Hit or Miss?

This weekend sees London host the 2011 Miss World pageant, an event that has been running for decades and now celebrates it's 61st year! So popular is this programme it is viewed by millions worldwide. Yet no British mainstream channel will broadcast it (if you're intertested you can find it on the Active Channel here in the UK. Ever heard of it? No me neither.)

So why the awkward silence and doleful staring at the feet? Surely such a huge and successful enterprise would have the BBC and ITV both elbowing each other out of the way to get first dibs. 

Well no, you see Miss World has become something of an embarassement these days and anti feminsit. The 'respectable' media will no doubt promote this opinion because lets face it, championing a beauty pageant in this day and age is 'totally uncool'.

This morning I watched The Wright Stuff on Channel 5 and the phone-in was about Miss World. Matthew Wright laid down the gauntlet; 

'...We’re going to find out what you think about Britain hosting the Miss World beauty contest on Sunday. Feminist groups say it’s sexist and outdated but organisers say the contest champions racial equality and has more than 1bn fans worldwide. True, many in such open-minded pro-women democracies as china and Zimbabwe. Come on folks, what the hell are we doing hosting this nonsense in the 21st century'

With the bait set Wright waited for the lines to fill with disgruntled women. Which they did, but not the disgruntled women he was perhaps expecting; every caller was a female proclaiming her love for the contest and dismay at his views.

But how can you say there's nothing wrong with 'ogling girls in bikinis', how is that not sexist? Wright asked in exasperation.

He was so outraged by the callers he cried out that he was the only true feminist on the programme. Citing that women only feel the need to conform into ideals of beauty, because of a male dominated society which wanted to keep them in their place, the Miss World contest did nothing for womens rights and in fact put them back to the 1950's when the pageant began.

He certainly has a point. But somewhere in between all this political correctness and pageant nonsense something is bothering me. When Wright told one of the callers they couldn't be a feminist and still be a fan of Miss World I wondered why not. It might seem obvious but wait...

I applaud his sentiments and passion for the subject of womens rights, but surely, as I pointed out in my post about the bunny girl, being a feminist means allowing women to pursue their lives in any way they see fit, whether that be dressing as a fluffy rabbit or taking part as a Miss World contestant, it's their choice.

To dictate just what a woman should and shouldn't think in order to be taken seriously is just as bad as these dominating men Wright was talking about. Why can't you enjoy watching a beauty contest and still feel strongly for women's rights? One of the things that occurs to me is that in our fight for equality over the years, women's roles have changed dramatically, but one thing has always remained the same, we ARE women. And as women we still enjoy cosmetics and fashion and beauty. Despite what Wright says these passions are not completely due to men telling us we should conform to them, they come from somewhere deep in our genetic makeup. (The thousands of women out shopping for new outfits and lipstick right now are probably having a whale of a time glorying in the thrill of it all.)

But I do feel these interests are massively exploited by the media and commercialism, and no doubt Miss World plays on them in order to have been running for so long. Tanya Gold (She of the bunny hating club) recently wrote an article entitled 'I blame the media for ignoring feminsim in favour of makeup' In it she asks 'why the feminist movement seems so comprehensively to have stalled.' 

My answer would be it hasn't stalled, it has changed. Women like myself, and possibly the caller on The Wright Stuff, enjoy the trappings of modern femininity (I view artifice as a huge part of femininity), but that doens't mean we have been brainwashed into accepting nothing else in our lives. Feminists (men and women) need to stop pigeonholing other women over their choices and focus on a fully rounded representation of women including the cosmetic side. Why does that have to be a bad thing?

While I personally find Miss World off putting I don't agree with some feminists using the beauty card to underline what they see as womens failure. There is a fine line between enjoying being a woman and having your femininity exploited.

Ban the Bunny? I don't think so

After reading Tanya Gold's article, 'Why we need to banish the bunnies' in Stylist magazine (June 15th), I was left confused and angry at her blythe remarks about the Playboy bunny girls and feminism in general.

What really stood out for me was that this is a woman claiming to be a feminist and female supporter, defamating other women based purely on their choice of job ( the word 'choice' being the key element.)

Gold comes across as bitter and cynical in the article which was written for the re-opening of the Playboy Club in London's Mayfair: Twenty years since it closed, the club is back, this time with an emphasis on the casino aspect and of course complete with obligatory bunny girls to lend their particular brand of vintage glamour and sex appeal, which according to Gold is a massive step back for the feminist cause.

Feminism is an ever changing concept. It has to be, to make sense of the times we live in. The sentiment remains the same; equality and respect for women, but the ways of putting this into practice can change.


It's outmoded to believe all feminists are big butch man haters, the days of bra burning are long over. Similarly the ideas that women working in a sexualised environment have succombed to the male dominated ideals of society therefore sexy = bad are just as outmoded. As the wave of neo burlesque has proven, woman can feel empowered, and gain a great sense of self esteem by being the object of desire, the sensual persona in the limelight. And this isn't just for the trim, tanned and perfect; Women of every shape and size have graced the stage to become, if only for a few minutes, an expression of sexuality in one form or another, not because they have to, or feel pressured into conforming, but because they choose to and therefore it must bring them some joy. (Some women make a living from this, others do it for pure pleasure, creative, confidence building or otherwise)

                                                        

The message Gold puts across in her article is one of hate and intolerance for woman who choose earn their cash by working in a sexy outfit. She looks down on the be-suited bunnies, frowning at their fluffy behinds and pointy ears with contempt. Why? because unlike her, they don't think sexual objectifiaction is 'purely a private matter'.

Gold seems set on demonising the bunny girl, and to me it seems she simply cannot seperate the woman from the costume. Her preconcieved ideas of objectification seem to have blurred her own abilites to see that the women behind the bunny has a choice. In fact she scoffs at it;

'Is that what our mothers fought for when they went to university and tried to smash the glass ceiling... So this woman could 'choose' to dress as a rabbit and serve me Diet Coke, while angry looking men watch and perv?'

Well, actually, YES! If being a feminist means NOT allowing women the freedom to choose to earn money in any way they see fit then what was the point of all the hard work? It's not reasonable to believe that equality can only be acheived by all women taking professional, sensible, straight roles. If women are to ever gain freedom and equality, then other women like Tanya Gold need to stop marginalising those who don't fit in with her one size fits all ideas.

What's more, the Playboy club is open to women as well as men, and even though some men might enjoy looking at attractive women dressed as bunnies (I still don't know why that's a bad thing, surely those same men can't ALL turn out to be male chauvinist pigs) then some women might also enjoy looking at other women dressed as bunnies. Again, it comes down to choice. Frankly, if Gold hated everything Playboy stands for, why did she even choose to cross the club's threshold?

I don't believe that every woman who works in a sexualised environment or industry is there through choice alone. Of course need, pressure, or force have been involved in some circumstances. But I do believe that in some cases, like those of the bunny girls, choice plays a large role. To mock that choice is just another form of generalising women and taking away their power. Gold could do with learning this before she spouts out another tirade of negativity in the name of feminism. Her views are outdated, and if anything, they set the cause of feminism back by decades.