Saturday, July 08, 2006

A Question

The fairy Godmother of fighting sexism and misogyny has granted you one wish. You have the opportunity to rid the world of all sexist media and replace it with a media that is true, honest and treats women as people. But you have to make a choice - you have to choose between media aimed at men and boys or media aimed at women and girls. You can change the nature of pornography, video games, action movies and so on, or you can change the nature of television, romantic comedies, women's magazines, romance novels and so on.

What would you choose and why?

I can see the argument for getting rid of the media aimed at men. The feminist movement of the last forty years has shown that women are actually quite good at organising for themselves, and changing things - it's men that are the problem. Media aimed at men is all about maintaining masculinity and a sense of entitlement, and both these things are really dangerous for women.

And yet in this particular thought experiment I choose the media aimed at women every time - I never even think about it. I think it's partly because I'm exposed more to media aimed at women.

But mostly it's because I think the media aimed at women gets in the way of us working together. I'd rather spend my energy in making people without power stronger, than people with power nicer.

2 comments:

  1. I was undecided, until I read your last line.

    "I'd rather spend my energy in making people without power stronger, than people with power nicer."

    Totally.

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  2. I think there is a power issue - if you were out from under the influence of manipulative media you would have the power. The media can’t make men greater just by telling them that but it can make women weaker by telling them they are.

    So sex that is being manipulated is the weaker sex even if it would take some time to realise that.

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