Posts Tagged ‘bbc’
Sexism in Football and Society
Sexism in football has hit the headlines today! But it’s not just a problem in football, and it needs to be challenged whenever and wherever it appears, just like racism and prejudice. Everyone is important and everyone is equal! Sian Massey is a top-class football official on merit, who has worked hard to achieve this.
So along come Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray suggesting that Massey needed to learn the offside rule! Give me a break! Then they went on to mock West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady‘s claims in a newspaper column that sexism is still prevalent. “See charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism?” Keys said to his colleague. “Yeah. Do me a favour, love.” OK, it was caught off-air, but that simply highlights the problem of an underlying sexism within society, their comments underlining the attitudes Sian Massey has probably had to overcome! As Karren Brady told BBC Radio 5 Live this morning, “What really upsets me is the fact that only females in our industry are judged by their gender and that is categorically wrong.”
I always do my best to challenge sexism, racism or prejudice wherever and whenever I come across them, for these attitudes have no place in our society. What we all need to do is celebrate diversity, and respect what other people, groups and cultures have to offer to make this world a better place. I speak out against racism even if I’m not a victim of it! I speak out against homophobia even though I’m not gay! I speak out against sexism directed at women even though I’m not a woman!
Obviously I don’t speak for women, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen as patronising. But I can begin to imagine how women must feel when the media condemns sexism against them and then goes on the explain the off-side rule with handbags and the like (as I was told happened today). In my mind, understanding the off-side rule is simply a basic test of whether someone is really interested in football or not, male or female!
See also: Why Feminism?
What is Reality?
The other day I came across a joke which you may not get but, believe me, it’s funny! “Hello, Schrödinger’s cattery, how may I help you?” “Oh, we left Pebbles with you, just ringing up to ask if he’s OK?” “Possibly!”
It refers to a concept in quantum physics, but more about that later! Yesterday I watched a TV programme in the BBC Horizon series, entitled What is Reality? It was one of those programmes that makes your brain hurt trying to come to terms with the ideas being presented, namely the scientific quest to explain the true nature of reality. I’d come across some of these ideas before, and most recently in the book The Grand Design. It’s very hard to take in the possibility of sub-atomic particles being in more than one place at the same time and behaving differently when we observe them!
The programme description says: Clues have been pieced together from deep within the atom, from the event horizon of black holes, and from the far reaches of the cosmos. It may be that that we are part of a cosmic hologram, projected from the edge of the universe. Or that we exist in an infinity of parallel worlds. Your reality may never look quite the same again.
Niels Bohr said, “Anyone who isn’t shocked by quantum theory has not understood it”, and so we come back to the joke about Schrödinger’s Cat! This is an imagined paradox where a cat is simultaneously alive and dead! I can’t begin to explain it, and so I’ll point you to the entry in Wikipedia. Schrödinger’s Cat has featured quite widely in popular culture: in Doctor Who, for example, the Weeping Angels are described as being “quantum-locked”, meaning they don’t exist when looked at, but if you blink they become deadly. At one point, the Doctor also mentions that he’s met Schrödinger’s Cat! But was it dead or alive? Possibly!
Note: This cartoon on the subject is very good! Click here!
Music, Money and Hip Hop Honeys!
I was shocked while watching the X Factor last year at some of the sexualized dancing that was on prime time television for children to see, but I feel there’s a deeper issue here. Recently a friend pointed out a BBC programme, and I’ve just watched it on iPlayer.
It’s about the girls who dream of being in music videos, but there’s a dark side to the industry. The trend in hip-hop music videos has now moved into the main stream, and some girls see appearing in a video shoot as a way of making a big break. Some will spend a fortune on enhancing their bodies, but may not get work or (if they do) not get paid. They may suffer in other ways or even be abused.
One of the most telling comments in the programme came from a man who said you could have a rubbish song, but get it noticed with a sexy and provocative video – shooting himself in the foot comes to mind! Some women believe it empowers them; but, for many, it seems to be an issue of low self-esteem (amongst other things) that drives them. It’s the men who are calling the shots!
When you look at the videos, the women are shown in fragmented ways; like fast-food, a commodity to be used and discarded. Men are represented differently, in positions of power over the women. There are also explicit echoes of pornography. The danger seems to be the cumulative effect, so that the attitudes in the videos become the norm! In today’s world, young people are bombarded with this stuff! It raises issues of equality and attitudes to sexuality. Maybe we should give more attention to the atmosphere in which young people are growing up? What do you think?
