Sheena can't quite make it as a punk rocker

I generally try to avoid making any sort of feminist commentary on the media, for a few reasons, but mainly because I think that it's a very subjective medium in which it is hard to balance out intention, outcome and realism. I think that looking at one film or tv show and saying that it is sexist because it doesn't feature this many women, in these particular roles, shown in this particular light is doomed to irrelevance because in searching for gender bias you'll probably always be able to come up with something that shows the film is in some way anti-feminist, unless the makers have gone out of way to include women in these roles or whatever - in which case it'll probably feel rather contrived. I'm not saying that this means there arent any sexist films (or TV shows or whatever) out there, or films which might in some way glamorise sexist behaviour, but I think that great caution should be taken in accusing them of it. It's not enough to just say "I feel that this is sexist, therefore it is sexist", you have to actually provide evidence, and this is so hard to do without leaving yourself open to counter-arguments.

Saying that, I was quite annoyed today by a programme I watched with Jack and Jim called "I'm in a rock'n'roll band" which was part of a series on the BBC lately. There were only 3 or 4 women featured on the show (Siouxie Sioux, Shirley Manson, Patti Smith and the singer from Texas I think), compared to about 15 men as talking heads, and countless more male bands mentioned. Given that I'm not usually one for criticising shows for gender bias or whatever, and that I pretty much expected it to feature more men than women, I was surprised to find myself becoming quite upset by the programme.

It's hard to say why I took it so personally... I think partly because music is such a big part of my life; I spend most of my time listening to "rock n roll bands" in some form or another, I play guitar and bass, I used to be in a band and plan to be in at least another one over the next year. Music can change my mood almost instantly, I can't go on a long journey or get to sleep without listening to music, and I will weep like a child if I listen to certain songs. So it hurt to see people like me - that is, women - pretty much excluded from the show. It was like being told "no, I'm sorry, this kind of thing isn't for you", like a dearly loved friend or lover turning around and telling me that actually I'm not the kind of person they're looking for. Sure, there's a chance I'll be able to move in that world, but I'll have to try 10 times as hard.

It hurt too when my friend Jim - in response to my complaints that the show had only featured a couple of women - to ask me, as a sort of challenge, to name ten famous bands with women in them. I immediately named the Distillers, the Donnas and the Plasticines, but only got that far before Jim and Jack laughed and said "who the hell are they?" By the end of the show I managed to name 10 that passed their standard, but it was hard work. I'm sure there's been shit-loads of articles or blogs written about the lack of women in rock music, but it's never really hit me before... probably because I make an effort to listen to female-fronted or all-girl bands. Because I do, I sort of forget that not everyone makes the effort, and that the most popular bands are, with the odd exception, exclusively male.

Why is this? Jack argued that women do have an equal chance to make it in the music industry if they write good songs, but I'm not sure I agree (not least because a lot of popular songs are complete crap). That just seems like too easy a way out, that surely can't explain the ridiculously huge disparity... Why is it more the case for rock music too? There's plenty of women in pop or RnB or dance, but only a handful of women in rock (read: alternative, indie, punk, ska, metal etc) bands? Is it because women don't write good enough songs, or because we don't try as hard, or simply because we dont like that genre of music as much? Surely that can't the case... I know plenty of girls who love rock just as much as the next boy, plenty of girls in bands or who can play instruments, and some of my favourite songs were penned by girls.

So I dont know the answer. Maybe it's down to industry bias, or because more men buy rock music, or because of shows like "I'm in a Rock'n'Roll Band" telling us we're probably not going to make it... Or maybe we just dont write good enough songs. Either way, I was disappointed today: in the programme, in the music industry, in the responses of two of my best friends, and in myself for not coming back, picking up my guitar and writing a f*cking awesome rock song.

Pre-Election blues

Anyone else think that Cameron looks like a 1980's vampire in that photo?







Election day tomorrow! How exciting! Or, more realistically, how boring. Probably going to be a hung parliament, at least I hope so... To be honest, I'm fine with anything other than a Tory majority. I would feel so ashamed (more so than usual) to be British if that slimy, shiny man was our Prime Minister. Anyway that's it really... I just wanted to post that photo cause I thought it was funny.

My pretentious past, affirmative action and the gender divide in ethics

I was reading some stuff last night that I wrote when I was 17, and dear god I was so pretentious back then. It really did shock me. I hope to Jebus that I wasn't that arrogant in the rest of my life, and that it only came across in my writing, but I think that would be hopelessly optimistic: my records of conversations say otherwise. I seemed to think that by reading maybe one or two books more than was average, or by knowing about some concept that most other people in my year werent aware of, I was the most intelligent person that ever lived. Eugh. I'm very glad that the year after I wrote this crap I met some second year uni students who had read a hell of a lot more than me, and knew a hell of a lot more than me, and so I was, thankfully, taken down a peg or three. I'm probably still a bit pretentious without meaning to be, but at least now I can acknowledge my own ignorance... the fact that every week I'm given a list of a whole bunch of books and articles that I havent read, and dont intend to read, has made me very aware of the things that I don't know, and glad of the little snippets of information that I have learnt.

Anyway, this week I have been reading about affirmative action in the US, which is pretty interesting. I think the most persuasive argument against affirmative action (that is, giving minorities preferential treatment in employment, universities etc) is the one that claims that by favouring racial minorities we are in fact betraying the very cause that the civil rights movement aimed to promote, in that we are failing to be "colour-blind". I think this one is most interesting because it isnt just white people going "duhhhh those black people are stealin' ma job", but makes the point that affirmative action might actually be going against what black people (Martin Luther King in particular) intended. By taking race into consideration it means that race is still an issue, whereas a truly equal society would surely be one that is colour-blind, and ignores race as a factor altogether, looking instead at the individual's character and credentials.

My view is that although this argument is interesting, it fails to take into account the problems and inequalities that still exist in US society, and instead assumes that we all have an equal starting point. A colour-blind society may indeed be something to aim for, but the fact is that right now there are still gaping inequalities between the races, and to ignore race as an issue now would be to ignore these inequalities and fail to deal with them. In the current state of society, racial minorities have a disadvantaged starting point, and so before we can live in a colour-blind world we need to address these disadvantages and aim to equal out the starting points. This may mean that it will take many years of affirmative action, but I think that's probably the least we can do after 350 years of slavery and segregation.

The other thing that I found vaguely interesting over the last couple of days happened in my Ethics seminar this morning. We were discussing the theory of virtue ethics, and ended up with what seemed to be a male-female divide (although to be fair there was only one boy in my class, which isnt exactly the greatest sample...) But I think that I'd be fairly well supported in saying that what often seems to happen is that you get the men preferring objective, rule-based ethical theories such as deontology, and the women opting for more subjective theories that take into account emotions and the overall effect of our lives rather than individual acts. This sort of divide happens all the time I think: such as the male preference for science subjects whereas women favour humanities and arts. I might look into this for my extended essay in philosophy next year, as I think it could have damaging implications for the deontological claim to objectivity and universal rational truths. If 50% of the population tend to oppose such theories, can they really be universal? Or are women just not rational enough?

So yeah, that ends my little snippets of "things Tasha found interesting this week". Maybe it'll be a regular occurence. Probably not...

The day I read about ethics, US bureaucracy and porn

The last bit of that title is just an attention grabber: the porn reading was actually very brief, and in comic form.











Has a point though... I don't know if anyone reading this has seen the "porn for women" book (or website maybe?) but it's basically a load of men doing housework. I saw it a while ago and chuckled, thinking that it probably was a sight that lots of women would appreciate. But actually, as the comic points out, that's a rather narrow view that does contain the underlying assumption that women are pretty damn concerned with housework: admittedly it's taking a light hearted view of it, but still, lots of women don't give a crap about whether they or a man does chores, and would in fact just like to see two people having sex. Though probably not as many as men... Porn's a bit weird really. I mean, ignoring the issues about whether the women involved are actually enjoying it etc etc, there's also the fact that whilst it's pretty accepted that men watch porn and probably talk about it together, it's so much more of a taboo for women. I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable talking about porn with a female friend (or a male friend for that matter, unless I was sleeping with them). In fact, I think I'm going to stop talking about it now... But still - thought for the day: women might just like watching people fuck, and why is this such a taboo thing? (Deep and meaningful fo sho).

Today I also read about the Bureaucracy of the US, and how although most politicians and citizens hate bureaucracy and think that it's inefficient and just generally shit, it's generally like that for a good reason, and the politicians actually get a lot out of it. You get this a lot over here as well, though probably not as much as we're not so terrified of socialism and a government that actually does stuff. People always seem to be complaining about govt departments and how rubbish they are, particularly social services. That always annoys me... For example with the case of "Baby P", when there was the whole uproar about how social services knew something was wrong but failed to act... maybe there were issues with people simply not doing their jobs properly (I dont know the case that well), but I think you also have to look at the very limited resources that the dept has, in contrast to the huge workload. What annoys me most about this though is that I would guess the same people who complain that social services didnt do enough are also the ones that complain that govt interferes too much in our lives. You can't have it both ways! This is basically the issue that the US system has - the people hate the idea of intrusive govt and a large bureaucracy, but they also hate the idea that their services might be cut. Turns out the govt gets around this by contracting to the private sector, so that it looks like they have cut the bureacracy whilst keeping the services.

Anyway, that's my little rant for today. Here's a picture from the front of my boat, cause I like it:

PS.

In response to that picture of Laila, my lovely friend Jack just made this to try and convince me I can be that cool:

The night I watched hard men and popped bubbles

Last night I went to a club night at the Hatchet Inn called "Pop Bubble Rock", which was alright... the music tended to be either cheesy/rock like Busted or the Glee version of Don't Stop Believing or Blink 182, which was fun, or went a bit hardcore/American emo punk, which was a bit shit. The room was full of people with lots of hair product (be it dye or gel), plaid shirts, tunnel piercings and tattoos. I'm fine with people like that on a small scale, but a room full made me feel a bit claustrophobic. I stole the bubble mix they gave out free though, so that's good. This is a picture from their facebook page, I just like it because it has Leila from SB6 in it, and she's awesome...



I wish I had the dedication to be that ska punx all the time, but you can only really get away with it if you're in a band, and I don't fit that criteria anymore.

On Friday I went over t'boys' house (that is Jim, Jack, Ben, Dave and Mike's house), got Dominos and watched some amazing TV like Snog Marry Avoid, Hotter than my Daughter, and a new show we discovered called Britain's Hardest Man. This was hosted by that guy who played Ross Kemp's brother in Eastenders, set in a warehouse, and featured 3 men battling it out to see who would be the "hardest". There are so so many things wrong (and yet so right) about this show, not least the crazy amount of innuendos in it (eg. "Tim may be small, but makes up for it by being incredibly hard" or something along those lines). I would advise anyone to watch at least one episode, possibly combined with a drinking game.

The weekend I broke out of jail

Thought it might be time to get out the ol' blog again and write some stuff!

This weekend just gone I took part in a charity event called "Jailbreak", in which me, Ben and Jack tried to get as far away from Bristol as possible in 36 hours without spending money on transport. This was my main motivation for writing this post - I want to write down the details of this little adventure before I forget... Our journey took us from Bristol to Portsmouth, where we tried to get on a ferry to France and failed, then to Folkestone via Brighton, Hastings and Ashford. This was all on the train - we discovered that train conductors are in general really nice people, and were more than willing to let us ride for free. In Folkestone we walked to the channel tunnel, which turned out to be about an hours walk away from the town down a small, poorly lit road. We then stood for about an hour at the side of the road, in the cold, at about 9.30pm, trying to hitch a lift on to the tunnel. By 10.30 we'd had enough of that though, and decided to walk back into town to try and find a place to stay. Luckily there was a Holiday Inn about 45 mins walk from where we had been hitching, so we stayed the night there, after the nice woman at the desk let us off paying the 3rd person supplement.

The next day we got breakfast in the hotel, then got a free ride on a bus to Folkestone town centre, and from there a bus to Dover (which we had to pay for as the bus driver was a bit mean). Once in Dover we walked down to the main road heading to the docks and tried to hitch again. We spent about 2-3 hours in Dover trying to hitch before eventually heading to the docks themselves to ask at the desk, just in case they might let us on without paying. But no, so at about 4pm we decided that our chances of getting out of England by 9pm that evening (when the Jailbreak ended) were slim to none, and would only leave us with the problem of getting back again, and so began our journey home. We then spent about 7 hours on various different trains, trying to get back to Bristol: we went from Dover to Ashford, to Redhill, to Tonbridge, to Brighton, to Portsmouth and finally to Westbury, where our lovely friend Dave drove to pick us up at midnight.

I now feel pretty ill, and exhausted, but also like I have successfully challenged myself. We might not have managed to fulfil our aim of getting to Europe, but at least we now know that we are able to sweet-talk people, get across the country, navigate trains and buses, stand in the cold for ages, feel absolutely exhausted and still walk for an hour in the cold and dark, etc etc. One of the most memorable things about the experience as well were the people that we met: after the first day we decided that people could essentially be divided into three categories - Nice, Nasty and Moderate. The Nice people (who were overwhelmingly in the majority) were the ones who helped us out, let us on trains, and generally supported what we were doing. The Moderate people were the ones who either wanted to help but couldn't for a valid reason, such as the train conductor who had been told off for letting other Jailbreakers on recently, or the Eurostar worker who thought it was a good cause but just wasnt able to print us off £179 tickets. We did, however, run into about 4 Nasty people (3 of whom worked at ferry companies) who just didnt care at all, and showed no inclination that they even wanted to help. The epitome of these people was the woman at Portsmouth working for Brittany Ferries, who said that they couldn't let us on "because it just didnt make commercial sense". We pointed out that if the ferry isnt full then the company isnt actually losing anything, but she said that "they're not really gaining anything either", apparently not caring that the charity we were trying to help might gain something... There was also the conductor on the train to Hastings, who was going to throw us off a stop before our destination if we didnt pay; luckily we were saved from this by a Nice Man who was sat in front of us, and paid for our ticket for the extra stop and took down the conductors name to complain.

Essentially it was a weekend of highs and lows, both in terms of the people who helped us, and also just our mood in general. In Portsmouth, having been turned away at the port and at a train station, we almost crumbled, our irritation and disappointment starting to affect our group spirit. We cheered up again once we managed to get on a train to Brighton, on which we heard a conversation about a teenage girl taking style advice from a 6 year old boy. Trying to hitch on to the channel tunnel at Folkestone at 9.30 at night was probably the worst point - it was cold, dark, we were really tired and hungry, and just didnt seem to be getting anywhere. Once we got to the Holiday Inn though we cheered up again, partly due to a film on TV involving midgets playing american football (a new American Pie maybe?) and a duvet that smelled of coleslaw. There were lots of other funny moments on the trip, like getting hyper on red bull, laughing at Jack, writing on the whiteboard and arguing about the ending to 1984 (Does he die?), as well as a magazine that featured a picture of a woman with a really big block of cheese.

In conclusion: Jack and Ben are fun guys to be with, most people are nice, ferry companies are wankers, and travelling is a lot easier when you can spend money.