Mary Beard on Radio 4 now with Point of View about Miss World 2011

If that means me I haven't said everyone is positive.

I have said the majority of people that referred to your discussion of women and aging thought it was potentially interesting.

The majority of people referring to the Miss World stuff have indeed been critical.

oh I'm glad you think it's a good point because I made it here first, at 23.06 on Saturday

OK Pubes.. I dont think anonymity is the whole issue.. it is also the construction of an alternative name (it would be quite different if you just used numbers) .. and it is the odd dissonance between me .. who really is Mary Beard..responding in propria persona.. and all the other people who dont (some of whom I know, some I think I may know etc etc)

I dont mind digs by the way, if you go on the sodding radio and talk about Miss World what do you expect (and there was a lot more abuse on other sites from people calling me a nasty ugly feminist!).. but I think that some (by no means all) of this stuff here is insult not argument. I also feel bound to point out that when some of you claim that everyone has been very positive etc etc , that that aint actually true!

exactly Helvetica.

Feminists protest against loads of other stuff without it making the papers. This did.

Thank you ElderberrySyrup... I didnt actually think I was communicating with the 'real" Scurr and Rathbone... but nice to have the reassurance.

Helvetica the Bold's point is a good one I think -- that it probably got attention because of the rhyme with 1970 (well it did from me didnt it).. if so, it is clever media tactics. (The BBC reunion on the 1970 demonstration was very good I thought)

Re-reading this thread, I can see a couple of digs at you from one person. Overall though, I think people are being pretty respectful in spite of the frustration they understandably feel.

Do you mean the anonymity is an issue? It can be, and it can also be an issue that none of us can see the effects of our words on the recipients (bit like radio, eh?) - that's the same everywhere on the web though surely? I actually find MN a comparatively civilised corner of the net and for many, the anonymity is the only thing that gives them the space to talk honestly in the first place.

Most of us don't mind if you shorten our nicknames - you can call me Pubes if it's easier (or Plenty, or POP or whatever).

Yes should have been clearer. I mean it has an impact, like peer review has an impact. Not that it has the same impact. But different ways of communicating have an impact on what is communicated. And this is can be of benefit.

Julia Scurr and Eleanor Rathbone were Suffragettes, they too are pseudonyms.
Yes you did used to teach me.
Nicknames on the internet are very interesting. You can try posting the same thing under male and female pseudonyms and see how different the replies you get are (very, including the ones from women (if they really are women)).

It's rather different from blind peer review, because it offers an alternative persona...

Re the nicknames, of course it will have an impact, rather like using blind peer review. And I always just copy and paste the long ones.

Mary, that is why I said 'majority' rather than 'all'.

Always wild..

"And then she moans about how she is old and feel miserable about her aging body.. WTF???"

looks like an accusation of whinging to me!

Plentyof PubeGardens.. I am more interested in what the effect of the nicknames is on the argument! But they are shit difficult for an outsider to get right!

I heard this last night and was disappointed. I think aging and feminism is an excellent topic to talk about but I can't see what good it did to bring up Miss World in the way that you did. I had assumed you'd been asked to speak about MW so thanks for clarifying that.

It seems to me that objectification of women has got significantly worse since the 70s and the difficulty so many of us have coming to terms with our ageing, sagging bodies is the flip side of this exact same coin: the more it matters what you look like, the more 'redundant' you are once your looks start to fade. When I was growing up I was quite sneery about the young women on MW. I never saw them as the enemy but I did sort of pity their lack of ambition and apparent lack of intelligence. Not a good attitude to have towards other women, I'll admit, but it did save me from buying into all the beauty crap too heavily. Now, there's no escape! It doesn't matter if you're doing a PhD that might save the planet, you've got to look good as well. Young women growing up now are, as far as I can see, going to have an even worse time as they get older. So much more is possible now - surgery, botox, waxing salons on every corner ... there is now no excuse for being less than perfect or for allowing your body to grow old. I must say I very much admire you for resisting all that crap and showing your natural face and hair to the world but you did come across as a bit complacent. Can you not see that although you are doing a grand job of resisting the crap, it's getting harder and harder for women of all ages to do so?

I don't think irony works - it's given us Nuts and Zoo and rape joke t-shirts and we're all just supposed not to mind because it's ironic. Somebody ought to tell all those young women who are queuing up for surgery, starving themselves, obsessively whipping off every hint of body hair ... somebody should tell them they've got it all wrong! It's not serious, it's 'ironic', haha! Silly things.

Anyway, welcome to MN and kudos for coming on to discuss this. Sorry you don't like our nicknames, it's just the way we do things here (at least mine's not silly )

So why do you keep suggesting that there are more important things feminists should be focusing on? We are.

Yes the main content of the thread is about the Miss World stuff, hence my point about the futility of linking an interesting, marginalised discussion to something more salacious. However, where your stuff about older women's bodies (excuse that huge oversimplifying shorthand) is mentioned, it is not to say you are 'whinging'.

Always wild...

Of course I dont think that this is all that is going on. I chose to focus on that as a topical way into reflections of the womens movement and getting older.

Buit I have read over all these comments and unless there is some other thread going on here I dont see that the majority of people saying that my stuff on feminism and the aging body was interesting (and I'm usually pretty good at finding the compliments!)...

Much more is this kind of stuff:

"yes she certainly has gone soft and weak, (in the head)"

Not sure that that is the best way to argue what are important issues.

Mary, the majority of people on here said your stuff on feminism and the aging body was interesting. It's disingenuous to say we said you were 'whinging'. That part of it was what woke me up and made me listen to the radio, that bit was refreshing, that bit would be worth exploring. So why obscure it with stuff about Miss World which undermines what other feminists are doing? If the voice and issues of older women gets less interest (which I can see), then surely linking them to some discussion of young women in swimsuits is not going to resolve that.

And I can also totally see why protesting about Miss World might not be your bag. That's no issue. There's all sorts of stuff that isn't my bag, but I do not undermine them as they are important to other feminists who I generally support.

I'd also appreciate it if you would stop suggesting that the Miss World protest is all that is happening and that feminists should focus on something more important. I'm sure you researched thoroughly before writing your piece, but just in case you're not aware the protest was organised by (I think) Object, the London Feminist Network and UK feminista (and possibly Million Women Rise). If you have a look at their websites you will see all the other ways they are tackling objectification, and other issues, including the changes in law they have been instrumental in achieving.

But of course all that gets minimal press coverage.

I also don't really understand why you'd argue that protesting Miss World was the wrong way to protest the objectification of women. It's an incredibly famous event, that is broadcast worldwide that reduces women to how pretty they are and how good they look in a bikini. It has always been a symbol of female objectification which is why it gets so much media coverage and why feminists have been protesting it since the 70s.

You say the battles have been won, well obviously they haven't and the fact that Miss World still exists is a good illustration of this.

You said you owed it all to feminism in passing.

Your main point was that Miss World ain't so bad because other things are worse and therefore the feminists protesting it were wrong.

You keep talking about enemies - Miss Venezuala isn't the enemy, you're not the enemy. Nobody said you were the enemy, we're simply asking why you used a spot on the radio to undermine other feminist action when there are so many positive things you can do.

@ChickenLickn. I didnt 'take offence' .. but it did seem to me that you got the whole tone of what I said significantly wrong .. I certainly wasn't moaning! (nor was I dumping on feminism for that matter...)

But there IS something odd about these nicknames. I think they probably encourage people to say things they wouldn't say if they met face to face, and in a style that they wouldn't use face to face. An awful lot of message boards or 'HYS"s attract very aggressive comments.. I think it is something to do with the partial anonymity.

@marybeard I dont know why you seem to have taken such offence here. I for one was encouraging you.

I also think, as I was more than hinting, that there is a point about rhetoric here.. when DID you last hear someone encouraging you so strongly? "come on mary!"
I think you would achieve a lot more if only you just focused your energies on the positives.

And yes, what is it about nicknames here. While I do not judge a poster by their nickname, are you saying that older women would have beards?

(Also, are you catherine tate?)

@Ayebelieve// I was asked to do FOUR Points of View.. I chose Miss World for the second broadcast largely because I wanted to speak about aging and feminism. It wasn't a question of being asked to do that particular subject and hogging it for myself, or having the opportunity of offering the gig around.. honest. This was one of four. Did you listen to the first in the series (about Gadaffi) -- it is still available on line

Mary, if you're not bothered about the Miss World contest, why didn't you suggest the names of some feminists who are concerned about it to the producer? Was it so important to make public your lack of botheredness?