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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

onscenity network - what they think of mumsnet campaign

59 replies

weeonion · 14/06/2011 16:15

"Being inane, however, does not mean ineffective: these slogans compel our assent, and indeed in the case of Mumsnet, emptiness and circularity are fundamental to reaching its audience. The campaign invites us to be part of a ?we? who know true girlhood, against a despicable ?other? who is at best ignorant and at worst bent on destroying it. Attempt to define what girls are or should do, however, and this cosy conspiracy will soon unravel: some associate girls with piano-playing and horse-riding, as if a privileged middle class existence is attainable and desired by all; feminists are unlikely to warm to the virtues of ?pink tea parties and frilly dresses? extolled by others; and those for whom ?playing with dolls? encapsulates innocuous girlishness presumably airbrush Bratz out of the picture."

hmm - what do you think of this from the blog of Onscenity network www.onscenity.org/sexualization/

a network funded through Arts & Human research council funding.

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weeonion · 15/06/2011 17:40

i've looked but i havent been able to find them on twitter - maybe that is indeed where the debate is happening. Smile

if there is a twitter link - could someone post it??

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 17:33

feona attwood is the ahrc award holder, but other than telling you how much she (they) got, the ahrc isn't giving any other details. they are over half way through the term of the award though. Sad

doesn't look like it's going to get any more meaningful.

it looks like there is some practitioner based sexual health stuff going on that's potentially useful on a health footing (why that's linked to an ahrc award i'm a bit stumped...) headed up by clare bale.

i may have lied about twitter. just having problems finding it, i think... particularly given that the lovely 'spider fingers' has just linked this thread for them Wink Grin

maybe it's all going on on twitter?

weeonion · 15/06/2011 17:17

If i see / hear anything more - I'll post it here Smile

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 17:08

that must be their remit though...
will mark this thread to see if anything else comes to light...

weeonion · 15/06/2011 17:04

MWITH - i also want a brilliant well resourced network that genuinely aims and strives to be as inclusive as possible to allow for debate and engagement with the issues without this sense that if you express concerns - then you just arent getting it, arent sex positive, have a personal hangup about sex, must be right wing / religious etc etc.

i doubt onscenity will deliver that with its current form and membership.

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weeonion · 15/06/2011 17:00

threadworm - i think that feminist concerns have been sidelined in this and at onscenity events there was open hostility to any feminist academic or org that is involved in challenging this.

i dont agree with alot of what is said in the bailey review and i think the framework through which is it presented is problematic. That does not not mean that there are no valid concerns. I would like to see onscenity outline what it thinks a sexually healthy culture looks like that promotes childrens rights and their access to good quality sexual health and relationships education. What i dont think is appropriate is their promotion of porn as sex education.

i agree that there needs to be clear definitions of what "sexualisation' is and how this relates to broader issues around equality, gender, race, class etc

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:57

twice. apparently i'm quite keen. (wtf?)

madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:57

quite. i want it to be brilliant. and fair. and genuinely debate excesses of opinion on both sides.

and that is what their funding is for, so i would like it delivered, pretty please.

madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:57

quite. i want it to be brilliant. and fair. and genuinely debate excesses of opinion on both sides.

and that is what their funding is for, so i would like it delivered, pretty please.

Threadworm8 · 15/06/2011 16:44

It would be a shame if Onscenity was as poor as it seems to be, because think that a really good articulation of the case against "excessive" concern about pornification/sexualisation would potentially be really helpful to an effective articulation of the genuine sources of concern. The Bailey Review, and LGBG, don't really contain within them any adequately robust statement of what the legitimate concerns are, so they can easily be undermined both by snide remarks about moral panic, and by the degeneration of some of their concerns into a kind of "shopping list of things not to buy" that does look as much motivated by taste and class as anything else.

In the wake of Bailey I felt a little embarrassed by my support of it, and of LGBG, because it didn't distinguish some vague notion of 'family values' and even 'modesty' (WTF?) from real feminist concerns about girls' self-perception.

madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:41

ha ha ha. i just skipped through that health/ media resource pack. it advocates use of twitter to promote your work etc. onscenity have a twitter link, so i thought i'd have look.

nada.

0/10

madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:37

it ought to be brilliant. i am cross that it's not. Grin

surprised about the blog though Shock i would have thought that it would be a bit more cohesive if it's actually specifically for that. although i suppose depends what the remit is. 'be ranty about moral panic' seems to cut it currently. there's no necessity to be meaty in a blog, but i would have thought that there would be a bit... more.... flesh on the bones...?

weeonion · 15/06/2011 16:27

thanks for that link thready.

What i read about them really did not stand up at their events.

the blog, afaik, is a collection of writing from their members. it is not a cut and paste from their own respective blogs but writings for onscenity.

i actually cant find out how to become a member.......

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:20

ha!
i mean, i can see that it would be really very interesting, but the actuality is a bit lame - as you say it looks a bit like in-jokes and slating without any of the actual evidence base that they are supposed to be producing.

is the onscenity blog just a cut and paste of different snippets from their own individual blogs then? that would explain why it's not making an awful lot of sense - presumably each individual blog is a bit more robust, and taken out of context the individual ones seem a bit randomly ranty. someone needs to co-ordinate submissions to the blog...

i would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they realised who you were. i've been in a similar position. always better to let them finish digging the hole before you introduce yourself. Grin

damn. i want it to be worth it. i can see that it would be a worthwhile enterprise done properly. but they need to get it together.

weeonion · 15/06/2011 16:07

oh - just to pick up on your other points.

they are a network of researchers, academics and activists who have undertaken study within their own fields eg Clarissa smith, Feona Attwood etc. They want to come together to present their research as the evidence base against the moral panic of sexualisation and campaigns (such as MN Let girls be girls).

I dont think they collectively responded to the bailey review but as individuals they did and since its publication - have been quite vocal on all their blogs etc.

They have been around for a while and to my knowledge really came to fruition after a rather tense conference in Leeds a couple of years ago. the original idea was to create a network where differing opinions could come together to find a middle ground for debate and discussion. A good idea possibly but from what i have seen and read - there is little effort to reach out and engage beyond in-jokes and slating.

it was particularly fun to watch the reactions of some of those who had directly criticised my work on the thursday without realising i was there to then have to say hello on the friday. Grin

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 16:05

weird. normally these types of affairs are pushing their work at you... are the links for the seminars etc on the website? or were they just pushed out round the unis?

how very odd. there's a great schwack of internationals as well... huh.

seems v superficial... it can't be, really. i mean they must be doing something. ach, i'll have a look later and see if i can dig anything up.

Threadworm8 · 15/06/2011 16:01

Interesting article about it here. It does seem to have a lot of respected academics involved (Buckingham, for eg, has a major book out with Polity very shortly on the subject of commercialisation/sexualisation of children), but it is disconcerting that it seems to have a pro-porn (or at least anti-conern-about porn) starting-point. and the blog looks awfully flabby. Seems a bit odd really.

weeonion · 15/06/2011 15:58

MWITA - i was there through my work. 2 seminars of interest to me - well in the titles at least! Grin

One seminar was on "porn consumers' and the other "sex, health and the media." i was really looking foward to hearing research presented but any that was (certainly at the porn consumers session) was neither robust nor could they draw out the claims they did from it.

i felt very uncomfortable at both days and tbh just wanted away from it all. I am sure there were other audience members who were as uneasy as i but it really was not a safe place to be a dissenting voice.

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 15:50

that's why i was curious, really. they seem to have interacted in a fairly superficial way, which is unusual for a research group... or maybe not. Grin

where's their actual research then? didn't investigate the site properly, but the blog is just a blog, really. where's the real mccoy that they are paid to produce?

it's interesting if they do see themselves as the arbiters (or wannabe arbiters) of this particular arena. i assume mn didn't bother to find out if/ that they existed and approach them, either. don't think they are mentioned by reg bailey, either, are they? (could be wrong. it didn't leap out from his discussion) were they involved with his report?

i'd much rather academic research was actually in the fray, so to speak. maybe they haven't got to that point yet. (or maybe they have, i just haven't noticed it. might have a google around using some of the research group names later.) just read the blog really. there's probably a list of articles on the site somewhere...

v interesting though. thanks again.

weeonion · 15/06/2011 15:14

MWITA - i dont know if they met with MN re the let girls be girls campaign. i would be surprised if they had, given their comments about MN generally.

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madwomanintheattic · 15/06/2011 15:12

have they met up with mn about the campaign, weeo?

weeonion · 15/06/2011 15:01

i was recently at one their events and there was no discussion at all about how porn may be problematic. It was all one big happy party for the presenters with no dissenting voices or even anyone suggesting that this might need to be looked at. A well known UK pornographer was there and was offering to make sex education videos, as she really knew what sex was like. Mumsnetters came under quite a bit of fire with scathing comments and jokes. They have received a fair bit of funding and really want it to be the network that determines policy around sexual health, sex education and policy.

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MillyR · 14/06/2011 20:11

It would seem from that website that there are quite a lot of people being paid to put research and put together pro-porn arguments.

I have been told before that the reason that there is no research refuting the stats showing how damaging porn is, is because the research hasn't been carried out to show the benefits of porn.

Well clearly there are lots of people looking for such pro-porn evidence. They have simply failed to find it.

dittany · 14/06/2011 18:54

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MillyR · 14/06/2011 18:13

That is the most irritating website I have ever seen.