Sexist Analysis? R4 Today Programme

[sticklebrix]

Great example of men letting their guard down when talking about a feminist issue and mansplaining of feminist issues.

Topic: ASA regulation of overtly sexist advertising. Piece runs as follows:

We hear many e.g.s of of sexist adverts.

Cue male presenters joshing 'those were the days', 'when men were men and women were women'

Guy Parker, boss of ASA, waffling about gender stereotyping, which can lead to 'really bad outcomes'. Initially okay until, 'the way gender stereotyping works is that you're more likely if you're a woman to see caring type jobs are the jobs for you and the harder STEM subject jobs are the jobs for men ' (What?! Tell us what you really think, Guy! Caring roles, i.e. 'women's work', simply dismissed)

Cloying intro of Nanette Newman (Really? Why her? Could they not have found a sociologist or psychologist to talk about gender stereotyping instead?) whose 'hands are as soft as her face', 'but she's an actress also', presenting her personal opinion (sexist ads not a prob in her opinion, basically). I agreed and disagreed with some of the other things she said but all the time was thinking, 'why are you interviewing an actor about this?'

Glad to get that off my chest. It's here, for anyone interested:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08xxdh3#play
Go to 2 hrs 20 mins

They will have chosen her as an actor who did adverts which are sexist.

I heard this too and thought much the same.

The BBC is so afraid of being accused of bias, they will really scrape the barrel to find someone who holds an ignorant and ill informed opposing view from that which is generally accepted as the mainstream one.

See also Nigel Lawson on Climate Change. Buffoon.

Well, yes Mrs, but her personal opinion is still a bit irrelevant I think. She turned up and acted a couple of decades ago, with (I guess) no input into the content of the ad. Just made me a bit sad, given all the highly qualified women who might be well placed to discuss what sexist advertising does to society.

I agree, WideHorizon. Annoying that it was given the 'whimsical' timeslot, too. I expect better of the Today prog. Oh well.

I suppose Nannette Newman was the queen bee in the Stepford Wives.

I thought the rift between Bryan Forbes and William Goldman is interesting. I think Forbes' interpretation is far more interesting. If the men had just wanted Playboy girl wives they could have gone for that in real life and traded them in for younger models as and when.

It is more chilling that they wanted "real wives" - long term variety but with none of the complications of real women.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanette_Newman?wprov=sfla1