Nothing new - but another Daily Mail point.

[ButWhyIsTheGinGone]

I was having a look on their website after following a link on another thread. I finally realised my hatred for the DM after an appallling piece last year claiming "women having late abortions for babies with cleft palates," as if we were lining up by the million to do this. In fact TWO women had done this. Two. Since then it seems they need to trot out a piece of anti-abortion and generally anti-women piece of poisonous drivel every month or so. And don't even get me started on the pieces they LOVE including where they've found some poor woman who's regretted an abortion and got her to tell her story of how fucked up she's been for the rest of her life...would never go through with it again... etc. AAAAGH!

Anyway, I was casting an eye over the site and noticed the way you have the "main" stories (i.e. actual news, albeit a twisted DM version) down the centre of the web page, then down the side bar you have the "femail" stories.

Well - every SINGLE Femail "story" was along the lines of "X from TOWIE spotted out with mystery man." "Y makes fashion blunder at London night club." "Scientist works out formula for perfect breast shape!" (Yup, women, the further your breasts look from this impossible diagram, the WORSE you are and more you should hate yourself.)

I could just cry! I'm sure this is nothing new to you seasoned feminists, but I am only opening my eyes to these things fairly recently. GRRRRR!!!

And the thing that gets me (sorry to reply to my own thread!) is that if they genuinely believe that women should be in the kitchen, being mothers, being looked after by "their man" while he gallivants around doing as he pleases.....FAIR ENOUGH. At least express that opinion openly so people can make an informed choice whether they buy your paper or not.

It's the sly digs, the undercurrent of mysogeny, and the constant demeaning and putting down of women that gets to me. It's vile. And worst is when a woman writes a piece about how crap women are. Usually along the lines of "I thought I could have a career and a family but of course it's an impossible dream, silly me." Why would a woman do that?

Anyway, Sunday morning rant over!

Its worse when your MIL rehashing it all to you as gospel! yesterday was her birthday she was telling me how the welsh captian should have been sent off for tackling! This is gleamed from the 20 seconds on the news. She actually argued the point with me (I am a mad rugbista and watched and videoed every game this world cup). I don't mind her arguing about something she knows but jesus DM readers know everything, don't they?

I wish the broadsheets would do more to attract the female readership, the way the dm do. The dm is often the first/only paper which covers a lot of 'womens' stories so theor 'line' becomes the only line.

I think they get away with it because the mysogyny is so incidious. They dont have the guts to come straight out with the we hate women line. At first it appears friendly, so draws you in. It's a venus flytrap.

But margerykemp what ARE women's stories? I'm a woman and want to know about actual NEWS: current affairs, the football results, what's going on in the world, etc. The DM calling crap like "Jordan's tit falls out in club" or whatever, NEWS, then no wonder we are not taken seriously. Surely news is news, regardless of gender?

I totally understand where you're coming from. When you first start opening your eyes to misogyny you notice it is absolutely everywhere and it's normal. That's was the hard part for me - realising that it's ordinary people, people who I wouldn't otherwise consider misogynists, who hold these views to a greater or lesser degree.

When I first became a feminist for a while I felt really alienated from society. Apart from other feminists (and they are mostly online) it seemed that the whole world was operating in some alternate reality to me.

I've got past that stage now and realised that many people (particularly female parents) are actually quite open minded to it if I present it quite subtly (at first, and then build up). I've become quite evangelical and made quite a few conversions (and convinced others that I am completely mad of course, but who cares what they think? ).

I think the thing to remember is that while it sometimes feels overwhelming, it's all context. I've drawn great comfort from feminism. It's made me realise that the reason I found it so hard to recognise the subtle forms of XP's abuse, why I had to sacrifice my chosen career in favour of another after becoming a parent, why I am so poor because of childcare - this is all because we live in a patriarchy and not because I am a bad, weak or hapless person.

Lastly, remember you are not alone. Loads of people hate the DM. It's like a national pastime on MN . (I confess to sometimes quite enjoying it in a masochistic way - it's like scratching an itch (you know you shouldn't but...). And it's highly entertaining to read the same article covered from the POV of the Guardian or Independent. .

Thanks for posting that sunshine - it rang quite a few bells with regards to your eyes being opened!
I suppose I've only started becomnig aware of these things since people have started taking it upon myself to keep asking me when I going to "find a nice man" and keeping telling me "I'll change my mind" when I mention I do not want any children. It just got me thinking about the implication that my life somehow cannot be "complete" without these (unnecessary) additions.

Now almost every days I see or hear something makes me wince, from a "grab us a coffee, there's a love" from a colleague (an educated man!!!) , to outright mysogeny in this bloody backwater town I live in. (It's the same old "man takes a woman home he's a hero, woman does the same, she's a dirty slag.)

I have neither the knowledge (yet!) nor the confidence to attempt to convert others, but I do express my views when I hear a woman talking about ill treatment by a specific man, or by a situation. Mostly I get a kind of "yeah, but what can you do" response.

I think there are some news stories which are of added interest to women.
eg today there is a story about councils cutting funding to free places in private nurseries, another about the monitoring of sex offenders, another about dentist being trained to spot domesic abuse, another on how stress causes women to give birth to more baby girls, another about rape victims with criminal records being refused compensation, another about the death of a mother in childbirth due to hospital negligence, another about cuts to bus services, and another about a woman doctor who fell asleep at the wheel after a long shift.
Personally I'd like to see more focus in the press to health, social affairs, education type issues etc like these stories above.

Thank you sunshine, v helpful post

yy to " I've drawn great comfort from feminism"

#1 = don't read DM unless undertaking #3

Lots of examples of #2 here on MN - we won't be silenced by those who come here specifically to silence this. to anyone who has time to complain that someone makes the time to complain.

#4 - reading here on MN covers this. Also try www.thefword.org.uk/ and www.womensviewsonnews.org/

#5 is a good way to start a conversion process on friends & family

The comments on the DM from men are really frightening at times...the vitriol they have towards women. Yesterday there was an article about porn on the site and honestly, some of the comments were the worst I have ever seen. I can't believe the level of misogyny. I write comments from time to time on the DM on gender related articles trying to stand up for women from the DM's/commentators attacks on women, but I annoy myself by doing that because I know it is a lost cause with some of them.

I would also argue strongly, not just in the case of the DM, but many aspects of news/history, that what is often seen as the soft/feminine side of news is JUST as important as the 'hard' news.

A friend of mine writes about naval history, but more from the impact that it had on daily life within the UK. Within the naval history clique, which is very male dominated, this is seen as the unimportant part of history. However, for the majority of people at the time, the life at home was what they experienced. Yes, they were affected by the 'big' news, but it was the impact on daily life that really affected them. To dismiss the experiences of the majority of the nation, just because it doesn't involve guns and battles, is incredibly belittling.

Of course, what a B-list celeb wore out clubbing isn't really news, but what our daily lives are like, and how they both affect and are affected by 'big' events, IS news and IS important.

If it hadn't been for the very domestic demand for spices, then a new spice route around the world may not have happened as it did, and look at the impact of those voyages on world history. It's just complete blindness to dismiss the smaller news aspects as female/unimportant, when they are actually as much a part of world events as anything else. So many large-scale world events were influenced by and then had an influence on our day-to-day lives, that to then side-line them because they're 'wimmin's stuff' is highly insulting.