Hilary Clinton - she just can't win

I have been researching the representation of female politicians for a presentation as part of my masters recently.

What came out of it was mainly that female politicians are either de-feminised or sexualised by the press as a way to alleviate patriarchy's fear of women who transcend the passive Freudian stereotype of femininity and take on positions of power.

When looking at the coverage of Hillary Clinton in the press recently it became apparent that Hilary is stuck in this catch 22 situation.



Described by the media as a ruthless, cold hearted 'machine' intent on winning no matter what she has to do, be it use her husband for leverage, attack Obama or cry to elicit sympathy, Clinton just can't win.

Living up to the ruthless, de-feminised image seems the only way to get ahead, look at Thatchers 'iron lady' image, but when Hillary dared to get emotional and shed a tear, the press were all over it, branding it a calculating attempt at using her feminine wiles to get votes. Clinton was also criticised for transcending her de-feminised image by showing a bit of cleavage - the same fate befell the Home Secretary Margaret Becket last July.

Now, although I may not believe entirely in Clinton's policies or that having a woman in the white house would necessarily improve women's lives (look at Thatchers reign) the point is that women have a much harder time getting into power and being treated as serious politicians, simply because they are women.

Do male politicians face the same scrutiny? Obviously not. This representation serves purely to keep women in their place, asserting that men should be the decision makers in society, not women.

Juno - a positive representation of a woman

I went to see a pre screening of Juno last night. I was somewhat dubious how the film would play out, although I had read good reviews and seen the trailers.

I was surprised to find the film really funny and uplifting, despite dealing with the serious issue of teenage pregnancy.



What was most impressive was the representation of Juno, the main character, aged 16 and pregnant. Unlike in most Hollywood films where pregnant teens are represented as foolish, airheads and 'sluts', Juno was an extremely smart character, not the dumb cheerleader type. She knows about old music, slasher films and guitars and is intelligent, funny and does not dress as most teens do in Hollywood films - she was not perpetually half-naked and her image was not sexualised (although her best Friend Leah was in some respects).

It was refreshing to see a film asserting that smart, level-headed girls do sometimes get pregnant, that it can happen to anyone, and that it is not necessarily something to be ashamed of or something that will ruin a girls life and reputation forever.

However, the film does not glamorise pregnancy and even dares to broach the subject of abortion - unlike many other films - although the issue was not explored in much depth and treated humorously instead.

The representation of gender in the film was also interesting, on the one hand women were not seen as inherently maternal - Juno's mother abandoned her when she was little and Juno herself does not display the usual angst represented in culture when a woman gives up her baby for adoption.

However, the adoptive mother, Vanessa, unable to have kids, conforms to the stereotype, displaying the 'natural' female trait of being desperate to have a child.

The male characters in the film are also surprising - Juno's father is supportive and reliable and Juno's boyfriend and the baby's father is shy, geeky but totally reliable and in love with Juno.

The adoptive dad-to-be however, Mark, is a traditional male let-down, deciding he is 'not ready to be a father' and also making a pass at heavily pregnant Juno.

Aside from these interesting representations of gender, the main point is that Juno is definitely a for once positive representation of a girl - which you don't often come across in films.

Response to Shriver's analysis of 70's Horror

Following my blog about the SS Experiment Concentration Camp film I read an article in The Guardian by Lionel Shriver, who watched and attempted to analyse several so called 'video nasties' made 20 years ago.

Although I can see that Shriver is trying to make the point that such films as 'I spit on your grave' and 'Last house on the left' graphically and violently are nothing in comparison to real life footage of war shown on the evening news - I disagreed with her conclusion that: "let me tell you: these films are crap."



Shriver does not look at the films in terms of the cultural context in which they were made and dismisses them as unimportant in film history.

In fact, as I have said before, these films do - albeit perhaps unconciously - reveal society's and men's fears of the 2nd wave feminist movement (as well as highlighting fears of other cultural changes and political issues of the time such as the Vietnam war). These are well known arguments in film theory and valid ones, I think.

For example, the female charcater in 'I spit on your grave', having been gang raped, chooses to fight back (as they would have you believe a 'monstrous' feminist would) and get her bloody revenge. However, the woman is represented not as a victim but becomes monstrous in her revenge, cutting off one of the rapists penis' in the bath after luring him there with promise of sex.

This shows mens unconcious fear of women and feminists at the time, trying to make feminists into some kind of crazy, dangerous man-hating women solely to illegitimise the aims of feminism.

Shriver, meanwhile dismisses this film as a 'sad excuse for cinema', it may well be tasteless and anti feminist - but irrelevant it is not.

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?