a cache of letters at Harvard University had disclosed Dickens’s attempt to place his wife, Catherine, in an asylum, it only confirmed for many that he was a stereotypically “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/23/charles-dickens-wife-victorian-asylum">ruthless Victorian husband</a>”. Dickens’s <a href="https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/ellen-ternan.html">affair with Ellen Ternan</a> and cruel treatment of his wife are well known and he has long been criticised for depicting weak females in his fiction. But was what the Mail called “his need to control and manipulate members of the opposite sex” really “a defining feature of his life”?</p>
<p>To a large extent, Dickens’s beliefs about women were typical of the age. “God created men and women different – then let them remain each in their own position”, <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/g/gender-ideology-and-separate-spheres-19th-century/">declared Queen Victoria</a> in the year of Dickens’s death – and in many respects, Dickens shared this view. Women’s supposed innate purity and selflessness were held to fit her for the making of a home that would serve as a refuge for the man who must endure the rigours of public life. </p>
<p>Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House is probably Dickens’s best-known example of a woman betraying the home in this way, neglecting her own children in favour of raising funds for the distant natives of Borrioboola-Gha. She devotes herself to this cause and, as a result, her house is dirty, the servants unruly, and her unfortunate husband neglected. Notably, Mrs Jellyby is last heard of in the novel perversely continuing to neglect her home duties by campaigning for “the rights of women to sit in parliament”.</p>
<p>Dickens also set out to satirise such agitating women in Household Words, the journal he published throughout the 1850s. A polemical piece he published on <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ix/page-158.html">Rights and Wrongs of Women</a> lampooned those women who aspired to become an “inferior man”, and extolled instead the path of “a noble, unpretending, redeeming, domestic, usefulness” to be taken by “the loving, quiet wife, the good mother, the sweet unselfish sister”. “Give woman public functions”, the anonymous contributor wrote, “and you destroy the very springs of her influence”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339800/original/file-20200604-67372-15rla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edith Dombey raged against her powerlessness as a woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration by 'Phiz' (Hablot K. Browne) via http://www.victorianweb.org/</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Dickens also explored the constrictions of women’s roles in his fiction through disruptive female figures who help to expose the limitations of the Victorian feminine domestic ideal: like Rosa Dartle, Bella Wilfer or Edith Dombey, whose rage at her powerlessness, “There is no slave in a market, there is no horse in a fair, so shown and offered and paraded … as I have been”, continues to resonate.</p>
<p>As in his fiction, so in his journalism, Dickens’s response to demands for reform of the position of women was more complex than is often appreciated. He was prepared to support campaigns against particular legal and social injustices suffered by women and he was not unsympathetic towards the demand for extending employment opportunities for them. </p>
<h2>Promoting women</h2>
<p>Indeed, he was especially supportive of women’s efforts to reach out to a wider public sphere within his own field of expertise – literature and journalism. For the author of the Household Words essay, the Rights and Wrongs of Women, was a woman – and the first English female newspaper correspondent to draw a fixed salary: <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/authors/eliza-lynn-linton.html">Eliza Lynn (Linton)</a>.</p>
<p>Dickens encouraged women writers to contribute to his journals, recruiting prominent authors such as <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/authors/harriet-martineau.html">Harriet Martineau</a>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/authors/mrs-elizabeth-gaskell.html">Elizabeth Gaskell</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20082411?seq=1">Eliza Lynn</a> when he founded Household Words in 1850. Lynn had worked for two years on the staff of the Morning Chronicle and published three novels before she became a Household Words contributor in 1853. She wrote for the journal up until the last year of its publication, contributing more than 60 items. Dickens came to value her work highly: “Good for anything and thoroughly reliable”, <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924013517002/page/n103/mode/2up">he wrote</a> against her name when making out a list of contributors at one time.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339799/original/file-20200604-67383-1kj96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First salaried woman journalist in Britain: Eliza Lynn Linton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mrs. Lynn Linton; Her Life, Letters, and Opinions by George Somes Layard</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ironically, while Lynn shared Dickens’s conviction that women’s aspirations to participate in public life undermined their proper, natural duties within the home, she defied the stereotype herself. As a hard-working journalist within the male domain of the Victorian newspaper and periodical press, her career challenged the accepted idea of womanhood and questioned the limits placed upon the female role.</p>
<p>Lynn first met Dickens at a dinner party and later recalled his kindness to her: “He included me, then quite a beginner in literature, young in years and shy by temperament, and made me feel at home with him”, <a href="https://archive.org/details/myliterarylife00lintgoog/page/n62/mode/2up">she writes</a>. When her father died in 1855, she sold <a href="http://www.gadshillplace.co.uk/">Gad’s Hill Place</a>, where part of her early youth had been spent, to Dickens, and visiting some years after his death, remembered:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How bright he was! How keen and observant! His eyes seemed to penetrate through yours into your very brain, and he was one of the men to whom, had I been given that way, I could not have dared to tell a lie. He would have seen the truth written in plain characters behind the eyes, and traced in the lines about the mouth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such a profound capacity for truth-seeing and telling is of course just one of the qualities for which we remember Dickens on the anniversary of his death. While his reputation as an exponent of the “home goddess” stereotype is undeniable, he also imagined strong women, rebellious women, and women inwardly divided, who provide a more complex picture of his fictional treatment of the opposite sex than this reputation suggests. </p>
<p>And in the practical support he gave to women like Eliza Lynn, we remember above all his deep commitment to writing, to the professions of literature and journalism, and his unshakeable belief in their ability to move us so as to remedy social injustice and inequality for women and men.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Waters receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Charles Dickens’s attitude towards women was more complex than ‘misogynist’ label suggests.Catherine Waters, Professor of Victorian literature and print culture, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1293872020-01-12T08:50:27Z2020-01-12T08:50:27ZWhy this academic got a radio ad banned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309009/original/file-20200108-107235-133xyua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C44%2C5982%2C3287&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On an ordinary day in Johannesburg, listening to the news on the radio, I heard an advertisement that made me stop short. </p>
<p>In the exaggerated manner of a pseudo naturalist, a man narrates shopping for shoes with an apparently female partner. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s dusk and you’re in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by predators hunting for fresh prey. And they found it. Fifty percent off all shoes. They attack, lunging mercilessly. As you guard the 12 shopping bags, seated on a bench alongside the other men, you watch the feeding frenzy take place. This is Shoe Sale Country and you don’t belong here, man. This is not your habitat, so go where you belong in the V6 Amarok … Visit your Volkswagen dealership for great Amarok V6 offers today, man.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I reported the advert to the <a href="http://arb.org.za/index.html">Advertising Regulatory Board</a>, a self-regulatory South African industry watchdog. It <a href="http://arb.org.za/assets/vw---prof-susan-goldstein.pdf">ruled</a> to uphold my complaint because the advert breaches the <a href="https://iccwbo.org/publication/icc-advertising-and-marketing-communications-code/">international code of advertising practice</a>. It asked its members and affiliates to stop carrying the advert, effectively removing it from air. </p>
<p>It’s not the only time recently that Volkswagen has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/14/first-ads-banned-for-contravening-gender-stereotyping-rules">taken to task</a> for harmful gender portrayals in its ads. </p>
<p>The car manufacturer <a href="http://arb.org.za/assets/vw---prof-susan-goldstein.pdf">defended itself</a>, “stating that the commercial was intended as a parody or hyperbole and that it consists of a harmless exaggeration of a real-life scenario intended to amuse listeners”.</p>
<p>The advert was supposed to be funny and entice men to buy a VW Amarok, but I found it deeply offensive and here is why:</p>
<p>The advert typifies <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/women/wrgs/pages/genderstereotypes.aspx">gender stereotyping</a>, which is defined by the board as advertising that portrays a person or persons of a certain gender in a manner that exploits, objectifies, or demeans them.</p>
<p>Does this advert demean women? Yes it does, it says that they are like predators, in a feeding frenzy – building into the stereotype that women are superficial and consumerist, relying on men to provide. </p>
<p>However, you may argue that it is funny, so why get upset?</p>
<p>According to the UN Human Rights Office <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/WrongfulGenderStereotyping.aspx">harmful gender stereotypes</a> are one of the “root causes for discrimination, abuse and violence in many areas and can lead to violations of a wide array of human rights”. There are over <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4713435/">300 studies</a> that have found that societal stereotypes can have <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/the-joke-isnt-funny-its-harmful/">negative effects</a>. Many of the studies show how women are disadvantaged in the workplace and in politics due to rigidly held gender stereotypes. Studies show that <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/gender-based-violence">gender based violence</a> is more common when <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011719">men hold strong beliefs</a> about <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.912.6549&rep=rep1&type=pdf">gender roles</a>.</p>
<p>South Africans live in a society where the gender roles are strongly held beliefs but where <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report%2003-00-09/Report%2003-00-092016.pdf">reality</a> fails to live up to those beliefs. More than half (53%) of South African adults believe that pre-school children suffer if their mother is working, but over 40% of households are headed by women. <a href="https://heartlines.org.za/father-involvement/">Men</a> are often excluded from parenting either by themselves or by their partner if they cannot provide for the family. “You can’t call yourself a father if you can’t provide for your child. A father is a father if he can provide.” </p>
<p>In South Africa, a quarter (26%) of women have experienced emotional, physical or sexual <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=6634">violence</a> from a partner. Many argue that this violence, which is multidimensional, is fuelled by stereotypes that cannot be fulfilled by the majority of people.</p>
<p>Examples of expectations of young girls and boys uncovered during <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Soul-City-childrens-multi-media-series.-Research-in-Clacherty-Matshai/0552ea1d9ce80ea7f8130792f5702f6af333cc4c">research</a> for the <a href="https://www.soulcity.org.za/media/soul-buddyz-tv">Soul Buddyz</a> television series are particularly shocking.</p>
<p>A young girl (under 10 years old) stated, “I don’t like to be a girl because I don’t want to be raped by gangsters and father.” Her counterpart boy said what he didn’t like about being a boy was that “they can sometimes be violent to girls”. A <a href="https://www.soulcity.org.za/media/soul-buddyz-tv/soul-buddyz-series-3/message-brief/message-brief">repeat study</a> in 2003 found that both girls and boys associated being a boy with negative behaviour including violence and substance abuse.</p>
<p>More than half of the men in South Africa believe that beating your wife can be <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-40-05/Report-03-40-05June2018.pdf">justified</a>.</p>
<p>This society is violent and patriarchal, and the linking of these two keeps women oppressed. Not that funny when you come to think of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Goldstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gender stereotyping might be funny, but it’s no joke. A public health professor explains why she took action against everyday sexism when she heard it in a radio advert.Susan Goldstein, Professor at the School of Public Health, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1280672019-11-29T14:01:10Z2019-11-29T14:01:10ZWomen have been a lot less visible in this UK general election campaign – why?<p>Every general election is haunted by the ghosts of campaigns past. The most significant spectre in 2019 has to be Nancy Astor, who on December 1 1919 was the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons as an elected member of the UK parliament – and to whom <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-50577118">a statue was unveiled</a> in Plymouth on November 28, the anniversary of her election. One wonders what she would make of the gender politics of this campaign.</p>
<p>The omens were not good from the outset. The prime minister was criticised for his sexist phraseology, separately describing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/08/insights-big-girls-blouse-girly-swot-prime-minister-should-choose-insults-more-carefully">Jeremy Corbyn as “a big girl’s blouse” and David Cameron as “a girly swot”</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Alun Cairns resigned as Welsh secretary after allegations emerged that he knew of an aide’s role in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-50302173">sabotaging a rape trial</a>. He has vowed to “clear his name”. Alarm has also grown about the horrific abuse women MPs, particularly those of colour, <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2017/09/we-tracked-25688-abusive-tweets-sent-women-mps-half-were-directed-diane-abbott">suffer online</a> and in the streets. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/nancy-astor-theresa-may-unveils-statue-of-first-female-mp-to-sit-in-commons-11872765">In a speech </a>this week at the unveiling of Astor’s statue, Theresa May, the former prime minister, voiced concern that the decisions by several influential female parliamentarians not to seek re-election were linked to the growing toxicity of public life.</p>
<p>The media play <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q">a vital role in promoting gender equality</a> in politics and challenging discriminatory practices and discourses. This was a cornerstone of Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson’s failed legal challenge against ITV for excluding her from the televised Leaders’ Debate on 19 November. Party considerations aside, she argued the broadcaster’s decision reduced significantly the visibility of a female political leader as a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-tv-debate-jo-swinson-lib-dems-itv-corbyn-johnson-a9184736.html">role model</a> for young girls and women. As <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marian_Wright_Edelman">Marian Wright Edelman</a> once said about the need for positive and diverse female representation: ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’.</p>
<h2>Invisible women</h2>
<p>Loughborough University has been monitoring the gendered aspects of the reporting of the 2019 campaign as part of its <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/report-3/">wider “real time” audit of mainstream news coverage</a>. The most basic but significant aspect of this has been to quantify how often women are reported and quoted in election reporting.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-election-2019-is-brexit-dominating-the-media-campaign-127629">UK election 2019: is Brexit dominating the media campaign?</a>
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<p>As we show in our latest <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/report-3/">report</a>, in the 2015 general election, women political candidates and campaigners accounted for only 15% of all appearances in the media. This rose to 39% in 2017. In the 2019 campaign so far, and with a record number of women standing for parliament, female appearances have nearly halved to 20%.</p>
<p>This is a direct consequence of the replacement of Theresa May as prime minister by Boris Johnson in the interim period. UK general election news is renowned for being highly “presidentialised” and dominated by the two main parties. Boris Johnson accounts for 56% of all Conservative party appearances in the media we have analysed so far. </p>
<p>In this respect, you could argue that news organisations are prisoners of the decisions of the main parties. Gender divisions are inescapable if leading parties fail to promote women internally and promote their views publicly. </p>
<h2>Media mansplaining</h2>
<p>But what about the instances where news organisations have a more active role in deciding who speaks? Election coverage isn’t just about politicians – citizens are consulted frequently and a myriad of commercial, political and public bodies pursue media access to intervene in the public conversation. Journalists also seek out expert and professional opinion to appraise the validity of candidates’ promises and propositions.</p>
<p>Figure 1 compares the frequency with which people outside the party-political realm have either featured in coverage as citizens or in a professional capacity. There is only one category where women were reported more than men - in their personal capacity as “citizens”. In all but one professional category, men dominate the show, with the gender disparity most acute in the reporting of “unions/ charities/ NGOs”, “think tanks”, “pollsters” and (ahem) “academics”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304429/original/file-20191129-95242-1gh6741.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Figure 1: representation in the media by gender.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loughborough University</span></span>
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<p>But what of the difference between media sectors? Are the broadcasters performing better on these measures than the press? Figure 2 assesses the gender distribution of quotation within the four most prominent non-party political categories, differentiating between TV and newspaper coverage.</p>
<p>The results show that imbalances are evident across TV and the press. Women were quoted more than men in only two categories – TV vox pops of citizens and newspaper articles quoting representatives of business. The main reason for the female majority in the latter was a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7b3ac822-0221-11ea-be59-e49b2a136b8d">lengthy interview</a> published in the Financial Times with Carolyn Fairbairn, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industries – a notable exception to a consistent pattern of “mansplaining”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304428/original/file-20191129-95236-xcnrbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Figure 2: how gender imbalance differs between print and broadcast media.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loughborough University</span></span>
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<h2>The professional is political too</h2>
<p>There is plenty that is depressing about these findings, but nothing surprising. Loughborough University’s research on media coverage of UK elections <a href="https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/Reporting_the_2005_U_K_General_Election/9470708">over 27 years</a> has demonstrated how recurrent and enduring these patterns are.</p>
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<p>Is change possible or likely? This week, the prime minister marked the Astor centenary <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50581208">by promising</a> to “support women to reach their full potential” in the event of a Conservative election victory and commit the Conservatives to fielding as many women as men in future elections. Elsewhere, the BBC has recently launched a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/5050-project-results">50/50 project</a> aimed at securing 50% female contributions in BBC programmes.</p>
<p>There is no question that joint action is needed by politicians and news organisations. If editors and journalists have no control over who the parties put at the forefront of the campaign, they have undeniable gatekeeping power over the non-party voices they select. Women’s voices deserve recognition beyond the personal sphere. To adapt a familiar feminist maxim: the professional is political too.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerA">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Deacon receives funding from the ESRC, Leverhulme, British Academy, BBC Trust and Electoral Commission </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jackie Goode does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It isn’t just politicians: experts, business representatives, even academics quoted in the media are more likely to be male.Jackie Goode, Visiting Fellow in Qualitative Research, Loughborough UniversityDavid Deacon, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254532019-10-18T11:21:13Z2019-10-18T11:21:13ZPaul Gascoigne trial highlights why most women don’t report sexual abuse or rape<p>As he strode confidently into Teesside Crown Court wearing a suit and sunglasses, former England footballer, Paul Gascoigne, smiled at the assembled media to the background noises of “Alright, Paul?” and camera shutters clicking. </p>
<p>Over a three-day trial, the court heard that on the York to Newcastle Train in 2018 he had <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/paul-gazza-gascoigne-on-trial-for-sexual-assault-after-kissing-woman-on-train-told-passengers-he-was-a4261136.html">kissed a woman he did not know</a> on the lips. According to the complainant, an intoxicated man she did not recognise sat close to her on a train and tried to make conversation. She kept looking forward, eventually changed seats, and the man apologised for being noisy. He then tapped her arm, and when she turned to face him he kissed her full force on the lips. She reported being taken aback, scared, and told the court that a fellow passenger had called out the act as being sexual abuse. </p>
<p>Gascoigne acknowledged the kiss took place but claimed it was not a sexual act and was instead done to bolster her confidence after overhearing a male passenger referring to her as overweight. </p>
<p>Quite remarkably, the court were shown a selection of photographs of Gascoigne kissing and being kissed by prominent people including Princess Diana. A character reference from boxer <a href="https://twitter.com/HitmanHatton?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Ricky Hatton</a> was also read out in court affirming Gascoigne’s “normal” way of greeting people – men and women – was to hug and kiss on the cheek. </p>
<p>The jury of eight men and four women found <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50068077">Paul Gascoigne not guilty of sexual assault</a>. He was also cleared of the lesser charge of common assault.</p>
<h2>Blame the victim</h2>
<p>The commentary on this case from inside the courtroom ties into just about every “<a href="https://theconversation.com/victims-are-more-willing-to-report-rape-so-why-are-conviction-rates-still-woeful-92968">rape myth</a>” going. “Women say no when they mean yes”. “Women play hard to get”. “Women who do not fit patriarchal beauty ideals should be grateful for the attention”. “Women overreact”. “You can’t even be nice to a woman these days without being accused of something”. <a href="https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/about-sexual-violence/myths-vs-realities/">And the age-old one</a> – “he was drunk”.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/have-you-ever-wondered-how-much-energy-you-put-in-to-avoid-being-assaulted-it-may-shock-you-65372">Have you ever wondered how much energy you put in to avoid being assaulted? It may shock you</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067991/">Both men</a> and women experience sexual assault – <a href="https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/about-sexual-violence/statistics-sexual-violence/">overwhelmingly perpetrated by men</a>. But this fear in enclosed spaces of being assaulted by a man isn’t an irrational, unlikely fear. </p>
<p>Many, many women I know including myself have moved seats, switched carriages, even got off trains and waited for another one because of the fear of violence and abuse. Some will not travel by public transport for this reason. And judgements such as this make that fear even more real.</p>
<h2>Societal shift</h2>
<p>I was 12 when Gascoigne famously <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-why-watching-sport-makes-you-cry-58258">cried live on television</a> after receiving a yellow card in the 1990 FIFA World Cup semi-final. Many people were moved by this. I bought (and wore!) one of the t-shirts that showed him wiping the tears from his eyes. Decades later, these t-shirts are still available to be purchased. A “macho” “toon” lad “done good”. A man that was in touch with his emotions. These narratives made him loved by many, especially in the north-east of England. </p>
<p>Gascoigne cried again in court when the judgment was read out. Although there were reportedly cheers from his supporters in the public gallery, his tears will not make it to a t-shirt this time – and his celebrity status here in the north-east and elsewhere will sink lower.</p>
<p>There has been a significant shift in how both women and men understand women’s safety and freedom in public spaces. The complainant herself recalled seeing posters urging people to report to the British Transport Police if they were assaulted on trains. And the <a href="https://www.timesupnow.com/">#TimesUp campaign</a> shows that <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-international-legal-response-to-metoo-rape-and-sexual-abuse-is-needed-95617">public opinion has turned</a> against celebrities who think they are above the law. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the judge’s direction was to the jury in this particular case, or why the jury decided to come to a verdict of not guilty for sexual assault or for common assault. But what I do know is that showing photographs of kissing other people, having a male celebrity friend talk of hugs and kisses will not and does not make it acceptable to pester and kiss a stranger on the lips on a train under any circumstances. </p>
<p>And it’s clear the legal system needs an urgent catch up with the shift in societal understanding about sexual assault. Character witnesses and evidence that relates to a completely different context – how a person acts at work or with friends – should be prevented from being called in cases of domestic and sexual violence. Judge and jury education to dispel myths about sexual assault is needed, and lines of argument relying on such myths in court should be stopped. </p>
<p>In this case, a kiss on the lips was not sexual enough to be sexual assault, and not violent enough to be <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/blog/post/assault-offences-explained/">common assault</a>. Meaning that yet again, sexual violence falls through <a href="https://twitter.com/DannyShawBBC/status/1184765619192893441">the criminal justice cracks</a>. </p>
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<p><em>If you, or someone you know, has been affected by rape or sexual assault, you can contact <a href="https://rapecrisis.org.uk/">Rape Crisis</a> for confidential help and support.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Westmarland is Vice Chair of The Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Centre (CIO) (Darlington and County Durham)</span></em></p>Same old rape myths, same old victim blaming.Nicole Westmarland, Professor of Criminology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251662019-10-11T15:52:20Z2019-10-11T15:52:20ZWhat ‘Coleen Rooney vs Rebekah Vardy’ tells us about contemporary gender politics<p>The furore over the apparent betrayal of Coleen Rooney by her friend Rebekah Vardy – who <a href="https://time.com/5695895/coleen-rooney-rebekah-vardy-instagram-leaks-statement/">is accused</a> of leaking private information about the Rooney family to The Sun newspaper – has generated reams of British media coverage, conversation and commentary in just a few days.</p>
<p>Rooney is married to <a href="https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/2019101078939/wayne-rooney-breaks-silence-inspiring-instagram-message/">former England football star Wayne</a>, while Rebekah’s husband is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/jamie-vardy">England player Jamie</a>. The pair are stalwarts of the UK’s tabloid media and barely a day does by without a mention of one or the other as they pursue an expensive lifestyle in full view of the paparazzi.</p>
<p>But nobody was prepared for the media storm that would break when Coleen Rooney alleged on Twitter that, suspecting someone close to her had been leaking family secrets to the tabloid press, she had conducted an elaborate “sting” which appeared to suggest Rebekah Vardy had been the culprit. Vardy has denied this vehemently and is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/10/rebekah-vardy-hires-it-experts-over-coleen-rooney-leak-claims">reported to be hiring investigators</a> to prove her innocence.</p>
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<p>The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/09/coleen-rooney-rebekah-vardy-twitter-wag-wars">described the spat</a> as “the best day on Twitter of all time”. The Daily Mirror was quick to line up those celebrities who were on “Team Rooney” and “Team Vardy” in what journalists have dubbed the “<a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/celebs-take-sides-wagatha-christie-20558873">Wagatha Christie saga</a>”. It’s surely one of the best headlines of all time. </p>
<p>On one level the affair has provided watchers with the kind of media intrigue and entertainment that comes as a welcome relief in the UK amid the continuing social divisions caused by Brexit. But we might also stop to ask ourselves why this spectacularised “spat” between “WAGs” (an acronym for wives and girlfriends of footballers) has been seized upon with such obvious and unrestrained glee. Why does tabloid media culture revel so deeply in “cat-fights” between women and what is it about the media spectacle of women at each other’s throats that prompts such relish and delight? </p>
<p>In media culture more broadly, women’s friendship is frequently represented as characterised by jealousy, competition, and rivalry. It’s as if meaningful solidarity, friendship and love between women can never authentically exist. This is not new – think of the intense scrutiny of <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/katy-perry-1984">Taylor Swift and Katy Perry’s</a> “cat-fight”, or the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/feud-bette-davis-went-war-joan-crawford/">long-term feud</a> between Hollywood stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, which has become mythologised in histories of the Golden Age of Hollywood. </p>
<p>Even before mass media culture, fairy tales were replete with battles between witches and fair maidens – these stories are hundreds of years old but continue to be returned to and adapted from Disney to pantomimes.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there is no shortage of representations of genuine male friendship – consider the prevalence of the “<a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/girl-friends-film-lifelike-female-friendships-big-screen">buddy movie</a>”. But in much of the contemporary modern cultural imaginary, female friendship is often understood as illusory or a sham – as merely a superficial pretence of supportive companionship that conceals ruthless self-interest or the willingness to throw one another under the bus at the first opportunity.</p>
<h2>Light relief</h2>
<p>The timing of “WAGatha Christie” couldn’t be more perfect. With daily headlines dominated by the relentlessly grim news of Brexit and the bickering, infighting and inability to make decisions by a cohort of powerful (mainly) male politicians, this feud is providing a distraction. To many it’s a welcome respite from the seemingly more serious sphere of mainstream politics and the Brexit negotiations which will have a very real and lasting consequences.</p>
<p>The media vortex surrounding Rooney and Vardy has reinvigorated the notion of the WAG, which was at its zenith in celebrity culture about 13 years ago during the <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/world-cup-2018/6676593/2006-world-cup-wags/">2006 World Cup</a>. This suggests that perhaps the celebrity status of the WAG is not as fleeting as we might have assumed, and what we are witnessing is its evolution and adaptation in a digital context. Platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have of course been instrumental in the unravelling of the WAGatha Christie media storm.</p>
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<p>What this <a href="https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/feud-for-thought-the-rise-of-brand-banter-on-social-media/553995/">context of social media</a> has facilitated is an acceleration and intensification of the gossip surrounding female celebrity cat-fights. Gossip now emerges in real-time – reactions and responses are instantaneous. </p>
<p>The digital architecture and culture of social media incites “bitchiness”, trolling and judgement, while the power to produce gossip is no longer solely in the hands of tabloid journalists and celebrity gossip bloggers. Celebrities themselves are now an accepted part of the gossip-producing industry, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2018/04/02/brands-branding-and-celebrities/">using social media as a platform</a> to reveal their “private” lives and scandals that have long been sought-after by the celebrity audience since the early days of Hollywood.</p>
<h2>Coleen, Mrs Who?</h2>
<p>But if some things have changed since the emergence of the WAG, other things have remained depressingly the same. These women’s identities are still defined primarily – or even exclusively – by their relationships to men: they are wives and girlfriends before they are anything else. </p>
<p>This is part of a much longer history in which women’s lives and identities are trivialised, objectified and made subservient to those of men. But a feminist perspective can help us to reimagine what women’s identities and female friendships can be. </p>
<p>You only have to look at the way the word “gossip” has come to mean a kind of bitchy and backstabbing talk between women. As the feminist theorist <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/21592/capitalism-witches-women-witch-hunting-sylvia-federici-caliban">Silvia Federici has shown</a>, historically this word had a very different, much less pejorative meaning. Until the rise of the witch-hunts in the 16th and 17th centuries, it signified female friendship, attachment and solidarity – the opposite of the ways it is now used.</p>
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<p>It was the communal power of women’s friendship that was seen as deeply threatening and so which needed to be destroyed: the word “gossip” therefore became a way to pit women against one another and to destroy the bonds between them. In being invited to “pick a team” – Rooney or Vardy – we are playing a clever and insidious game that patriarchy has set the rules for.</p>
<p>It is in patriarchy’s interests for women’s friendship to be understood as competitive, atomised and inauthentic. So when we buy into the narratives of cat-fights, bitch-fests and jealous rivalries, we are in many ways doing patriarchy’s work for it. What would it mean for us to refuse to “pick a team”, and decline to play by the rules of a game in which women can only ever be the losers?</p>
<p></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We might lap up the spectacle of two high-profile women fighting publicly, but when do you ever hear about men having ‘cat-fights’?Jilly Kay, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of LeicesterMelanie Kennedy, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1220962019-08-27T09:53:47Z2019-08-27T09:53:47ZBeer has a sexism problem and it goes much deeper than chauvinistic marketing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289103/original/file-20190822-170918-705n6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cheers-my-friends-three-handsome-men-658555867?src=e0lRqQKxjkcNh2tdmi_BFg-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When CAMRA, the UK real ale campaign group, decided to <a href="https://www.camra.org.uk/press_release/camra-bans-discriminatory-beers-at-its-flagship-festival/">ban beers with sexist names and labels</a> from the Great British Beer Festival this summer, the responses were quite predictable. Liberal newspaper <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/aug/07/camra-calls-time-on-sexist-names-at-great-british-beer-festival">The Guardian</a> celebrated the decision to call time on drinks that depict outdated, sexualised and derogatory images of women. Tabloid paper <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9697948/campaign-for-real-ale-dubbed-humourless-banning-sexist-beers/">The Sun</a>, by contrast, said that CAMRA lacks a “sense of humour”, listing a series of beers, complete with images, that would “struggle to escape the PC brigade”. </p>
<p>Like the reaction to Berkeley city council’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uproar-over-taking-man-out-of-manhole-120821">decision to rename “manholes” as “maintenance holes”</a>, gendered images and language are divisive topics. The evidence, however, suggests that the language and images we use in everyday life shape the way we think about who belongs in a particular social setting. And, more importantly, who doesn’t.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288756/original/file-20190820-170931-y5g5cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the beers banned by CAMRA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ink_mama/6371168889/">Amber DeGrace</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>CAMRA explained its decision as a ban on “discriminatory beers”. The intention was to open beer drinking up to women who would otherwise feel alienated by sexist advertising. There is nothing inherently male about beer, and no reason why women shouldn’t drink it. So diversifying beer culture seems like good business sense for brewers. </p>
<p>Women make up only 17% of beer drinkers in the UK so there is clearly an untapped market here. According to <a href="https://dealatis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Gender-Pint-Gap-Report_Dea-Latis_May-2018.pdf">research conducted by YouGov for Dea Latis</a>, a group of women brewers, advertising is the single largest barrier to more women drinking beer. So, from this perspective, banning sexist marketing seems like a good idea.</p>
<h2>Industry-wide inequality</h2>
<p>While banning sexist beer names and pump clips might help to change the culture of drinking, more needs to be done to achieve gender equality in the brewing industry itself. There have certainly been moves to open up brewing to greater diversity. The <a href="https://www.pinkbootssociety.org/">Pink Boots Society</a> has promoted women in brewing since the mid 2000s, and the <a href="https://twitter.com/femalefestival?lang=en">FemAle beer festival</a> has been celebrating women in brewing since 2014. </p>
<p>Despite this, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469540518806956">academic research</a> suggests that significant cultural barriers to women participating in brewing remain. <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315205861/chapters/10.4324/9781315205861-8">Research</a> that <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/business/staff/profile.aspx?ReferenceId=57322">Scott Taylor</a>, <a href="https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/NeilSutherland">Neil Sutherland</a> and I conducted in the craft brewing industry, with women from the US, the UK and Sweden, found several persistent barriers to women getting into and progressing in the beer business.</p>
<p>Sexual harassment is an issue in a range of industries and brewing is no exception. Ranging from inappropriate touching to unsolicited sexual advances and objectifying comments, several of the women we interviewed reported sexual harassment at work. The regular consumption of alcohol as a part of everyday working life made harassment even more likely. </p>
<p>For anyone in marketing and sales, spending time in bars and pubs is a crucial part of the job, so dealing with men under the influence is a part of everyday work. Many find that their working life regularly overlaps with other people’s social lives – and a “professional context” is far from guaranteed.</p>
<p>The hours involved in the brewing industry also create another barrier for women, who still shoulder most responsibility for <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10">unpaid domestic work and childcare</a>. Unpredictable or anti-social working hours are more likely to impact on women’s careers than men’s. </p>
<p>The material process of brewing means that it doesn’t always fit well into a standard nine-to-five working day. Depending on the type of beer being brewed, or the nature of the ingredients, getting the beer from raw material into the fermentation vessels, can stretch the working day from 5am to nearly midnight, as one brewer told us. Another explained: “The raw materials are in charge … I thought I was going to be home at a certain time, and I wasn’t. We had to stick it out and babysit our beer and make sure that it was OK.” </p>
<p>As many breweries, especially in the growing craft beer scene, are small, brewers have to see a process through from start to finish. This can clash with the responsibilities placed on women outside of work. As pay in the industry is relatively low, outsourcing these domestic responsibilities is not always an option.</p>
<h2>Inadvertent sexism</h2>
<p>The design of brewing equipment also creates barriers. As women are, on average, a different shape and size than men, the design of equipment can create additional challenges for women in the industry, a point that sociologist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1394914?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Cynthia Cockburn</a> made back in the 1980s. Several of the brewers we spoke to discussed the physical demands of brewing, and recurrent back injuries. Of course, these affect men too, but have a disproportionate impact on women, as equipment is designed with men’s bodies in mind. </p>
<p>Brewers must master all aspects of the process and men can inadvertently exclude women from career progress by trying to help them. As one brewer told us, when she started out she faced “a huge hurdle of getting over everybody’s instinctual chivalry, which wasn’t allowing me to do my job. There was never a problem about it, but I would go: ‘Okay, I’ll lift that,’ and they’d be like: ‘No, are you sure? I’ll lift it.’ And I’d be like: ‘yes, I’m really sure.’” Overcoming this inadvertent sexism was another barrier for women wanting to get on in the industry because they had to constantly prove themselves in a way that men didn’t.</p>
<p>These kinds of everyday discrimination continue to create barriers to women working in brewing and suggest that genuine diversity in the beer business will require more than a change of pump-clips and advertising. Despite this, our research did suggest that changes in the industry, and particularly the rise of craft brewing, has created new opportunities for women. </p>
<p>As the craft beer scene is focused on innovation, experimentation and aesthetic taste, women can position themselves as disruptors in the industry, challenging the “male, pale and stale” image that has <a href="https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/26539/3/26539.pdf">fenced real ale off as a masculine space</a>. By bringing new styles of beer, and new methods of production, women can claim a place in a business that has been dominated by men for the last 400 years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Land does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beers with sexist names and labels were banned from the Great British Beer Festival this summer.Chris Land, Professor of Work and Organisation, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072092018-12-05T14:06:07Z2018-12-05T14:06:07ZRichard Rolle: 14th-century theologian who could have taught modern men a thing or two about #MeToo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248981/original/file-20181205-186079-gy7ohd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Codex Manesse, circa 1305-1315</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Meister Johannes Hadlaub, UB Heidelberg</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In around 1340 Richard Rolle, a 14th-century Yorkshire hermit and mystic, wrote the <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolle/fire.html">Fire of Love</a>, part autobiography but largely a guide to achieving mystical union with God. </p>
<p>In chapter 12, he acknowledges that in his early life as a hermit he had been rebuked by various women for paying them too much attention: in one case policing her clothing, in others for making sexualised comments about their bodies, and trying to touch them. In one case he “perhaps already had done so”. It all sounds remarkably like admissions of guilt – but very equivocal admissions at that: <em>perhaps</em> he’s already touched one or another of them.</p>
<p>American scholar <a href="https://twitter.com/meganlcook/status/1062704531102986242">Megan Cook</a> of Colby College in Maine posted the passage to Twitter recently, suggesting that sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour towards women socially and in the workplace are long established – but that if a 14th-century hermit could apologise, so can contemporary perpetrators.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1062704531102986242"}"></div></p>
<p>Is this then an early 14th century #MeToo moment, with strongminded Yorkshire women calling out the over-entitled young hermit?</p>
<p>Our first question is whether we can even trust that the events Rolle describes actually happened. About the same time as Rolle was writing, a London manuscript, the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-smithfield-decretals">Smithfield Decretals</a>, was extensively illustrated with lively scenes from life and fable. There is a series devoted to the story of the <a href="http://www.essexvoicespast.com/the-sinful-hermit/">Bad Hermit</a> who, living alone, is tempted by the devil – he goes to the tavern, gets drunk, has sex with the miller’s wife, is confronted by the miller whom he beats to death, goes mad, flees to the wilderness and is eventually healed by confession and recovered by a monk. </p>
<p>The parallels with Rolle’s account are striking. Rolle probably had not seen the Smithfield manuscript, but he was drawing on a well-known <em>topos</em> or what we might call narrative arc. Rolle was looking back some 15 or 20 years to his early conversion to the hermit’s life, and part of the purpose of his text was to show his journey from youthful sinner to now accomplished mystic. </p>
<p>Without sin and penance there could be no redemption. Nevertheless, the specifics of Rolle’s misbehaviour, clumsy conflations of moral and spiritual guidance and sexual interest, are so much of a piece with his later career that they are likely to be very personal. But they also raise questions about youthful clerical masculinity more generally.</p>
<h2>Original sin</h2>
<p>Rolle had been a student at Oxford before he abandoned academia for the hermit’s life. Students were mostly planning on a career as monk or secular priest but they were generally too young (in their teens) to have taken vows of celibacy. So a life that involved sexual contact with women, or perhaps more commonly an ambivalent attitude that both permitted but also disapproved of such contact, was a common part of their experience. </p>
<p>Rolle recognised that he had done wrong and that he needed to re-orientate his life from worldly pleasures to the love of God. The women acted as useful reminders to him – but he clearly felt his wrong was less towards them than towards God. It is notable that, on the second page of chapter 12, Rolle describes a fourth woman, who “despised” him saying that he had “a beautiful face and a lovely voice” but “had done nothing”. The woman’s words are a call to masculine action in embarking upon the penitential and purgative path towards God.</p>
<h2>Improper intentions</h2>
<p>Rolle was a man who owed a lot to the women in his life. At the beginning of his new religious life his sister gave him two of her gowns so that he could fashion a hermit’s robe and mantle, in contrast to the presumably shorter and more fashionable student gear he had been wearing (the outfit he produced is remarkably like that worn by the Bad Hermit). </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248984/original/file-20181205-186058-129xexl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">#HimToo? Richard Rolle, 14th-century mystic and modern guy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Anchoress (a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8Vq_-ZFRtnkC&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=Margaret+Kirkby+anchoress&source=bl&ots=fBC8gJ2zhE&sig=ifRnFlDKpjKteRpXgbQdltKDw4c&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Margaret%20Kirkby%20anchoress&f=false">female religious recluse</a>), Margaret Kirkby, to whom he acted as a spiritual director in his later years, promoted his cult as a saint at the nunnery of Hampole near Doncaster and numbers of his texts are addressed to women.</p>
<p>Rolle appreciated the value of friendship between men and women, and thought it rewarding, provided it was not distracted by “improper” intentions, but though “God does not want women to be despised by men” he also thought that women needed direction from men (particularly men like him).</p>
<p>Those unnamed 14th-century Yorkshire women knew what they were talking about, but Rolle was only half listening – and his response was about him, not them. It is to be hoped that their 21st-century granddaughters find the men of our own day able to do a better job. Jury’s out so far.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pat Cullum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In his text Fire of Love, Rolle has a few interesting things to say about medieval gender relations.Pat Cullum, Principal Lecturer, Department of English, Linguistics and History, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027942018-09-07T13:59:31Z2018-09-07T13:59:31ZLad culture and sexual harassment in universities: it’s about more than a ‘few bad apples’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235395/original/file-20180907-90553-r6ivpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/very-drunk-man-want-meet-beautiful-1059949883?src=4psbqAWvr4PDsCirPGsnzA-4-35">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sexual harassment is widespread and <a href="http://everydaysexism.com/">affects the lives</a> of women and girls, in particular, every day. In the face of calls to tackle sexual harassment and violence, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45423789">UK government committed</a> to carry out a review to see if misogyny should be treated as a hate crime. This review is a welcome and important step, but studies we conducted at UK universities indicate that the law alone won’t be enough to tackle sexual harassment. </p>
<p>As researchers looking into higher education, we know that sexual harassment and violence are widespread in universities – they’re a core part of what’s known as “lad culture”. The National Union of Students (NUS) has conducted several studies about students’ experiences, and found that <a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/global/nus_hidden_marks_report_2nd_edition_web.pdf">two-thirds of women students</a> have experienced verbal or non-verbal harassment; <a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/global/nus_hidden_marks_report_2nd_edition_web.pdf">one in seven women students</a> has experienced serious physical or sexual assault; and 37% of women and 12% of men students <a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/Global/20140911%20Lad%20Culture%20FINAL.pdf">have experienced</a> unwanted sexual advances. </p>
<p>This trend is not specific to the UK: <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/publications/change-course-national-report-sexual-assault-and-sexual">a recent survey</a> of all 39 universities in Australia, for example, revealed that 51% of university students were sexually harassed on at least one occasion in 2016, with higher rates among some groups including women students, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse students and disabled students.</p>
<h2>A pervasive problem</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540253.2018.1501006">research</a>, published in 2018, suggests that despite evidence of pervasive sexism, harassment and sexual violence in universities, the extent of these behaviours is not usually recognised by staff. We interviewed 72 staff across six universities in England, including senior managers such as pro-vice chancellors, student union officers, lecturers, welfare tutors and security staff. </p>
<p>Our analyses showed that most staff underestimate the pervasiveness of lad culture. This is illustrated by Alex, a student union officer, who said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We don’t notice it, so I think it’s quite accepted. Because when I was first thinking about lad culture at this university I thought ‘oh well there isn’t really’ and then I realised actually there is and there’s quite a lot of it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Staff who had become conscious of the widespread nature of lad culture, often student union staff, conveyed the ways in which sexism, harassment and sexual violence are so common in university contexts that they are normalised and unremarkable – part of “the wallpaper of sexism”. </p>
<p>And because it is so normal, students rarely report it – as Abby, a student union officer, told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve definitely been touched when I’ve said ‘don’t touch me’, I’ve definitely had my skirt pulled up, I’ve definitely had people like kiss me when I’ve said ‘get away from me’, and they’ll just take your face and they’ll just kiss you. There’s not a lot you can do about it but I’d never ever think to report it … it’s like what would you say to report, ‘cos I could give you 20 reports from one night out.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ways of tackling sexual harassment that rely on reporting - like the hate crime legislation – are unlikely to be effective if sexual harassment is so frequent that reporting it seems unimaginable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235394/original/file-20180907-90571-748rnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Where do I begin?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-tired-woman-drinking-alcohol-beverage-1061755067?src=awDgrj19H43NMwScvXQzQw-1-5">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In our study, only some of the more extreme instances were noticed by staff. This meant they only saw the tip of the iceberg, and so underestimated its prevalence. Ella, a lecturer and programme leader, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>By the time the issues come to me, then I’d say [laddism] is fairly infrequent but I can imagine that if I investigate it I’d probably find that it’s a lot more frequent than it appears … Normally by the time it comes to my door it can be pretty serious.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The law is not enough</h2>
<p>When institutions underestimate the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and violence, it has an impact on how it’s understood, explained and addressed. If only extreme cases are recognised, it can mean that it’s seen as a personal problem – the perpetrators are cast as “a few bad apples”, while institutional cultures are left unexamined, and unchallenged. </p>
<p>It also means that institutions respond using disciplinary processes that focus on individual punishment, and rely on individuals to report their experiences – much like the proposed hate crime legislation. Such mechanisms are important, but they’re not enough. For example, we know that there are <a href="http://usvreact.eu/usvreact_report2018/">many cultural barriers</a>, such as shame and fear of not being believed, that prevent survivors from reporting. </p>
<p>Until we move beyond seeing sexual harassment and violence as being committed by a “few bad apples” we will fail to understand the causes, and address them properly. These acts are not typically committed by “sex pests” or “monsters”. These behaviours reflect a wider culture in which sexual harassment and violence become normal, and are trivialised to such a point that they become unremarkable. </p>
<p>We need to challenge this culture and address the structural and systemic gender inequality that underpins it, rather than respond only to individual incidents as they occur, as the proposed hate crime law would do. </p>
<p><em>Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of respondents.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Jackson received funding for this research from Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanita Sundaram received funding for this research from Society for Research into Higher Education. </span></em></p>Sexual harassment and violence are widespread in universities, and in everyday life. For that to change, the culture has to first.Carolyn Jackson, Professor of Gender and Education, Lancaster UniversityVanita Sundaram, Professor of Education, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873742017-11-16T13:34:01Z2017-11-16T13:34:01ZActing unpleasantly: why harassment is so common in the theatre<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195053/original/file-20171116-15454-14djjxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fer Gregory via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Old Vic has announced that it has received 20 “personal testimonies of alleged inappropriate behaviour” <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42009596">by Kevin Spacey</a> during the years he was artistic director at the theatre, between 2004 and 2016. Given the number of high-profile cases from the entertainment world being investigated, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/harvey-weinstein-44767">Harvey Weinstein</a> in Hollywood to <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/gate-theatre-announces-independent-probe-into-allegations-of-sexual-harassment-36305228.html">Michael Colgan at the Gate Theatre</a>, it is worth querying whether there is something in the nature of the performing arts industry which creates conditions conducive to exploitation.</p>
<p>At present, the roll-call of the accused is an all-male list. This is not to suggest that there is something innate within men that leads them to bully, harass and assault. Rather, as Roberta Mangini <a href="https://theconversation.com/powerful-men-have-tried-to-silence-abused-women-since-medieval-times-86117">argues elsewhere on The Conversation</a>, there is a connection between structures of power and behaviour that works to intimidate, silence, and punish. </p>
<p>It should, however, be pointed out that power manifests itself in different ways. In the theatre and entertainment industry, men continue to occupy not only positions of power in greater numbers than women, but a <a href="https://womenandhollywood.com/resources/statistics">greater number of jobs in general</a>. Victims, however, are not gender-specific – and what seems to be at play is the treatment of certain people in the industry as commodities rather than equals.</p>
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<p>My research focuses on collaborative and devised theatre making and – while some companies attempt to operate as collectives where everyone shares equal status – in practice most groups end up (formally or informally) reverting to a hierarchical structure, with the director and/or producer at the top of the hierarchy. </p>
<p>Though every process is different, actors often participate in the development of a piece of theatre in ways that can make them vulnerable. This can involve the sharing of personal stories and intimate details which may then be used to generate performance material. Development work often demands a high degree of close physical contact between performers, and sometimes involves nudity. The pressures of time and budget involved in mounting a production can also result in high emotions and large amounts of stress.</p>
<p>None of these things necessitate bullying or abuse – and many actors are happy to work within these conditions. But, combined with job insecurity, some actors may feel less able to protest when the circumstances of collaboration make them feel uncomfortable. Class, gender, sexuality, race, and disability add extra layers of vulnerability. In addition, actors may not always be fully in control of how the material they have contributed is used by those further up the hierarchy.</p>
<h2>Baring all</h2>
<p>One example of this is the research and development process of the canonical play <a href="https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/cloud-nine/25-oct-2007-8-dec-2007">Cloud Nine</a> (1979), produced by Max Stafford-Clark’s company Joint Stock. Stafford-Clark is another prominent theatre figure who <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/21/top-theatre-director-sorry-inappropriate-sexual-comments-made">has been accused of (and apologised for)</a> inappropriate behaviour. </p>
<p>As part of the development of the script – by Britain’s leading playwright Caryl Churchill – actors, who were cast in order to represent different experiences of sexuality, shared very intimate details of their own sexual experiences, along with other invited guests. As Stafford-Clark himself has stated: “a vow of confidentiality was made from the outset” of the process, although it appears that this was not set out in a written contract.</p>
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<span class="caption">Intimate: the development of a play often involves close collaboration between actors and writers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christian Bertrand via Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>The problem is not with the play itself. Churchill’s work was a groundbreaking challenge to hegemonic notions of sexuality and gender and the text does not directly employ any of the stories shared by the workshop participants. </p>
<p>But, in Stafford-Clark’s 2007 (co-written) book Taking Stock, intimate details of the workshop process are revealed – including documentation of the sexual experiences revealed by actors and other participants. Stafford-Clark’s journals, which detail the process and connect specific names with comments and information shared, were also <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/production-diary-for-top-girls-kept-by-director-max-stafford-clark">deposited in the British Library</a>.</p>
<p>There is no indication that anyone was harassed or abused during the research and development period and production of Cloud Nine. However, in including these intimate details in a book from which he profited, Stafford-Clark can be accused of exploiting his hierarchical position. </p>
<p>I contacted Stafford-Clark’s agent via email to inquire about this episode and offer the director right of reply, but received no response by the time of publication.</p>
<p>Joint Stock was supposed to operate within the principles of collectivism – but original cast member Miriam Margolyes, who I interviewed for my PhD dissertation in 2011, told me it was a “spurious democracy”. Stafford-Clark had the power to hire and fire, and all the actors knew this. The actors participated in the workshop in good faith that these details would not be made public – and while, according to Margolyes, he did remove specific references to names from the book after she protested about a proof copy, she described the publication as “absolutely disgraceful”. The cast is listed at the beginning of the section – and anyone with a bit of industry knowledge might be able to guess the provenance of certain revelations.</p>
<h2>Question of power</h2>
<p>Exposing actors in this way is not the same as assault or rape – but this kind of behaviour arguably shares a connection with the sexual abuse perpetrated by Weinstein and others in the way it commodifies actors and others who wield less power in the hierarchy of theatre. There is an assumption, probably because some actors have public profiles, that performers hold positions of power – however, the oversupply of labour means that many worry that if they speak out against abuse (of all kinds) they will lose opportunities for work. </p>
<p>The majority of collaborative companies I have researched are not exploitative – but it is clear that measures need to be taken to protect actors and others from this possibility.</p>
<p>The Royal Court’s <a href="https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/no-grey-area-your-stories-heard/">No Grey Area</a> which allowed participants to share accounts of abuse, and Theatre Deli’s <a href="https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/Event/dd-satellite-sexual-abuse">Devoted and Disgruntled Open Space</a> event, focusing on preventing sexual abuse in the theatre industry, are important initiatives to allow people to share stories and discuss how exploitative behaviour can be stopped. </p>
<p>My own observations of development and rehearsal processes indicate that they work best when rules and guidelines are agreed to and adopted from the beginning, and posted for all to see. Companies should consider adopting rules specifically structured to avoid sexual abuse and exploitative actions, which apply to all collaborators. It would be even better to have these enshrined in a written, signed contract, with clear repercussions for breaches. </p>
<p>Finally, although it is difficult to dispense with hierarchical systems within the entertainment industry, we must work to make those in power feel less secure in their ability to exploit others, by actively supporting those who choose to speak out about abuse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Karen Morash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is there something in the way theatre is organised that makes abuse of power so depressingly commonplace?Dr Karen Morash, PhD Graduand, Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/767482017-07-28T14:05:55Z2017-07-28T14:05:55ZSportswomen still face sexism, but feminism can help achieve a level playing field<p>Female athletes and leaders are undeniably more visible and increasingly successful in sport – putting in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31627312">incredible performances</a> both <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2658615-team-gbs-hockey-success-at-rio-2016-has-helped-redefine-british-sport%5D">on and off the field</a>. But these achievements still occur in a male defined sport sector – where female stars have to tackle marginalisation and sexualisation of their sporting performance and leadership skills. </p>
<p>Recent research also suggests that coverage of women’s sports has actually <a href="http://www.excellesports.com/news/womens-sports-coverage-sexist/">become more sexist</a> over the past four years – making it clear that in the current age, <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/everyday-sexism/laura-bates/9781471149207">everyday sexism</a> characterises the culture of sport. </p>
<p>Elite sportswomen who gain public visibility and acceptance <a href="https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.springer-doi-10_1007-S11199-015-0497-6">tend to embody a femininity</a> that appeals to white, male heterosexual audiences (and TV producers). This means that women and girls can be subjects of unparalleled achievements in sport, but at the same time, they will be looked at as sex objects – and often applauded for their commitment to heterosexual domestic mothering roles. </p>
<p>Take Jessica Ennis-Hill, undoubtedly one of the world-leading heptathletes of all time, yet reports and pictures claiming her “golden girl” status are based more on her looks, model poses and domestic relationships than her <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-3559174/Jessica-Ennis-Hill-mother-Alison-support-other.html">athletic achievements</a>. </p>
<p>In surfing, women have increased recognition by the <a href="http://www.worldsurfleague.com/">World Surf League</a> via media coverage of women’s events and <a href="http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/the-english-surfing-federation-recently-joined-the-wsl-in-the-effort-to-offer-equal-pay-for-male-and-female-co_135052">increased prize money</a>. Yet imagery of the female surfer is still highly <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1329878X1515500112">sexualised and objectified</a>. Professional female surfers highlight that the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-15/female-surfers-call-for-end-to-sexist-culture-in-sport/7329932">industry is sexist and sponsors ignore surf talent</a> in favour of model looks. Many struggle to find sponsorship and report <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230523173_15">feeling pressured</a> to “show their arse” rather than “kick arse”. </p>
<p>Alana Blanchard, for example, remains the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-15/female-surfers-call-for-end-to-sexist-culture-in-sport/7329932">highest-paid female surfer</a> via sponsorship and endorsements. She is a darling of social media and <a href="http://stabmag.com/style/surfings-social-media-leaders-in-september/">tops polls</a> for being the “most popular athlete”, or “best photo” among male and female surfers. But she did not make it into the world top 30 in 2016.</p>
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<p>Female athletes, including the boxer Nicola Adams, have <a href="http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/boxing-champion-nicola-adams-on-the-fight-for-equality-in-sport-1-8310911">highlighted the fight</a> for sporting equality. Adams has called for boxing to have more female ambassadors – like herself. Casey Stoney, a footballer who plays for Liverpool in the English FA Super League has also spoken about the difficulty of being female and being a sports star. She has openly identified the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28316160">struggle in coming out</a> and being a mother in sport. Meanwhile Heather Rabbatts – the FA’s first female non-executive director and board member – has been <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/heather-rabbatts-many-women-would-love-a-role-in-sport-but-our-culture-stops-them-8646205.html">vocal about the restricted professional roles</a> for women in the male culture of sport.</p>
<h2>A man’s world</h2>
<p>So it’s good news then that some governments and international organisations are beginning to address the inequalities that female coaches and administrators face in sport. The recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-of-the-governments-women-and-sport-advisory-board">UK Government’s Women and Sport Report</a> also recognises the scale of the problem. </p>
<p>The International Olympic Committee has additionally claimed that the “real” problem for gender equality in sport is not simply fewer numbers of female athletes and events, but the <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-steps-it-up-for-gender-equality-on-international-women-s-day">lack of women in leadership and decision-making</a> roles more generally. </p>
<p>In our forthcoming book, we highlight how <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/project/The-Handbook-of-Feminisms-in-Sport-Leisure-and-Physical-Education">every sporting era is characterised by gender regulation</a>, discrimination, sexism and misogyny. Yet throughout history, feminist work has helped to challenge the sexualisation of female athletes – helping to open up the sporting world for females, while at the same time <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org">transforming gender-related rights</a> and athlete welfare. </p>
<p>It is in this way that men and women across the sporting sector can continue to help to challenge and change the everyday sexism in the culture of elite sport. This is something that is vitally important – because, for women, pathways to power are invariably littered with reminders that sport is still very much a man’s world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76748/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Mansfield works for Brunel University London and receives funding from UK research councils,
government organisations and charities. She is affiliated with the Leisure Studies Association, the International Sociology of Sport Association and the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Belinda Wheaton works for The University of Waikato, NZ. She receives funding from UK and NZ research councils, and charities. She is affiliated with the Leisure Studies Association, the International Sociology of Sport Association and the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jayne Caudwell works for Bournemouth University. She receives, occasionally, external funding including government-funded, foundation or research council grants. She is affiliated with Leisure Studies Association, Amnesty International, the Labour Party and the University and College Union, </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Watson works for Leeds Beckett University. She receives, occasionally, external funding including government-funded, foundation or research council grants. She is affiliated with Leisure Studies Association and the University and College Union. </span></em></p>The reality of life as a female sports star.Louise Mansfield, Senior Lecturer in Sport, Health and Social Sciences, Brunel University LondonBelinda Wheaton, Associate Professor in Sport and Leisure Studies, University of WaikatoJayne Caudwell, Associate Professor Leisure Cultures, Bournemouth UniversityRebecca Watson, Reader in Sport and Leisure and Studies, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/686972016-11-15T12:29:25Z2016-11-15T12:29:25ZWhen it comes to experts on TV, women are still neither seen nor heard<p>What does an “expert” look like? If you took the example of news media, it would invariably be a man; usually – in Britain anyway – a white, middle-aged man.</p>
<p>Women make up roughly half of the world’s population and have also increased their representation in public life over the past ten years. And yet when journalists reporting for television, radio or newspapers turn to an expert, it tends to be male. But while you may have started to notice that every panel on TV has three men to every woman, you might not realise just quite how extensive this imbalance is.</p>
<p>Since 1995, the <a href="http://whomakesthenews.org/">Global Media Monitoring Project</a> has carried out research into gender and the media. Every five years, volunteers around the world record a snapshot of the gender representations in news stories over one day. The methodology of the survey has been updated and improved with each survey – and 114 countries participated in the last one. Sadly, the results have changed comparatively little. According to the <a href="http://cdn.agilitycms.com/who-makes-the-news/Imported/reports_2015/highlights/highlights_en.pdf">Who Makes the News report</a>, compiled from the findings in 2015, in newspaper, television and radio news women accounted for just 24% of the people heard, read about or seen. That figure hasn’t changed since 2010. In addition, only 10% of all stories focused on women, a figure unchanged since 2000.</p>
<p>You might assume those numbers are skewed by countries where women play less of a role in society. However Lis Howells of City University in London has analysed the numbers of female contributors on the UK’s flagship broadcast news programmes – including ITV News at Ten, Channel Four News and the Today programme on BBC radio 4. Her <a href="http://www.city.ac.uk/news/2015/november/research-reveals-success-of-campaign-to-increase-proportion-of-women-experts-in-news">research has shown</a> that male contributors still outnumber women by three to one – and that’s an improvement from six to one in 2011 thanks in part to a <a href="http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/people/broadcast-launches-expert-women-campaign/5037709.article">campaign by Broadcast Magazine</a>.</p>
<p>But there is an additional problem. When women do appear in broadcast news, according to journalism academics Karen Ross, Karen Boyle, Cynthia Carter and Debbie Ging, they invariably fall into <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1222884">several stereotypical categories</a>. Increasingly they tend to be interviewed about their personal experience – often as victims of crime, or as parents or as consumers. They also appear far more often than men in health stories. Where they tend to appear far less is as authoritative or elite sources in political or economic stories.</p>
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<p>The Fawcett Society highlights that the press also tends to <a href="http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/where-are-womens-voices-on-the-economy.pdf">mention what women are wearing</a>. This is also true of the coverage of sportswomen. Meanwhile, the images of women we are given in many newspapers are generally sexualised and stereotyped. It’s an issue the campaign group Object <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/">highlighted to the Leveson Inquiry</a> into press standards. Anna Van Heeswijk, the CEO of Object, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20554942">told the inquiry</a> that in many cases there was “no marked difference” between pornography and some of the pictures in the UK tabloids.</p>
<p>As a political journalist for the BBC Northern Ireland programme <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mvyd/clips">Hearts and Minds</a> for around a decade, I spent a lot of time trying to find female contributors – but if women simply didn’t want to take part, it then seemed acceptable to fall back on the male experts who were generally available and spoke well. As a listener to the media I used to produce, a lot of the time I still hear the same men on air that I was interviewing five years ago.</p>
<h2>Everyday sexism</h2>
<p>It’s easy to understand why women can be reluctant to be interviewed for broadcast. When a woman gives her opinion in public there’s always the chance she is opening herself up to abuse. The renowned professor of classics, Mary Beard, suffered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jan/21/mary-beard-suffers-twitter-abuse">intense online trolling</a> after appearing on television. And when the Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments">analysed 70m online comments</a> on its articles, it found that of the ten people who received the most abuse, eight were women. </p>
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<p>In addition to that, women tend to find it harder than men to ignore “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/imposter-syndrome-why-do-so-many-women-feel-like-frauds/">imposter syndrome</a>” – where they feel as if they are not qualified to talk about a given subject, even if they are experts. And while there have been campaigns by broadcasters to offer media training to women, unless these potential new contributors are flagged up to journalists, they are unlikely to be used.</p>
<p>The issue of women in news and current affairs broadcasting was the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldcomuni/91/9104.htm">subject of an inquiry</a> by the House of Lords Communications Committee in 2015. Its report called on public service broadcasters “to reflect society by setting the standard in ensuring gender balance”. Similarly, the National Union of Journalists highlighted the <a href="https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/simply-not-enough-women-says-lords-committee-report-on/">low numbers of female senior managers</a> in news organisations – and the Lords committee report backed the union’s recommendation that this be addressed through positive action in recruitment and promotions.</p>
<h2>Token efforts</h2>
<p>In 2014, Danny Cohen, then the BBC’s director of television, told The Observer that the BBC would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/08/danny-cohen-bbc-director-television-tv-panel-shows">no longer broadcast all-male panel shows</a>. This seems like a step forward, but there is a danger of that smacking of tokenism – as <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/all-male-panel-shows?utm_term=.cfz8o5nnz#.peEWzjQQg">Buzzfeed has shown</a>. </p>
<p>Despite refusing to join Broadcast Magazine’s campaign (the BBC explained as a public broadcaster its “primary role is to ensure the people who appear on our programmes are qualified to tackle the issues we explore”), the corporation launched an “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/news/article/art20130711164644627">Expert Women</a>” training course in 2014.</p>
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<p>A number of organisations have begun to compile their own lists of female experts – in an attempt to counter the argument that women speakers are not out there. In the Republic of Ireland the group <a href="https://www.womenonair.ie/">Women On Air</a> has increased the number of women appearing on the national broadcaster RTE through their creation of <a href="https://www.womenonair.ie/the-list">The List</a>. <a href="http://thewomensroom.org.uk/">The Women’s Room</a> – which campaigns on the issue – has a database of female experts.</p>
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<p>But this is not a problem that women should have to solve. Many are now challenging and mocking gender inequality when they see it. The Twitter account Academic Manel Watch (<a href="https://twitter.com/manelwatchire">@manelwatchire</a>) was set up to object to the use of all-male panels in Irish academia. It follows on from the successful <a href="http://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/">AllMalePanels blog</a> with its distinctive “<a href="http://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/">Hoffsome</a>” stamp. And that’s a badge of honour that no organisation should want to be awarded.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Paul is a member of the National Union of Journalists.</span></em></p>When it comes to ‘experts’ men still vastly outnumber women in the media.Julia Paul, Lecturer, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/653722016-09-21T11:40:57Z2016-09-21T11:40:57ZHave you ever wondered how much energy you put in to avoid being assaulted? It may shock you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138471/original/image-20160920-11117-17qjh77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A recent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p046fk7g">article</a> offering men advice about how to proposition a woman wearing headphones – encouraging them to block her path to prevent her from ignoring them – rightfully provoked a major backlash. But the backlash also brought a certain phenomenon to wider public attention – the fact that women sometimes wear headphones as a way to avoid unwanted approaches in public.</p>
<p>The public conversation on violence against women tends to focus on sexual assault and domestic abuse. We talk less about the routine intrusions women experience from men in their everyday lives, even though this is the most common form of sexual violence. </p>
<p>My recent <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qESTDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=fiona+vera-grey&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=fiona%20vera-grey&f=false">research</a> looked at how women navigate interruptions, intrusions, and harassment from unknown men in public. What was most surprising was how all 50 of the women I interviewed significantly underestimated the amount of work they were putting in to avoid intrusions by men in the street, and the impact this had on them. </p>
<p>They recognised that they were making certain decisions about routes home, or where to sit on public transport. They spoke about using sunglasses or headphones in order to create a shield – a way to give the impression that they didn’t hear that man making a sexual comment, or didn’t see that other man touching himself as he walked behind them.</p>
<p>Many categorised their clothes in relation to safety. Scarves were seen as safe – handy for covering your chest. The colour red was, for some, seen as unsafe – too bright, too obvious, too visible. Some even adopted particular facial expressions, trying to balance “looking tough” against the desire to not be told to “cheer up” by a man they’d never met before. </p>
<p>The women I spoke to knew they were doing some of these things but other behaviours were less conscious. They hadn’t really reflected on how much energy went into avoiding unwanted contact below the surface and how their freedom was affected.</p>
<h2>Safety work</h2>
<p>The short moments when women are alone in public space, away from commitments at home or at work – the only moments many people have to themselves – are disrupted.</p>
<p>It’s not just the overt approaches from men making comments about what they’re wearing and asking where they are going or what they’re doing. It’s that women are routinely pulled out of their own thoughts in order to evaluate their environment. They are less free to think about the things they want to think about because of the extra effort they have to put in to feel safe. </p>
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<p>This kind of <a href="http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/faculties/faculty-of-social-sciences-and-humanities/people/surnames-k-to-m/liz-kelly/">safety work</a> goes largely unnoticed by the women doing it and by the wider world.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>The vast majority of this work is preemptive. It’s the subconscious attempt to evaluate what one of my participants called <a href="https://www.thefword.org.uk/2016/04/dolls-eye-theatre-blog/">“the right amount of panic”</a> – never quite knowing if a behaviour is an overreaction or if that reaction is actually the reason they avoided <a href="http://csp.sagepub.com/content/10/30/39.full.pdf">an encounter</a>. </p>
<p>The trouble is, women are only ever able to count the times when such strategies don’t work – when they are harassed by a man, or assaulted. The work put into the successes – the number of times women’s actions prevent men from intruding – go unnoticed.</p>
<p>All this in turn keeps us underestimating the scale of the problems women face in everyday life. Estimates on the prevalence of sexual harassment in public are unable to account for all the times instances are blocked. And survivors of sexual assault are blamed for not preventing it when their safety work fails them. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Women talk about the burden of safety work.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Challenging this silence means talking about the range and extent of what women experience, from unwanted comments to flashing, following and frottage. The <a href="http://www.everydaysexism.com%22%22">Everyday Sexism project</a> does this brilliantly.</p>
<p>It means considering how we establish a new normal, recognising the extra work women put in just to be free. That’s why the move to make <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-36775398">misogyny</a> a hate crime in Nottingham is an interesting step, and something to keep an eye on.</p>
<p>Recognising the sheer scale of the effort women are habitually putting in to avoid public sexual harassment could help us to change a culture that makes victims accountable for not preventing assault. We continue to talk about the problem as though women need to take more responsibility for preventing sexual assault. But preventing sexual assault is something women do daily, often without realising it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Vera-Gray receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and is Co-Founder of the Centre for Gender Equal Media, a feminist think-tank based at Durham University.</span></em></p>Women make conscious decisions every day about staying safe, but they consistently underestimate how much effort it all takes and what that means for their freedom.Fiona Vera-Gray, Research Fellow in Violence Against Women, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/466932015-08-26T15:09:29Z2015-08-26T15:09:29ZWomen-only train carriages are just another form of victim blaming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93060/original/image-20150826-15411-1i8eynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All spaces should be safe.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sexual violence is an everyday occurrence for women and girls on public transport. The latest statistics from the British Transport Police show a 25.2% increase of reported sexual offences on public transport with <a href="http://www.btp.police.uk/pdf/BTP-%20Statistical%20Bulletin%202014-15.pdf">1,399 recorded incidents across England, Wales and Scotland</a> in 2015. Many of these (40%) happen on the London Underground. However, it is estimated that <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/safety-and-security-annual-report-2014-15.pdf">93% of women do not report incidents</a>, so the true figure is likely to be much higher. </p>
<p>As part of a policy to tackle the harassment women and girls face in public spaces, Jeremy Corbyn, front-runner for the Labour Party leadership, suggested opening a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11824403/Jeremy-Corbyn-considers-women-only-train-carriages.html">consultation</a> on women-only train carriages. Several other Labour MPs, in particular his leadership rivals Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham, condemned the idea, whilst the <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/60933/could-women-only-trains-reduce-sexual-assaults">Everyday Sexism Project in 2014 described women-only train carriages as a step backwards</a></p>
<h2>International precedent</h2>
<p>Women-only transport is not new. Internationally, a number of countries have introduced them (for example <a href="http://weburbanist.com/2013/09/08/transits-of-venus-8-women-only-subway-train-cars/2/">Mexico</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/1490059/Persistent-gropers-force-Japan-to-introduce-women-only-carriages.html">Japan</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8290377.stm">India</a>, among others). Women-only buses can be found in a number of countries and cities, including <a href="http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/15219/1/Gekoski,%20Gray,%20Horvath,%20Edwards,%20Emirali%20%26%20Adler%202015.pdf">Bangladesh, Malaysia and Nepal</a>. In the UK, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/9573645/Women-only-taxi-firms.html">women-only taxi firms</a> have been in operation for a number of years. And of course, women-only public spaces – for example in gyms – exist across the country.</p>
<p>The response to Corbyn’s suggestion has been divided. While many politicians are against the idea, a quick skim of social media reveals many women supporting the idea of segregated carriages (<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/womenonlycarriages?src=hash">#womenonlycarriages</a>) saying this would make them feel safer and they would definitely use them, particularly at night. In a survey of women commuters in London, <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/op4fx7xarp/Results-TRF-GlobalPublicTransportPoll-UK-London-04092014.pdf">45% said they would feel more secure in segregated transport</a>.</p>
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<h2>Blaming the victim</h2>
<p>If women-only carriages can help women to feel safer, then surely that is a positive step? Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons why women-only carriages might be a bad idea. </p>
<p>Segregating women away from men may perpetuate the idea that sexual assault is about men not being able to control their urges around women. Worldwide, feminists have campaigned tirelessly for four decades to dismantle this theory and show that rape is about power and control, not sexual arousal. Reducing women to sexual objects and men to their sexual urges is patronising and shaming to both women and men. </p>
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<p>And by creating women-only carriages, there is the potential for women who choose not to, or who are unable to, use these carriages being blamed for their assault. <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/focus-on-violent-crime-and-sexual-offences--2013-14/rpt-chapter-4.html#tab-Attitudes-to-sexual-violence">Research</a> has <a href="http://www.vawpreventionscotland.org.uk/sites/www.vawpreventionscotland.org.uk/files/Havens_Wake_Up_To_Rape_Report_Summary.pdf">consistently shown</a> that women are held to be <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-new-poll-finds-third-people-believe-women-who-flirt-partially-responsible-being">partially</a> or fully responsible for rape or sexual assault if they engage in certain behaviour which puts them “at risk” or fail to “protect themselves”. </p>
<p>The risk is that creating spaces which women are expected to use to be “safe” it feeds into the already endemic victim-blaming culture. In Japan, research has shown that women who use mixed-carriages <a href="http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/15219/1/Gekoski,%20Gray,%20Horvath,%20Edwards,%20Emirali%20%26%20Adler%202015.pdf">worry they will be viewed as “willing” victims</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93061/original/image-20150826-15393-119pgb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women-only train carriages on the Keio Line in Tokyo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/WomensCar_KeioLine.jpg/1024px-WomensCar_KeioLine.jpg">WomensCar</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The responsibility here should be placed on men not to rape. The focus should be on tackling societal attitudes towards women and the behaviour of perpetrators, rather than confining women to particular spaces and restricting their freedom, particularly as <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_394500.pdf">the majority of rapes and sexual assaults take place in private spaces</a></p>
<p>There are also concerns about how a segregated carriage would be policed. Yvette Cooper <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11824560/Jeremy-Corbyn-attacked-over-women-only-train-segregation-live.html">rightly pointed out</a> that the policing required to maintain a women-only space could instead be introduced in the current public transport system to reduce overall crime and increase public safety. </p>
<h2>What works</h2>
<p>Internationally, the research evaluating the effectiveness of women-only public transport is <a href="http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/15219/1/Gekoski,%20Gray,%20Horvath,%20Edwards,%20Emirali%20%26%20Adler%202015.pdf">mixed</a>. While some positive reductions in the number of sexual offences has been reported, several studies have reported issues with lack of thorough policing and men not respecting the segregated spaces.</p>
<p>Research suggests a multi-faceted approach to tackling sexual violence is the <a href="http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/15219/1/Gekoski,%20Gray,%20Horvath,%20Edwards,%20Emirali%20%26%20Adler%202015.pdf">most successful</a>. Along with a consultation on women-only carriages, Corbyn also raised a number of other suggestions in his proposal, one of which was a hotline run by women, for women, to report sexual harassment and assault. The proposal includes the option to text into the hotline, which could be particularly useful on public transport. </p>
<p>Raising public awareness through campaigns would also be a positive initiative, though care would need to be taken not to victim blame, as previous campaigns have been <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sussex-police-pulls-sexual-assault-prevention--poster-amid-accusations-of-victim-blaming-10168817.html">guilty of doing</a>. </p>
<p>Although segregation may not be the way forward, the discussion of how to tackle sexual violence against women in public spaces is welcome. Working with women’s organisations to address these issues and make women safer, as Corbyn proposes to do, is a positive step forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Bows receives funding from ESRC for her current research exploring sexual violence against people aged 60 and over in the UK.</span></em></p>We must place the responsibility for preventing assault firmly on men’s shoulders.Hannah Bows, Researcher (Sexual Violence and Violence against Women), Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/254182014-04-15T10:00:14Z2014-04-15T10:00:14ZRape and death threats are all too common in feminist circles, just ask Laura Bates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46452/original/xdq74q4d-1397554246.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Laura Bates has received rape and death threats since launching the Everyday Sexism project</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">TED</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From jokes to rape, there have been nearly 60,000 posts by women recounting their experiences of sexism and sexist violence since journalist and feminist <a href="http://www.tedxeastend.com/speakers/laura-bates">Laura Bates</a> launched her <a href="http://everydaysexism.com/index.php/about">Everyday Sexism project</a> in April 2012. Now the material has been <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everyday-Sexism-Laura-Bates/dp/1471131572">collected for the first time in a book</a> of the same name. </p>
<p>I’ve been familiar with the project for some time. Yet the sheer pervasiveness and repetitiveness which emerges when the material is presented in book form, accompanied by Bates’ clear, angry, witty, feminist commentary, is refreshing, depressing and enraging.</p>
<h2>If this sounds familiar …</h2>
<p>Everyday Sexism also feels incredibly familiar – and not simply because of the inevitable echoes with my own experiences. I have read this book before. </p>
<p>It is <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dear-Clare-This-Women-About/dp/0091749158">the book Clare Short MP wrote in 1991</a>, comprised of letters that women had written in support of her anti-Page Three campaign. </p>
<p>It is Sue Wise and Liz Stanley’s <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Georgie-Porgie-Harassment-Everyday-Pandora/dp/0863580181">1987 book Georgie Porgie</a> where, like Bates, they talk about the “drip drip” effect of sexual harassment in reducing women’s aspirations, modifying their behaviour and creating a climate of everyday fearfulness. </p>
<p>It is <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Sexual-Violence-Feminist-Perspectives/dp/0745604633">Liz Kelly’s Surviving Sexual Violence</a>, which in 1988 introduced the notion of a “continuum” of sexual violence: a concept Bates uses to powerful effect. </p>
<p>It is <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Pornography_and_Sexual_Violence.html?id=7wjaAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Everywoman’s 1988 publication</a> of the civil rights hearings on pornography organised by the late Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon. There too, women and girls talked about how men’s everyday use of porn affected their lives and sense of self, even before the ubiquity of internet porn.</p>
<p>I could go on … </p>
<p>In no way does this detract from the significance of Bates’ book. But it does raise important familiar questions about how the knowledge of the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/women/article-216008">second wave of feminism</a> has been publicly forgotten. This is despite the fact that <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.womensaid.org.uk%2Fcore%2Fcore_picker%2Fdownload.asp%3Fid%3D1963&ei=47NLU-jyIc7G7AaIu4FY&usg=AFQjCNGRok-BBByr3zAFU6bQdeYl18hnCw&sig2=uw8FHs6XT1RN15i0kiuoJg&bvm=bv.64542518,d.d2k">feminist organisations set up in the 1970s</a> to support women experiencing male violence are now well known, depressingly well used and horribly under-funded.</p>
<h2>Bates and the old guard</h2>
<p>Refreshingly, Bates herself does not perform this act of erasure: in a <a href="http://www.glasgowwestend.co.uk/aye-write-glasgows-book-festival-2014-laura-bates-and-anne-dickson-everyday-feminism-and-how-to-fix-it/">discussion at Glasgow’s Aye Write festival</a> last week, she clearly acknowledged the legacy of the second wave. Unlike so many proclamations of the rebirth of feminism in the past two decades <a href="http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/the-everyday-sexism-project-key-element-in-fourth-wave-feminism/">this fourth wave</a>, as heralded by her publishers, is not premised on the death of the feminism before it. </p>
<p>Bates’ book is the 21st-century equivalent of the <a href="http://www.womensliberation.org/priorities/feminist-consciousness-raising">consciousness-raising groups</a> of the Women’s Liberation Movement. It still has the feel of “newness”, of capturing an epidemic of previously untold proportions. The accessibility of the project and its incredible public profile mean it is almost certainly reaching women who missed out on feminism’s previous waves. </p>
<p>Most heartbreaking are the accounts from women who have kept abuse secret for years, decades. Feminist analysis of male violence has been around long enough that this shouldn’t have happened. But in the face of media misrepresentation, the pervasiveness of everyday sexism and the endurance of patriarchy (a concept no less real because academically unfashionable) it shouldn’t be a surprise that it has.</p>
<h2>The university context</h2>
<p>For those of us working in universities, Everyday Sexism poses a number of challenges. It gives grim insight into the pressures our female students and many colleagues face. We still need to know more, not only about campus experiences but also how our institutions respond to them. </p>
<p>When women (and men) are brave enough to come forward, we need to ensure the response they receive within our institutions is appropriate to the century we live in. Not a big ask, although you wouldn’t think it to read many of the experiences in this book. </p>
<p>Academics also have a role to play in following up on the research agenda this book sets. One urgent area for investigation is contemporary feminists’ experiences of the backlash. While backlashes have existed for as long as feminism, the way that backlash is now experienced is new. </p>
<p>In the first month of the Everyday Sexism project Bates received up to 200 messages a day threatening her with rape and murder. No-one has yet been charged in relation to any of these threats. </p>
<p>Bates’ experiences may be extreme, though certainly not unique. In my own circle, hardly a month goes by without one of my feminist friends sharing a rape or death threat they’ve received. While these are sometimes worn as a kind of badge of honour – it shows we’re doing something right - none of us should have to put up with this. </p>
<p>Ignoring the trolls may be useful advice at some level, but having a more systematic account of exactly what feminist public figures endure as a group would be an important first step in understanding the bigger picture behind these anecdotes. Everyday sexists should no longer be able to hide in plain sight. Bates’ book makes it clear that we all have a role to play in exposing them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Boyle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From jokes to rape, there have been nearly 60,000 posts by women recounting their experiences of sexism and sexist violence since journalist and feminist Laura Bates launched her Everyday Sexism project…Karen Boyle, Chair in Feminist Media Studies, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.