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

[EleanorRathbone]

NOW!!!

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.

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'.

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 )

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!

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

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.

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

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)).

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.

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).

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)

exactly Helvetica.

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

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!

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

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.

Thank you Helvetica... my worry is that the pseudonyms give people the freedom to 'talk' to others, as they would never do to their face... which seems to me to be the basic rule (if you wouldn't say it to them like that in person, dont plaster it over the web).

IN my recollection.. long time back.. motherhood was much more divisive than I had been expecting (not only between the "working" and the "home working" mothers, but partly that of course)

"Tut tut, silly ol' Mary, getting Feminism WRONG"

Hmmm, I think you'll find that it was Mary who was saying that it was feminists who were getting it wrong by protesting Miss World. Apparently there are more important things to address with political activism - like Britain's got Talent.

I expect to see Mary there with her placard next week. And I'll support her in that.

Well yes, certainly the internet does give people a space to say things they wouldn't say to someone's face - you probably haven't missed the furore over women bloggers and rape threats (discussed here for example).

And you're right, I wouldn't have said something you wrote was 'pretty rubbish' to your face; I apologise for that. It was my idiocy in forgetting Mary Beard was likely to pop along to have a look at what I was stupidly thinking was just a late night conversation with a mate rather than a deliberate 'Heh, I'm anonymous, I'll tell Mary Beard her talk was rubbish!' (Even I am not stupid enough to think you wouldn't make the connection once I posted an identical line on your blog.)

I've re-read the talk very carefully, though, and I still find your points about the Miss World protest itself strange. As a talk about ageing it is interesting (and I agree it's something that urgently needs talking about and I'm glad you're busting taboos about thickening toenails etc) but it does come across as you firstly, not being that bothered about objectification any more, and secondly, thinking the protest was pointless. I didn't WANT to disagree on this, I didn't come to this wanting to pick holes, and I more or less kept hope alive right up to the very moment where you say 'Don't get me wrong. We certainly needed that demonstration (my italics) in 1970.'
It is impossible NOT to read that as us NOT needing the demonstration now, and hence, despite what you say here, as you being critical of the protesters.

And you keep saying it is just about the fact you personally don't feel as angry as you used to about the body issues, but you are not just using the language of of 'I feel....', you shift into the language of big magisterial sweeping statements: 'where we should be protesting', 'we needed that demonstration....'

Well pronouns are complicated things aren't they.. and the slippage from 'I' to 'we' particularly so!
I am very happy to discuss any of this in these terms (without the slagging off), because I don't think that the issues are simple and thrashing them out (and disagreeing) is useful...
But the internet is never a private conversation unless it is on a members only site....

If you look at the BBC site, you'll see that other people took the Tendenz of my piece very differently. But that's fine: the programme is meant to be (usefully) provaocative.. and personal and topical...

Well the BBC site isn't generally peopled by feminists whereas this part of Mumnset is. So probably non-feminists or people who don't spend too much time thinking about feminism would have a different response to your piece than a group of feminists who stand against the objectification of women and who support organisations like Object and the Miss World protestors.

Have you considered that we might have a point yet Mary?

Brief reminder - Scurr and Rathbone weren't 'only' sufragettes - they were both active in getting public spending for women. The fawcettsociety.co.uk have a day of action this Saturday, 19 Nov on that very topic.