An interesting video on everyday sexism

[JazzAnnNonMouse]

Wondered what others thought?

Article: huff.to/1eEOYYZ

Pendeen, in my mid teens I read loads of feminist literature. It was a very exciting time to be a teenage girl. I expect part of the impact of that was getting pretty stellar exam results and earning a pretty good income through the last 20 years. I think had I spent my teenage years getting off with boys and drinking alcohol the rest of my life would have been an awful lot worse.

We did a lot of plays at home. We spoke to each other in mad up languages. We spoke to each other in French and German which of course helped us both get good German and French GCSEs. My son is in the top set for his French iGCSE and I think if you can be interested in that kind of thing at home (not that he reads French for fun at home I should add.....) it helps your work and life. Also it's brilliant if teenage girls are interested in feminism and can spot when a book is sexist. It really shows they are thinking about life and gender relations. It is probably no surprise my daughters are doing very well in their 20s now with careers in the City and are very keen to negotiate and obtain high pay. They have a feminist agenda of which I am very proud. I think that all springs from my own upbringing and the feminism in my home and also in my parents' home.

It's catching, Buffy

Sorry bof didn't see you'd already posted this.

It is probably no surprise my daughters are doing very well in their 20s now with careers in the City and are very keen to negotiate and obtain high pay

No surprise at all.

It's intresting and well done and the comments are well…

It does piss me off though that we still have to 'show' what would it be like if it happened to men.

Is my lived experience of a women not enough?
Is countless women all saying the same thing not enough?

And why isn't it?

Very good video.

I liked the comment when he met the child minder, "You've shave your mustache, then your whiskers, you look like a child."

How much do women feel under pressure to present as child-like, hairless bodies, wrinkle free and younger than their years!

At first I wondered why he was such an ordinary looking guy, but sexual violence and harressment is not about women looking slim and glamorous, it's about ordinary women. Yes, he could have been very skinny to show the experience of some women but also I think he was a larger man, and larger women get abuse too, sometimes directed specifically at their being larger. I the video someone shouts "I like fatties."

The gang of women was really scary, really well done, one pissing in the street at the start.

I think they hit the nail on the head with this one.

For an objective view of feminism gender reversal is brilliant. A friend of mine was telling me a story about how one of her friend's got sexually assaulted in a taxi not long ago, but finished by saying 'well you know, sometimes I think she brings these things on herself because she drinks too much and gets abusive...'. It wasn't the time and place to get into a big feminist rant about her comment and so I just asked her if she would feel the same if that had happened to her husband when he was last out on the piss - from a male taxi driver. It stopped her dead in her tracks. People can't take it when sexual assault is turned on the man - especially if you introduce another male into the hypothetical story as the perpetrator. Sometimes they say 'it's not the same if it's man on man' to which I always point out there is no difference at all - assault is assault regardless of gender.

Lordfocus good point. How easy it is to dismiss someone else's suffering and assume they are to blame in some way. This is levelled at victims of bullying too, sometimes, that they have brought it on themselves. We live in a truly screwed up society where we seek to blame the victim. I wonder if it makes us feel less like we may be a victim, if the victim did something wrong, and I don't I won't be a victim!

This quote from Quentin Tarantino made me sick....

Quentin Tarantino: “But even my film is using the slasher film structure and that is the third act of every slasher film is the final girl going on and vanquishing the boogey man because she is the one with the moral fortitude that can wipe them out.”

movies.about.com/od/grindhouse/a/grindqt033107_2.htm

So those earlier victims lacked moral fortitude, Quentin!!!! What crap! yes, I know he's only talking about films, his films, but it adds to the idea that people deserve that kind of experience in some way!

I totally agree Italian. Why are victims judged? I do think you are right when you say if there is something you can find 'wrong' in the victim then you can protect yourself somehow by not being like them. It's like a self reassurance mechanism.

I had my mind opened by MN into this sort of thing about a year ago and since then it's like a veil has lifted from my eyes and I see things as they are. I'm shocked by how small minded people are (men and women) - that they can't see women are judged harshly next to men. Not only are women objectified, they are harshly criticised and trivialised. I like that film because on one level it seems so far fetched, but on the other you can't say it doesn't happen to women like this. It would be interesting to see the exact film in gender reversal, although I'd find the alley scene more harrowing as a woman would seem so much more vulnerable under attack from a group of men.

And the fact he was so normal looking was well thought out. To think level of attractiveness increases risk of assault is just barmy.

Thank you Lordfocus.

I saw this film the other day on the guardian ws. Now there's a VERY ANNOYING piece by a man saying how in fact it was just a piece of racist, classist, islamophobic something or other - I think how deluded white mc french feminists had set themselves the task of rescuing France from Islam etc etc etc and then all the men piled in on CiF and totally missed the point.
Because they're men.

I think the video is really good at highlighting how strange that behaviour looks when women do it. Women just don't behave like that, yet I'm sure we could all cite incidents when men have behaved like that towards us.

I thought the scene at the hospital when Marion comes in says a few placatory words and then makes it all about her were very good.

it gave me goosebumps. ....fantastic

^And ridiculing anonymous posters on an internet forum is fun, Pendeen ?
Know who I'd rather spend time with.^

Excellent

The film popped up on my fb newsfeed a few days back, shared by a man, interestingly. Then I shared it, and my uncle shared it after that. So I thought it was encouraging that some men have found it worth a watch.

Sad to hear about the article slating it.

I do think however that the part about the woman with the covered head is out of place. It is too simplistic.
Here are a couple of comments from friends of mine (feminist academics) who do not live in 'Western countries':

• I get what the author of the article is saying about Muslims, but I think he also went too far. There is definitely an important feminist message in the film, and that is part, if not all, of the reasons why it went viral, especially among the people who do not necessarily understand French.

• Exclusionist message behind the feminist film "Oppressed Majority". I think it might be difficult to be aware of this message if you don't pay attention to the intersectional context of French society. I did not realize it, except the scene of a man with the headwear, who shows the absolute obedience to the wife, saying that it is his god's will.

They are using this video in their classrooms to show a Western feminist message but also an exclusionary and islamophobic one, and I agree with them.