nearly naked women

Last weekend I was sitting in the car waiting for T to pay for petrol and I noticed the newspaper stand outside the petrol station shop.

All the papers were covered except one - I think it was the Daily Sport, which was the one nearest the shop door.

That paper had a full page photo on the front cover of a woman in very skimpy underwear taken from below so that it was mainly of her nearly naked arse.

As I had noticed it from the car it was obvious that anyone walking past it to the shop would have to see it. Three men walked into the shop and they stared at the picture on their way in so their heads were turned towards the paperstand whilst they walked.

I found myself feeling angry. I have become immune to the domination of these sorts of images of women in the mass media of late. I was shocked by how blatant, what was clearly a porn shot, was.

I am not anti-porn.
I am not happy about a society which makes women's bodies objects used to make people spend money. I am not happy that it is only pictures of women that we see like this. I am not happy that the message that women are to look at and be titilated by is peddled everywhere with no limits. What does it teach boys and girls as they a growing up to walk past pictures like that wherever they go?

I thought about the use of images of "beautiful" women to advertise to men and to women alike. The same day as I noticed the newspaper, I also noticed a huge billboard in Manchester with a glamourous young (clothed) blonde woman dominating it - to advertise the newly refurbished and renamed store House of Fraser. The ad was definitely aimed at women. But change the words and add a car in the background and it could have been aimed at men.

So - men are told - buy this and you could have a woman like this. Women are told - buy this/ shop here and you could look like this. The message is the same - women need to be young (or look young) and beautiful to be attractive to men. Both men and women need to spend lots of money to get what they aspire to - women aspire to looks, men to having a woman with looks on their arm.

T found this Kira Cochrane article which really relates well to how I feel.

What a weird frightening world we live in...........