onscenity network - what they think of mumsnet campaign

[weeonion]

"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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

maybe it's all going on on twitter?

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

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

they've only made four as far as i can see. unenlightening, although one did give you link to sign up for their website.

have you signed up to the website weeo? they want a bio and i'm not sure i can be bothered. it might be the only way to work out what's going on though. are you already linked up from the seminar?

and 27 followers.

i'm guessing the publicity angle from the communication and media gurus is deliberately minimal... interesting.

clare bale suggested as much in her notes though - there was apparently discussion about media interest. so presumably it's all being kept deliberately low key.

bah.

it does rather seem to bely their blog description of the current status quo as 'the girls are alright'. hadn't seen that thread. grim.

they do need to take this stuff up and include it if they hope to be taken seriously.

MWITA - where did you read the bit that clare bale said?

Was that on the blog posts?

i am not signed up yet as a member - it wasnt automatic with attendance at the seminars.

and dittany - i cant speak for them but i dont think they would go as far as to not challenge sexual exploitation of kids. i hope.

what - did missplayer not mention the elephant in the room that was me.

dittany - i suppose i should have declared my interest earlier!

i am involved in activism around violence against women and work on issues round relationships and sexual health. i am not involved in something lucrative and yep - my views would be deemed very "unsexy' by many in onscenity.

The reason why i posted about them here is that there ar aspects of sexualisation i am getting to grips with and thought that some of what i want to find out about, would be covered by them. After i went to their events - i was deeply disappointed and wanted to see others' thoughts in a feminism thread. I found so many of their assumptions to be silencing and hardly provoking much debate.

i happen to think that academic debate around contentious issues should actually look at both sides of the debate, dittany. particularly research that is funded by one of the research councils. but i know you don't have a particularly high opinion of academic research.

otherwise it isn't really contributing to a discussion. or an academic debate. it's just a mutual appreciation society. even students have to defend their ideas (or actually have them). so do onscenity. you can only be on 'send' for so long before you have to switch to 'receive'. you on one side of the fence on 'send' and them on the other on 'send' won't reach a workable consensus which can move forward into real policy work which does make a difference in the real world, against violence.

presumably their argument is that porn doesn't encourage violence against women. which is fine as an argument as far it goes (they can argue what they like), but you do have to back it up somehow. just saying it doesn't, doesn't cut it. you can call it moral panic, but if the ones causing the panic have an evidence-based argument, then to do so sounds a bit hollow if you don't back it up with anything other than 'the girls are alright'.

some of the stuff on the blog is fine - we know that a short skirt doesn't mean you're up for it. we know that if a man thinks a 7yo in a padded bikini is a turn-on it says everything about the man and nothing about the 7yo. but there doesn't seem to be much actual research going on. or debate being entered into.

i sort of relate it to international relations . you can all stand in your own country and throw bombs at each other, or you can sit down and talk and actually try and come up with a solution to whatever the problem is. and that will actually involve listening to the other side. whether you agree with them or not. you can't refute their reasoning until you know what their reasoning is.

if they really want to be seen as the experts on the sex/ consumerism topic, then they are going about it in a really odd way.

but you'll be pleased to know that having spent a couple of hours trawling media and comms departments, i'm now far more worried about that side of academia than i am about gender studies...