Breakfast Radio

[BertieBotts]

This is more of a rant than anything. I like to listen to breakfast radio on my alarm to help me wake up slowly, but recently it's just been driving me mad with how much of a mysoginist environment it seems to be. All the shows are headed up by a male presenter (usually named after him, as well) with a token female assistant presenter. On the local station I've been listening to the female presenter is pregnant and it seems to be all they ever go on about. This morning the comments were about pregnancy yoga and "Haha, why would you need different yoga just because you're pregnant? I bet it's just a load of fat women in a room doing stretches." Cue guffawing laughter from main male presenter + male producer. The female presenter just sat there in silence - because what the hell can she say? If she pulled them up on their sexism she'd only come across as uptight anyway.

Oh and then the phone in discussion was "Is it okay to touch a pregnant woman's bump without asking?" And I know they have to pick one side each to get the debate going (I'm sure you can guess which side of the "debate" each presenter picked) but seriously how is this even a topic for discussion?

I'm dreading to think what it's going to be like when the subject of breastfeeding comes up. What annoys me the most is that all the programmes are like this, so inane, so casually sexist. And they are so careful to avoid homophobic or racist language or themes I don't see why they couldn't do the same with sexism.

[theothersparticus]

I recently stopped listening to my local station (Dee106.3) in the office becasue the only female presenter is tucked away late on sunday evening and there was so much sexism going on I couldn't take it. The lunch time presenter's favourite topic was what 'the missus/ her indoors' was telling him off for and the afternoon presenter came out with a ridiculous statement on the afternoon I switched:

They had been looking for a song to go with a news story, the story was about a pair of skeletons that had been found buried together holding hands and whilst trying to come up with reasons they would have been buried together his idea was that the wife had been on the booze, thought the man had been having some sort of affair, killed the man and then herself. His glamorous assistant female news reader was speachless, you could hear her jaw drop over the radio!

sorry to hijack with my own rant, but I totally understand where you're coming from.

[GloriaSteinem]

I hate any radio station with talking that isn't actually about the music. Bollocks, the lot of it. Populated by people who love the sound of their own voice. Hmm no thanks. Get music online, tons of sites.

[JLK2]

I w ould think that Radio 4 would be about the least misogynistic station there is.

[LucyStone]

I've banned all radio in our household...



And most TV. You can NOT take away my Hollyoaks, though...

[KRITIQ]

Radio 4 is just so bloody depressing as well. Tend to wake up to Radio Scotland, in Gaelic. I can't understand what they are saying actually (although the cat seems able to,) so at least I don't know whether it's sexist clap trap or not. It's just human voice noise, which at least helps me wake up a bit.

[BertieBotts]

Ah thing is I like hearing what they are talking about. It is usually drivel but I don't really care. And I like music but I think with a CD or MP3 alarm clock it would be a pain to change it every day but if I use the same song as an alarm for too long it ruins it for me.

I would say I'm just being fussy, but why should it be fussy to just want a non-sexist breakfast show??

[LeBOF]

I think the only answer is to get up much earlier to Vanessa Feltz!

[BertieBotts]

But then I can't stay up late on MN!

[EleanorRathbone]

I've discovered that Chris Evan's isn't a misogynist tosser.

This surprised me, as I thought that if you were male, you actually had to be a misogynist tosser in order to be on the radio in the mornings.

But no, they've given him special dispensation.

I switch to him now, when I've had enough of John Humphries. I do sometimes have to switch back for the 8.10 interview though.

[BertieBotts]

Oh really? I used to listen to him when he did the breakfast show on Virgin. I think I assumed he would be. What station is he on now then?

[EleanorRathbone]

He's on Radio 2. Took over Terry Wogan's spot

[pacificjade]

Chris Evans may not be a misogynist tosser, but he is a tosser who talks over half of every song.

I listen to 6 Music as they have decent DJ's and a (comparitively) reasonable number of female DJ's eg Lauren Lavern, Cerys Matthews, and Liz Kershaw.

[EleanorRathbone]

I can't pick any of those stations up on my crappy car radio...