Nazi torture of women film re-released after being banned

A film which graphically depicts the rape and torture of women in a concentration camp has been re-released according to reports last weekend.

There has been controversy over the SS Experiment Love Camp film, originally banned for being a 'Video Nastie' in the 70s, but now judged suitable to be viewed by the BBFC.

MP's have apparently questioned the decision and the general tolerance of violence in media products in society. The film apparently portrays the rape, torture and electrocution of female holocaust victims.



I haven't seen the film, but have seen and studied plenty of so-called 'video nasties' from the 1970s and 1980s. Violence and the portrayal of women as sexualised in their terror have always been a staple of the genre, and always criticised by feminist film theorists for obvious reasons.

However, I do think in that period of film history the independent low budget horror films like 'I spit on your grave' and even less shocking examples like 'Halloween' have a lot to say about culture.

The representation of women in these films highlight unconcious male fears of female sexuality in society. I would argue that these films can be seen as patriarchy's horrified response to the 2nd wave feminist movement and womens quest for sexual autonomy - to have control of their bodies through access to contraception, abortion and childcare.

So these films are useful in that they represent a cultural manifestation of these fears even though they are certainly distastful and anti feminist.

It's strange that people choose to insist such films should remain banned - although I agree they are definietly anti feminist - but not insist on the removal of soft porn which surrounds us in culture everyday. What is more worrying I think is that these harmful representations of women dominate in everything from newspapers, magazines and adverts on billbords to tv commercials, characters on soaps, films and women in music videos.

Wherever we look we are assaulted by half naked, sexualised images of women - hammering home the message to all of society that WOMEN ARE OBJECTS TO BE LOOKED AT AND JUDGED.

January diets

It's that time of year again when the Weight Watchers and Special K 'drop a jeans size' adverts start bombarding us, reminding women that we must pay the price for overindulging and start paying out money to get thin (for the benefit of men) again.


Every year it's the same, except for the relatively new culture of the celebrity exercise video which is rapidly taking over, advertised in all supermarkets,
magazines and in ad breaks during Hollyoaks and Coronation Street.

You can't get away from it. The most laughable examples this year include the 'WAGS Workout' video and BB twins Sam and Amanda's 'Samanda The Twins Workout' video. Because obviously we all aspire to look like them.


I was reminded of this agonising period before Christmas had even happened. I was visiting my boyfriend's family in Wales the week before Christmas, and whilst snooping round the kitchen found a card stuck up on the pin board from the slimming club Curves, reminding my boyfriend's mum that she must remember to keep in shape over Xmas.

My mum, who I can always remember having been on a diet (she went to Weight Watchers for years and is now also a member of Curves), often receives these 'friendly' reminders from them which read along the lines of: "we haven't seen you for a while, hope you will drop in soon". In other words stop being lazy and get down here and do some exercise. Never mind that my mum has a highly demanding job from which she sustained serious wrist injuries. Even driving a car is painful for her - let alone doing any exercise - but she still feels guilty about not having gone to the gym for months.

The joke is, even if you aren't "overweight", or are but have the sense not to care, you can't help but start doubting yourself under the pressure of the mass media diet and exercise ploy after Christmas.

Women are easy pickings for the diet and beauty industry, especially at this time of year, making millions out of persuading women they are fat, ugly and worthless and then promising to make them thin and beautiful if they buy their beauty products, join up to their fitness class or diet club, or better still buy so and so's exercise video and do it at home.

This consumerist culture depends on convincing women they are worthless. So why don't we all stop believing we are for once and stop exploiting ourselves by succumbing to this ridiculous pressure to be unachievably thin, beautiful and 'perfect'.

Women struggle to pay off student debt whilst men prosper

It was reported yesterday in The Guardian that women take five years longer than men do to repay student loans.

Obviously this is largely down to the unfair pay gap between men and women's salaries.

However the report also puts it down to 'women taking time out to look after children'- perpetuating yet again the belief that all women are ready to drop their careers any second to have a baby and become chained to their homes looking after it. More likely this assumption means that they do not get promoted to higher paid jobs because they are judged not as reliable in career terms as men.

Just as I was getting worked up I read Kat Stark's comments, who is a women's officer at the National Union of Student's. She said:

"Women are taking longer to pay off their student loans because they are paid less, not because they are taking time off to have children. Within three years of graduating, over 40% of men are earning over £25,000, compared to just over a quarter of women. The pay gap is not a new problem - the government knew when it introduced the tuition fees that female graduates would end up saddled with debt to a worse extent to men...the government should consider whether they wish to perpetuate this injustice."

Thank god someone is talking sense. Although undoubtedly many women do take time off work to have children, others choose not to. As Stark suggests, the main reason women are paying off debt later, is because they are paid less, full stop. Not because every woman gives up her career to have children, this is a smokescreen to hide the fact that women are paid less than men.

Women fight back against unfair pay, but who really wins?

On the front page of The Guardian yesterday it was reported that councils face a £2.8 billion bill in back pay to women who have been systematically underpaid in their jobs over the years.

Apparently "no-win-no-fee" lawyers taking on such cases are only causing the cost of the bill to escalate. The case of care worker manager Rosaline Wilson is highlighted in the article.

Rosaline was only paid £6.50 an hour,a measly 50p more than the staff she managed and was awarded £32,000 by the courts when a "no-win-no-fee" lawyer took on her case. The council had offered an out-of-court settlement worth only £13,000.

Whilst she hailed the lawyer, who took £14,000 of her damages, as a hero, unions and authorities warn that such lawyers are threatening to mess up equal pay deals for all other underpaid women.


So who really wins?

Whilst a few women like Rosaline appear to gain some kind of justice back against patriarchal society's legacy of valuing men over women - its the lawyers who really seem to be cashing in.

As such lawyers have realised, undervalued and underpaid women have now become another kind of commodity, one that can be exploited as usual for financial gain but this time under the guise of 'helping women in their struggle for equality.'

Disgusting as that may be, who can really blame women like Rosaline for fighting back against a cultural bias we all know to be unjust?

The sad fact is that the long term prospects in woman's fight for equal pay may be hindered by this "no-win-no-fee" craze.

What will be left for women after the government have had to pay out billions to opportunistic lawyers? And how will it effect women's pay prospects in the future?